Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
One of the leading series on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy presents outstanding new work in the field. The volumes feature original essays on a wide range of themes and problems in all periods of ancient philosophy, from its earliest beginnings to the threshold of the middle ages. It is anonymously peer-reviewed and appears twice a year.
The series was founded in 1983, and in 2016 published its 50th volume. The series format was chosen so that it might include essays of more substantial length than is customarily allowed in journals, as well as critical essays on books of distinctive importance. Past editors include Julia Annas, Christopher Taylor, David Sedley, Brad Inwood, and Victor Caston. The current editor, as of July 2022, is Rachana Kamtekar.

Submissions to Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy should be sent to osap@cornell.edu:
  1. Authors should remove all identifying information from their manuscript prior to submission. OSAPs review process is triple blind: the editor does not know the author’s identity until after she makes her editorial decision; reviewers and authors do not know each other’s identity (unless they wish to disclose this to one another after the review process is complete). Email correspondence is monitored by an editorial assistant.
  2. The contribution should be sent in PDF, on double-spaced A4 or 8½ × 11 pages, and with minimum 1¼ or 32 mm margins, along with a word count (separately indicating main body and footnotes). Unsolicited revisions will not be accepted; the submission adjudicated will be the initial one sent. If a submission is accepted for publication, then the author should prepare a final version in accordance with this document: Final preparations (PDF).
  3. Although OSAP does not impose a word limit on submissions, authors should bear in mind that appropriate economy in presentation is considerate to readers. Note that referees for OSAP volunteer their time to read manuscripts.
Editor - Rachana Kamtekar, Cornell University
Associate Editor - Francesco Ademollo, Università di Firenze and Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa
Managing Editor - Cole Mitchell, Cornell University
Image of OSAP volume LXIII



Forthcoming Volume


VOLUME LXIV
SUMMER 2023
  1. Plato’s Isolation of a Kind Being, or Why in the Sophist To Be Is Not To Be Something
    Roberto Granieri
    In the Sophist Plato singles out Being (on, ousia) as just one among the Kinds or Forms. I argue that the exploration of one main implication of Plato’s isolation of a Kind Being enables us to question aspects of an entrenched scholarly consensus about Plato’s conception of being, namely that for Plato ‘to be is always to be something’. By scrutinizing various passages from the second half of the Sophist, starting from 250a8–d3, I defend the view that when Plato metaphysically analyses ‘X is’ in terms of X’s participation in or combination with the Kind or Form of Being, he does not mean that X is something, or is itself, or is variously characterized (or similar), but that it exists.
  2. Negative Forms in Plato’s Sophist: A Re-Examination
    Samuel Meister
    Contrary to recent work on the topic, I argue that, in the Sophist, Plato’s Visitor does not posit any negative kinds or forms, such as the kind or form of the not-beautiful or not-being. My argument has a textual and a philosophical side. On the textual side, I argue that the Visitor does not posit negative kinds or forms. On the philosophical side, I argue that the Visitor does not need to posit any such entities because he can reach his goals by appeal to difference. The latter conclusion suggests that an appeal to negative kinds or forms would be gratuitous and hence weaken the Visitor’s account. The textual result implies that we need not saddle him with this unsatisfactory view. Rather, by appeal to difference, the Visitor offers a unified account of ‘is not’ claims and false speech that relies on remarkably economical ontological resources.
  3. Virtue and Contemplation in Eudemian Ethics 8.3
    Roy Lee
    Eudemian Ethics 8.3 defends a standard (horos), according to which certain actions should promote contemplation. Exactly which actions fall under the scope of the standard is contested. Commentators often limit the scope of the standard to a restricted subset of actions, but such restrictions lead to serious, previously unnoticed inconsistencies. I argue for the interpretation that all actions fall under the standard’s prescription by considering the dialectical context of the chapter, as well as the argument Aristotle gives in favor of this standard. The result is that the Eudemian account of virtue includes a further essential feature: virtue aims to promote the most contemplation. This feature should be understood coordinately alongside virtue’s other essential features and not as establishing a dominant end.
  4. How Virtuous Actions Are a Means to Contemplation
    Sukaina Hirji
    In a number of passages in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle seems to suggest that ethically virtuous actions are an instrumental means to contemplation. But, as many scholars have worried, this view appears to be both implausible on its face, and in tension with other commitments Aristotle has. The difficulty in understanding the relationship between virtuous actions and contemplation is part of a larger puzzle about the structure of value in Aristotle’s ethical theory. In this paper, I argue that virtuous actions really are ‘for the sake of’ contemplation because they instrumentally promote contemplation. Specifically, virtuous actions are for the sake of the noble or kalon insofar as they promote conditions of peace, security, and freedom from necessity, and these are precisely the conditions under which contemplation is possible. On the interpretation I defend, we find in Aristotle a sophisticated theory of value that demonstrates the possibility of being a pluralist while still maintaining that every good is hierarchically organized around some one highest good.
  5. Thought ‘From Without’
    Robert Roreitner
    Building on Aristotle’s De Anima 3. 5, the author of De Intellectu makes a striking claim that in order to think anything, we already need to think the divine ‘agent intellect’. Most interpreters saw here a paradoxical view that our very first thought is directed to God. Others identified a Neoplatonist account in the background according to which we think anything whatsoever by turning to the respective form contained in the divine Intellect. I argue that in order to understand the position developed in De Intellectu we need to see it as a novel response to traditional Peripatetic aporiai deriving from Theophrastus. The author seeks to reconcile the idea that our thinking depends on a transcendent principle with the assumption that thinking is up to us. His key move is to conceive the transcendent intellect as a self-standing act of thought which can become ours, at least to some extent. The proposed interpretation makes it easier to accept the traditional attribution of De Intellectu to Alexander of Aphrodisias, while raising, from a new angle, the question of Alexander’s potential influence on Neoplatonism.



Advisory Board


  • Professor Rachel Barney
    University of Toronto
  • Professor Gábor Betegh
    University of Cambridge
  • Professor Susanne Bobzien
    All Souls College, Oxford
  • Professor Victor Caston
    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Professor Riccardo Chiaradonna
    Università degli Studi Roma Tre
  • Professor Alan Code
    Stanford University
  • Professor Brad Inwood
    Yale University
  • Professor Gabriel Lear
    University of Chicago
  • Professor A. A. Long
    University of California, Berkeley
  • Professor Stephen Menn
    McGill University and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • Professor Susan Sauvé Meyer
    University of Pennsylvania
  • Professor Jessica Moss
    New York University
  • Professor Martha Nussbaum
    University of Chicago
  • Professor Marwan Rashed
    Université Paris-Sorbonne
  • Professor David Sedley
    University of Cambridge
  • Professor Richard Sorabji
    King’s College, University of London, and Wolfson College, Oxford
  • Professor Raphael Woolf
    King’s College, University of London



Previous Volumes


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