Challenges influential interpretations of Aristotelian ethical and political philosophy.

This book applies Augustine's thought to current questions of teaching and learning. The essays are written in an accessible style and is not intended just for experts on Augustine or church history.

Plato’s teaching about the Good is sometimes blamed for denigrating particular goods. By contrast, this article argues that for Plato pleonexia is at the heart of disordered relationships to particular goods. In turn, the psychic root of pleonexia is spiritedness, the aspect of the soul that enables it to love what is “one’s own.” Plato employs Kallipolis as a heuristic device to diagnose these psychic roots of our attraction to pleonexia. Kallipolis’ reforms are ascetic practices that seek to transform his (...) interlocutors’ spiritedness by reorienting the soul’s love away from pleonexia to the good. This love for the good turns out to be the condition for a renewed and healthy devotion to particular goods, rather than the cause of their denigration. (shrink)

In his Gorgias, Plato is not merely concerned with criticizing Sophists, tyrants, or immoral uses of rhetoric. Rather he explores the harmful consequences of living without loving wisdom. A large part of the dialogue is devoted to pointing out the difficulties associated with practicing philosophy as a way of life. These difficulties are so great that the best way of arguing for its practice is to dramatize the harmful consequences inherent in rival ways of life that deny the need for (...) wisdom. Thus the Gorgias explores the harmful effects of Callicles' denial of his need for wisdom. Socrates shows that Callicles does not know what he wants or needs. Instead of letting his awareness of ignorance blossom in love of wisdom, however, Callicles pursues power. Yet this love of power leads to disharmony and turmoil. In the Gorgias, Plato's rhetorical defence of philosophy amounts to this: the only thing more difficult than living with the love of wisdom is living without it. (shrink)

In his Gorgias, Plato is not merely concerned with criticizing Sophists, tyrants, or immoral uses of rhetoric. Rather he explores the harmful consequences of living without loving wisdom. A large part of the dialogue is devoted to pointing out the difficulties associated with practicing philosophy as a way of life. These difficulties are so great that the best way of arguing for its practice is to dramatize the harmful consequences inherent in rival ways of life that deny the need for (...) wisdom. Thus the Gorgias explores the harmful effects of Callicles’ denial of his need for wisdom. Socrates shows that Callicles does not know what he wants or needs. Instead of letting his awareness of ignorance blossom in love of wisdom, however, Callicles pursues power. Yet this love of power leads to disharmony and turmoil. In the Gorgias, Plato’s rhetorical defence of philosophy amounts to this: the only thing more difficult than living with the love of wisdom is living without it. (shrink)

Politics I has been the subject of a number of textual questions about the relation of the Ethics to the Politics. These textual questions involve us in theoretical questions about the differences between contemporary and ancient conceptions of political rule. Resolving the exegetical challenges can help us clarify the theoretical differences. A fresh approach to the textual challenges reveals that Politics I has a contrapuntal character with two reinforcing movements. One explores why and how despotic conceptions of politics fail using (...) case studies of despotic power: slavery and money-making. Aristotle shows dialectically how this despotic approach to rule undermines the requirements for political life. The other movement explores the character of natural human associations, culminating in the polis. The two movements converge in Aristotle’s claim about the centrality of the human good for political rule. This claim challenges modern social contract theory’s understanding of the differences between despotic and political rule. (shrink)

As Smith points out, Reinhold Niebuhr's political ethic is closely linked to his philosophy of history. This view of history blends a dualistic understanding of human nature and rigorous contingency of experience - all sobered by a creative sense of tragedy.