Nikidion

Nikidion ("Little Victory") was a female student of Epicurus and a hetaira (courtesan).[1]

In literature

Martha Nussbaum, in her book The Therapy of Desire, adopts Nikidion for her (notional) female protagonist exploring the schools of Hellenistic philosophy. Nussbaum described its original possessor as "perhaps historical and probably fictitious."[2] Nussbaum also uses the character of Nikidion in her article Skepticism about Practical Reason in Literature And the Law Commentary which criticizes the judicial skepticism of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Robert Bork.[3]

Nikidion provided Nussbaum with a feminist vehicle wherewith to explore the ancient Greek philosophies of life from the practical standpoint of a young enquirer. Nussbaum urged us to consider Nikidion "as she really might have been: smart but ill-educated, relatively weak in intellectual discipline, fonder of poetry than of Plato...attached to her wardrobe, her wines, and even her religion".[4] The protagonist is envisaged as starting anew (like a somewhat repetitive Candide) in various schools of thought, including those of Aristotle, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Pyrrhonism;[5] and thus as moving onwards through time, and from Greece to Rome.[6] Nikidion is seen for example exploring her experience of grief with Chrysippus,[7] and the links between love and anger with Seneca the Younger.[8]

Bernard Williams criticised that Nikidion proves for Nussbaum "a slightly creaky device".[9]

gollark: I might do pancake-MSRs.
gollark: Pancake reactors are cool.
gollark: I'd accept any size from 5x1x5 to 15x1x15, really.
gollark: Can you make a LEA-242-or-whatever oxide pancake?
gollark: Odd.

See also

References
  1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book X, Section 7
  2. M Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton 1994) p. 45
  3. Martha Nussbaum, "Skepticism about Practical Reason in Literature And the Law Commentary ," 107 Harvard Law Review 714 (1993). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c803/c7d7d1307305cc6d96da93cc8e15d2ebaaa8.pdf
  4. M Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton 1994) p. 118-122
  5. M Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton 1994) p. 8
  6. M Fricker ed., The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy (Cambridge 2000) p. 249
  7. R Roberts, Emotions (2003) p. 99-101
  8. M Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton 1994) p. 438
  9. B Williams Essays and Reviews (2014) p. 340
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