Publications

“Plato’s Reference to Lamachus,” Classical Quarterly 64, no.1 (2014), 43-48.

In this paper I answer a question that has never been addressed, let alone explained, by commentators on Plato’s Laches, that is, why Laches finds Nicias’ ascription of wisdom and courage to both him and the general Lamachus insulting (La. 197c). The answer to this puzzle can be found by looking at Plato’s reference to Lamachus alongside the accounts of the general offered by Plutarch, Thucydides, and Aristophanes. What we find is that, far from ascribing the virtues of wisdom and courage to Laches, Nicias is actually ascribing to him the vice of recklessness.

“Does Achilles Forgive in the Iliad? The Archaic Origins of the Virtue of Forgivingness,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand) - Special Issue (2017), 98-109.

In Before Forgiveness, David Konstan argues that the modern concept of interpersonal forgiveness was absent from Western thought until the early modern period. However, by “the modern” concept of the term, Konstan means one specific modern conception of forgiveness: that articulated by Charles Griswold in Forgiveness, a conception unique amongst modern scholarship in its narrow, revisionary, and prescriptive nature. In this paper, I consider Konstan’s argument with respect to archaic Greece. I argue that, even when we limit ourselves to Griswold’s conception of interpersonal forgiveness, and to the two Iliadic examples considered by Konstan, there is more room for interpersonal forgiveness in the Iliad than Konstan would have us believe. I will show that examination of Achilles’ renunciation of his resentment at Agamemnon in Iliad 18 and at Priam in Iliad 24 reveals an early depiction in of the virtue of forgivingness in Western literature.

Works in Progress

Courage in the Cave: The Philosopher’s Courage in Plato’s Republic.

In this monograph I examine Plato’s treatment of philosophical courage in the Republic first by placing it in the context of its archaic heritage, and second by looking to the argumentative and dramatic dimensions of the dialogue.

The Philosophical Hound: An Image of the Philosopher in the Republic.

Plato’s image of the philosophical hound in Republic II, has long perplexed his readers. This is the first time that we encounter philosophos, or any of its cognates, in the Republic, and it is to be found as a quality belonging to well-bred hounds. What could Plato mean by this? Are the majority of interpreters of this passage right to dismiss it as non-serious and, or, embarrassing? Is it serious, but philosophically unimportant, as fewer interpreters believe? Or, is the minority that takes the image to be serious and philosophically important, right? In this paper I join the minority in arguing that Plato’s image of the philosophical hound, while undoubtedly playful, has serious philosophical import, specifically in relation to the moral psychology of the Republic and Plato’s creation of the philosopher.

Media

“A time when men were men? Ancient masculinity, Achilles, and the deceptive claims of the Alt-Right,” ABC Religion and Ethics, May 29th, 2023 (shortlisted for the Australasian Association of Philosophy Media Prize, 2024).

“Aristotle in the age of consent: why the emphasis on ‘purity’ in Opus Dei schools is misplaced - and ultimately dangerous,” ABC Religion and Ethics, March 15th, 2023 (shortlisted for the Australasian Association of Philosophy Media Prize, 2024).

Aristotelian virtue ethics is a worthy supplement to consent education, but not when it is warped by an immersion in the comorbid cultures of purity and rape, as it is in an Opus Dei education. In this article, I argue that rather than offering an alternative to consent education, an education in virtue ethics actually demands an education in consent, by way of the principle of practical wisdom.