Bjørn Sether Wastvedt
About
My philosophical expertise lies in ancient philosophy, virtue ethics, and classical philology. However, both my teaching and writing are grounded in the liberal arts tradition, and so my interests and reading are broad.
At NTNU, I have taught Examen Philosophicum in Ålesund since 2024. Prior to this, from 2014 to 2023, my teaching focused on ancient philosophy, with courses also in epistemology, environmental ethics, political philosophy, and virtue ethics. I am particularly keen on improving the student experience through creative and technology-enabled pedagogy. I especially welcome conversations with students interested in expanding their philosophical horizons beyond the introduction provided in ex. phil.
My research focuses on Aristotle's two ethical works, the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics. For example, in the context of the former, I argue that habitual action shapes character through experiences of pleasure and pain and that thorough deliberation aims both at mundane goals set by desire and at a contemplative life of virtue. My earlier studies in mathematics and computer science occasionally incline me to digital humanities approaches to philosophical and philological issues.
Before coming to NTNU in the fall of 2024, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Universty of Lisbon. There, I wrote a journal article arguing that the Eudemian Ethics proposes a mechanical account of habituation and I conducted a modern stylometric analysis of Aristotle's ethical works, the first since Anthony Kenny's groundbreaking The Aristotelian Ethics (1978). In side projects, I argue that experiences of wilderness offer unique contributions to human well-being, that certain care ethical theories offer moral-psychological improvements to standard eudaimonism, and that Old Norse literature contains underexplored virtue-ethical ideas (in the Poetic Edda's Hávamál and the Hrafnkels saga freysgoða).
Outreach
2026
-
Academic lectureWastvedt, Bjørn Sether. (2026) Aristotle on Non-Virtuous People Doing Virtuous Things. Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy meeting at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association , Baltimore, Maryland 2026-01-06 - 2026-01-09
2025
-
LectureWastvedt, Bjørn Sether. (2025) Hva skal til for å være lykkelig? Og hva er lykke?. Researchers Night , Trondheim 2025-09-25 -
-
Academic lectureWastvedt, Bjørn Sether. (2025) Nature is valuable. But what about wilderness? An argument from non-ideal theory. DynamiTE Lunchtime Seminar , Oslo 2025-04-27 -
-
Academic lectureWastvedt, Bjørn Sether. (2025) Expertise and explanation in the Theaetetus. Knowledge, expertise, and politics in Plato’s Theaetetus , Trondheim 2025-05-13 - 2025-05-14