ceiling lights & chandeliers
socrates on friendship and community reflections on platos symposium phaedrus and lysis
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 .