« HOME

The Center

Fellowships

Workshops

Events

Digital

2004-2005 Fellows

2004-2005 Fellow Griswold

Charles Griswold

Boston University
Department of Philosophy

Charles Griswold is Professor of Philosophy and Department Chair at Boston University. Prior to 1991, he taught at Howard University, and has also held appointments as Olmsted Visiting Professor in Ethics at Yale, and Professeur invité à l'Université de Paris. His Self-knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus won the American Philosophical Association's Franklin J. Matchette Prize. His second book was an edited work, Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, and his third is Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Griswold has also published on a number of other figures, such as Hobbes, Hegel, Fichte, Gadamer; on themes such as the nature of happiness, liberalism, and perfectionism; on the American Enlightenment, including on the problem of slavery; and on the symbolism of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He has been awarded a number of grants and Fellowships, including from the NEH, the National Humanities Center, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Project Summary

Griswold's current book project, tentatively entitled "Philosophy and our Discontents: on Reconciling with Imperfection," offers a philosophical exploration of that ancient and ever pressing issue. Themes of particular importance will include embodiment (in particular, our finitude, physical vulnerability, and the vagaries of the senses and emotions); our nature as social animals (often compared unfavorably to ideals of self-sufficiency, needlessness, and rationality); and political life. Would reconciling with an imperfect world amount to Stoic resignation, reasoned acceptance, joyful affirmation, or some combination thereof? The book will attempt to offer an answer. Griswold expects to have finished his book by August 2005.