About

Charles Brittain is a Professor of Classics and of Philosophy at Cornell University, specializing in ancient philosophy. His research primarily focuses on Hellenistic philosophy, with particular interest in epistemology and ethics, as well as the works of Cicero, Augustine, and the Platonic tradition from Plato to Simplicius. Brittain has contributed to the understanding of ancient philosophical thought through his publications, including books on Philo of Larissa, Cicero, and translations of works by Simplicius. His scholarly work explores themes such as academic skepticism, ancient perceptions of divination, and the influence of Platonism in late antiquity. Brittain's expertise extends to analyzing the philosophical dialogues and concepts of self-knowledge, divine intervention, and the development of philosophical ideas from classical Greece through late antiquity.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Science
• History
• Social psychology
• Art
• Classics
• Literature
• Psychology
• Cognitive psychology

Selected publications

• Doxographical, Philosophical, and Historical Forms of the History of Philosophy

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Epistemology
  • Philosophy
  • History

  This chapter examines the doxographical, philosophical, and historical forms of the history of philosophy. The aim of doxography is to reconstruct and present philosophical views or positions that have been proposed in the past and to do so in a way that makes clear the interest they may retain for contemporary philosophical discussions. However, the inadequacy of ancient doxographical writers seems so great that the term ‘doxography’ itself has acquired a pejorative connotation. The criticism is twofold: first, one has the feeling that the ancient doxographers did not have historical awareness or a sensitivity to history; second, one tends to associate doxography with a kind of philosophical failure. People then abandoned the assumption that the positions of the past retain their philosophical importance in the contemporary context. In its place, they began to suppose that the views of the past were only of interest as stages, even if necessary ones, of the evolution of thought. This sort of history represents the philosophical study of the history of philosophy. It is precisely this philosophical position which, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, provokes a reaction. But this reaction takes two very different forms. On the one hand, it gives rise to the historical study of the history of philosophy and, on the other, to a modern form of doxography.

  PublisherDOI

• The Ciceronian Dialogue

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Literature
  • Epistemology

  The prefaces of Cicero's late dialogues indicate that they share a pedagogic function with the philosophical practices of the Hellenistic Academy. In the first part of this chapter, we give a few examples showing how the late dialogues serve this end, and use them to argue that Cicero's texts systematically enact, as well as represent, an Academic pedagogical methodology. In the second part of the chapter, we use these results to propose that Cicero's earlier, "Platonic," dialogues are equally sophisticated in the modes through which they effect Academic aims concerning philosophical education. As starting points for further inquiry, we indicate a few of the devices the early dialogues employ to prompt the reader to reflect on her job as a philosophical critic.

  PublisherDOI

• A Stoic Ethics for Attention<b>(Seneca</b><b><i>Letter</i>56)</b>

  Rhizomata · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Psychology

  Abstract Seneca’s Letters sketch a theory of attentive action according to which distraction is caused by inconsistent beliefs about values, such that the degree of an agent’s attention to an endorsed action is proportionate to the consistency of her beliefs about value, i. e. her proximity to virtue. The agent’s activity of attentive action is co-ordinated with a state of alertness to her interests, which accordingly triggers switches in attention that sustain the endorsed action in single-minded agents or cause distraction if the new interest is irrelevant to it. Seneca’s theory reflects the older Stoic conception of the tensional mental strength of the virtuous agent, which Chrysippus identified as the causal factor over and above virtue that ensures her successful performance of right action.

  PublisherDOI

• Plato and Platonism

  2019-10-04 · 2 citations

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  The development of a specifically Platonic philosophy in the Academy or elsewhere was checked by the advent of the Hellenistic schools, which advocated a more empirical approach to philosophical inquiry. As a result, the idea that Plato’s dialogues already presented a well-defined, comprehensive, and essentially correct philosophical system seems not to have arisen until the first century <sc>b.c</sc>. And it was probably not until toward the beginning of the second century <sc>a.d</sc>. that a disparate set of philosophers who identified themselves as “Platonists” conceived the project of advocating and defending a specifically Platonic philosophy of this kind by systematically interpreting and explaining Plato’s texts. Over the next 500 years (c. 100–600 <sc>a.d</sc>.), Platonist philosophers produced a huge corpus of philosophical work inspired by their interpretations of Plato. This chapter introduces the reader to this immensely varied and philosophically exciting—but, as yet, still largely unexplored tradition. It discusses the reasons why a modern student of Plato might be interested in historical Platonism. Then, it investigates the origins and evolution of the Platonist movement; and sketches its shifting epistemological foundations and their relation to the Platonic dialogues.

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• Peripatetic Appropriations of <i>Oikeiōsis</i>

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2017-02-13

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• No Place for a Platonist Soul in Fifth-Century Gaul? The Case of Mamertus Claudianus

  2017-07-05 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  An anonymous pamphlet, the letter Quaeris a me, from ca. 469, argued that the soul, like all other created things, was corporeal: this was the doctrine of the Fathers, as expressed most recently by Cassian, and the contrary view was not merely false but blasphemous. The testimonia about Claudianus' life present a plausible picture of his education and philosophical formation. To judge by his correspondence, if Sidonius studied philosophy, it made no lasting impression. Only nine of his correspondents receive any extended remarks about it: Anthemius, Consentius, Leo, Claudianus, Nymphidius, Faustus, Eutropius, Polemius, and Philagrius. Platonists had long argued against the Stoics that a corporeal or &quot;materialist&quot; conception of life and of the mind was incoherent; and within the western Christian tradition, Augustine had taken a similar position against Tertullian and his followers. Claudianus' response to Faustus combined detailed counter-arguments with a confusing exposition of a Platonist psychology.

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• <i>Deinos</i> (Wicked Good) at Interpretation (<i>Protagoras</i> 334–48)

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2017-12-12 · 3 citations

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• Cicero’s sceptical methods

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-12-09 · 104 citations

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• The Compulsions of Stoic Assent

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2014-03-14 · 37 citations

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  Abstract This chapter offers a new interpretation of the role of assent in the Stoic theory of reason. Their theory holds that a judgment is the result of a conceptually distinct act of assent to an impression, i.e., to the perceptual and non-perceptual contents (of varying quality and reliability) we entertain. The chapter argues that even though it is tempting to think that rational creatures are virtually compelled to assent to so-called 'kataleptic' ('clear and distinct') impressions and to find such impressions forceful and irresistible, the Stoics did not hold this position; they thought that, while it is natural to assent to kataleptic impressions, there are cases in which we don't assent to them, and indeed some in which it is right not to.

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• Plato and the Divided Self

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2012-02-16 · 82 citations

  bookSenior author

  Plato's account of the tripartite soul is a memorable feature of dialogues like the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus: it is one of his most famous and influential yet least understood theories. It presents human nature as both essentially multiple and diverse - and yet somehow also one - divided into a fully human 'rational' part, a lion-like 'spirited part' and an 'appetitive' part likened to a many-headed beast. How these parts interact, how exactly each shapes our agency and how they are affected by phenomena like erôs and education is complicated and controversial. The essays in this book investigate how the theory evolves over the whole of Plato's work, including the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus, and how it was developed further by important Platonists such as Galen, Plutarch and Plotinus. They will be of interest to a wide audience in philosophy and classics.

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Frequent coauthors

• Tad Brennan

  Cornell University

  8 shared

• Dorothea Frede

  Universität Hamburg

  6 shared

• David Sedley

  6 shared

• Malcolm Schofield

  3 shared

• Troels Engberg‐Pedersen

  University of Copenhagen

  3 shared

• Rachel Barney

  University of Toronto

  3 shared

• David Blank

  3 shared

• Myrto Hatzimichali

  2 shared