Dustin Sebell

Dustin  Sebell
  • Associate Professor
  • Political Thought
  • Department of Political Science
  • 308 S. Kedzie Hall
  • 368 Farm Lane
  • East Lansing MI 48823
  • 517-353-3285

BIOGRAPHY

Dustin Sebell is Associate Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, where he studies and teaches the history of political philosophy. He is Director of the LeFrak Forum and the Symposium on Science, Reason, and Modern Democracy, as well as Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval Academy’s Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. He was the Class of 1962 Resident Fellow at the U.S. Naval Academy’s Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership from 2022-23, and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Government at Harvard University from 2014-15. 

His first book, The Socratic Turn: Knowledge of Good and Evil in an Age of Science, was published in 2016 by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and won the Delba Winthrop Award for Excellence in Political Science. His second book, Xenophon’s Socratic Education: Reason, Religion, and the Limits of Politics, was published in 2021, also by the University of Pennsylvania Press. His writing on ancient and modern political philosophy has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Political Science Reviewer, and the Review of Politics.


CURRICULUM VITAE

Dustin Sebell

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

“A Critique of Hume’s Critique of Religion in the ‘Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.’” Hume Studies (forthcoming)

Xenophon’s Socratic Education: Reason, Religion, and the Limits of Politics. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021

The Socratic Turn: Knowledge of Good and Evil in an Age of Science. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016

“Ancient versus Modern Philosophy: The Socratic Refutations and the Napoleonic Strategy in Leo Strauss’s ‘Restatement.’” Political Science Reviewer 45 (2), 2021, 355-388

 “The Problem of Political Science: Political Relevance and Scientific Rigor in Aristotle’s ‘Philosophy of Human Affairs.’” American Journal of Political Science 60 (1), 2016, 85-96

Review of Laurence Lampert, How Socrates Became Socrates: A Study of Plato’s ‘Phaedo,’ ‘Parmenides,’ and ‘Symposium’ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021). Review of Politics 84 (2), 2022, 276-278