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Freya Möbus, PhD

Assistant Professor


Freya Möbus is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. She is interested in ancient Greek psychologies of human action and explanations of wrongdoing. The questions she explores are: How do our so-called non-rational mental states – our emotions, appetites, pleasures, and pains—influence our actions, especially bad ones? What kind of states are emotions, appetites, pleasures, and pains? Why do we sometimes fail to do what is right and how can we prevent future wrongdoing? Her research focuses on Socrates’ answers to these questions in Plato’s early dialogues. You can find her work at www.freyamobus.com.

Education

PhD, Cornell University

MA, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn

BA, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn

Research Interests

Socratic philosophy, Plato’s early psychology and explanation of human action

Published articles

  • Socrates on Cookery and Rhetoric. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. forthcoming.
    Socrates believes that living well is primarily an intellectual undertaking: we live well if we think correctly. To intellectualists, one might think, the body and activities related to it are of little interest. Yet Socrates has much to say about food, eating, and cookery. This paper examines Socrates’ criticism of ‘feeding on opson’ (opsophagia) in Xenophon’s Memorabilia and of opson cookery (op…Read more
  • Division and Animal Sacrifice in Plato’s Statesman. Archai: Revista de Estudos Sobre as Origens Do Pensamento Ocidental. forthcoming. With Justin Vlasits.
    In the Statesman (287c3-5), Plato proposes that the philosophical divider should divide analogously to how the butcher divides a sacrificial animal. According to the common interpretation, the example of animal sacrifice illustrates that we should “cut off limbs” (kata mele), that is, divide non-dichotomously into functional parts of a living whole. We argue that this interpretation is historicall…Read more
  • Socratic Motivational Intellectualism. In Russell E. Jones, Ravi Sharma & Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Socrates, Bloomsbury Handbooks. pp. 205-228. 2024.
    Socrates’ view about human motivation in Plato’s early dialogues has often been called ‘intellectualist’ because, in his account, the motivation for any given intentional action is tied to the intellect, specifically to beliefs. Socratic motivational intellectualism is the view that we always do what we believe is the best (most beneficial) thing we can do for ourselves, given all available option…Read more
  • Socratic Leadership. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 36 (2): 263-281. 2023.
    What makes a good leader? This paper takes Socrates in Plato’s early dialogues as the starting point for developing three leadership skills that are still relevant today: being on a mission, thinking in questions, and thinking like a beginner. I arrive at these Socratic leadership skills through an interdisciplinary approach to Plato’s early dialogues that puts Socrates in conversation with a dive…Read more
  • Can Flogging Make Us Less Ignorant? Ancient Philosophy 43 (1): 51-68. 2023.
    In the Gorgias, Socrates claims that painful bodily punishment like flogging can improve certain wrongdoers. I argue that we can take Socrates’ endorsement seriously, even on the standard interpretation of Socratic motivational intellectualism, according to which there are no non-rational desires. I propose that flogging can epistemically improve certain wrongdoers by communicating that wrongdoing…Read more
  • Why do itches itch? Bodily Pain in the Socratic Theory of Motivation. In Laura Candiotto & Olivier Renaut (eds.), Emotions in Plato, Brill. 2020.
    Imagine that Socrates gets a cavity treatment. The drilling is painful, but he also knows that it is best to get it done and so he stays. Callicles is not so smart. Once the dentist starts drilling, Callicles takes off. I argue that this scenario presents a puzzle that interpreters have missed, namely: why does Socrates have an aversion to pain? To us, this might not be puzzling at all. Socrates, …Read more

Book reviews

  • In this book review, I discuss Smith’s new interpretation of Socrates' epistemology of virtue, according to which (a) Socratic virtue knowledge is craft knowledge (knowing how to live well), and such knowledge comes in degrees; and (b) Socrates has a certain degree of virtue knowledge, and one does not have to be an inerrant expert to have any virtue knowledge at all. I argue that Smith succeeds i…Read more

Opinions

  • Despite some excellent resources on this topic, the parts of our syllabi devoted to inclusion and accessibility remain somewhat, well, exclusive and inaccessible.
  • Tidying Up With Socrates. Philosophy Now 133 40-40. 2019.
    Let me present to you the ultimate life-coaching team: Marie Kondo and Socrates. Marie Kondo, the modern Japanese consultant devoted to uncluttering our households; Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher devoted to uncluttering our minds. If we open ourselves to their methods of tidying up, we will live a happier life, they promise.