If the stereotypical philosophy professor is a dry academic lost in a fog of footnotes, David Roochnik is the antidote. As a Professor of Philosophy and the Maria Stata Professor of Classical Greek Studies at Boston University, he has built a career on the radical idea that ancient Greek thought is actually relevant to your life.

Roochnik doesn’t just teach the Classics; he “retrieves” them. He operates under the assumption that the Greeks were asking the same terrifying questions we are today: What is a good life? What is justice? Why do we keep making the same mistakes?

The Anti-Specialist

In an academic world that rewards knowing “more and more about less and less,” Roochnik is a rare generalist. He moves effortlessly between the technicalities of Greek grammar and the messy realities of modern politics and art.

His teaching style—famously captured in his popular Great Courses lectures—is defined by a certain New York energy. He speaks with the cadence of someone trying to explain a very important secret. He treats the Republic or the Iliad not as museum pieces to be admired from afar, but as “protreptic” texts—books designed to turn your soul around and force you to think.

The Techne Debate

One of Roochnik’s most significant intellectual contributions is his exploration of Techne (technical knowledge or craft) versus Phronesis (practical wisdom).

In books like Of Art and Wisdom, he explores a tension that haunts our modern world: the belief that everything can be solved with a “technical” fix or an algorithm. Roochnik argues, through the Greeks, that the most important human questions cannot be solved by a “craft” or a set of instructions. You can have a techne for building a bridge, but there is no techne for being a good friend or a wise leader. He warns us against the “tyranny of the experts” who try to treat human life like a math problem.

The Tragedy of Reason

Unlike some scholars who try to make the Greeks look perfectly rational and “clean,” Roochnik leans into their messiness. He is deeply interested in the relationship between philosophy and tragedy.

He suggests that Plato’s dialogues are themselves a form of drama. He points out that Socrates usually “fails” to reach a final definition of virtue or justice in the early dialogues. For Roochnik, this isn’t a failure of logic; it’s an honest admission of the human condition. He teaches that philosophy isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about the " erotic" (desiring) pursuit of a wisdom that always stays slightly out of reach.

The Legacy of the Classroom

Ultimately, David Roochnik’s greatest “work” is perhaps the thousands of students he has convinced to care about dead Athenians. He belongs to a tradition of “Teacher-Scholars” who believe that philosophy is a public service.

He reminds us that “The Ancients” aren’t behind us; they are ahead of us, waiting for us to catch up to the insights they had 2,500 years ago. He is the man who makes you realize that when you are arguing with your spouse about what is " fair," you are actually having a Platonic dialogue—you just didn’t know it yet.