Department of Philosophy
Directory
Abigail Breuker
| Title: | Assistant Professor | 
                                 
| Department: | Philosophy McCausland College of Arts and Sciences  | 
                                 
| Email: | abreuker@mailbox.sc.edu | 
| Office: | Close-Hipp 520 | 

About Me
                              
                              I am originally from Atlanta, Georgia, where I also completed my undergraduate degrees in Classics and Philosophy at Agnes Scott College. I then moved to New York, where I completed my graduate work at Columbia University. I have presented work at conferences in New York, Georgia, Oklahoma, Croatia, and the Netherlands.
Education
                              
                              PhD in Classical Studies, Columbia University, 2025
BA in Philosophy and Classics, Agnes Scott College, 2020
Research Interests
My interests lie in the field of Ancient Philosophy, and in particular in the works
                                    of Plato. I work primarily on Platonic epistemology and ethics. Motivated by the desire
                                    to understand how we help one another learn, my dissertation project centered on identifying
                                    the characteristics Plato attributes to epistemically productive conversations. This
                                    work, centered on the Meno's "dialectical requirement," involves analyzing the norms
                                    of dialectic offered by Plato, and seeks to understand how both the characters of
                                    interlocutors and the methods they use contribute to productive dialogue. I am also
                                    working on examining the reception of these Platonic norms of dialectic in Aristotle’s
                                    Topics and how they might be applied in contemporary virtue epistemology.
I am also interested in expanding my work on Plato's norms of dialectic to consider
                                    how such norms might help address problems in the philosophy of disagreement and in
                                    particular instances of deep disagreement.
Publications
- “Centering Mercy: What Seneca’s De Clementia means for Institutional Justice,” proceedings from the Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in the Reception of the Ancient World. 2025.