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Ronald Polansky, Ph.D.

Professor
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Philosophy

College Hall 303, Office Hours: By Appointment Only.
Phone: 412.396.6500

Education:

Ph.D., Philosophy, Boston College, 1974
M.A., Philosophy, Boston College, 1971
B.A., Economics, Yale University, 1970
Research

 

My special area of research is ancient philosophy, with some dabbling in early modern philosophy.

Courses

Presocratics, Plato: Early Dialogues, Middle Dialogues, Later Dialogues

Aristotle: Metaphysics, De Anima, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, Physics, Poetics

Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau

Selected Publications

Aristotle's De Anima: A Critical Commentary, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues, co-edited with Mark Kuczewski. M.I.T. Press, 2000 (paperback 2002).

Philosophy and Knowledge: A Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus, Bucknell University Press, 1992.

"Function, Ability, and Desire in Plato's Republic" co-authored with Antonis Coumoundouros in volume honoring G.X. Santas, Philosophical Inquiry Spring 2008, 1-14.

"Plot, Disease, and Bioethics" co-authored with Gabe Solomon M.D., Philosophical Inquiry Supplementary Volume Fall 2007, 29:154-169.

"Mistakes, Chance and Bioethics" co-authored with Gabe Solomon M.D., Philosophical Inquiry Supplementary Volume Fall 2007, 29: 170-182.

"The Bad Is Last but Does Not Last: Aristotle's Metaphysics Y 9" co-authored with Emily Katz, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy November 2006, 31: 233-242.

"The Enduring Charm of Plato's Unwritten Doctrines" co-authored with Patrick Macfarlane, Philosophy, Competition and the Good Life. Vol 2. K. Boudouris and Kostas Kalimtzis editors. Ionia Publications: Athens, 2005, 262-271.

"The Logic of Socratic Inquiry: Illustrated by Plato's Charmides" co-authored with Mark Brouwer, Socrates: 2400 years since his death, International Symposium Proceedings, Vassilis Karasmais ed. European Cultural Center of Delphi, 2004, 233-245.

"Disability in Earlier Greek Philosophers" co-authored with Patrick Macfarlane, Skepsis 15: 2004, 25-41.

"Moral Virtue and Megalopsychia" co-authored with James Stover, Ancient Philosophy 23: 2003, 351-359.

"Variety of Socratic Elenchi" co-authored with Micheele Carpenter in Gary A. Scott ed., Does Socrates Have a Method?: Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato's Dialogues and Beyond, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002, 89-100.

"Politeia is Aristotle's 'Best Constitution'" Iphitos 1: 2000, 59-70.