Brennan McDavid

Brennan McDavid will join the Hamilton School as Assistant Professor of Humanities in January 2027. She comes to UF from Chapman University, where she has been Assistant Professor in the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy since 2020. Earlier she was the Seymour Reader in Ancient History and Philosophy at Ormond College, University of Melbourne. McDavid works in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, with particular interests in ethics, epistemology, and political economy, and in the conversation between classical thought and the early modern tradition. This work focuses primarily on Plato, Aristotle, and Adam Smith. She is the author of Nature and Nurture in Plato’s Noble Lie, under contract with Cambridge University Press in the Elements in Ancient Philosophy series, and her articles have appeared in Ancient Philosophy, Classical Quarterly, Journal of the History of Philosophy, History of Political Economy, Plato Journal, and Polis. Her work also engages questions about trust attitudes and artificial intelligence. In collaboration with professors in economics, she is exploring human relationships with AI through experimental studies.

Current Project

McDavid’s primary current project is a book manuscript, Producing the Good: Plato’s Political Economy, which is her sole focus during a summer 2026 fellowship at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. The book argues that Plato’s political theory rests on economic insights: the economic insights articulated in the Republic Book 2 account of the so-called “City of Pigs” are explanatory of the conclusions reached in the wider political theory of the dialogue. She is also lead principal investigator, with Erik Kimbrough (economist, Chapman University), of The Habits of Discourse, a project on civil discourse in private higher education supported by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. In addition, she is editing a special journal issue gathering the proceedings of the West Coast Plato Workshop, which she hosted at Chapman University in May 2026 on Books 8 and 9 of the Republic.

Education

• Ph.D. in Philosophy, Princeton University, 2015
• M.A. in Classical Philology, University of Arizona, 2010
• B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science, Vanderbilt University, 2007

Publications - Articles

“Prison-Breaking from Plato’s Cave,” Classical Quarterly (2025)

“The Psychology of Money in Plato’s Republic,” History of Political Economy (2025)

“Φύσις in Plato’s Republic,” Ancient Philosophy (2024)

“Plato’s Market Optimism,” Polis (2022)

“On Why the City of Pigs and Clocks Are Not Just,” Journal of the History of Philosophy (2019)