Professor Weiss is interested in ancient Greek philosophy—and especially in Plato. She has written books and articles on several of Plato’s dialogues, including the Crito, Meno, Protagoras, Gorgias, and Republic. Taking seriously the dramatic aspects of Plato’s dialogues as well as the arguments the dialogues contain, Weiss discovers a Plato who loves and seeks wisdom rather than one who promotes a set of fixed doctrines. She also specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy, devoting most of her attention to Maimonides and to what he might be saying between the lines. She is fascinated by the difference between the Greek, or “philosophical,” way of trying to understand the world on the one hand, and faith’s way on the other, and by their divergent approaches to moral matters.
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Books
Hasdai Crescas’s Light of the Lord (‘Or Hashem’), translation, with introduction, notes, and commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, expected 2017.
Philosophers in the ‘Republic’: Plato’s Two Paradigms. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012.
The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006; paperback, 2008.
Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato's 'Meno'. NY: Oxford University Press, 2001; also available through Oxford Scholarship Online; also in paperback, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008; also translated into Chinese and published by East China Normal University Press, Shanghai.
Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of Plato's 'Crito'. NY: Oxford University Press, 1998; also available through Oxford Scholarship Online; also in paperback, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001; also translated into Chinese and published by East China Normal University Press, Shanghai, 2011.
Articles
“God as Knower of Good and Evil,” in Festschrift for Ronna Burger, ed. Evanthia Speliotis, South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press (2018), forthcoming.
“Is the Just Man a Bad Man?” in The Platonic Mind, ed. Vasilis Politis and Peter Larsen, London: Routledge (2018), forthcoming.
“Free to Care: Socrates’ Political Engagement,” in Returning to Shadows: Essays on the Question of Motive in Plato’s Political Philosophy, ed. Paul Diduch and Michael Harding, London: Palgrave Macmillan (2018), forthcoming.
“Pity or Pardon: Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle on the Appropriate Response to Intentional Wrongdoing,” in Plato and Xenophon: Comparative Studies, ed. Gabriel Danzig, David Johnson, and Donald Morrison, Leiden: Brill (2017), forthcoming.
“Maimonides on Perfecting Perfection,” Harvard Theological Review (2017), forthcoming.
“The Hero and the Saint: Sophocles’ Antigone and Plato’s Socrates,” in Logoi and Muthoi, ed. William Wians, Albany: SUNY Press (2017), forthcoming.
“Waiting for Godo…and Godan: Completing Rowe’s Critique of the Ontological Argument,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (2017), forthcoming.
“Split Personalities in the Symposium and the Bible: Aristophanes’ Speech and the Myth of Adam and Eve,” Plato in Symposium: Selected Papers from the Tenth Symposium Platonicum, ed. Mauro Tulli and Michael Erler. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag (2016), 183-89.
“Loving One’s Enemies: The Softer Side of Esotericism,” Perspectives on Political Science 44 (2015), 187-92