People

• Faculty
• Students

• Ahbel-Rappe
• Caston
• Das
• Halperin
• Janko
• Saxonhouse
• Schironi
• Shapiro
• Yau

Claudia Yau Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Classical Studies cmyau@umich.edu | personal homepage

I work in ancient Greek epistemology and related questions in ethics and politics. My primary research project focuses on wisdom (sophia) in Plato and Aristotle: what wisdom is, what sets it apart from other intellectual virtues, what it enables and obligates wise people to do, and the role of wisdom in ethics and politics. A central part of this project is a monograph on wisdom in Plato’s Republic.

I have also written on Plato’s Statesman and Aristotle’s theory of justice and have projects on the Phaedrus, Pyrrhonian skepticism and Aristotelian wisdom. Outside of ancient philosophy, I’m interested in social philosophy and Chinese philosophy.

Select Publications

Articles

• “Wisdom for the Living: Sophia in Plato’s Republic,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 63.4 (2025): 497–521.
• “Aristotle on the Unity of General Justice and Virtue,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2025). https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.70061.
• “The Myth of Cronus in Plato’s Statesman: Cosmic Rotation and Earthly Correspondence” (co-authored with Corinne Gartner), Apeiron 53.4 (2017): 437–462.

Curriculum Vitæ

Download as a PDF.

• Faculty
• Students