Senior Lecturer in Classics (Ancient Philosophy)
Fellow and College Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Trinity College
Areas of expertise
Research Interests
The Apologies of Plato and Xenophon; Diodorus Cronus
Research Supervision
Recent topics include: Aristotle's ethical theory of action; Linguistic Fallacies in the Sophistical Refutations; The logic of self-refutation from Democritus to Augustine; Mixing, mixtures and perception in Aristotle; Eros and Socratic education; Cause, explanation and theory in Plato’s Phaedo.
Key Publications
Plato: the Apology of Socrates and Xenophon: the Apology of Socrates (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, forthcoming).
‘The prehistory of logic’, forthcoming in Luca Castagnoli (ed.) The Camrbidge Companion To Ancient Logic(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
‘Authority and the dialectic of Socrates’, in Jenny Bryan, Robert Wardy, and James Warren(eds.) Authors and Authorities(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 41-57.
‘The real Euthyphro problem, solved’, in Anders Klostergaard Petersen and George van Kooten (eds.) Religio-Philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World, = Ancient Philosophy And Religion, vol. 1, (Brill: Leiden 2017), pp. 63-72.
‘The political skill of Protagoras’, in Verity Harte and Melissa Lane (eds.), Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2013), pp. 155-67.
Plato: Protagoras (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2008), pp. xiii + 207.
'The Phaedo's final argument', in Dominic Scott (ed.) Maieusis: Essays in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2007), pp. 87-96.
'Sun and line: the role of the Good', in G.R.F. Ferrari (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic (Cambridge University Press: New York, 2007), pp. 284-309.
‘Mark 16:8 and Plato, Protagoras 328d’, in Tyndale Bulletin, vol. 57, no. 1 (2006) pp. 149-50.
Plato: Alcibiades (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2001), pp. xi + 254.
‘Never will and cannot’, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: Supplementary Volume 74 (2000), 163-178.
‘Just war’, in Roger Teichmann (ed.) Logic, Cause and Action: essays in honour of Elizabeth Anscombe (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2000), = Philosophy Supplement 46, pp. 137-151.
‘Mirrors in James 1:22-25 and Plato, Alcibiades132c-133c’, Tyndale Bulletin, vol. 50 (1999) 237-40.
‘The Master Argument of Diodorus Cronus: A Near Miss’, in Philosophiegeschichte und Logische Analyse / Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy, vol. 2 (1999), pp. 239-52.
‘Names, verbs and quantification’, Philosophy, vol. 73 (1998), pp. 619-23.
‘Is anything absolutely wrong?’, in D.S. Oderberg and J.A. Laing (eds.) Human Lives: critical essays on consequentialist bioethics (Macmillan: London, 1997), pp. 39-57.
‘Priest’s paraconsistent arithmetic’, Mind, vol. 104, number 415, July 1995, pp. 567-575.
‘Why do mirrors reverse left/right and not up/down?’, Philosophy, vol. 69, no. 268 (April 1994) pp. 205-10.
‘Pure second-order logic’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, vol. 33, no. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 220-224.
Language, thought and falsehood in ancient Greek philosophy, (Routledge: London, 1991), pp. xi + 222.
‘Can physics be exact?’, originally in Cahiers du séminaire d’épistémologie et d’histoire des sciences, Numéro 20, “La Physique” d’Aristote; and now in François De Gandt and Pierre Souffrin (eds.) La Physique d’Aristote et les conditions d’une science de la nature, (J. Vrin: Paris, 1991), pp. 73-83.
‘Ease and difficulty: a modal logic with deontic applications’, Theoria, vol. 56, part 1-2 (1990), pp. 42-61.
‘The principle of harmony’, Analysis, vol. 49, no. 1 (1989), pp. 21-22.
‘Stoicism and token-reflexivity’, in Jonathan Barnes and Mario Mignucci (eds.) Matter and metaphysics, (Bibliopolis: Naples, 1988), pp. 375-396.
‘Ethics in Plato’s Republic’, in Godfrey Vesey (ed.), Philosophers ancient and modern, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1986), pp. 19-32.
‘The case against divination: an examination of Cicero’s de Divinatione’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 211 = new series no. 31 (1985), pp. 1-10.
‘Catholic and apostolic’, Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 38, no. 4 (1985), pp. 515-528.
‘The origins of justice’, in SUZHTSIS: studi sull’Epicureismo Greco e Romano offerti a Marcello Gigante, (Gaetano Macchiaroli Editore: Naples, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 133-152.
‘Plato’s theory of stuffs’, Philosophy, vol 58, no. 225 (1983), pp. 315-328.
‘Chess and life: the structure of a moral code’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series vol. 82 (1981-82), pp. 59-68.
Time, action and necessity: a proof of free will, (Duckworth: London, 1981), pp. 103.
‘The atomism of Diodorus Cronus’, Prudentia, vol. 13, no. 1 (1981), pp. 33-45.
