David Machek



Researcher and Teacher in Philosophy
Specialist in Ancient Greaco-Roman and Early Chinese Thought





This site is no longer updated. Please visit my up-to-date site and my current research project.



Publications


A few things I've put down






The Life Worth Living in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (Monograph)


Cambridge University Press. 2023.




The account of the best life for humans - i.e. a happy or flourishing life - and what it might consist of was the central theme of ancient ethics. But what does it take to have a life that, if not happy, is at least worth living, compared with being dead or never having come into life? This question was also much discussed in antiquity, and David Machek's book reconstructs, for the first time, philosophical engagements with the question from Socrates to Plotinus. Machek's comprehensive book explores ancient views on a life worth living against a background of the pessimistic outlook on the human condition which was adopted by the Greek poets, and also shows the continuities and contrasts between the ancient perspective and modern philosophical debates about biomedical ethics and the ethics of procreation. His rich study of this relatively neglected theme offers a fresh and compelling narrative of ancient ethics.



Expert Impressions in Stoicism (with Máté Veres)


Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. 2023.




We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition.


Aristotle on How Pleasure Perfects Activity (Nicomachean Ethics x.5 1175a29-b14): The Optimising-View


Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 104 (3): 448-467. 2022.




This article offers a new interpretation of Aristotle’s ambiguous and much-discussed claim that pleasure perfects activity. This interpretation provides an alternative to the two main competing readings of this claim in the scholarship: the addition-view, which envisages the perfection conferred by pleasure as an extra perfection beyond the perfection of activity itself; and the identity-view, according to which pleasure just is the perfect activity itself. The proposed interpretation departs from both these views in rejecting their assumption that pleasure cannot perfect the activity itself, and argues that pleasure makes activity perfect by optimising the exercise of one’s capacities for that activity. Those who build or play music with pleasure do so better than those who do not delight in these activities. The basis of this interpretation is Aristotle’s little-read remarks from the following chapter, i. e. NE x.5, about how pleasure “increases” the activity.


Aristotle on the Goodness of Unhappy Lives


Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (3): 359-383. 2022.




For Aristotle, the happy life is the highest human good. But could even unhappy human lives have a grain of intrinsic goodness? Aristotle’s views about the value of the “mere living,” in contrast to the good living, have been neglected in the scholarship, despite his recurrent preoccupation with this question. Offering a close reading of a passage from Nicomachean Ethics IX.9, I argue that, for Aristotle, all human lives are intrinsically good by virtue of fully satisfying the definition, and thus function, of their biological species. On the one hand, this rudimentary goodness is independent of whether the life is lived well or badly; on the other hand, it is ultimately outweighed by the badness inflicted on life by vice or extreme pain, so that unhappy lives are, all things considered, not worth choosing.


Is the Life of a Mediocre Philosopher Better Than the Life of an Excellent Cobbler? Aristotle On the Value of Activity in Nicomachean Ethics X.4-8.


Journal of Value Inquiry 1-17. 2021.




Insofar as living well is, for Aristotle, the ultimate end of human life, and insofar as our life comprises different activities (energeiai), the key prerequisite for living well is to rank and choose different activities according to their value. The objective of this article is to identify and discuss different considerations that determine the value of an activity in Aristotle's ethics. Focusing on selected passages from Nicomachean Ethics X, I argue that the structure of an activity's value displays considerable heterogeneity. An activity can be good on account of its excellence, excellence-independent worthwhileness, as well as its continuity; these kinds of value do not necessarily entail each other, and they can even occur at each other's expense. This interpretation shifts the focus from the notion of virtue to the notion of activity, and thus opens up a fresh angle on Aristotle's: virtue or excellence is just one source of activity's value, alongside its worthwhileness and continuity.


Freunde aufgrund des Lebens: Eine aristotelische Theorie der Freundschaft zwischen Eltern und Kindern


Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 8 (1). 2021.




Summary: Friendship (philia), the optimal form of a relationship, in which the friends love and do good things for each other, is an important theme of Aristotle’s ethics. In the framework of his friendship theory, Aristotle also outlined an account of the specific friendship emerging within the relationship between parents and their children. In comparison to his general theory of friendship, which has been widely discussed both by historians of philosophy and by ethicists, has this account received little at-tention. The objective of this article is to present and interpret, but also to develop and qualify, this account of parent-child friendship in the context of Aristotle’s general friendship theory. I shall also suggest that some aspects of this theory, in particular the debtor-creditor account of filial duties, need to be reassessed. This interpretation and discussion should yield a clearer, more systematic but also more attractive and adequate Aristotelian account of the optimal parent-children relationship than the one we find in the texts of Aristotle.


Introduction (with Máté Veres)


Rhizomata 9 (2): 151-156. 2021.




Mengzi on Nourishing the Heart by Having Few Desires (7B.3)


Philosophy East and West 71 (2): 393-413. 2021.




This article reconstructs grounds for Mengzi's view that moral self-cultivation, or the process of "nourishing the heart" (yangxin 養心), depends largely on minimizing the desires of the senses. I argue that these desires are detrimental for the growth of the heart in two different ways: directly, by distorting or desensitizing the heart's moral perception, and indirectly, by depriving it of its nutrients, that is, of the exercise of moral actions.


Freunde aufgrund des Lebens


Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 8 (1). 2021.





Summary: Friendship (philia), the optimal form of a relationship, in which the friends love and do good things for each other, is an important theme of Aristotle’s ethics. In the framework of his friendship theory, Aristotle also outlined an account of the specific friendship emerging within the relationship between parents and their children. In comparison to his general theory of friendship, which has been widely discussed both by historians of philosophy and by ethicists, has this account received little at-tention. The objective of this article is to present and interpret, but also to develop and qualify, this account of parent-child friendship in the context of Aristotle’s general friendship theory. I shall also suggest that some aspects of this theory, in particular the debtor-creditor account of filial duties, need to be reassessed. This interpretation and discussion should yield a clearer, more systematic but also more attractive and adequate Aristotelian account of the optimal parent-children relationship than the one we find in the texts of Aristotle.


Aristotle on Enkratic Ignorance


Journal of the History of Philosophy 58 (4): 655-678. 2020.





In book six of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle famously argues that the excellences of the rational and nonrational parts of the soul, that is, practical wisdom and character virtue, are interdependent: "it is not possible to possess virtue in the primary sense [κυρίως] without wisdom, nor to be wise without virtue of character."1 The latter part of this claim—that it is impossible to be practically wise without character virtue—has been a particular topic of attention in the scholarship. While Aristotle does give us an explanation of why two types of nonvirtuous agents necessarily lack practical wisdom, commentators have been puzzled by the...


Carving, taming or gardening? Plutarch on emotions, reason and virtue


British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (2): 255-275. 2018.





This article attempts to provide an overview and discussion of Plutarch’s views in his Moralia about emotions and their relation to moral virtue and reason. By tracking different clusters of imagery – artisanal, zoological and botanic – that Plutarch uses in his essays to articulate the relationship between emotions and reason, it explores three philosophical perspectives on emotions: emotions of a virtuous person are likened to a well-shaped piece of material; to animals that need to be guided or reined in by their master; and to wholesome plants in a garden. Each of these imageries is used to support a different account of moral virtue: virtue as the emotional disposition to feel moderately; virtue as the obedience of emotions to the commands of reason; and virtue as the absence of bad emotions and flourishing of the good ones. This analysis enables us to weigh the influences of major philosophers on Plutarch’s account, and to elucidate his commitment on both metriopatheia and apatheia.



Stoics and Daoists on Freedom as Doing Necessary Things


Philosophy East and West 68 (1): 174-200. 2017.





Comparisons between early Chinese Daoism and ancient Greco-Roman Stoicism have recently become quite popular with scholars working in Sino-Western comparative philosophy. It has been pointed out that there are fundamental similarities between the two schools in their commitment to the ideal of "following nature" or in their views about emotional detachment. In this comparative article, I would like to suggest that these similarities are even deeper than has so far been acknowledged, and that the existing differences between the two schools, which we can grasp against this background of robust similarities, are therefore bound to be particularly pertinent with regard to our...


Curriculum Vitae


A few things I've been through





Areas of specialization

AoS: Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy & Early Chinese Philosophy

AoC: Medieval Philosophy; Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy; Normative Ethics

Employment

2016–

Lecturer, University of Berne (courses are listed below)


2019–2022

Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Ambizione, SNSF)

Department of Philosophy, University of Berne

Project “Carving up moral motivation in ancient Chinese and Graeco-Roman thought”


2016–2018

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (SNSF)

Department of Philosophy, University of Berne

Project “The Art of Feeling: A Perspective on Emotions from ancient Chinese and Graeco-Roman philosophy” (supervised by Richard King)


2009–2015

Teaching Assistant and Course Instructor

Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

Education

2015

Ph.D. East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

“Virtuosos of the Ordinary: Comparative Interpretations of Stoic and Daoist Thought”

Advisors: Prof. Vincent Shen, Prof. Brad Inwood, Dr. Curie Virág


2008

M.A. Philosophy & Classical Chinese, Charles University Prague


2006

B.A. Philosophy & Chinese, Charles University Prague

Conference Organisation

2019

Moral Psychology of Attention in Ancient Philosophy

University of Berne, 2–3 September


2017

The Good Life and the Art of Feeling: Emotions as Skills in Chinese and Greco-Roman ethics

University of Berne, 7–9 June

Teaching Experience

University of Berne

  • Methodological Seminar: Writing in Philosophy
    BA Seminar, Spring 2023 (In German)
  • The Epicurean Happiness
    MA Seminar, Fall 2022 (In German)
  • Klassiker I: Introduction to Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
    BA Introductory Lecture, Fall 2021 (In German)
  • Self-Cultivation in Ancient Greece and Early China
    MA Seminar, Fall 2021
  • The Value of Life in Ancient and Contemporary Philosophy
    BA Seminar, Spring 2021
  • Klassiker I: Introduction to Ancient Philosophy
    BA Introductory Lecture, Fall 2020 and 2019 (In German)
  • Plato’s Gorgias
    BA Seminar, Spring 2020 (In German)
  • Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
    BA Seminar, Spring 2019 (In German)
  • Akrasia in Ancient and Contemporary Thought
    BA Seminar, Spring 2018
  • Virtues and Duties in China and Greece (with R. King)
    MA Seminar, Fall 2016

University of Toronto

  • Chinese Philosophy
    BA Introductory Course, Fall 2014
  • Classical Daoism
    BA Seminar, Fall 2013
  • History of Chinese Philosophy
    BA Introductory Course, Summer 2012

Charles University in Prague

  • Freedom in Continental Philosophy
    BA Seminar, Fall 2008 (In Czech)

Service to Profession

Referee for:

Cambridge University Press

Australasian Journal of Philosophy Inquiry

Journal of the History of Philosophy

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

Philosophy East and West

Dao: Journal of Comparative Philosophy

Philosophy Compass

Journal of East Asian Philosophy

Extra Training

2022

Pilot Workshop on Movement Improvisation for University Teachers

La Manufacture, Lausanne (co-organised by EPFL and University of Neuchatel)


2021

Certification in University Didactics

University of Berne


2003–4

9-month intensive training in modern and classical Chinese

Sichuan University, Chengdu

Outreach Activities

Forth.

“Better Off Dead: Life Worth Living in Ancient Philosophy”, a popularizing piece for Psyche blog (Aeon)


2007–9

High school teacher of Philosophy, Gymnázium Jana Keplera, Prague

Languages

Native: Czech, Slovak

Excellent: English, German

Good: Modern Chinese

Reading: Classical Chinese (excellent), Classical Greek (good), French (good), Latin (fair)



david.machek@philo.unibe.ch
machekda@gmail.com
https://philpeople.org/profiles/david-machek



Looking forward to hearing from you.
Please visit my up-to-date site and check my current research project.