Miira Tuominen Professor

I enjoy teaching both in the form of lecturing, reading seminars with much discussion and supervising students. Much of my teaching is in the area of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy but I also teach courses on the later periods of the history of philosophy in Western Europe. As a supervisor, I have worked with PhD students having a broad variety of topics from a philosophical analysis of shame in ancient tragedies to commercialisation in the philosophy of science and a philosophical approach to performance research.

Most of my work concerns the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition in Greco-Roman antiquity and late antiquity. In addition to topics related to human knowledge and the philosophical theories of human cognitive powers, I have recently focused on individual and collaborative projects concerning the nature and moral status of non-human animals. My latest book, Living with Justice: A Philosophical Study of Porphyry’s On Abstinence (2025) focuses on a striking example of a sustained study on human relation from late antiquity (second half of the 3rd century CE). I argue that in the treatise Porphyry extends the requirements of justice not only to other animals but to all living beings including plants.

Ongoing projects

I have also continued working on the theme of ‘the intellect’ in Aristotle, especially in his philosophy of science and I am the PI of a project Receptivity of Reason: An Aristotelian Approach together with Robert Roreitner (Charles University, Prague) financed by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Recently completed projects

Recently, I was also the PI of the project On the Nature and Moral Status of Animals (2019–24 funded by the KONE foundation) that includes contributions from non-human animals in ancient archaic poetry to ancient and medieval Latin philosophical discussions on animals, Islamic philosophical and religious studies and late medieval Latin hunting manuals.

ORCID-id:

0000-0001-8633-595X

Here is a list of my most important recent publications

Monographs

– Living with Justice: A Philosophical Study of Porphyry’s On Abstinence. Baden-Baden: Karl Alber 2025 (351 pp.).

– Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle (Ancient Philosophies 6) Stocksfield/ Berkeley: Acumen/University of California Press 2009 (xii + 319 pp.).

– Apprehension and Argument: Ancient Theories of Starting Points for Knowledge (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 3) Dordrecht: Springer 2007 (xiv + 327 pp.).

– Ancient Philosophers on Principles of Knowledge and Argumentation (Reports from the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki 2001/2) (Diss, 216 pp.).

Journal Articles

– ‘Porphyry’s Account of Justice in On Abstinence’, Phronesis 69.3 (2024), 356–81.

– ‘Aristotle on the Role of the Predicables in Dialectical Disputations’ (with Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila) Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 43 (Winter 2012), 55–81.

– ‘Receptive Reason: Alexander of Aphrodisias on Material Intellect’, Phronesis 55 (2010), 170–90.

– ‘Back to Posterior Analytics II 19: Aristotle on the Knowledge of Principles’, From Inquiry to Demonstrative Knowledge: New Essays on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, J. H. Lesher (ed.) Apeiron 43.2-3 (2010), 115–43.

– ‘Heaps, Experience, and Method: On the Sorites Argument in Ancient Medicine’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 24.2 (2007), 109–25.

A selection of book chapters

– ‘Comment on Eyjólfur K. Emilsson on Plotinus on Idealism’, in Thomas K. Johansen and Franco Trivigno (eds.) (forthcoming).

– ‘Pseudo-Simplicius on Perceptual Self-Awareness’, in Attila Hangai (ed.), The Reception of Aristotle’s De anima 3.2 (in process).

– ‘Induction and Acquisition of Universals in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics 2.19’, in Henrik Lagerlund and Mika Perälä (eds.), Induction in Aristotle (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press).

– ‘Aristotle on Animal Intelligence: Difference in Degree or by Analogy?’, in Peter Adamson and Miira Tuominen (eds.), Animals in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2025), 30-58.

– ‘Introduction’, with Peter Adamson, in Adamson and Tuominen (eds.), Animals in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2025), 1-5.

– Chapter ‘Psychology of Happiness in Ancient Greek and Roman Ethics’, in Virpi Mäkinen and Simo Knuuttila (eds.), Moral Psychology in History: From the Ancient to Early Moden Period (Cham: Springer, 2024), 177-196.

– ‘Hylomorphism in the Commentaries? Perception in Philoponus and Pseudo-Simplicius’, in David Charles (ed.), The History of Hylomorphism: From Aristotle to Descartes (Oxford University Press 2023), 255–79.

– ‘Femininity in Porphyry’s On Abstinence’, in Jana Schultz and James Wilberding (eds.), Women and the Female in Neoplatonism (Leiden: Brill 2022), 147–68.

– ‘Porphyry’s Abstinence: Actions and Omissions’, in Friedemann Buddensieck and Sebastian Odzuck (eds.), Praxis – Handeln und Handelnde in antiker Philosophie (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde). Berlin: de Gruyter 2023, 433–48.

– ‘Virtue and Happiness’, in Lloyd Gerson and James Wilberding (eds.), New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2022, 363–85.

– ’Philoponus’, in Ruth Scodel (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. New York: Oxford University Press 2020. DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0350

– ‘On Justice in Porphyry’s On abstinence’, in Peter Adamson and Christoph Rapp (eds.), State and Nature: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Berlin: de Guyter 2020, 293–316.

– ‘The Role of Laws in Porphyry’s Arguments against Animal Sacrifice’, in Saul Olyan and Jordan Goldenbaum (eds.), Animals and the Law in Antiquity. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies 2021, 121–42.

– ‘On Information in Aristotle: Nature, Perception, Knowledge’, in Chris Meyns (ed.), Information and the History of Philosophy. London: Routledge 2021, 41–58.

– ‘Reason, Experience, and the Knowledge of the Principles in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics 2.19’, in Jan-Ivar Lindén, Aristotle on Logic and Nature (Aristote: Traductions et Études). Louvain-la-neuve: Peeters 2019, 103–38.

Edited collections in English

– Peter Adamson and Miira Tuominen (eds.) (2025), Animals in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Philosophy. Leiden: Brill.

– Crystal Addey, Sophia Connell and Miira Tuominen (eds.), Animals in the Environment in Greek and Roman Philosophy (forthcoming with Roudlege).

– Øyvind Rabbås, Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, Hallvard Fossheim, and Miira Tuominen (eds.), The Quest for the Good Life: Ancient Philosophers on Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015 (viii + 307 pp.).

– Miira Tuominen, Sara Heinämaa, Virpi Mäkinen (eds.), New Perspectives to Aristotelianism and Its Critics (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 233). Leiden: Brill 2014 (viii + 221 pp.).

– Marja-Liisa Honkasalo & Miira Tuominen, Culture, Suicide and the Human Condition. New York: Berghahn Books 2014 (x + 219 pp.).

– Vesa Hirvonen & Toivo J. Holopainen & Miira Tuominen (eds.), Mind and Modality: Studies in the History of Philosophy in Honour of Simo Knuuttila (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 141). Leiden: Brill 2006 (ix + 390 pp.).