Rate My Professor John Partridge

John Partridge is Professor of Philosophy in the English and Philosophy Department at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. from the College of William and Mary. His main research area is ancient philosophy, with particular attention to Socrates and his depiction in Plato’s dialogues. He explores Socrates’ religious beliefs and practices, such as his divine sign or daimonion and its implications for rationality; his claim to possess an art of love and its role in pursuing truth or goodness; and the nature and value of self-knowledge. Recent interests include social epistemology and the philosophy of meaning in life. Partridge teaches a range of courses, including FYE 101 What is the Good Life?, Phil 101 Introduction to Philosophy, Phil 203 Ancient Greek Philosophy, Phil 233 Philosophy and Literature, Phil 236 Aesthetics, Phil 298 Life, Death and Meaning, and Phil 401 Epistemic Injustice.

Partridge has an extensive record of publications in scholarly journals and edited volumes. Notable works include “Affinity, Worth, and Fecundity: On Susan Wolf’s Advice for Living a Meaningful Life,” Journal of Philosophy of Life 10/1 (2020); “Feminist Encounters with Plato: Appropriation, Disinvestment, and Constructive Complicity,” Platonic Investigations 9/2 (2018); Commentary on Zina Giannopoulou, “Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus and Alcibiades I,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 30 (2015); “Socrates, Rationality, and the Daimonion,” Ancient Philosophy 28/2 (2008); “Plato’s Cave and The Matrix,” in Philosophers Explore the Matrix, ed. Christopher Grau (Oxford, 2005); and “Socratic Dialectic and the Art of Love: on Phaedrus 276e-277a,” Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999). In 2011, he received a National Endowment for the Humanities Enduring Questions grant of $25,000 to develop his first-year seminar. He has supervised senior honors theses from 2003 to 2022 across departments including Philosophy, Physics, English, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Art History; directed independent studies; and collaborated on faculty-student research projects, such as the Mars Faculty/Student Research Fellowship in 2009 with R. Carry Osborne ’11 on the feminist history of ancient philosophy and a Faculty-Student Research Grant in 2022 with Erin Bowes ’23 and Gia Orsino ’23 on meaning in life.