DIRECTOR’S BOOKSHELF
An Agora of Ideas
Seeger Center Director Dimitri Gondicas in conversation with
Merrick Anderson
The Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies supports Princeton graduate students and postdoctoral and visiting fellows who conduct research on Hellenic studies topics at the University. Alumni and former fellows have published hundreds of books and thousands of articles. Their scholarship reflects the broad, interdisciplinary nature of Hellenic studies, spanning fields from history to religion to literature and periods from antiquity to the present.
In the March 25, 2025, edition of Director's Bookshelf, Seeger Center Director Dimitri Gondicas speaks with Merrick Anderson, author of "Just Prospering? Plato and the Sophistic Debate about Justice," published in 2024 by Oxford University Press. Anderson earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton in 2018 and received a Stanley J. Seeger Graduate Prize. Anderson is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California.
How did this book project begin?
Part one of the book comes directly from my Princeton dissertation. To better understand Plato and his philosophy, I traced a debate about the value of justice in the pre-Platonic authors. Though I already had an interest in the topic from working with Rachel Barney (another Princeton graduate) at the University of Toronto, my research began to take form in a graduate seminar on the sophists with Christian Wildberg in the second year of my doctorate. I then worked with John Cooper, Hendrik Lorenz and Melissa Lane to develop my research skills and ideas. The completed dissertation formed the basis of the first half of "Just Prospering?" I wrote the second half, which focuses on Plato rather than the fifth century, during my postdoctoral fellowship at University College London.
Please share some highlights from your experience as a doctoral candidate at the Seeger Center.
There are many things I remember about the Seeger Center. I remember the warm welcome I received at Monday lunches in the beautiful white building just south of Nassau Street. I remember eating at Mistral and drinking Greek wine after talks sponsored by the Center. Most of all, I remember annual summer trips to Greece for classical philosophy reading groups for graduate students from Greek universities and Princeton, which the Center graciously helped to fund. Not only did the reading groups contribute to my growth as a scholar, but the trips also introduced me to Greek colleagues that I otherwise never would have met and learned from. The trips also strengthened my relationship with my fellow grad students at Princeton. Some of my most lasting and cherished memories come from those summers in Greece. I still reminisce about them with my friends from grad school.
How did participating in the Seeger Center's interdisciplinary academic community impact your work as a whole and this book project?
My work was more interdisciplinary than the projects of most of my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy. (My advisor, Hendrik Lorenz, remarked on this during my defense.) I spent hours in Firestone Library reading
about Greek athletics and medicine and then discussed my research at Monday lunches. What I said exactly, I can no longer remember. But the fact that the serious scholars who attended those lunches were willing to entertain my ideas was important. Encouragement from you, Alexander Nehamas and Joshua Billings inspired some of the confidence I needed to pursue the research that formed the basis of "Just Prospering?"
What would you like your readers to learn?
I want my readers to learn that Plato was responding to a set of existing ideas and questions when he wrote his masterpiece, “The Republic.” There is a tendency among scholars (at least those in philosophy departments) to assume that Plato was the first philosopher to ask how we ought to live and argue that the just and moral life was the best. This is not true. Plato was responding to and engaging with an existing philosophical discourse. In pointing this out, I do not mean to downplay Plato's significance. He was a towering philosophical genius. But in the debate about justice and how it is rational to live one's life, he displayed his genius by coming up with a radically new answer to an existing question rather than posing the question itself. We can take inspiration from him because he responded to the moral and political arguments of his time with a fresh perspective on the value of justice and morality. We can do the same today.
A transformative journey to Greece inspired Stanley J. Seeger to found Hellenic studies programs at Princeton. Please tell us about a journey that expanded your intellectual horizons or influenced your research.
My first visit to Princeton as a prospective student was the journey that most shaped my intellectual horizon and trajectory. It felt good. I emailed Rachel Barney to ask for advice. She told me to trust my instincts. I accepted Princeton's offer, which changed my life irrevocably – for the better!
Photo of Dimitri Gondicas by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy. Photo of Merrick Anderson by Yena Lee.
To read previous Director’s Bookshelf interviews, please visit our archive.
To learn more about books by members of the Princeton Seeger Center academic community, please visit our Publications page.