RESEARCH
Plato’s dialogues contain a powerful and compelling exhortation to philosophy; his pen (or rather stylus, as they used in ancient Greece) is responsible for the famous dictum that, for all of us, the unexamined life is not worth living. The dialogues also contain an unflattering portrayal of the Greek sophists, suggesting a simple contrast between the methods we should pursue and those we should avoid. But what exactly do these two divergent paths look like? And why follow one rather than the other?
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These are just a few of the questions that inspire my work on philosophic method. Below you can read more about my published work, current projects, and future plans.
Publications
A Homeric Lesson in Plato's Sophist
Forthcoming in Classical Quarterly (5,000-word note)
Plato’s closing reference to the Iliad in the Sophist has been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship. The reference, a quotation from the confrontation between Glaucus and Diomedes in Book 6, forms part of a broader frame to the dialogue. The frame, with its recurring themes of identification and misidentification, helps us make better sense of the dialogue’s final description of the sophist and its central concerns about the relationship between philosophy and sophistry. It also provides a revealing case study of Plato’s use of Homer as part of a broader strategy for undermining simple appeals to authority.
Problems of Being
The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists (2023)
Sophists were active participants in ancient discussions about being or what-is at the most general level. This chapter discusses the contributions of Gorgias, Protagoras, Xeniades, and Lycophron in the context of the Eleatic philosophers Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus. All of these figures share a serious commitment to ontological inquiry as well as a concern with the problems that arise when discussing being or what-is. They also share an approach to these problems that is at times paradoxical and self-undermining.
The chapter begins with a brief discussion of Parmenides’ poem, a work that serves as an important backdrop for later ontology. It then covers Gorgias’ On Not-Being, a response to the Eleatics and a unique contribution in its own right. Gorgias’ work is then compared with that of Zeno and Melissus. Finally, the more limited evidence we have of Protagoras, Xeniades, and Lycophron’s ontological theorizing is discussed.
A Long Lost Relative in the Parmenides? Plato’s Family of Hypothetical Methods
Apeiron 55.1 (2022)
The Parmenides has been unduly overlooked in discussions of hypothesis in Plato. It contains a unique method for testing first principles, a method I call ‘exploring both sides’. The dialogue recommends exploring the consequences of both a hypothesis and its contradictory and thematizes this structure throughout. I challenge the view of Plato’s so-called ‘method of hypothesis’ as an isolated stage in Plato’s development; instead, the evidence of the Parmenides suggests a family of distinct hypothetical methods, each with its own peculiar aim. Exploring both sides is unique both in its structure and in its aim of testing candidate principles.
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This work was funded in part by an NEH Summer Stipend for the summer of 2020.
Structure and Aim in Socratic and Sophistic Method
History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis 23.1 (2020)
I begin this paper with a puzzle: why is Plato’s Parmenides replete with references to Gorgias? While the Eleatic heritage and themes in the dialogue are clear, it is less clear what the point would be of alluding to a well-known sophist. I suggest that the answer has to do with the similarities in the underlying methods employed by both Plato and Gorgias. These similarities, as well as Plato’s recognition of them, suggest that he owes a more significant philosophical and methodological debt to sophists like Gorgias than is often assumed. Further evidence from Plato and Xenophon suggest that Socrates used this very same method, which I call ‘exploring both sides’. I distinguish this Socratic method and its sophistic counterpart in terms of structure, internal aim, and external aim. Doing so allows for a more nuanced understanding of their similarities and differences. It also challenges the outsized role that popular caricatures of philosophical and sophistic method have had on our understanding of their relationship.
‘Pushing Through’ in Plato’s Sophist: A New Reading of the Parity Assumption
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102.2 (2020)
At a crucial juncture in Plato’s Sophist, when the interlocutors have reached their deepest confusion about being and not-being, the Eleatic Visitor proclaims that there is yet hope. Insofar as they clarify one, he maintains, they will equally clarify the other. But what justifies the Visitor’s seemingly oracular prediction? A new interpretation explains how the Visitor’s hope is in fact warranted by the peculiar aporia they find themselves in. The passage describes a broader pattern of ‘exploring both sides’ that lends insight into Plato’s aporetic method.
Aristotle's Platonic Response to the Problem of First Principles
Journal of the History of Philosophy 58.3 (2020)
Aristotle is clear that first principles are not to be established by demonstration, but much less clear about how else we might come to understand them. A series of striking parallels between his Topics and Plato’s Parmenides and Sophist show that Aristotle was familiar with a distinct Platonic method developed for this very purpose. The method does not provide a demonstrative guarantee, but it does offer a synoptic view of the consequences for each of an exclusive and exhaustive set of candidate principles. I argue that Aristotle not only recognizes this method and its application to the problem of first principles in the Topics, but also employs a version of the method when discussing first principles in his Metaphysics. Furthermore, I show how, despite appearances to the contrary, this method complements what Aristotle has to say about first principles in the Analytics.
Untying the Gorgianic 'Not': Argumentative Structure in On Not-Being
Classical Quarterly 69.1 (2019)
This paper stems from my research on argumentative methods among the Greek sophists. I argue that a systematic pattern of argumentation can be found throughout Gorgias' works. This has been obscured in part because Gorgias' On Not-Being survives only in two divergent summaries, and recent scholars have wrongly dismissed the version that best preserves the argument's structure. I show how paying closer attention to the underlying philosophical method can correct for this philological mistake.
More than a Reductio: Plato's Method in the Parmenides and Lysis
Études platoniciennes 15 (2019)
Plato’s Parmenides and Lysis have a surprising amount in common from a methodological standpoint. Both systematically employ a method that I call ‘exploring both sides’, a philosophical method for encouraging further inquiry and comprehensively understanding the truth. Both have also been held in suspicion by interpreters for containing what looks uncomfortably similar to sophistic methodology. I argue that the methodological connections across these and other dialogues relieve those suspicions and push back against a standard developmentalist story about Plato’s method. This allows for a better understanding of why exploring both sides is explicitly recommended in the Parmenides and its role within Plato’s broader methodological repertoire.
Shorter Works
“Method”, entry in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Plato, 2nd ed.
“Parmenides”, entry in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Plato, 2nd ed. (revision of Samuel Scolnicov’s entry for the first edition)
Journal of the History of Philosophy 57.3 (2019)
Review of Olof Pettersson & Vigdis Songe-Moller (eds.), Plato’s Protagoras: Essays on the Confrontation of Philosophy and Sophistry
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, April 2017
Review of Marina McCoy, Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, December 2008 (co-authored with Ravi Sharma)
Current Projects
Plato's Hypothetical Methods for the Problem of First Principles
I am interested in Plato's self-conscious acknowledgment of the problem of first principles in the Cratylus and the different ways in which the distinct hypothetical methods of the Republic and Parmenides are geared to answer the problem. Feel free to get in touch if you'd like to talk about the project.
Rivals or Relatives? From Sophistic Antilogic to Platonic Dialectic
I am currently writing a book that delves more deeply into Plato's method and its sophistic roots. This work has been funded in part by an NEH Summer Stipend for the summer of 2020, an Idaho Humanities Council Research Fellowship for summer 2021, and a Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies Fellowship for the 2021/22 academic year.
Overview
Debate is everywhere. But what exactly are we trying to achieve when engaging in a debate or discussion? We are often unclear about this in our own case, as we have been, I argue, for one of the most famous debates between Plato and the ancient sophists in classical Greece. Modern myth tells a story of stark opposition: from one perspective, Plato was the truth seeker who heroically stood up to sophistic power-seekers; from another, the sophists fought to contextualize truth in response to the damaging universalism of philosophers. My book shows how both were in fact part of a broader methodological conversation that was much more dialogical and inclusive than these myths suggest. Taking both sides seriously helps us understand commonalities in both goals and methods, while also highlighting those differences that come to matter most to each side. We can situate and better understand our own argumentative practices and challenges by seeing our predecessors with clearer eyes.
Explanation and Open-Ended Questions
I am currently drafting a paper on the nature of explanation. Please contact me if you would like to see a draft, and comments are always more than welcome.
Abstract
Explanation is a strikingly general phenomenon, but few accounts have addressed it in its most general form. A wide variety of questions can elicit the need for explanation, and giving such explanations is central to science, philosophy, and even every day interactions. Attempts to generalize more restricted accounts have not been successful; instead, I offer a truly general account that can subsequently be narrowed. On my view, explanations are answers to open-ended questions. I motivate my theory through a central puzzle regarding which questions genuinely elicit the need for explanation, and show how understanding these questions as open-ended in the relevant sense maintains the insights of rival theories while avoiding their pitfalls. Furthermore, I show how open-ended question theory can easily be narrowed to address specific types of explanation.