Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis

by Mary P. Nichols

• ISBN13: 9780521148832
• ISBN10: 0521148839
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

In the modern philosophical tradition, Plato's Socrates has been viewed as an alienating influence on Western thought and life. In this book, Mary Nichols addresses Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's criticism of Socrates and recovers the place of friendship and community in Socratic philosophizing. Her rich analysis of both dramatic details and philosophic themes in Plato's Symposium, Phaedras, and Lysis shows how love finds its fulfillment in the reciprocal relation of friends. Nichols shows how friends experience another as their own and themselves as belonging to another. Their experience, she argues, both sheds light on the nature of philosophy and serves as a standard for a political life that does justice to human freedom and community.

Author Biography

Mary P. Nichols is professor of political science and department chair at Baylor University. She is the author of numerous books and articles in the history of political thought and politics, literature, and film. Her main areas of research are classical political theory (for example, Citizens and Statesmen: A Commentary on Aristotle's "Politics"), Shakespeare, and film directors such as Woody Allen, John Ford, and Alfred Hitchcock. She is a senior Fellow at The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization in Clinton, New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. VII
Introduction	p. 1
The Problem of Socrates: Kierkegaard and Nietzsche	p. 7
Kierkegaard: Socrates vs. the God	p. 8
Nietzsche: Call for an Artistic Socrates	p. 15
Plato's Socrates	p. 23
Love, Generation, and Political Community (The Symposium)	p. 25
The Prologue	p. 31
Phaedrus' Praise of Nobility	p. 36
Pausanias' Praise of Law	p. 39
Eryximachus' Praise of Art	p. 44
Aristophanic Comedy	p. 47
Tragic Victory	p. 52
Socrates' Turn	p. 57
Socrates' Prophetess and the Daemonic	p. 59
Love as Generative	p. 64
Alcibiades' Dramatic Entrance	p. 70
Alcibiades' Images of Socrates	p. 72
Alcibiades' Praise of Socrates' Virtues	p. 79
Aftermath	p. 82
The Incompleteness of the Symposium	p. 86
Self-Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric (Plato's Phaedrus)	p. 90
The Setting	p. 95
Non-Lovers (Lysias' Speech and Socrates' First Speech)	p. 98
Souls and Their Fall	p. 105
Lovers and Their Ascent	p. 113
Prayer to Love	p. 120
Contemporary Rhetoric and Politics	p. 122
A Genuine Art of Rhetoric	p. 136
Writing	p. 142
Prayer to Pan	p. 149
Who Is a Friend? (The Lysis)	p. 152
Joining the Group	p. 155
Getting Acquainted	p. 162
Seeking a Friend	p. 167
Are Friends the Ones Loving, the Ones Loved, or Both?	p. 169
Are Likes Friends?	p. 170
Are Unlikes Friends?	p. 174
Are Those Who Are Neither Good Nor Bad Friends to the Good?	p. 177
Are the Kindred Friends?	p. 183
Who Might Friends Be?	p. 185
Friendly Communities	p. 190
Socratic Philosophizing	p. 195
Socrates' Youthful Search for Cause	p. 197
Socrates' Second Sailing and the Ideas	p. 202
Piety, Poetry, and Friendship	p. 207
Works Cited	p. 217
Index	p. 223
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