Research

My research interests lie mainly in Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology (especially the Emotions) and issues in Influence and Persuasion (especially in Leadership). I am also interested in how insights derived from research can have an impact on people's actual practice and behaviour, especially in organisational life and in the way leadership and influence are exerted within organisations large and small.

I am always interested in comments on papers, published or draft, and in inquiries about postgraduate supervision in any of these areas, as well as in inquiries about the implementation of these ideas in (and their implications for) professional and organisational life.

Drafts of Work in Progress:

Socrates' Challenge - why dialogue is better that speechmaking

Aristotle on Rhetoric and Teaching

Aristotle's Dark Arts of Persuasion

Pistis and Apodeixis: a disputed passage in Rhetoric 1.1

Aristotle's Rhetoric on Character

Aesthetic Austerity in Persuasion - long version (incl. Ancient Philosophical Texts)

Aesthetic Austerity in Persuasion - short version (applied ethics / aesthetics)

Ethics of Advertising (forthcoming in Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Media Ethics)

Practitioner-Focused Writing:

Crisis-Ready Leadership (and "broad-based dispositions")

Removing Statues: racism, values, anachronism and “hiding from history”

Research Monograph:

Passions and Persuasion in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Oxford Aristotle Studies), Oxford: Oxford University Press (2015)

Published and Forthcoming Research Papers:

“A supposed contradiction about emotion-arousal in Aristotle’s Rhetoric”, Phronesis 52.4 (2007), 382-402.

“Feeling Fantastic – Emotions and Appearances in Aristotle”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol. XXXVII (winter 2009), 143-175.

“Aristotle on the Centrality of Proof to Rhetoric”, Logique et Analyse, 53/210 (2010), 101-30.

“Aristotle’s Theory of the Emotions”, in Pakaluk, M and Pearson, G (eds.) Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011), 47-74.

“Feeling Fantastic Again – Passions, Appearances and Beliefs in Aristotle”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol. XLVI (summer 2014).

“Proof-reading Aristotle’s Rhetoric”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 96.1 (2014), 1-37.

“The Persuasive Use of Emotions”, Philosophy (Supplements), 85 (2019), 1-26.

“Dialectic, Persuasion and Science in Aristotle”, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 36.1 (2021), 1-29.

“What is true rhetoric in Plato’s Gorgias?”, in Mikeš, V and Machek, D (eds.) Proceedings of the XIIth Symposium Platonicum Pragense, Brill (forthcoming 2022).

“Human and Animal Emotions in Aristotle”, in Coope, U and Sattler, B (eds.) Ancient Ethics and the Natural World, Oxford: OUP (2021).

“Beware of Imitations! - Aristotle and the Paradox of Fiction”, Ancient Philosophy 41.2 (2021), 519-49.

Academic CV:

My reasonably up-to-date academic CV is here.