Associate Professor of Philosophy
Official Student (i.e. Tutorial Fellow) of Christ Church
Research Interests
Ancient Philosophy
I have recently completed a book for Oxford University Press on Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, Book Λ (XII), in
which Aristotle discusses substance, form and matter, causation, teleology,
theology, the nature of thought, and cosmology. Work in
progress includes a book on Plato’s Euthyphro and articles
on Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics, teleology in Aristotle's De Caelo,
and.Aristotelian matter.
I am General Editor of the Clarendon Aristotle Series, and joint Editor, with Julia Annas, of Oxford Aristotle Studies.
Edited Anthologies
1991 Lindsay Judson (ed.), Aristotle’s Physics: A Collection of Essays (Oxford)
2006 Lindsay Judson and Vassilis Karasmanis
(eds),
Remembering Socrates: Philosophical Essays (Oxford)
Articles and book chapters
1983 ‘Eternity and Necessity in De Caelo I.12’, Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy 1, 217-55
1987 ‘God or Nature?’, in Richard Sorabji (ed.),
Philoponus
and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London)
1987 ‘Russell on Memory’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 88, 65-82
1988 ‘La Bataille Navale d’Aujourd’hui: De Interpretatione
9’, Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 6, 5-37
1991 ‘Chance and “Always or for the Most Part”
in Aristotle’, in Aristotle’s Physics: A Collection of Essays
1994 ‘Heavenly Motion and the Unmoved Mover’, in Mary
Louise Gill and James Lennox (eds), Self-Motion from Aristotle to Newton (Princeton)
1997 ‘Aristotle on Fair Exchange’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15,
147-75
1998 ‘What Can Happen When You Eat Pungent Food’, in Nikolaos
Avgelis and Filimon Peonidis (eds), Aristotle on Logic, Language and Science (Thessaloniki)
2000 ‘Formlessness and the Priority of Form:
Metaphysics Zeta 7-9 and Lambda 3’, in David Charles and Michael Frede (eds), Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Lambda: Symposium Aristotelicum (Oxford)
2005 ‘Aristotelian Teleology’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29, 341-66
2009 ‘John Lloyd Ackrill’ (biographical memoir), Proceedings of the British Academy 161, 3-16
2010 ‘Carried Away in the Euthyphro’, in David Charles (ed.), Definition in Greek Philosophy (Oxford)
2015 ‘Aristotle’s Astrophysics’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 49, 151-92
2016 ‘Aristotle, Metaphysics
Theta 8 1050b6-28’, Phronesis 61, 142-59
2017 ‘Hypotheses in Plato’s Meno’, Philosophical
Inquiry 42, 29-39
2017 (forthcoming) ‘Physics I.5’, in Diana
Quarantotto (ed.), Aristotle’s Physics I: The Principles of Natural
Things (Cambridge University Press)2018 (forthcoming) ‘The Meno’,
in Gail Fine
(ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 2nd edition (Oxford
University Press)
2018/2019 (forthcoming) ‘Aristotle and
Crossing the Boundaries between the Sciences’, Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie
Lectures and
seminars
Graduate Seminars:
In Hilary Term 2017 Michael Peramatzis and I are giving a series of graduate seminars on Aristotelian Hylomorphism: Wednesdays 11-1 in the Ryle Room (Radcliffe Humanities).
Seminar topics, handouts, and bibliography
Euthyphro and Meno lectures:
In Trinity and Michaelmas Terms I give lectures on Plato's Euthyphro and Meno (the times and the venue will be listed in the Lecture List). These are intended primarily intended for Classics Mods students who are doing the Plato special subject, but other undergraduates or graduates are also welcome.
Brief description:
In these lectures I pay particular attention to introducing philosophical concepts, analysing arguments, and explaining how to read Platonic dialogues. I begin with an introduction to Socrates and Plato; in particular, I talk about why Plato wrote dialogues and how we should approach them. In the next six lectures I look at the Euthyphro, exploring the two dialogues it contains – the one between Socrates and Euthyphro and the one between Plato and his readers. In the rest of the lectures I shall look at the Meno: topics discussed will include definition and the ‘Socratic fallacy’; the view that everyone always desires what is good; the paradox of enquiry and Plato’s response to it; hypotheses; knowledge and true belief in the Meno.