Matthew Walker (B.A. Amherst College; Ph.D. Yale) is the 2008-2009 Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Ethics of Virtue at the University of Miami. His areas of specialization include ancient philosophy (especially Aristotle) and ethical theory (particularly issues concerning virtue and well-being). His current work examines Aristotle’s account of the human good, and especially his views on the value of contemplation, against the background of Aristotle’s biological naturalism.

 Walker has received Sterling P. Lamprecht and Forris Jewett Moore Fellowships in Philosophy from Amherst College, as well as Yale’s Jacob Cooper Prize in Ancient Greek Philosophy. In 2008, he attended “Traditions into Dialogue: Confucianism and Contemporary Virtue Ethics,” an NEH Summer Seminar co-directed by Stephen Angle (Wesleyan University) and Michael Slote (University of Miami).

Work in progress:

• “Self-Knowledge and Contemplation in Nicomachean Ethics VIII-X: Reflections of Plato’s Alcibiades”
• “The Utility of Contemplation in Aristotle’s Protrepticus”
• “Aristotle on Activity ‘According to the Best and Most Final’ Virtue”
• “Thumos and Self-Maintenance in Aristotle”
• “Human Mirrors and Intrinsic Concern in Aristotle”
• “Sôphrosunê, Self-Knowledge, and Aristotelian Virtue”
• “Structured Inclusivism about Human Flourishing: An Early Confucian Formulation”
• “The Kantian Objection to Virtue-Conditional Benefit”

Phone : 305-284-4757 Fax : 305-284-5594
Office : Ashe Bldg., Room 712
E-mail : mwalker@mail.as.miami.edu