The Play of Philosophy, eds. Lydia W. Barry and S. M. Ewegen

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In this chapter, I interrogate the relationship between eros and aporia as central to Plato’s vision of philosophical self-knowledge, building on Drew Hyland’s interpretation of each. Socrates’ persistent acknowledgment of ignorance exemplifies self-knowledge not as an achieved state but as an ongoing way of life, shaped by questioning and perplexity. By attending to Hyland’s interpretation of erois and aporia, the paper discloses structural parallels between them: both are triadic (consisting of three “moments”: lack, recognition of lack, and striving for fulfillment), both occupy a “middle” position between wisdom and ignorance, and both are double-edged in that they can inspire humans’ best and worst impulses. Through close readings of the Meno and Apology, the chapter illustrates how aporia, like eros, can be transformed from a painful recognition of ignorance into an animating desire for wisdom, even while its nature remains double-edged. By disclosing the kinship of eros and aporia, the chapter underscores Plato’s depiction of philosophy as an erotic-aporetic pursuit of self-knowledge and invites readers to walk the “longer road” of inquiry.

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The Review of Metaphysics

Winner of the 2023 Review of Metaphysics Dissertation Essay Contest

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This article explores Socrates' extended analysis of Simonides' "Ode to Scopas." Socrates misinterprets the poem to suggest that virtue is akin to technical wisdom, whereas the poem suggests instead that a wholly virtuous life is impossible, and that the good life is divine, achievable only by the gods. I argue that Socrates' extended exegesis dialectically opposes the idea that, along with the suggestion that the good life could be achieved through a hedonistic calculus, virtue is knowledge against the poem's emphasis on insurmountable limitations to human flourishing. Socrates' misreading highlights the provisional and aporetic nature of philosophical accounts of virtue, suggesting that continuous inquiry in the face of misfortune is constitutive of human goodness. I conclude by proposing that philosophical speech must be self-disclosive and poetic, indicating its own limitations, while engaging in a dialogical pursuit of the truth.

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Plato Journal

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Plato’s Gorgias concerns the tension between political and philosophical power. In it, Socrates and Gorgias discuss rhetoric’s power, which Gorgias claims is universal, containing all powers, enabling the rhetorician to rule over others politically. Polus and Callicles develop Gorgias’s understanding of rhetoric’s universal power. Scholars addressing power’s central focus rightly distinguish Socrates’ notion of philosophical power from Gorgias’s. However, these authors make this distinction too severe, overlooking the kinship between philosophy and politics. In this paper, I argue that Socrates’ notion of power has its origins in Gorgias’s, but instead of seeking to persuade others, philosophy primarily concerns self-persuasion.  

Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy

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This paper attends philosophically to Sappho's fragments 16, 31, and 58 to explore the interplay of beauty, eros, and mortality in Sapphic poetry. I argue that Sappho portrays beauty as inseparable from temporality, vulnerability, and embodiment. By attending to these fragments, I offer a Sapphic portrait of beauty as an alternative to the idealizing, linear model of desire often associated with Diotima's ladder in Plato's Symposium. Beauty is not a static form toward which to ascend, but a lived experience disclosed in particular, finite encounters. Fragment 16 portrays eros itself as beautiful and bound to desire for particular others. Fragment 31 connects beauty to the human condition of vulnerability. Fragment 58 celebrates beauty's ephemerality. If Platonic metaphysics aims at the beautiful itself, Sappho reminds us that each concrete experience of desire is not merely a stepping-stone, but a site of profound meaning in its own right. 

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Ancient Philosophy 

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This paper argues that Protagoras' great myth depicts human nature as both Promethean and Epimethean: human forethought depends on the condition of being an afterthought. If Protagoras' praise of forethought betrays his desire to overcome this condition, Socrates embraces it. While Protagoras repeats Epimetheus' mistake of forgetting his own nature by trying to overcome the risks of afterthought, Socrates' forethought recognizes that afterthought and perplexity are intrinsic to human nature.