Julia Elizabeth Annas (born 1946[1]) is a British philosopher who has taught in the United States for the last quarter-century. She is Regents Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Arizona.[2]
Education and career
Annas graduated from Oxford University in 1968 with a B.A. and from Harvard University with an A.M. (1970) and a Ph.D. (1972).[3] She was a Fellow and Tutor at St Hugh's College, Oxford for fifteen years before joining the faculty at the University of Arizona in 1986, where she taught until her retirement, apart from one year as a professor at Columbia University.
She specializes in the study of ancient Greek philosophy, including ethics, psychology, and epistemology. She is the founder and former editor of the annual journal Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.[4] She is married to Hume scholar David Owen, also a professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.
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)
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. 119โ143).