Anton Ford

Anton Ford joined the faculty in 2007 and is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy. He received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. His primary research and teaching interests are in Practical Philosophy, understood broadly to include Action Theory, Ethics and Political Philosophy. Figures of special interest include Aristotle, Anscombe, and Marx.

CV (PDF)

Contact

office: Stuart Hall, Room 210
office hours: Thursdays, 2 pm - 4 pm
email: antonford@uchicago.edu

Selected Publications

• "The Parts and Whole of Plato's Republic," (unpublished manuscript) with Ben Laurence.

Anton Ford's recorded lectures

Recent Courses

Justice. Open to college and graduate students. This course will explore a tradition of thought about justice that extends from Plato through Kant. The tradition is distinguished by, among other things, its tendency to conceive justice "holistically," rather than "atomistically"---that is, as holding among the elements of a certain sort of system, and not between a number of discrete individuals. As time permits, we will read selections from Plato's Gorgias and Republic, from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, from Aquinas' Summa Theologica, from Rousseau's On the Social Contract and from Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and The Critique of Teleological Judgment. Autumn.

Action and Practical Knowledge. Open to graduate students. A person typically knows what she is doing intentionally. Is that because she observes herself doing it? And if not, what is the ground of her knowledge? G. E. M. Anscombe has argued that knowledge of one's own intentional action is knowledge of a very special kind, which she calls "practical": it is not based on observation, but is, in the words of Aquinas, "the cause of what it knows." In the last decade, philosophers of all sorts have taken a renewed interest in Anscombe, and especially in her doctrine of practical knowledge. We will examine this doctrine as well as some of the recent literature. Winter.

Marx. Open to college students. No prerequisites. This is an introduction to the works of Karl Marx. The course will proceed thematically and will cover such topics as alienation, religion, the family, ideology, value theory, the critique of capitalism, historical change and revolution. Readings will be primarily from Marx himself. Spring.