Celebrating Recent Work by Dhananjay Jagannathan

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by Dhananjay Jagannathan

Aristotle’s Practical Epistemology presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle’s influential account of practical wisdom (phronēsis) by situating the topic within his broader theory of ethical knowledge. Interpreters have long struggled to make sense of the disparate features Aristotle seems to attribute to practical wisdom, particularly its role in bringing about individual choices and actions that fulfill the demands of the virtues of character and its status as an intellectual excellence or virtue of thought that is the analog, in the domain of ethical action, of theoretical wisdom (sophia) and craft (tekhnē), in their respective domains. The main contention of the book is that these features can be united when we see that phronēsis is a distinctively practical form of understanding. The book begins from the idea that Aristotle first establishes that we have ground-level ethical knowledge, described in the Nicomachean Ethics as ethical experience (empeiria), as a result of a decent upbringing, before identifying practical wisdom as a deeper form of understanding. This understanding involves a grasp of explanations, just as theoretical wisdom and craft do, yet it does not consist in a form of scientific or theoretical knowledge, which would be detached from practice. Rather, the understanding of the personal of practical wisdom involves grasping the goals that are characteristic of the several virtues of character—justice, courage, generosity, and the like—in such a way that they can be brought to bear on particular contexts of deliberation. That comprehensive perspective is why Aristotle thinks of practical wisdom as the same understanding as political wisdom.

About the Author

is an assistant professor of Philosophy and the director of Graduate Studies in the Classical Studies Program at Columbia University. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, the history of ethics and political philosophy, medieval philosophy (especially Aquinas), and the intersection of philosophy and literature. Much of his recent work has focused on two strands of Aristotle's thought: ethical knowledge and practical wisdom; and justice and political community. His book Aristotle's Practical Epistemology was recently published by Oxford University Press. Other research interests include neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, tragedy as a literary and a moral concept, and the role of news journalism in democratic life.

About the Speakers

is Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University, where she served as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education from 2009-2011. She has published on equality and social justice, moral psychology and virtues, and the philosophical implications of gender and race. She is the author of Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination and Political Hope (2022). She is also the author of a widely cited book on moral relativism, Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture and Philosophy (1997) and a co-author on the multi-author work Against Happiness ( 2023).

is Professor and Director of the Program in Classical Philosophy at Princeton University.

is a Professor of Classics at Columbia University. He is the author of Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World, Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor, and numerous articles on ancient history. His main interests lie in the history of the ancient Greek world and its broader context (including the ancient near-east). Within Greek history, he is particularly interested in the handling of epigraphical and archaeological evidence, historical geography, and the complexities of the Hellenistic world.

is a Professor of Philosophy, Affiliate of Data Science Institute, and Director of the MA Program in Philosophy at Columbia University. She is a specialist in ancient philosophy, ethics, and normative epistemology, and a recipient of the Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, Professor Vogt joined the Philosophy Department in 2002. She is interested in questions that figure both in ancient and contemporary discussions: What are values? What kind of values are knowledge and truth? What does it mean to want one's life to go well? Currently, she is working on the role of knowledge in ethics, generics, and generalizations, and on a book entitled The Original Stoics.

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