Department of Philosophy

Richard Bett specializes in ancient Greek philosophy, with a particular focus on ethics and epistemology. He also has interests in modern ethics and epistemology, as well as a significant side-interest in Nietzsche. He is the author of Pyrrho, his Antecedents and his Legacy (Oxford, 2000), and of translations of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Ethicists (Oxford, 1997, with introduction and commentary), Against the Logicians (Cambridge, 2005, with introduction and notes), and Against the Physicists (Cambridge, 2012, with introduction and notes); for information on the latest of these, click here for the UK and here for the US publication. He is also the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism (2010). In addition, he has published articles in Phronesis, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Apeiron (of which he is an Editorial Board member), and elsewhere. His publications have been especially on ancient Greek skepticism (sometimes including comparisons with modern approaches to skepticism), but also include papers on the Stoics, Socrates, Plato, the Sophists, and Nietzsche. He spent 1994–95 as a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC.  From January 2000 to June 2001, he was acting executive director of The American Philosophical Association, and since 2003 he has been secretary-treasurer of its Eastern Division.