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Eric Brown

​Associate Professor of Philosophy
PhD, University of Chicago
research interests:
  • Ancient Greek
  • Ancient Roman
  • Ethics
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    contact info:

    mailing address:

    • Washington University
    • CB 1073
    • One Brookings Drive
    • St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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    Professor Brown researches and teaches mainly in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and in ethics, with special interest in how ancient Greek practical philosophy can inform ours.

    Professor Brown's research has explored ancient Stoic calls to live as a citizen of the world, the argument of Plato's Republic, Plato's theory of the soul, Aristotle's evaluation of external goods such as wealth and honor, and Epicurus' account of friendship and society. His work also addresses ancient conceptions of what philosophy is and what politics is, and the eudaimonist structure of ancient Greek ethical theories.

        Selected Publications

        • “Socrates and Coherent Desire (Gorgias 466-468).” (with J. Clerk Shaw). in Plato’s Gorgias: A Critical Guide, ed. J. Clerk Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024), 75-108.
        • "Plato's Socrates and his Conception of Philosophy." in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, 2nd ed., ed. R. Kraut and D. Ebrey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 117-145
        • "Plato on the Unity of the Political Arts (Statesman 258e-259c)." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 58 (2020); 1-18.
        • "Plato on Well-Being." in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being, ed. Guy Fletcher (London: Routledge, 2016), 9-19.
        • "Cynics." in The Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy, ed. Frisbee Sheffield and James Warren (London: Routledge, 2013), 399-408.
        • "The Unity of the Soul in Plato's Republic." in Plato and the Divided Self, ed. Rachel Barney, Tad Brennan, and Charles Brittain  (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2012), 53-73.
        • "The Emergence of Natural Law and the Cosmopolis." in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Political Thought, ed. Stephen Salkever (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 331-363.
        • "False Idles: The Politics of the 'Quiet Life.'" in A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought, ed. Ryan Balot (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2009), 485-500.
        • "Contemplative Withdrawal in the Hellenistic Age." Philosophical Studies 137 (2008): 79-89.
        • "Wishing for Fortune, Choosing Activity: Aristotle on External Goods and Happiness." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 22 (2006): 221-256. 
        • "Hellenistic Cosmopolitanism." in A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, ed. Mary Louise Gill and Pierre Pellegrin (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2006), 549-558.
        • "Minding the Gap in Plato's Republic," Philosophical Studies 117 (2004): 275-302.
        • "Epicurus on Friendship (Sententia Vaticana 23)," Classical Philology 97 (2002): 68-80.
        • "Justice and Compulsion for Plato's Philosopher-Rulers." Ancient Philosophy 20 (2000): 1-17.
        • "A Defense of Plato's Argument for the Immortality of the Soul at Republic X.608c-611a." Apeiron 30 (1997): 211-238. 

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        WashU Philosophers at the 2024 Central APA

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        Eric Brown on The Dangerous Game of Persuasion

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        Eric Brown publishes piece on persuasion in ancient Greece in The Common Reader

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