Would What Socrates Do? - RELEASED!

My first book, What Would Socrates Do? is available now! If you're having doubts, read the description on Amazon or Cambridge University Press. Buy yourself a copy and I will be happy to send you a personalized thank-you note.

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Review of "Pursuits of Wisdom" Forthcoming

I just completed a book review of John Cooper's Pursuits of Wisdom for Foucault Studies , which should be coming out in the next few months. Here's my first paragraph: “Philosophy is no doubt a delightful thing,” Callicles says to Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias, “as long as one is exposed to it in moderation at the appropriate time of life. But if one spends more time with it than he should, it’s a man’s undoing.” John M. Cooper’s Pursuits of Wisdom sets out, much as Socrates did in reply to Callicles, to show his readers “how wonderfully good and, above all, interesting the philosophies of antiquity are,” and his intricate and lucid reconstructions of the philosophies of Socrates, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics, and the Platonists provide a useful account of why philosophy is such a “delightful thing.” Yet while offering perspicuous readings of these philosophers’ arguments, Cooper’s book also misses an opportunity to convince the likes of Callicles toda
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2019 - 2021 Courses

Tenure, a sabbatical, and -- most important -- the arrival of two new members to my family have pulled me away from regular updates to my site here. I'm now adding course syllabi, so under TEACHING above you can find the following, which I've taught since 2018. Living a Democratic Life (Summer 2020). A special seminar for Outer Coast , a nascent two-year institution of higher education in Sitka, Alaska. Energetic and thrilling discussions of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. Reflecting on Black Lives Matter protests organized by Anchorage-based students. Facilitating reflection on “the power of the people” embodied – in virtual form – by the Student Body. Through this course, I delighted in helping to construct a self-reflective community, not just teaching students about the meanings and possibilities of democracy but collaborating on a more democratic way of being together, be that through playing Scribl.io or talking about the politics of ancient Athens. Anti-Poli
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DeLillo, Herodotus, and the stones of Athens

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 Don DeLillo’s The Names begins with what feels like a long camera take, trailing a character from behind as he walks around the streets of the Plaka, the central market district of Athens. The longer the shot continues, however, the more you realize that the man who’s leading you is not the central character. There’s someone, something else. You keep glimpsing it between the blocks, above the antennas and awnings and electrical wires. It’s apparitional, a massive presence that seems to hover in the middle distance, glimmering and impassive beneath the bright Mediterranean sunshine. At long last the character stops in an open plaza, pauses, then looks up. The camera follows. The Acropolis rises like a brilliant white column shooting skyward, its pillars and pediments strident yet effortless. The high city. I gasped when I first glimpsed the Acropolis. I was stepping onto the balcony of an apartment I’d rented for six weeks in Kolonaki, a wealthy neighborhood in central Athens. My host,
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