Corinne A. Gartner

I have broad research interests within ancient philosophy, though most of my work concentrates on topics in ancient ethics and moral psychology. Because these topics were, for ancient thinkers, not cleanly divorced from their metaphysical and epistemological commitments, I consider ancient ethical views from within the framework of a thinker’s system.

A number of my projects explore Aristotle’s accounts of friendship in both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics. I am particularly interested in the Socratically inspired puzzles that Aristotle raises about friendship, including a puzzle about how virtuous agents can be friends, given that (a) virtuous agents are self-sufficient, and (b) agents who are self-sufficient, by definition, need nothing, and so will not need friends.

I also enjoy thinking about both Plato and later Hellenistic philosophers (stoics, skeptics, Epicureans). I completed a project on psychic conflict in Seneca’s De Ira and have a project in progress on what memory could not be for Lucretius, who expressly countenances the possibility of palingenesis in the context of arguing that death is nothing to us. The latter project investigates why a future instantiation of me would not possess my memories, given that Lucretius is an atomist.  

I teach courses in ancient philosophy and value theory. Some recent seminar topics in ancient philosophy include: Ancient Theories of Pleasure, Plato’s Republic, and Ancient Skepticisms. Within value theory, I have taught Introduction to Moral Philosophy, Normative Ethics, Ethics in Action, and I regularly channel my previous pre-med self in teaching Medical Ethics.

When I am not pondering Aristotle’s views about friends, I can often be found with my own friends.