About

Christopher Bobonich is the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. His research focuses on topics in Greek ethics, political theory, psychology, and related issues in epistemology and metaphysics. He is currently working on a project about the relations between knowledge and action in Plato. His notable contributions include publications such as 'Agency in Plato’s Republic' and 'Plato's Laws,' and he has authored several books including 'Agency in Plato’s Republic,' 'Plato's 'Laws,' 'Akrasia in Greek Philosophy: from Socrates to Plotinus,' and 'Plato's Utopia Recast.' His work explores fundamental questions in ancient Greek philosophy, emphasizing the ethical and political dimensions of Plato's thought.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Law
• Sociology
• Political science

Selected publications

• Plato on the Law, Political Rule, and Philosophical Knowledge

  Polis The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought · 2026-01-07

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  Abstract The Republic ’s primary justification for philosophers’ rule is their epistemic superiority. I examine several possible cases of such superiority. One important conclusion is that the philosopher-rulers are not greatly epistemically superior to the auxiliaries on matters of ordinary ethics, that is, questions about avoiding force and fraud in one’s relations with others. The philosopher-rulers’ great epistemic superiority is rather with respect to the good and is grounded in their knowledge of the Form of the Good. I consider three examples of how the philosopher-rulers’ knowledge of the Forms, especially that of the Good, might be applied in ruling and argue that such application faces problems that are hard to resolve. I close by pointing to Plato’s possible response to these worries in the Myth of Er and the Phaedrus .

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• Introduction: Ancient Philosophy of Law

  Polis The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought · 2026-01-07

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  Abstract This short introduction explains the context and purpose of this special issue on the Ancient Philosophy of Law. It also summarizes the diverse approaches and lines of argument pursued by the contributors.

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• Plato and Aristotle on Work

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-12-18

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  Abstract This chapter examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s views about work and workers, focusing on three questions: (1) What’s the ethical status of workers? (2) What should workers’ political status be? (3) What sort of cognitive achievement is craft (technê) and how is it related to the knowledge required for virtue and happiness? Plato’s early dialogues don’t thematically address these questions, but this chapter outlines how Plato’s views about workers in the middle and late periods depend on his epistemology, metaphysics, and psychology, and on his conception of the political association. Aristotle has a pessimistic view of workers’ virtue and happiness. They are thus to be excluded from citizenship in the best city. But at least for Greek males, their intellectual and motivational deficiencies are not innate, but arise from their poor habituation and lack of leisure. Although productive crafts are cognitive accomplishments, they aren’t sufficient to make their possessors virtuous or happy.

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• The Good or the Wild at Aristotle <i>Eudemian Ethics</i> 8.3?

  Classical Philology · 2023-03-28 · 9 citations

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  The traditional understanding of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 8.3 requires emending the text at least two places, the more important of which changes the manuscripts’ characterization of the Spartans as “wild men” (ἄγριοι) to “good men” (ἀγαθοί). Neither emendation has any manuscript support and if they are rejected, we avoid some apparent philosophical problems. This article examines a new proposal to reject both emendations and argues that, despite the attractions of rejecting them, this chapter’s rhetorical and logical structure shows that they should be accepted. It also suggests a way to defuse the problems to which the emendations apparently give rise.

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• Is Plato a Consequentialist?

  2023-07-06

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  Abstract This paper examines the relations between Plato’s ethical and political philosophy and modern consequentialism. It focuses on the Republic’s and the Laws’ criterion for the correctness of laws since that is where the similarities are greatest. It argues that this criterion is consequentialist in some fundamental respects. Section 3 considers various objections to seeing Platonic affinities with consequentialism and argues that although the most common objections are not convincing, there is reason for caution about this attribution. Section 4 thus looks for consequentialism’s distinctive features in the Republic and the Laws. Section 5 discusses an argument in Republic Book 1 whose conclusion is, in principle, inconsistent with consequentialism. Section 6 argues that Laws 10’s theology leads Plato in a fully impartialist direction and to endorse a strong form of consequentialism.

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• Cinzia Arruzza, <i>A Wolf in the City</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, xi + 296 pp.

  Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie · 2020-07-18

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• Plato’s Politics

  2019-10-04

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  The dialogues that are most obviously important for Plato’s political philosophy include: the <italic>Apology</italic>, the <italic>Crito</italic>, the <italic>Gorgias</italic>, the <italic>Laws</italic>, the <italic>Republic</italic>, and the <italic>Statesman</italic>. Further, there are many questions of political philosophy that Plato discusses in his dialogues. These topics include, among others: (1) the ultimate ends of the city’s laws and institutions; (2) who should rule, the forms of constitution, and their ranking; (3) what institutions and offices there should be; (4) the nature and extent of citizens’ obligation to obey the laws; (5) the proper criterion of citizenship; (6) the political and social status of women; (7) the purposes of punishment; (8) private property; and (9) slavery. This chapter attempts to provide an overall picture of Plato’s political philosophy, focusing on three moments: the “Socratic” dialogues, including the <italic>Apology</italic> and the <italic>Crito</italic>; the great middle-period work, the <italic>Republic</italic>, along with the <italic>Phaedo</italic>; and finally, two works from Plato’s last period, the <italic>Statesman</italic> and the <italic>Laws</italic>.

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• Agency in Plato’s Republic

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2017-03-06 · 21 citations

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  This article discusses some of the most important recent controversies in the psychology of Plato’s Republic. These include its views on akratic action, the capacities of the parts of the soul, and the distinction between the rational part of the soul and the nonrational parts. It argues that the Republic accepts the possibility of synchronic akratic action, that is, action contrary to the agent’s belief about what is overall best at the time of action. It then considers some recent arguments that the lower parts of the soul, especially the Appetitive part, are cognitively primitive. Against these views, this article argues that the Appetitive part is capable of means-end reasoning and of forming a conception of its own good. Finally, this article argues that Plato’s distinction between the rational and the nonrational parts of the soul is to be understood in terms of the intelligible versus sensible distinction.

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• Elitism in Plato and Aristotle

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2017-07-14 · 3 citations

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• Other Volumes in The Series of Cambridge Companions

  2017-07-14

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Frequent coauthors

• Luca Castagnoli

  6 shared

• Julia Annas

  5 shared

• Pierre Destrée

  Fonds National de la Recherche

  5 shared

• David Charles

  4 shared

• Daniel Devereux

  4 shared

• Dominic J. O’Meara

  4 shared

• Katja Maria Vogt

  Princeton University

  4 shared

• David Sedley

  4 shared