Mary P. Nichols

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.

Friendship and community in Plato's Lysis

Platos Lysis addresses the problem of Platos 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 Platos 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 demonstrates the possibility of associations that support our complex identity as human beings and citizens.

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 self-sufficient, but like Love “dwell[ing] always in need” and generating through teaching, Socrates both requires and supports political life. The state between poverty and resource that accounts for the pursuit of wisdom and its self-generation through questioning others also accounts for the ongoing human activities that keep political communities alive and flourishing. At issue is not simply Plato’s attitude toward Socrates, but the very nature of philosophy and its relation to the political community.

Heroes and Political Communities in John Ford's Westerns: The Role of Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine

revalent in American history, philosophy, and literature is an optimism about the New World, the conquest of the wilderness, overcoming of the corruptions of the past, and establishing civilization on a firm foundation of individual liberty. The American western film lends itself to these themes, where the settlement of the frontier continually reenacts the American founding, where the absence of law allows villains-for a time-to flourish, only to be ultimately defeated by the good guys, and here heroes expand the reach of American principles and the order founded upon them. Some westerns, however, dissent from this optimism, and scholars have in fact argued that the American West offers a particularly good setting for an American representation of the tragedy of the human condition. Peter A. French, in his study of ethics and death in American westerns, finds similarities between the Greek tragic hero and both the heroes and villains in westerns. As he traces “the typical story line of the Western,” the hero inevitably prevails over the villain(s), but in doing so “drives an unremovable wedge between him[selfl and the community in whose name he has risked life and limb.” The sunset into which he rides is “not a shining good place where the hero can enjoy the fruits of his labor and the company of good people. It is a cold and lonely place” where at best such events will recur.’ John Ford’s film about Marshal Wyatt Earp, M y Darling Clementine, has been interpreted in this way. Although Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) is attracted to “the values of civ-

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 argue that his teaching leads men to seek a world order that may be neither possible nor desirable.

Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: No Country for Old Men and 3:10 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 Mangolds 3:10 to Yuma, in contrast, although recognizing the attraction of the noble outlaw in a way the classic Western does not, nevertheless shows the superiority of the man who defends family and civilized life. Whereas No Country subverts the purpose that traditional Westerns serve for liberal communities, Yuma answers this film and challenges the classic Westerns tragic presentation of heroism and community.

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 ones soul rather than from birth and for a reliance on fair judicial procedure rather than on the sword for the protection of justice. Finally, in the relation between Henry VIII and Archbishop Cranmer, Shakespeare illustrates a politics that protects religious belief from persecution. Henry VIII offers a vision of the virtues of Christianity that could contribute to a good political community, or at least to understanding what such a community entails.

Symposium on the Thought of Joseph Cropsey

Joseph Cropsey (1919–2012) taught and wrote about the history of political philosophy from the times of the ancient Greeks to the present, including his path-breaking works on Plato, on the origin and development of modern thought, and on the dilemmas faced by contemporary liberalism. His books include Polity and Economy: An Interpretation of the Principles of Adam Smith (1957); Hobbes’s A Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (1971); Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics (1977); Plato’s World: Man’s Place in the Cosmos (1995); and Humanity’s Intensive Introspection (2012). He also co-edited several editions of The History of Political Philosophy with Leo Strauss. Cropsey was the beloved colleague and teacher of many generations of students at the University of Chicago for more than forty years. He directed seventysix dissertations and served on more than fifty more dissertation committees. He received the University of Chicago’s Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Our symposium in Perspectives, however, concerns primarily Cropsey’s substantial body of writing, its meaning, and its challenges. Catherine H. Zuckert discusses Cropsey’s work on Plato and its concern with the fundamental question of how one pursues wisdom, a question that Cropsey suggests had different answers for Plato and his character Socrates, although the latter is typically regarded as Plato’s philosophic spokesman. From his early essay on the Phaedrus (1977) to his book on Plato’s World and his essays on the Timaeus and the Philebus, Zuckert shows, Cropsey explores Plato’s questioning of Socratic orthodoxies, often in light of the alternatives offered by the cast of characters with whom Socrates was surrounded in Plato’s corpus, his philosophic predecessors, contemporaries eager to compete with him, and his friends and followers.

Intensive Introspection and Human Action: Reflections on the Work of Joseph Cropsey

Abstract In this article, the authors review Joseph Cropseys last collection of essays, Humanitys Intensive Introspection. They argue that Cropseys 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. Philosophys discovery of the inscrutability of the whole opens it to revelation and also provides a basis for philosophys active contribution to an open or liberal society.