Alexander Nehamas ( el, Αλέξανδρος Νεχαμάς; born 22 March 1946) is a Greek-born American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy and comparative literature and the Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, where he has taught since 1990. He is a member of the

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and Member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(since 2016), the Academy of Athens since 2018. He works on

Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empi ...

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

, Michel Foucault, and literary theory.

Biography

Nehamas was born in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

in 1946. In 1964, he enrolled to Swarthmore College. He graduated in 1967 and completed his doctorate (titled ''Predication and the Theory of Forms in the 'Phaedo) under the direction of

Gregory Vlastos Gregory Vlastos (; el, Γρηγόριος Βλαστός; July 27, 1907 – October 12, 1991) was a preeminent scholar of ancient philosophy, and author of many works on Plato and Socrates. He transformed the analysis of classical philosophy ...

in 1971. He taught at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

before joining the Princeton faculty in 1990.

Philosophical work

His early work was on

Platonic Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

and

as well as the philosophy of

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

, but he gained a wider audience with his 1985 book ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'' (Harvard University Press), in which he argued that Nietzsche thought of life and the world on the model of a literary text. Nehamas has said, "The virtues of life are comparable to the virtues of good writing—style, connectedness, grace, elegance—and also, we must not forget, sometimes getting it right." More recently, he has become well known for his view that philosophy should provide a form of life, as well as for his endorsement of the artistic value of

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

. This view also becomes evident in his book ''Only a Promise of Happiness''. The title itself is later in this work used as one definition of

beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...

with reference to Stendhal. In that sense, beauty can be found in all media; as Nehamas claims in the same work: "Aesthetic features are everywhere, but that has nothing to do with where the arts can be found. Works of art can be beautiful because everything can be beautiful, but that doesn't mean that anything can be a work of art." In 2016, Nehamas published a book, ''On Friendship'', based on his 2008 Gifford Lectures. In it, he argues, contra Aristotle, that friendship is an aesthetic, but not always moral or good. In a manner similar to his earlier work, ''Only a Promise of Happiness'', Nehamas compares the relationship of an individual to friends as having similarities to the relationship which an individual can have to artworks. “Like metaphors and works of art, the people who matter to us are all, so far as we are concerned, inexhaustible. They always remain a step beyond the furthest point our knowledge of them has reached—though only if, and as long as, they still matter to us.”

Selected works

* ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1985) * '' Symposium'' (translation, with

Paul Woodruff Paul Woodruff (born 1943) is a classicist, professor of philosophy, and dean at The University of Texas at Austin, where he once chaired the department of philosophy and has more recently held the Hayden Head Regents Chair as director of Plan II H ...

) (1989) * ''The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault'' (1998) * ''Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates'' (1999) * ''Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art'' (2007) * ''On Friendship'' (2016)

References

External links

Nehamas' page at the Princeton department of philosophy

List of articles (in Greek)

Nehamas interviewed on Friendship for ''Philosophy Bites'' podcast
* Audio of Alexander Nehamas's lectur
"Only in the Contemplation of Beauty Is Human Life Worth Living"
at the

Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities The Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, located in Seattle, Washington, is one of the largest and most comprehensive humanities centers in the United States. Housed in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington ( ...

on Nov 17, 2005.
Review of Nehamas' book ''Only A Promise of Happiness '' in the ''New York Sun''

Art, Interpretation And The Rest Of Life

Interview in Greek daily Kathimerini (February 13, 2011) on the occasion of Nehamas' award of an honorary doctoral degree at the School of Fine Arts of Athens University (in Greek)
* Audio o
An interview with Alexander Nehamas on Beauty
with Joshua Landy on February 15, 2011. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nehamas, Alexander Living people Greek emigrants to the United States American scholars of ancient Greek philosophy Philosophers of art Swarthmore College alumni Princeton University faculty 1946 births Princeton University alumni Members of the Academy of Athens (modern) Presidents of the American Philosophical Association Members of the American Philosophical Society