Gabriel Richardson Lear (Professor of Philosophy) works on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Her book, Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Princeton, 2004), is about the relationship between morally virtuous action and theoretical contemplation in the happiest life. She is currently writing about Plato's aesthetics and about the status of beauty as an ethical concept in the work of several philosophers. She received her PhD in Philosophy from Princeton University (2001).
Selected Publications
2004: Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Princeton University Press. (Paperback 2005).
2015: “Aristotle on Happiness and Long Life,” Happiness in Antiquity, edd. Emilsson, Fossheim, Rabbas, and Tuominen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2014: “Approximation and Acting For an Ultimate End,” Theoria: Studies on the Status and Meaning of Contemplation in Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Pierre Destrée and Marco Zingano, Peeters Publishers.
2013: “Plato’s Poetics,” Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy, eds. F. Sheffield and J. Warren, Routledge Publishing.
2013: “Aristotle,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFollette, Wiley Blackwell Publishing.
2011: “Mimesis and Psychological Change in Republic III,” Plato and the Poets, Mnemosyne supp. vol. 328, ed. Pierre Destrée and Fits-Gregor Herrmann, 195-216.
2009: “Happiness, the Good, and the Structure of Ends,” Blackwell’s Companion to Aristotle, ed. G. Anagnostopoulos, Blackwell Publishing.
2006: “Permanent Beauty and Becoming Happy in Plato’s Symposium,” Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, ed. Jim Lesher, Debra Nails, and Frisbee Sheffield, Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies Press.
2006: “Aristotle on Moral Virtue and the Fine,” Blackwell’s Companion to Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. R. Kraut.
2006: “Plato on Learning to Love Beauty,” Blackwell’s Companion to Plato’s Republic, ed. G. Santas.
Media
Gabriel Richardson Lear on Elucidations (Dept of Philosophy podcast)
Recent Courses
PHIL 55908 Aristotle on Friendship
(IV)
PHIL 21720 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
This course will offer a close reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, one of the great works of ethics. Among the topics to be considered are: What is a good life? What is ethics? What is the relation between ethics and having a good life? What is it for reason to be practical? What is human excellence? What is the non-rational part of the human psyche like? How does it ever come to listen to reason? What is human happiness? What is the place of thought and of action in the happy life? (A)
This course is intended for Philosophy majors and for Fundamentals majors. Otherwise please seek permission to enroll.
PHIL 25000 History of Philosophy I: Ancient Philosophy
An examination of ancient Greek philosophical texts that are foundational for Western philosophy, especially the work of Plato and Aristotle. Topics will include: the nature and possibility of knowledge and its role in human life; the nature of the soul; virtue; happiness and the human good.
Completion of the general education requirement in humanities.
PHIL 29911/39911 Ancient Greek Aesthetics
The ancient Greek philosophical tradition contains an enormously rich and influential body of reflection on the practice of poetry. We will focus our attention on Plato and Aristotle, but will also spend some time with Longinus and Plotinus. Topics will include: the analysis of poetry in terms of mimesis and image; poetry-making as an exercise of craft, divine inspiration, or some other sort of knowledge; the emotional effect on the audience; the role of poetry in forming moral character and, more broadly, its place in society; the relation between poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy; aesthetic values of beauty, wonder, truth, and grace. (A) (IV)
Meets with Jr/Sr section. Open only to intensive-track majors. No more than two tutorials may be used to meet program requirements.
PHIL 51715 Plato and Aristotle on Craft and Wisdom
Plato and Aristotle both made extensive appeal to craft knowledge as a model for theorizing practical and political wisdom. In this seminar we will examine their conceptions of craft and its relation to wisdom. Readings will likely come from Plato's Ion, Gorgias, Republic, and Statesman and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics. (IV)
PHIL 55503 Plato's Statesman
In this dialogue, Plato depicts an attempt to describe the nature of expert political knowledge and to distinguish it from demagoguery and charlatanism. Most of the dialogue proceeds by the method of dialectic and so, in addition to fascinating discussions of the role of law, forms of government, and the relation of political ideals to the imperfection of human life, this dialogue is also an important source for understanding Plato's epistemology and conception of the philosophical life. We will work our way through the text week by week. (IV)
PHIL 25000 History of Philosophy I: Ancient Philosophy
An examination of ancient Greek philosophical texts that are foundational for Western philosophy, especially the work of Plato and Aristotle. Topics will include: the nature and possibility of knowledge and its role in human life; the nature of the soul; virtue; happiness and the human good.
Completion of the general education requirement in humanities.
For full list of Gabriel Lear's courses back to the 2012-13 academic year, see our searchable course database.