What is philosophy to you?
The philosophical areas that most interest me have to do with how to live well. I’m an Aristotelian on this score, so I take living well to involve cultivating a good character; sustaining strong family and friendship bonds in a way that brings to bear concepts of love, loss, disappointment, and joy central to those attachments; and engaging in meaningful projects in life that involve collaboration, intellectual development, curiosity, and that are much of the time, both fulfilling and fun. So, I do see philosophy as a practical pursuit and I try to teach in a way that conveys the importance of developing not just intellectual competence, but healthy emotions and healthy relationships. I also love to write, and I love to write philosophy. Of late, my writing is for an audience larger than just fellow philosophers.
How were you first introduced to philosophy?
I had a beloved philosophy teacher at Bryn Mawr and Haverford, namely Aryeh Kosman, who taught at Haverford. (Bryn Mawr and Haverford were partnered schools then.) Aryeh was a scholar of texts, and a brilliant interpreter of Aristotle. I remember sitting in a classroom at Haverford reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics Book Zeta. We went over the text line by line (Aryeh had a Talmudic sensibility). The idea of substance as not a primordial material stuff, but to do with organic unities and concrete individuals (ideas that became clearer when we read the Categories) was eye-opening to me. We called Aryeh “cosmic Kos”—it was the early 70’s after all! There was no turning back after that introduction. I also loved doing political philosophy and textual work with Stephen Salkever at Bryn Mawr. After several years at Edinburgh University, where I worked with Richard Walsh and studied Kant, I then went to Harvard for my Ph.D. Jack Rawls’s lectures on Kantian ethics were seminal for me, and too, of course, Martha Nussbaum’s work on Aristotle and Plato. Martha and Jack became my dissertation advisers, and I turned again to Aristotle, and this time, Aristotle’s ethics.
How do you practice philosophy today?
Well, of course, I teach undergraduate and graduate students and write books and give lectures— more and more public lectures these days. I also give many podcasts, of late, to do with Stoicism, since my Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience came out. But I'm bringing out a new (trade) book on Aristotle’s ethics, How To Have a Soul: What Aristotle Teaches us about Lasting Happiness (Yale University Press). And that will increasingly feature in the podcasts. Aristotle is the titan of the ancient world, known as The Philosopher and The Teacher. He was the first marine biologist, an ethicist, a political philosopher, a metaphysician, and more than that. The list goes on and on and on. He is the greatest philosopher of all time, in my view.
There is another central aspect of my philosophical work, and that is my work with the military. I was the Inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the U. S. Naval Academy in the mid-90s. I taught there for 3 years and helped to set up their ethics course. While there, I became interested in Stoicism because my students (midshipmen and officers alike) all found Stoicism to be their philosophy. I wanted to explore its blessings and curses, especially when interpreted, as they often did, as a philosophy that teaches you how to “suck it up and truck on,” as they sometimes put it, characterizing what it was to be Stoic. Stoicism mattered to them because it helped them endure the deprivations of military life. But I worried terribly that this was a misreading of ancient Stoicism, and I began to correct the view both in classes and in my writings. That is how my Stoic Warriors came into being—as a response to the military preoccupation with Stoicism. The issue became especially important to me as we entered the “forever wars,” and my students and officers were returning from deployments with severe moral injury and PTSD. I have psychoanalytic psychotherapy research training. That, in addition to my long-standing research on the emotions meant I returned to thinking about the Stoics on the emotions and their views of cognitive behavioral therapy (as we would now put it). That clinical dimension of my work has been central in a trilogy of war moral psychology books I wrote: Stoic Warriors, which I mentioned, but then Untold War, and Afterwar. I continue to consult with the military and try to correct the overly harsh views of Stoicism that many military men and women espouse. I also try to correct overly simple views of emotional well-being I find in some modern Stoicism writings and podcasts online.
What is a philosophical issue that is important to you?
I am smitten by the idea of what it is to flourish and live a flourishing life. It’s an ancient question that was lost for too long and viewed as irrelevant by modern moral philosophy with its focus on criteria for right action. I worry about the possibility of flourishing in our current world of strongmen politics, gun violence, inequity, climate disasters, and, in short, dystopia. Universities are struggling, given our mission and the political and economic pressures that aim to stifle intellectual conversation. As with others, I worry about echo chambers and the inability of students to emerge from social media. Many of my students openly say that they are addicted. That might not be a philosophical issue per se, but it certainly affects the classroom and our mission to teach critical thinking and critical writing.
What books, podcasts, or other media have stood out to you as a philosopher?
I like reading biographies as a pastime, and several philosophical biographies stand out as simply terrific. The first is J.L. Austin: Philosopher & D-Day Intelligence Officer by M. W. Rowe. Much of the success of the Normandy invasion was thanks to the brilliance of J. L. Austin, who was an MI6 officer during WW II and played an immeasurable part in the preparations for D-Day. I had no idea. I also loved reading Nicola Lacey’s biography of H. L. A. Hart, the pre-eminent 20th C. legal philosopher at Oxford. Both works were terrific. And too, I couldn’t put down Metaphysical Animals about Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Philippa Foot, by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, and I enjoyed even more, The Women are Up to Something, by Benjamin Lipscomb on Murdoch, Midgley, and Foot. I suspect that because I lived and studied in Britain for four years (in Edinburgh and London/Cambridge), all those works really made a strong positive impact on me.
Nancy Sherman is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. She has an affiliate appointment with Georgetown Law’s Center on National Security and the Law. A New York Times Notable Author, her most recent book is Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience (2021). Her forthcoming title is How to Have a Soul: What Aristotle Teaches Us About Lasting Happiness (Yale). Other books include Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers; The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of our Soldiers (a NYT editors’ pick); Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind; Making a Necessity of Virtue, and The Fabric of Character. She is the editor of Critical Essays on the Classics: Aristotle’s Ethics. From 1997 to 1999, she served as the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Sherman is the author of over 70 articles in the area of ethics, military ethics, the history of moral philosophy, ancient ethics, the emotions, moral psychology, and psychoanalysis.
thank you, Celine. I should note that my newest book, out Jan. 1, 2027 is: FEED THE SOUL: LESSONS FROM ARISTOTLE ON LIVING WELL. I'll have more to say about it soon!
The question of what conditions make flourishing possible is one of the most serious in philosophy. But listing strongmen, gun violence, climate disasters, and inequity isn't a philosophical answer.
It's a tribal political one.
And the concern about universities stifling intellectual conversation is worth examining honestly. The institutions most loudly defending free inquiry spent the last decade enforcing ideological conformity. That's not an external threat to intellectual life. That's self-inflicted.
The ancient question of whether a person of genuine character can flourish under difficult circumstances has been answered. Repeatedly. By people living under actual tyranny, actual poverty, actual persecution. The answer doesn't change based on who won the last election.