Jessica Moss

Jessica Moss is Professor of Philosophy. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University (2004). Her primary area of research is ancient philosophy, especially epistemology, ethics, and psychology. She is the author of Aristotle on the Apparent Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire (Oxford, 2012), Plato's Epistemology: Being and Seeming (Oxford, 2021), and numerous articles. Moss has previously held positions at the University of Pittsburgh and at Balliol College, Oxford. She is also the coordinator of the philosophy department’s outreach program.

• "Aristotle on Knowledge and the Knowable," forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.
• “Knowledge before belief in the history of philosophy,” commentary on Phillips et al. “Knowledge before belief," Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021
  
• “Thought and Imagination: Aristotle’s Dual Process Psychology of Action, (PDF)” forthcoming in C. Cohoe ed., De Anima: A Critical Guide (Cambridge)

• "Plato's Doxa, (PDF)" forthcoming in Analytic Philosophy
•  "Is Plato's Epistemology About Knowledge? (PDF)", in What the Ancients Offer to Contemporary Epistemology, S. Hetherington and N. Smith eds, Routledge, 2020
• “The Birth of Belief, (PDF)" co-authored with Whitney Schwab, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2019
• “Knowledge and Measure in Plato’s Philebus,(PDF)" in P. Dimas, R. Jones, and G.R. Lear eds., Plato’s Philebus: A Philosophical Discussion, Oxford, 2019
  
• “Against Bare Urges and Good-Independent Desires: Appetites in Republic IV,(PDF)" Proceedings of the Keeling Colloquium, forthcoming
  
• “Aristotle’s Ethical Psychology: the Role of Reason in Virtue and Happiness,(PDF)" The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics, 2017
  
• “Plato's Appearance/Assent Account of Belief,(PDF)" Proceedings of the Aristotleian Society 114, 2014
• “Right Reason in Plato and Aristotle: on the Meaning of Logos,(PDF)" Phronesis 59, 2014
• “Was Aristotle a Humean?” in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Ethics, R. Polansky ed., CUP, 2014
• “Hedonism and the Divided Soul in Plato’s Protagoras,(PDF)" Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 96, 2014
• “Art and Ethical Perspective: Notes on the Kalon in Plato’s Laws,” in Plato on Art and Beauty, A. Denham ed., Palgrave-McMillan, 2012
• “Soul-Leading: The Unity of the Phaedrus, Again,(PDF)” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 43, 2012
• “‘Virtue Makes the Goal Right’: Virtue and Phronesis in Aristotle’s Ethics,(PDF)” Phronesis 56, 2011
• “Pictures and Passions in the Timaeus and Philebus,(PDF)” in Plato and the Divided Self, R. Barney, T. Brennan and C. Brittain eds., CUP, 2011
• “Aristotle’s non-trivial, non-insane view that we always desire things under the guise of the good,” in Desire and the Good, S. Tenenbaum ed., OUP, 2010
• “Akrasia and Perceptual Illusion,(PDF)” Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 91, 2009
• “Appearances and Calculations: Plato’s Division of the Soul,(PDF)" Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 34, 2008
• “The Doctor and the Pastry Chef: Pleasure and Persuasion in Plato’s Gorgias,(PDF)” Ancient Philosophy 27, 2007
• “What is Imitative Poetry and Why is it Bad?(PDF)” The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic, G.R.F. Ferrari ed., 2007
• “Pleasure and Illusion in Plato,(PDF)” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72, 2006
• “Shame, Pleasure and the Divided Soul,(PDF)” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29, 2005

Monday 12-1, Wednesday 1-2, no appointment necessary. Room 504 of 5 Washington Place.