Faculty

Hugh benson

Hugh Benson Professor and Department Chair
Ph.D., Michigan
Research areas: Ancient Philosophy, Epistemology

628 Dale Hall Tower
(405) 325-6324
hbenson@ou.edu
office hours

My teaching and research focus on Ancient Greek Philosophy, primarily the epistemological and metaphysical views of Plato and Aristotle. I am still working on a book length project, tentatively entitled: Clitophon’s Challenge:  Platonic Dialectic & The Philosophical Method of Plato's Classical Dialogues. I maintain that the method for acquiring robust ethical knowledge that Plato endorses in such dialogues as the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic is importantly different than the method endorsed in Plato’s so-called elenctic dialogues. My current project is to carefully display the differences and to explain their motivations.

My work on Aristotle has focused most recently on his method of philosophical inquiry.  Indeed, I have dreams of a similar book length project devoted to Aristotle should I ever complete my Plato project.

In general my approach to Ancient Greek philosophy is to assume that the philosophers of this period have something interesting and useful to say, but not to assume that to do so they must be saying something that we would find readily acceptable.

Recent Courses:

Philosophy 3313 Ancient Greek Philosophy
Philosophy 5313 Plato
Philosophy 6313 Republic V-VII
Philosophy 5313 Aristotle
Philosophy 6313 Aristotle's 'Organon'
Philosophy 6313 Platonic Dialectic

Selected awards:

  • American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1991-1992 (American Council of Learned Societies)
  • College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Advising Award, 1991 (University of Oklahoma)
  • Howard Foundation Fellowship, 1994-1995
  • Samuel Roberts Noble Presidential Professor, 2000-2004 (University of Oklahoma)
  • President's Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Program: Outstanding Faculty Mentor 2003 (University of Oklahoma)

Selected publications:

Click here for full CV (.doc)

“Socratic Method” to appear in Cambridge Companion to Socrates, ed. D. Morrison. (.pdf)

“Dialectic in the Republic: The Divided Line 510b-511d” to appear in Cambridge Critical Guide to the Republic, ed. M. McPherran. (.pdf)

“Collection and Division in the Philebus” to appear in Proceedings of the VIII Symposium of the International Plato Society on the Philebus, ed. John Dillon & Luc Brisson. (.pdf)

“Knowledge, Virtue, and Method in Republic 471c-502c” in Philosophical Inquiry (Festschrift for Santas) (2008), pp.1-28. (.pdf)

Blackwell Companion to Plato. Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

“Plato’s Method of Dialectic” in Blackwell Companion to Plato, ed. Hugh Benson (2006), pp. 85-100. (.pdf)

“Plato’s Rationalistic Method” in Blackwell Companion to Rationalism, ed. Alan Nelson (2005), pp. 85-99. (.pdf)

“The Method of Hypothesis in the Meno” Proceedings of BACAP 18, 2003, pp. 95-126. (.pdf)

Socratic Wisdom: The Model of Knowledge in Plato's Early Dialogues. Oxford University Press, 2000.

"The Dissolution of the Problem of the Elenchos" Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13, 1995, pp. 45-112.

Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates. Oxford University Press, 1992.

"The Priority of Definition and the Socratic Elenchos." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 8, 1990, pp. 19-65. Reprinted in Socrates and his Contemporaries, ed. T. H. Irwin (Garland Publishing). Also reprinted in Socrates, ed. W. Prior (Routledge, 1996).

Work in progress:

“Meno’s Paradox” for the tentatively titled Philosophy in Antiquity, ed. Nicholas White, Oxford University Press. (.pdf)

Clitophon’s Challenge:  Platonic Dialectic & The Philosophical Method in Plato’s Classical Dialogues (Ch. 1 draft .pdf) (Ch. 2 draft .pdf)

“The Problem is not Mathematics, but Mathematicians.” (.pdf)