She graduated from Oxford University, and Harvard University, with a Ph.D.She was a Fellow and Tutor at St Hugh's College, Oxford for 15 years and taught for a shorter time at Columbia University. She specializes in almost every facet of ancient Greek philosophy, including Ethics, Psychology and Epistemology.Her current research interests are in Platonic ethics. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the founder and former editor of the annual journal, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. She is married to the noted Hume scholar, David Owen, also a professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.

Books

• Plato: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003).
• Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000).
• Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader (Oxford, 2000).
• Platonic Ethics, Old and New (Cornell, 1999).
• (reprint 1995, ISBN 9780195096521)
• Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (California, 1992).
• The Modes of Scepticism (Cambridge, 1985), with Jonathan Barnes.
• An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1981).

Translations

• Plato, Statesman (Cambridge, 1995), with Robin Waterfield.
• Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge, 1994), with Jonathan Barnes.
• Aristotle, Aristotle's Metaphysics Books M and N (Oxford, 1976).

Recent articles

• "What are Plato’s “Middle” Dialogues in the Middle Of?" (Harvard University Press, 2002)
• "Democritus and Eudaimonism" (Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alex Mourelatos, edited by Victor Caston and Daniel Graham, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2002)
• "Aristotle and Kant on Morality and Practical Reasoning" (Aristotle, Kant & The Stoics,ed. S. Ergstrom and J. Whiting, Cambridge 1996)
• "Virtue and Eudaimonism" (Virtue and Vice, ed. E. Paul, J. Jaul and F. Miller, Cambridge, 1998)
• "Prudence and Morality in Ancient and Modern Ethics" (Ethics, January 1995)
• "Epicurus on Agency" (Passions and Perceptions, Cambridge, 1993)
• "The Good Life and the Good Lives of Others" (The Good Life and the Human Good, Cambridge, 1992)
• "Plato the Sceptic" (Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supp. Vol., 1992).