Martha C. Nussbaum

Martha C. Nussbaum is the University of Chicago philosopher whose reconstruction of ancient ethical thought — especially The Fragility of Goodness (1986) on the tragic poets and Plato, and The Therapy of Desire (1994) on the Hellenistic schools — has given contemporary philosophy its most sustained account of the cognitive and value-laden character of the emotions.

For the Seba lineage, two of her theses are load-bearing. The Fragility of Goodness argues, against Plato’s drive toward invulnerability, that the ethical life is necessarily exposed to luck, loss, and the claims of particular attachments — a thesis kin to Hillman’s insistence that the pathologizing of life is the very occasion of soul-making. The Therapy of Desire reads Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism not as metaphysical systems but as medical arts of the soul — an argument the Seba reading of philosophy-as-way-of-life extends back to Socratic and forward to the contemplative traditions. See nussbaum-fragility-goodness-luck and nussbaum-therapy-desire-theory.

Relationships

• nussbaum-fragility-goodness-luck
• nussbaum-therapy-desire-theory
• philosophy-as-way-of-life