Contact Information

Biography

Patrick Lee Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy. He is the author of Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Continuum, 2011), and co-editor of Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (Hackett, 2015). He has published articles on Heraclitus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Augustine, Hobbes, Hamilton, Madison, Darwin, Nietzsche, Mill, Freud, Rawls, Rorty, Judith Butler, and David Lynch. But his recent philosophical writing uses Platonism to address current problems such as gender, sexuality, child psychology, education, natural evolution, virtual-reality, spirituality, indecision, truth-telling, and liberal government.

Education

  • Ph.D. Philosophy. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 2005.
  • D.A.D., Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Institute of the Carolinas, 2006
  • M.A., Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003
  • M.A., Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996
  • B.A., Philosophy, McGill University, 1993

Expertise

  • Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy
  • Platonism (Ancient and Modern)
  • Freud & Psychoanalysis
  • Nietzsche

Graduate

Plato & Nietzsche; Nietzsche; Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics; Gender, Nature, Being; Plotinus; Freud and Psychoanalysis; Heraclitus, Marcus, Nietzsche; Plato's Republic; Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; Early Greek Philosophy; Augustine and the Ancients.

Undergraduate

America & Antiquity; Who I Am; Reality & Illusion; Global Thought; Black Mirror & Philosophy; Philosophy & Film; Nietzsche; Aristotle; Ancient Philosophy; Nietzsche and Freud; Existentialism; The Athenian Culture War; Plato's Symposium (Greek); Basic Philosophical Questions; Introduction to Philosophy; Introductory Latin; Intermediate Latin.

"Speech, Truth, Power," on Culturico, August 15th, 2020:

"Disciplining the Individual," on Arc Digital, March 29th, 2019

"Identity with the Good," on Arc Digital, January 6th, 2019

"Truth, Trump, Tyranny: Plato and the Sophists in an Era of ‘Alternative Facts'," in Trump and Political Philosophy: Leadership, Statesmanship, and Tyranny, Palgrave-MacMillan (2018), 17-32.

"Liberalism Can Succeed," on Quillette, February 20th, 2018

"Has Liberalism Failed?," on Quillette, February 13th, 2018

"Premodernism of the Future," on Quillette, December 7th, 2017

"The Impasse between Modernism and Postmodernism," on Quillette, December 7th, 2017

"The Implosion of Western Liberalism," on Quillette, November 5th, 2017

"Platonism of the Future," in S.Ph: Essays and Explorations. November, 2017. "The Ever Expanding Issue."

"The Google Memo: The Economist on Nothing," on Quillette, August 31st, 2017.

"Freedom of Speech," on The Odessa Review, May 1st, 2017.

"Leaving Plato's Cave," in Teaching Plato (American Association of Philosophy Teachers [AAPT] Studies in Pedagogy, v.2), 2016, 91-113.

"Truth in the Age of Trump," on 3 Quarks Daily, November 7th, 2016.

"Performing Plato's Forms," in Resemblance and Reality in Greek Thought: Essays in Honor of Peter Smith, Routledge (2016), 211-36.

"Avatars of Oneself," in S.Ph: Essays and Explorations. Vol. 1. Issue 1 (Spring-Summer 2016).

"Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy", 2nd Edition, co-edited with C.D.C. Reeve, Indianapolis:Hackett (2015).

"Finding Oneself with Friends," in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Ronald Polansky. Cambridge / New York: Cambridge University Press (2014), 319-49.

 

"Monstrous Maturity on Mulholland Drive," in Mulholland Drive (Philosophers on Film), ed. Zina Giannopoulou. Routledge (2013), 97-120.

"Love's ladder's God," on The Immanent Frame, April 5th, 2012

Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy. (London: Continuum, 2011).

"Greek Philosophical Dualism," in Armin Lange et al., eds., Light against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World. (Göttingen / Oakville, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 107-44.

"Crosswise Christ," on The Immanent Frame, November-December 2010.

"Psychoanalysis as Spirituality," symplokē Vol. 18 Nos. 1-2 (2010), 191-206.

"Immanent Spirituality," Philosophy Today 54 (SPEP Supplement, 2010), 74-83.

"Socrates' Irrational Rationality," about Socrates and The Irrational, James S. Hans, Charlottesville, VA: The University of Virginia Press, 2006. symplokē (2008) v.16, n.1-2, 299-303.

"Oedipus Rex Revisited," in Modern Psychoanalysis v.31, n.2 (Summer 2007), 229-50.

Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, co-edited with C.D.C. Reeve. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006).

PODCAST:
Dr. Miller was the host of the Living Wisdom podcast, which organized an introduction to philosophy around the Netflix series Black Mirror. The podcast can be found on the following platforms:

Twitter
YouTube
Apple
Spotify

 INTERVIEWS:
"Patrick Lee Miller on Platonism, Liberalism, and Free Speech" an interview with James Kierstead of the Ancient and Modern podcast (E5).

"Twilight of Democracy, a conversation with philosopher Patrick Lee Miller about Anne Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (2020)," Likeville Podcast, November 26th, 2021 (E120)

"Working Toward Wisdom, with Patrick Lee Miller," an interview with Benjamin Boyce of The Boyce of Reason, February 27th, 2021

"Patrick Lee Miller: Be Right Back and The Entire History of You," (E16) an interview with Jordan Meyers of Plato's Cave, posted October 11th, 2020

"Has Liberalism Failed?" an interview with Spencer Case of Microdigressions: a philosophy podcast, posted August 31st, 2020

"Patrick Lee Miller: The Philosophy of Black Mirror." An interview with Ricardo Lopes of The Dissenter, posted September 6th, 2019

"Arkangel." (E62) A conversation with John Faithful Hamer of Likeville, posted July 30th, 2019

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T (Find out what it means to me)," an interview with John Faithful Hamer of Likeville, posted February 1st, 2019

"Deep Life Intervention," an interview with John Faithful Hamer of Likeville, posted July 3rd, 2018

"Patrick Lee Miller: Reason and Morality from Antiquity to Postmodernism / Razão e Moralidade," an interview with Ricardo Lopes, posted March 7th, 2018

"Truth, Power, Character with Patrick Lee Miller," an interview by Benjamin Boyce, posted November 29th, 2017

"Is Postmodernism the New Sophistry?", an interview by Benjamin Boyce, posted November 26th, 2017

Life, Death & Reincarnation: Episode 4: Reincarnation Decoded,(speaking at 22:59-26:17, 48:09-48:30). Aired in France, Poland, Russia, China, Thailand, Hong Kong and India.Trailer (Speaking at 1:45) 2014

TALKS:
"Democracy is Good," November 2nd, 2020

"Philosophy and the University" (September 18th, 2015)

"Avatars of Oneself" (January 23rd, 2015)

"Monstrous Maturity on Mulholland Drive" (September 7th, 2012)