Julia Annas

Julia Elizabeth Annas (born 1946

She specializes in the study of ancient Greek philosophy, including ethics, psychology, and epistemology. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992^[1] and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2013.^[4] She is the founder and former editor of the annual journal Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.^[5] She is married to Hume scholar David Owen, also a professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.

She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.^[6]

Philosophical work

Julia Annas has advocated ethics based on character, building on ideas attributed to Greek philosopher Aristotle and making them relevant for contemporary moral discourse.^[7] She has argued that being virtuous involves "practical reasoning"^[8] which can be compared to the "exercising of a practical skill". Hence, she argues, rather than relating virtues to rules, principles, or an end goal, Annas says, first, people should ask how they can improve their moral "skills".^[8]

Selected publications

Books

• Virtue and Law in Plato and Beyond (Oxford, 2017)
• Intelligent Virtue (Oxford, 2011)
• Plato: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003)
• Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000)
• Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader (Oxford, 2000)
• Platonic Ethics, Old and New (Cornell, 1999)
• Annas, Julia (1993). The Morality of Happiness. Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-19-509652-1
  )
• Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (California, 1992)
• The Modes of Scepticism (Cambridge, 1985), with Jonathan Barnes
• An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1981)
• Aristotle's Metaphysics, Books M and N, translated with introduction and notes (Oxford, 1976)

Translations

• Plato, Statesman (Cambridge, 1995), with Robin Waterfield.
• Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge, 1994), with Jonathan Barnes.
• Aristotle, Aristotle's Metaphysics Books M and N (Oxford, 1976).

Articles

• "What are Plato's "Middle" Dialogues in the Middle Of?" (Harvard University Press, 2002)
• "Democritus and Eudaimonism" (Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alex Mourelatos, edited by Victor Caston and Daniel Graham, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2002)
• "Aristotle and Kant on Morality and Practical Reasoning" (Aristotle, Kant & The Stoics,ed. S. Ergstrom and J. Whiting, Cambridge 1996)
• "Virtue and Eudaimonism" (Virtue and Vice, ed. E. Paul, J. Jaul and F. Miller, Cambridge, 1998)
• "Prudence and Morality in Ancient and Modern Ethics" (Ethics, January 1995)
• "Epicurus on Agency" (Passions and Perceptions, Cambridge, 1993)
• "The Good Life and the Good Lives of Others" (The Good Life and the Human Good, Cambridge, 1992)
• "Plato the Sceptic" (Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supp. Vol., 1992).
• "Plato's Myths of Judgement" (Phronesis Vol. 27 No. 2, 1982; pp. 119–143).

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers
• Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr. Memorial Lecture in the Humanities

References