May Sim
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy

May Sim received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. Her dissertation, Aristotle’s Understanding of Form and Universals, was directed by Alasdair C. MacIntyre. She is the contributing editor of The Crossroads of Norm and Nature: Essays on Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics (1995) and From Puzzles to Principles?: Essays on Aristotle’s Dialectic (1999). Her most recent book, Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius, Cambridge University Press (2007), is a comparison of the ethical life in Aristotle and Confucius. Her most recent research projects include “Being and Unity in the Metaphysics and Ethics of Aristotle and Liezi,” “Knowledge of the First Principles of Virtue in Zhu Xi and Aristotle,” and “Rethinking Virtue Ethics and Social Justice with Aristotle and Confucius.” She was the President of the Southwestern Philosophical Society (2006) and is the interim director of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy.

Research Interests: Ancient Philosophy (especially Aristotle), Asian Philosophy (especially Confucius), ethics, metaphysics and human rights.

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Selected Publications

“Aristotle in the Reconstruction of Confucian Ethics,” International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XLI, no. 4 Issue 164 (December 2001) pp. 453-468.

“Ritual and Realism in Early Chinese Science,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, no. 4, Vol. 29, (December 2002) pp. 501-523.

“The Moral Self in Confucius and Aristotle,” International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 43, no. 4, Issue 172 (December 2003) pp. 439-462.

“Harmony and the Mean in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Zhongyong,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2004) pp. 253-280.

“Categories and Commensurability in Confucius and Aristotle: A Response to MacIntyre,” in Categories: Historical and Systematic Essays, M. Gorman and J. Sanford, eds. Catholic University of America Press (2004) pp. 58-77.

“A Confucian Approach to Human Rights,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, Volume 21, Number 4 (October 2004) pp. 337-356.

“Virtue Oriented Politics: Confucius and Aristotle,” in Aristotle’s Politics Today, Lenn E. Goodman and Robert Talisse, eds. SUNY Press (2007) pp. 53-75.

“Is the Liezi an Encheiridion?” in Riding the Wind: New Essays on the Daoist Classic Liezi, Ronnie Littlejohn, ed. SUNY Press (forthcoming 2008).

“Dewey and Confucius: On Moral Education,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy: Special Issue on Comparative Developments in Chinese and American Philosophy (forthcoming)

Spring 2009 Courses

Introduction to Philosophy (110)
MWF 11:00-1150 a.m. & 2:00- 2:50 p.m.

Ancient Philosophy (225-01)
MWF 1:00-1:50 p.m.


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