Mary P Nichols
Biographic Data
| ID | 714352 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mary P Nichols |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mary P |
| FAMILY NAME | Nichols |
| SIGNATURE | NICHOLS M P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Fordham University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Leaders and Leadership in Thucydides’ History
This essay explores what Thucydides teaches about leadership, by focusing on four prominent leaders in his History: Pericles, Brasidas, Alcibiades, and Nicias. Successful leaders operate within the confines of particular cities, regimes, and their ways of life, but find space for freedom by articulating goals and standards for action. Pericles instructs Athenians about their city’s purpose and its demands, while presenting himself as a model of f…
Intensive Introspection and Human Action: Reflections on the Work of Joseph Cropsey
In this article, the authors review Joseph Cropsey's last collection of essays, Humanity's Intensive Introspection. They argue that Cropsey's essays draw on resources in the Western tradition, both from within liberal thought and from ancient sources, to elevate human life and to fortify modern society, especially against contemporary critiques of liberalism. Philosophy's discovery of the inscrutability of the whole opens it to revelation and als…
Shakespeare's Christian Vision in Henry VIII
In Henry VIII , Shakespeare looks beyond religious conflict to express a larger moral—and Christian—vision. He offers a panorama of Christian virtues and characters who manifest them, indicating by their actions and sufferings the role their virtues might play in supporting nobility and justice. He also finds support in Christianity for deriving noble and base from the character of one's soul rather than from birth and for a reliance on fair judi…
Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom
This book argues for the centrality of the idea of freedom in Thucydides's thought. Through a close reading of his History of the Peloponnesian War, the book explores the manifestations of this theme. Cities and individuals in Thucydides's history take freedom as their goal, whether they claim to possess it and want to maintain it or whether they desire to attain it for themselves or others. Freedom is the goal of both antagonists in the Peloponn…
Symposium on the Thought of Joseph Cropsey
Plato's Socrates: One Among Many, but Preeminent
Catherine H. Zuckert has written a monumental work on Plato's corpus that offers a new framework for understanding his dialogues. Not only does she trace Plato's presentation of Socrates' development over time, but she also shows how Plato uses other philosophic interlocutors to contribute to his philosophic project. Central themes include Socrates' discovery of erôs, the unity of virtue, and the place of teaching in philosophy, and the relation …
Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis
In Socrates on Friendship and Community, Mary P. Nichols addresses Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's criticism of Socrates and recovers the place of friendship and community in Socratic philosophizing. This approach stands in contrast to the modern philosophical tradition, in which Plato's Socrates has been viewed as an alienating influence on Western thought and life. Nichols' rich analysis of both dramatic details and philosophic themes in Plato's …
Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: No Country for Old Menand3:10 to Yuma
By exploring the tensions between heroism and the community it supports, classic Westerns defend American individualism and offer sober reflection on its costs. In No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen present a contemporary Western set in west Texas in 1980 with the irrational and brutal violence of the old West, but characters who lack the understanding and will to deal with overwhelming forces. James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma, in contrast, …
Philosophy and Empire: On Socrates and Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium
When Socrates was accused in 399 BC of corrupting the young, the harm that his one-time associate Alcibiades did to Athens provided fuel for the charges against him. By setting the Symposium in 416 BC, just one year before Alcibiades led Athens on the disastrous Sicilian expedition, Plato revisits the charge that Socrates corrupts the young. In particular, does Socrates' freedom from the accepted opinions of his city and the “universalism” of the…
Friendship and Community in Plato's Lysis
Plato's Lysis addresses the problem of Plato's Republic—the tension between individual and communal good—by exploring the question of what or who is the friend. Friends, I argue, experience another as their own, and themselves as not wholly their own. Unlike the guardians of Plato's Republic, friends say both mine and not mine of one another. Grounded in both self-awareness and belonging, friendship serves as a model for philosophy, and demonstra…
Socrates’ Contest with the Poets in Plato’s Symposium
Scholars have recently argued that in the Symposium Plato is critical of Socrates and falls closer than his philosophic spokesman to the side of poetry in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. Contrary to such interpretations, I argue that on the basis of his experience of a philosophic life, Socrates responds to the poets Plato presents in that dialogue, offering a superior understanding not only of Love but of poetry itself. Far from s…
Platonic Entanglements The Odyssey of Political Theory: The Politics of Departure and Return . By Patrick J. Deneen Socratic Citizenship . By Dana Villa Plato's Democratic Entanglements . By S. Sara M…
Heroes and Political Communities in John Ford's Westerns: The Role of Wyatt Earp inMy Darling Clementine
Additional informationNotes on contributorsMary P. Nichols Mary P. Nichols teaches political science at Fordham University and is currently a visiting professor at Harvard. She writes on ancient and modern political theory, and politics and literature. Her most recent book is Reconstructing Woody: Love, Life, and Art in the Films of Woody Allen
Books in review
Reconstructing Woody: Art, Love, and Life in the Films of Woody Allen
In this pathbreaking new book, Mary P. Nichols challenges this, arguing that Allen's work, from Play It Again, Sam to Deconstructing Harry, is actually an attempt to explore and reconcile the tension between art and life.
The bard on screen
A defense of popular culture
Symposium: Politics. Literature, and Popular Culture. Art and Liberalism in Hitchcock's Rear Window
Poetry and Philosophy: Competing Political Voices? White, Alvis, Palmer and Pangle Acts of Hope: Creating Authority in Literature, Law, and Politics . By James Boyd White Divine Purpose and Heroic Res…
Aristotle's Science of the Best Regime
In this Controversy, Mary Nichols and Robert Bartlett both enlist Aristotle in support of a liberal politics. Nichols finds that the Aristotle analyzed by Bartlett in his remarks in this Review in 1994 leads us away from politics into a life of perfect contemplation. The real Aristotle, she avers, by calling attention to the "limits of reason," leaves room for the gods, personal freedom, and shared power. Bartlett responds that the life of contem…
Reply to Wallach
Self-Knowledge in Plato's "Phaedrus" . Charles L. Griswold, Jr
Aristotle's Defense of Rhetoric
In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defends rhetoric against the charges that it permits injustice and distorts truth--charges made by Aristophanes and Plato. He presents rhetoric as a bridge between private and public, passion and reason, individual interest and common good, and equity and law. Rhetoric thus appears as a means for statesmanship rather than a tool of despotism
Kant's Teaching of Historical Progress & Its Cosmopolitan Goal
Kant taught men to transcend their individual or parochial perspectives and look at themselves as cosmopolitans. He proposed a condition of perpetual peace, achieved through history, as an alternative to the state of nature which Rousseau thought impossible to recover. Cosmopolitanism is necessary for perpetual peace. Professor Nichols notes that Kant is nevertheless aware of the limits human nature imposes on cosmopolitanism. She goes on to argu…
III. Rousseau's Novel Education in the Emile
Friendship and Community in Plato's Lysis
Plato's Lysis addresses the problem of Plato's Republic—the tension between individual and communal good—by exploring the question of what or who is the friend. Friends, I argue, experience another as their own, and themselves as not wholly their own. Unlike the guardians of Plato's Republic, friends say both mine and not mine of one another. Grounded in both self-awareness and belonging, friendship serves as a model for philosophy, and demonstra…
Aristotle's Defense of Rhetoric
In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defends rhetoric against the charges that it permits injustice and distorts truth--charges made by Aristophanes and Plato. He presents rhetoric as a bridge between private and public, passion and reason, individual interest and common good, and equity and law. Rhetoric thus appears as a means for statesmanship rather than a tool of despotism
Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom
This book argues for the centrality of the idea of freedom in Thucydides's thought. Through a close reading of his History of the Peloponnesian War, the book explores the manifestations of this theme. Cities and individuals in Thucydides's history take freedom as their goal, whether they claim to possess it and want to maintain it or whether they desire to attain it for themselves or others. Freedom is the goal of both antagonists in the Peloponn…
III. Rousseau's Novel Education in the Emile
Socrates’ Contest with the Poets in Plato’s Symposium
Scholars have recently argued that in the Symposium Plato is critical of Socrates and falls closer than his philosophic spokesman to the side of poetry in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. Contrary to such interpretations, I argue that on the basis of his experience of a philosophic life, Socrates responds to the poets Plato presents in that dialogue, offering a superior understanding not only of Love but of poetry itself. Far from s…
The Republic's Two Alternatives: Philosopher-Kings and Socrates
lfT IS CLEAR that Plato thinks that philosophy is the best way of life. He does not, however, give us a direct account of the meaning of philosophy, its starting point, its methods, or its goals. For the most part, we must understand what Plato means by philosophy only indirectly-through his dramatization of the life and activities of Socrates.' In the Republic, Socrates does give an account of the philosophers who are to rule in the city he is f…
Philosophy and Empire: On Socrates and Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium
When Socrates was accused in 399 BC of corrupting the young, the harm that his one-time associate Alcibiades did to Athens provided fuel for the charges against him. By setting the Symposium in 416 BC, just one year before Alcibiades led Athens on the disastrous Sicilian expedition, Plato revisits the charge that Socrates corrupts the young. In particular, does Socrates' freedom from the accepted opinions of his city and the “universalism” of the…
Kant's Teaching of Historical Progress & Its Cosmopolitan Goal
Kant taught men to transcend their individual or parochial perspectives and look at themselves as cosmopolitans. He proposed a condition of perpetual peace, achieved through history, as an alternative to the state of nature which Rousseau thought impossible to recover. Cosmopolitanism is necessary for perpetual peace. Professor Nichols notes that Kant is nevertheless aware of the limits human nature imposes on cosmopolitanism. She goes on to argu…
Glaucon's Adaptation of the Story of Gyges & Its Implications for Plato's Political Teaching
Glaucon's adaptation of Herodotus' account of Gyges, in the course of his extended praise of injustice in Book II of the Republic, may be read to imply a desire for a simple and perfect world. Professor Nichols argues below that this desire underlies the founding of the city in speech presupposing the possibility of complete knowledge and control. It is a tragic undertaking in that it ignores the limits to which Herodotus calls attention
Aristotle's Science of the Best Regime
In this Controversy, Mary Nichols and Robert Bartlett both enlist Aristotle in support of a liberal politics. Nichols finds that the Aristotle analyzed by Bartlett in his remarks in this Review in 1994 leads us away from politics into a life of perfect contemplation. The real Aristotle, she avers, by calling attention to the "limits of reason," leaves room for the gods, personal freedom, and shared power. Bartlett responds that the life of contem…
Rationality and Community: Swift's Criticism of the Houyhnhnms
Glaucon's Adaptation of the Story of Gyges & Its Implications for Plato's Political Teaching
Glaucon's adaptation of Herodotus' account of Gyges, in the course of his extended praise of injustice in Book II of the Republic, may be read to imply a desire for a simple and perfect world. Professor Nichols argues below that this desire underlies the founding of the city in speech presupposing the possibility of complete knowledge and control. It is a tragic undertaking in that it ignores the limits to which Herodotus calls attention
The Republic's Two Alternatives: Philosopher-Kings and Socrates
lfT IS CLEAR that Plato thinks that philosophy is the best way of life. He does not, however, give us a direct account of the meaning of philosophy, its starting point, its methods, or its goals. For the most part, we must understand what Plato means by philosophy only indirectly-through his dramatization of the life and activities of Socrates.' In the Republic, Socrates does give an account of the philosophers who are to rule in the city he is f…
III. Rousseau's Novel Education in the Emile
Kant's Teaching of Historical Progress & Its Cosmopolitan Goal
Kant taught men to transcend their individual or parochial perspectives and look at themselves as cosmopolitans. He proposed a condition of perpetual peace, achieved through history, as an alternative to the state of nature which Rousseau thought impossible to recover. Cosmopolitanism is necessary for perpetual peace. Professor Nichols notes that Kant is nevertheless aware of the limits human nature imposes on cosmopolitanism. She goes on to argu…
Aristotle's Defense of Rhetoric
In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defends rhetoric against the charges that it permits injustice and distorts truth--charges made by Aristophanes and Plato. He presents rhetoric as a bridge between private and public, passion and reason, individual interest and common good, and equity and law. Rhetoric thus appears as a means for statesmanship rather than a tool of despotism
Self-Knowledge in Plato's "Phaedrus" . Charles L. Griswold, Jr
Reply to Wallach
Aristotle's Science of the Best Regime
In this Controversy, Mary Nichols and Robert Bartlett both enlist Aristotle in support of a liberal politics. Nichols finds that the Aristotle analyzed by Bartlett in his remarks in this Review in 1994 leads us away from politics into a life of perfect contemplation. The real Aristotle, she avers, by calling attention to the "limits of reason," leaves room for the gods, personal freedom, and shared power. Bartlett responds that the life of contem…
Poetry and Philosophy: Competing Political Voices? White, Alvis, Palmer and Pangle Acts of Hope: Creating Authority in Literature, Law, and Politics . By James Boyd White Divine Purpose and Heroic Res…
Symposium: Politics. Literature, and Popular Culture. Art and Liberalism in Hitchcock's Rear Window
Reconstructing Woody: Art, Love, and Life in the Films of Woody Allen
In this pathbreaking new book, Mary P. Nichols challenges this, arguing that Allen's work, from Play It Again, Sam to Deconstructing Harry, is actually an attempt to explore and reconcile the tension between art and life.
The bard on screen
A defense of popular culture
Books in review
Heroes and Political Communities in John Ford's Westerns: The Role of Wyatt Earp inMy Darling Clementine
Additional informationNotes on contributorsMary P. Nichols Mary P. Nichols teaches political science at Fordham University and is currently a visiting professor at Harvard. She writes on ancient and modern political theory, and politics and literature. Her most recent book is Reconstructing Woody: Love, Life, and Art in the Films of Woody Allen
Platonic Entanglements The Odyssey of Political Theory: The Politics of Departure and Return . By Patrick J. Deneen Socratic Citizenship . By Dana Villa Plato's Democratic Entanglements . By S. Sara M…
Socrates’ Contest with the Poets in Plato’s Symposium
Scholars have recently argued that in the Symposium Plato is critical of Socrates and falls closer than his philosophic spokesman to the side of poetry in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. Contrary to such interpretations, I argue that on the basis of his experience of a philosophic life, Socrates responds to the poets Plato presents in that dialogue, offering a superior understanding not only of Love but of poetry itself. Far from s…
Friendship and Community in Plato's Lysis
Plato's Lysis addresses the problem of Plato's Republic—the tension between individual and communal good—by exploring the question of what or who is the friend. Friends, I argue, experience another as their own, and themselves as not wholly their own. Unlike the guardians of Plato's Republic, friends say both mine and not mine of one another. Grounded in both self-awareness and belonging, friendship serves as a model for philosophy, and demonstra…
Philosophy and Empire: On Socrates and Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium
When Socrates was accused in 399 BC of corrupting the young, the harm that his one-time associate Alcibiades did to Athens provided fuel for the charges against him. By setting the Symposium in 416 BC, just one year before Alcibiades led Athens on the disastrous Sicilian expedition, Plato revisits the charge that Socrates corrupts the young. In particular, does Socrates' freedom from the accepted opinions of his city and the “universalism” of the…
Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis
In Socrates on Friendship and Community, Mary P. Nichols addresses Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's criticism of Socrates and recovers the place of friendship and community in Socratic philosophizing. This approach stands in contrast to the modern philosophical tradition, in which Plato's Socrates has been viewed as an alienating influence on Western thought and life. Nichols' rich analysis of both dramatic details and philosophic themes in Plato's …
Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: No Country for Old Menand3:10 to Yuma
By exploring the tensions between heroism and the community it supports, classic Westerns defend American individualism and offer sober reflection on its costs. In No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen present a contemporary Western set in west Texas in 1980 with the irrational and brutal violence of the old West, but characters who lack the understanding and will to deal with overwhelming forces. James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma, in contrast, …
Plato's Socrates: One Among Many, but Preeminent
Catherine H. Zuckert has written a monumental work on Plato's corpus that offers a new framework for understanding his dialogues. Not only does she trace Plato's presentation of Socrates' development over time, but she also shows how Plato uses other philosophic interlocutors to contribute to his philosophic project. Central themes include Socrates' discovery of erôs, the unity of virtue, and the place of teaching in philosophy, and the relation …
Intensive Introspection and Human Action: Reflections on the Work of Joseph Cropsey
In this article, the authors review Joseph Cropsey's last collection of essays, Humanity's Intensive Introspection. They argue that Cropsey's essays draw on resources in the Western tradition, both from within liberal thought and from ancient sources, to elevate human life and to fortify modern society, especially against contemporary critiques of liberalism. Philosophy's discovery of the inscrutability of the whole opens it to revelation and als…
Shakespeare's Christian Vision in Henry VIII
In Henry VIII , Shakespeare looks beyond religious conflict to express a larger moral—and Christian—vision. He offers a panorama of Christian virtues and characters who manifest them, indicating by their actions and sufferings the role their virtues might play in supporting nobility and justice. He also finds support in Christianity for deriving noble and base from the character of one's soul rather than from birth and for a reliance on fair judi…
Sociology (21 works) · Political science (20 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Art (9 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (8 works)