Mary P. Nichols

This, like other works that purport to deal with Socrates and friendship, primarily goes at its subject by addressing Socrates on erotic love, which I take to be a very different thing from friendship.

She opposes the picture of Socrates painted by Nietzsche and Kierkegaard in favor of a Socrates who is decidedly earth bound, but this is hardly a novel contribution to the literature. More novel is her claim that friendship is analogous to philosophy, and serves as its standard, although in show more the final analysis I find this is too weak a claim.

For Socrates friendship is not merely analogous to philosophy, it is a fundamental and ineliminable element of his philosophic method. show less