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Description of  Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus,andLysis

In the modern philosophical tradition, Platos Socrates has been viewed as an alienating influence on Western thought and life. In this book, Mary Nichols addresses Kierkegaards and Nietzsches 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 Platos 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.