Charles L. Griswold Professor of Philosophy Office: STH 624 E-mail: griswold@bu.edu Education: Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University Interests: Ancient Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy, Eighteenth-Century Philosophy

Before coming to Boston University in 1991, Charles Griswold taught at Howard University (where he served for several years as Acting Chairman of the philosophy department). He has held visiting appointments at the Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (May 2004, as Professeur invité), Yale University (1996, as Olmsted Visiting Professor) and Georgetown University. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Ancient Philosophy, Theoria, and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition, and was a member of the Advisory Council of B.U.'s Institute on Race and Social Division until the Institute closed in 2004. In 1995, he won the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Honors Program of the College of Arts and Sciences.

With the support of a Fellowship from the Stanford Humanities Center for the 2004/05 academic year, he began work on a study of perfectionist philosophical theories, and the problem of reconciliation with a non-ideal moral and political world. The first book to result examines the nature of forgiveness (including its relation to pardon, mercy, clemency, apology, pity), of sympathy (including its relation to empathy and compassion), and their political dimension (with reference to several of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions," for example). This book was published in August of 2007 by Cambridge University Press in paperback and hardback (for the table of contents, see below). A third emended printing was issued in March of 2008, and fourth printing in April of 2008. An "author meets critics" panel on the book was held at the American Philosophical Association meeting on March 20, 2008, and a conference occasioned by the book took place at the University of Oslo in April of 2008. For an exchange in Tikkun (March/April, 2008) about the book see here; for a review in the TLS (12.12.07) see here; for a review in the Times Higher Education book section (May 8, 2008), see here; and for for a review in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (6.19.08), see here. For relevant discussions with the author on various radio shows, see below.

Book in progress: Ancient Forgiveness, co-edited with David Konstan.  A collection of essays by leading scholars on the nature and scope of ancient pagan conceptions (both Greek and Roman) of forgiveness and related concepts (pardon, mercy, clemency, and the like).

Papers in progress include "Tales of the Self: Adam Smith's Reply to Rousseau" (for a conference on Smith; Balliol College, Oxford University, January 2009); "The Virtues and Vices of Anger" (a study of anger or hatred, resentment, ressentiment, and revenge--their motives, defensibility, and place (if any) in the life of a virtuous person).

A growing teaching and research interest: Rousseau (undergraduate syllabus; graduate syllabus); and the nature of narrative, its connection to the topics of the "unity of a life" and the value of a life (undergraduate syllabus).

Publications (books):

• Self-knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus. Yale University Press, 1986, 1988 (paperback), reprinted with a new Preface and Bibliography by the Pennsylvania State University Press in 1996. Awarded the Franklin J. Matchette Prize by the American Philosophical Association.
  
• Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings (ed.). Routledge, 1988, paperback and hardback; reprinted with a new Preface and Bibliography by the Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Complete Table of Contents.
  
• Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1999, simultaneous paperback and hardback publication). Chinese translation in progress. Complete Table of Contents.
  
• Forgiveness: a Philosophical Exploration.  (Cambridge University Press, 2007, simultaneous paperback and hardback publication). Complete Table of Contents.

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Other recent publications include (this is a partial list):

• “Socrates’ Political Philosophy,” in the Cambridge Companion to Socrates, ed. Don Morrison (under review).
• "Reading and Writing Plato," Philosophy and Literature 32 (2008): 205-216. Article review of R. Blondell, The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues; K. Corrigan and E. Glazov-Corrigan, Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in the Symposium; D. Hyland, Questioning Platonism: Continental Interpretations of Plato; D. Nails, The People of Plato: a Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics.
• "Plato and Forgiveness," Ancient Philosophy 27 (2007): 269-287.
• "Imagination: Morals, Science, and Arts," in The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, ed. K. Haakonssen (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 22-56.
  
• "Fair Play, Übelnehmen und der Sinn für Gerechtigkeit: Kritische Überlegungen zu Adam Smith," in Adam Smith als Moralphilosoph (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), ed. C. Fricke and H.-P. Schütt, pp. 128-159.  
  
• "Longing for the Best: Plato on Reconciliation with Imperfection," Arion 11 (2003): 101-136.
  
• "Plato on Rhetoric and Poetry," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (first published 12/03, rev. 4/07), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). On-line at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/. Approximately 13,000 words.
  
• "Philosophers in the Agora," Perspectives on Political Science 32 (2003): 203-206. Commentary on M. Lilla's The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics, with a reply by Lilla.
  
• "Comments on Kahn," in New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, ed. J. Annas and C. Rowe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 129-144. (This commentary on C. Kahn's "On Platonic Chronology," included in the same volume, is an essay length discussion of the case for any organization of Plato's works according to (presumed) dates of their composition.)
  
• "Relying on Your Own Voice: An Unsettled Rivalry of Moral Ideals in Plato's Protagoras," Review of Metaphysics 53 (1999): 283-307.
  
• "E Pluribus Unum? On the Platonic 'Corpus'," Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 361-397. An exchange about this article between the author and Charles Kahn is published in Ancient Philosophy 20 (2000): 189-197.
  
• Review article of J. Gray's Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age, Political Theory 27 (1999): 274-281.
  
• "Platonic Liberalism: Self-Perfection as a Foundation of Political Theory," in Plato and Platonism, ed. J.M. van Ophuijsen (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1999), pp. 102-134. Slightly different version published in French as "Le Libéralisme Platonicien: de la Perfection Individuelle comme Fondement d'une Théorie Politique," in Contre Platon, ed. M. Dixsaut (Paris: Vrin, 1995), 155-195.
  
• "Religion and Community: Adam Smith on the Virtues of Liberty," Journal of the History of Philosophy 35.3 (1997): 395-419.
  
• "Adam Smith on Friendship and Love," with D. Den Uyl, Review of Metaphysics 49.3 (1996): 609-637.
  
• "Nature and Philosophy: Adam Smith on Stoicism, Aesthetic Reconciliation, and Imagination," Man and World 29.2 (1996): 187-213.
  
• "Happiness, Tranquillity, and Philosophy," Critical Review 10.1 (1996): 1-32.

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Among his reprinted articles:

• "Irony in the Platonic Dialogues," Philosophy and Literature26.1 (2002): 84-106 (significantly revised from earlier versions).
• "Plato's Metaphilosophy: Why Plato Wrote Dialogues," reprinted in Plato: Critical Assessments, vol. I, ed. N. Smith (London: Routledge, 1998): 221-252. French translation, published as "La naissance et la défense de la raison dialogique chez Platon," in La naissance de la Raison en Grèce, ed. J.-F. Mattéi. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990), pp. 359-89. Also published earlier in two other collections.
  
• "Politike Episteme in Plato's Statesman," reprinted in Plato: Critical Assessments, vol. 4, ed. N. Smith (London: Routledge, 1998): 161-186.
  
• "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Mall: Philosophical Thoughts on Political Iconography," originally published in Critical Inquiry 12 (1986): 688-719. Reprinted in Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy, ed. H. Senie and S. Webster (New York: Harper/Collins, 1992), pp. 71-100; and in Art and the Public Sphere, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 79-112.

Some occasional pieces:

• "Happiness and Cypher's Choice: is Ignorance Bliss?" in The Matrix and Philosophy, vol. III of a series "Popular Culture and Philosophy," ed. W.T. Irwin. (Open Court, 2002), pp. 126-137.
  
• "Attracting Blacks to Philosophy," American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 92.1 (1993), pp. 55-59.

And in another register: a discussion about "forgiveness" on Philosophy Talk (hosted by Stanford philosophers Ken Taylor and John Perry); archived at http://www.philosophytalk.org/pastShows/Forgiveness.htm

For another discussion of forgiveness and related notions with Griswold on Australian National Radio (April 2008), see here (please scroll to the top of that page).

In addition, Griswold has written on such subjects as the American Enlightenment, and Jefferson and the problem of slavery. He has also published in such journals as The Monist, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, and the Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy; in the Times Literary Supplement; and in various edited volumes.

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Fellowships and Grants:

• Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship, 2004/05
• National Humanities Center Fellowship, 1989/90 (declined)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1986/97
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 1984
• National Endowment for the Humanities, Director, Seminar for
  Secondary School Teachers, 1985
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship, 8/1989 – 12/1990
• American Council of Learned Societies Travel Grants, 1987, 1990
• Social Philosophy and Policy Center Research Fellowship, 1991/92 (declined)
• Earhart Foundation Summer Research Fellowships, 1982, 1983; Fellowship Research Grants (sabbatical support), 1986, 1989, 1981, 1999
• Reason Foundation Summer Research Fellowship, 1979

Teaching:

• Spring 1998: contemporary virtue ethics
• 1999/2000 academic year, team-taught seminar with Glenn Loury, supported by a Templeton Foundation grant. Enlightenment political theory (Sem. I), and its applicability to contemporary social and political issues, especially relating to race and poverty (Sem. II)
• Spring 2001: moral realism
• Spring 2002: Hume's Treatise of Human Nature
• Spring 2003 and Spring 2004: senior seminar on the problem of reconciliation with imperfection (Platonic perfectionism being the point of departure)
• Spring 2006: sympathy, empathy, and their ethical relevance (readings from Hume, Smith, Rousseau, and contemporary work)
• Spring 2007: Rousseau (with some discussion of his differences with Hume and Smith)
• Fall 2007: graduate seminar on Rousseau (with contrasting texts from Hume and Smith, as well as relevant contemporary readings on such topics as social contract theory; narrative; and the emotions)
• Spring 2008: senior seminar on the notion of "narrative," and its possible usefulness in understanding the idea of the unity of one's life. Readings from Plato and Aristotle through MacIntyre, Velleman, and Goldie.

Griswold's graduate level teaching at Boston University has included courses on Plato's Statesman, Republic, Laches, Charmides, Symposium, Phaedrus, and Protagoras. With James Schmidt, he team-taught a two semester course that focused on the Scottish Enlightenment one semester, and on the French and German Enlightenments the next. He also taught a course on Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. At the introductory and mid-levels: courses in ethics, political philosophy, and the history of modern philosophy.

Griswold's recent professional service includes membership on the committees of the Stanford Humanities Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities recommending final decisions about Fellowship awards.  His recent service to Boston University includes chairing the philosophy department (term ending August 2007), and chairing the committee charged with searching for the next Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  The search concluded successfully with the appointment of Dr. Virginia Sapiro, the first woman to serve as Dean in the history of the College.  Her term begins in July of 2007.

As Department Chair at BU, Griswold secured approximately $172,500 in gifts to endow the Excellence in Philosophical Studies Fund, and helped land approximately $64,000 for other endowed departmental funds. He played a significant role in bringing a recent gift of $2,030,000 to the department; the gift will endow a fund for the support of Hellenic studies. He was also instrumental in raising funds for the Karbank Challenge (both the five year, $100,000 commitment that created the Challenge, and the matching gifts totalling $100,000).  The Challenge was declared successful in March 2007, with the total reaching $200,000.  For the Challenge see http://www.bu.edu/philo/alumni/karbank.html.  As a sponsor of Earhart Fellows since 1994/95, he has successfully nominated at least one (in some years, three) students for full funding (tuition and stipend) from the Earhart Foundation.  He has helped to secure ongoing and significant external funding for the Center for Philosophy and History of Science as well.

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Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings
Edited by Charles L. Griswold, Jr.

(Routledge, 1988, published simultaneously in paperback and hardback; reprinted in 2002 in paperback by the Pennsylvania State University Press, with a new Preface and updated Bibliography.)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction

Part I Essays

Readings

1. Reading the Republic, Diskin Clay
2. Shame and Truth in Plato's Gorgias, Richard McKim
3. On Interpreting Plato, Alan C. Bowen
4. The Theater of Myth in Plato, Jean-François Mattéi
5. Digression and Dialogue: The Seventh Letter and Plato's Literary Form, Robert S. Brumbaugh

6. Plato's Dialogues in Light of the Seventh Letter. Kenneth M. Sayre
7. Why Dialogues? Plato's Serious Play, Rosemary Desjardins
8. On Socratic Dialogue, Jürgen Mittelstrass
9. Plato's Metaphilosophy: Why Plato Wrote Dialogues, Charles L. Griswold, Jr.

Part II Dialogues

10. Liberalizing the Crito: Richard Kraut on Socrates and the State, Clifford Orwin
    • Reply to Clifford Orwin, Richard Kraut
11. Terence Irwin's Reading of Plato, David L. Roochnik
    • Reply to David L. Roochnik, Terence Irwin
12. Reading Plato: Paul Woodruff and the Hippias Major, Ronald Polansky
    • Reply to Ronald Polansky, Paul Woodruff
13. Kenneth Dorter's Interpretation of the Phaedo, Joachim Dalfen
    • Reply to Joachim Dalfen, Kenneth Dorter

Writings

14. Recollection, Dialectic, and Ontology: Kenneth M. Sayre on the Solution to a Platonic Riddle, Jon Moline
    
    • Reply to Jon Moline, Kenneth M. Sayre
    • Observations and Questions about Hans-Georg Gadamer's Interpretation of Plato, Nicholas P. White
      • Reply to Nicholas P. White, Hans-Georg Gadamer

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index of Proper Names
Notes on the Contributors

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Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment
Charles L. Griswold, Jr.

(Cambridge University Press, 1999, published simultaneously in paperback and hardback)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Texts and Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Enlightenment's Shadows
2. Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in the Work of Adam Smith
3. Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Enlightenment
4. Reading Smith: Interpretive Assumptions
5. The Unity of Smith's Thought, and the Projected Corpus

Chapter One: Rhetoric, Method, and System in The Theory of Moral Sentiments

1. The Starting Point of Ethical Inquiry
2. Rhetoric, the Protreptic "We," and the Dangers of Theory
3. Rhetoric, Examples, and Narrative
4. Criticism, Grammar, and the Theater
5. Method, System, and Conversation

1. Preliminary Orientation: Selfishness, Conflict, and Sympathy
2. Sympathy, Separateness, Self-love, and Spectatorial Imagination
3. Digression: Sympathy, Authenticity, and Social Fragmentation
4. From Love to Death: Sympathy's Reach, and the Ideal Unity
5. Spectatorship, Mirroring, and Duality of Self
6. The Pathos of Solitude and the Beauty of Sympathy

Chapter Three: The Passions, Pleasure, and the Impartial Spectator

1. The Passions, Imagination, and the Corruption of Pleasure
   • The Passions and Imagination
   • Pleasure and Pain
   • The Corruption of Pleasure: Epicurean Themes
2. The Impartial Spectator and the Love of Virtue
   • The Love of Virtue
   • The Impartial Spectator

1. Love and Philosophy in the Theatrum Mundi
2. Smith and Skepticism
3. Rhetoric and the Separation of Theory and Practice

Chapter Five: The Theory of Virtue

1. Virtuous Emotions
2. Judgment, Rules, and Moral Criticism
   • Moral Rules and Judgment: After Virtue?
   • Erroneous Conscience and Fanaticism
   • Moral Criticism
     • Conversation
     • Slavery and Infanticide as Test Cases
3. Excellences of Character: Self-command, Prudence, and Benevolence
• Self-command
• Prudence
• Benevolence
4. Moral Education
5. Virtue, the Pursuit of Happiness, and the Tranquillity of the Stoic Sage

1. Noble Resentment and Commutative Justice
2. The "Irregularity" of the Moral Sentiments, and Moral Luck
3. Justice and Philosophy
4. Distributive Justice
5. Natural Jurisprudence: Unfinished Business

Chapter Seven: the Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations

1. The "Corruption" of the Moral Sentiments and the "Deception" of the Imagination
2. Religion and the Virtues of Liberty
   • Smith's Reply to and Appropriation of the Platonic Tradition
   • The Psychology of Moderation and Fanaticism
   • Concluding Questions about Smith's Proposal
3. Moral Capital, Corruption, and Commerce
4. Imperfection and Utopianism in Politics and Political Philosophy

Chapter Eight: Philosophy, Imagination, and the Fragility of Beauty: On Reconciliation with Nature

1. The Nature of Nature
2. Living in Accordance with Nature: Smith's Critique of Stoicism
3. Natural Conflict and Humanizing Intervention
4. Smith's anti-Platonic Aesthetics: Harmony, Beauty, Purposiveness
5. Imagination, Poiesis, and Self-Empowerment
6. Philosophy and the Elusive Tranquillity of Reconciliation
7. Convention and History

Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

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Forgiveness: a Philosophical Exploration
Charles L. Griswold

(Cambridge University Press, August 2007, simultaneous paperback and hardback publication)

TABLE OF CONTENTS  

Acknowledgments
Prologue

Chapter I – Forgiveness Ancient and Modern

1. pardon, excuse, and forgiveness in ancient philosophy: the standpoint of perfection
2. Bishop Butler’s seminal analysis
• resentment
• forgiveness

Chapter II – Forgiveness at its Best

1. forgiveness,  revenge,  and resentment
2. resentment and self-respect
3. to be forgiven: changing your ways, contrition, and regret
4. forgiving: a change of heart, and seeing the offender and oneself in a new light
5. the conditions of forgiveness: objections and replies
   • atonement and the payment or dismissal of a debt
   • forgiveness as a gift and unconditional forgiveness
   • praiseworthy conditional forgiveness
6. moral monsters, shared humanity, and sympathy
• moral monsters
• shared humanity and fallibility, compassion, and pity
• sympathy
7. the unforgivable and the unforgiven
8. forgiveness, narrative, and ideals
9. forgiveness, reconciliation, and friendship

Chapter III — Imperfect Forgiveness

1. ideal and non-ideal forgiveness: an inclusive or exclusive relation?
2. third-party forgiveness
3. unilateral forgiveness: the dead and the unrepentant
• forgiving the dead
• forgiving the unrepentant
4. self-forgiveness
• for injuries to others
• for injuries to oneself
• for injuries one could not help inflicting
5. forgiveness and moral luck

Chapter IV – Political Apology, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation

1. apology and forgiveness writ large: questions and distinctions
2. political apology among the one and many
   • many to many apology: test cases
     • the University of Alabama and the legacy of slavery
     • Apology, reparations, and the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans
     • Desmond Tutu and South African churches
     • King Hussein in Israel
     • the United States Senate and the Victims of Lynching
   • one to many apology: two failures
     • Robert McNamara’s war and mea culpa
     • Richard Nixon’s resignation and pardon
3. traditional rituals of reconciliation: apology, forgiveness, or pardon?
4. apology and the unforgivable
5. apology, forgiveness, and civic reconciliation
6. a culture of apology and of forgiveness: risks and abuses
7. political apology, narrative, and ideals

Chapter V – Truth, Memory, and Civic Reconciliation without Apology

1. the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: an interpretation
2. reconciliation without apology? 

Epilogue
Bibliography

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