Socrates remains a silent and ambiguous character, forcing readers to come to their own conclusions about the art of life. How Socrates led the life he did, what enabled or inspired him, is never made evident. Socratic irony creates a mask that prevents a view of what lies behind. Why does each of these philosophers-each fundamentally concerned with his own originality-return to Socrates as a model? The answer lies in the irony that characterizes the Socrates we know from the Platonic dialogues. In this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Alexander Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. ) these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived. The idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. ( shrink)ДЇor much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an 'art of living.' This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living. But if beauty is always dangerous, it is also a pressing human concern that we must seek to understand, and not suppress. We may discover misery in pursuit of beauty, or find that beauty offers no more than a tantalizing promise of happiness. This hope can shape and direct our lives for better or worse. The perception of beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it.

Throughout, the discussion of artworks is generously illustrated.Beauty, Nehamas concludes, may depend on appearance, but this does not make it superficial. ) and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life.Nehamas makes his case with characteristic grace, sensitivity, and philosophical depth, supporting his arguments with searching studies of art and literature, high and low, from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Manet's Olympia to television. He seeks to restore its place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, (. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty to the margins, replacing them with the anemic and rarefied alternative, 'aesthetic pleasure.' In Only a Promise of Happiness, Alexander Nehamas reclaims beauty from its critics. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Neither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century.

Alexandros nehamas