Richard Foley
Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Education: Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern
Interests: Ancient philosophy, David Hume
Contact: foleyri@missouri.edu
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I happily joined the classics faculty at Missouri in 2007, after serving as an associate professor of philosophy at Eastern Illinois University. I earned my B.A. from Yale (1992) and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern (2001). My teaching ranges widely across many areas of ancient philosophy, including the presocratic philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and ancient skepticism. I also enjoy teaching in the Honors College Humanities Sequence. I am currently serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies, a position which has introduced me to our many talented undergraduate majors and minors.
My primary research interests center on two leading figures in the history of philosophy: Plato and David Hume. My work on Plato involves a “constructivist” approach to Plato’s earlier dialogues—I seek to construct a Socratic conception of virtue from Socrates’ elliptical and often skeptical comments. Socrates’ exemplary life is thus governed by a tacit theory of human excellence. My constructivist reading of Plato’s Republic, “Plato’s Undividable Line: Contradiction and Method in Republic VI” appears in The Journal of the History of Philosophy (2008). I am currently continuing this work by defending Socratic definitions of courage in the Laches, piety in the Euthyphro, and virtue in the Meno. I also work on the Enlightenment, primarily on the design argument and David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. For an explanation of why people will believe the design argument despite its significant failings, see my “Unnatural Religion: Indoctrination and Philo’s Reversal in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Hume Studies 32 (2006).
Department of Classical Studies | College of Arts and Science | University of Missouri
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Last modified: Wednesday, 18-Jun-2008 09:44:28 CDT