Alexander Nehamas was born on 22 March 1946 in Athens, Greece. A philosopher, he gained a wide following after his 1985 book, Nietzsche: Life as Literature. Beginning at the University of Pittsburgh in 1971, he moved to UPenn in 1986. He joined the faculty at Princeton in 1990, and currently holds the positions of Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature. He has directed the Program in Hellenic Studies and was the Founding Director of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts.
A recipient of the Mellon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities, he was recently named Brigadier of the Order of the Phoenix by the Greek Government. Nehamas was also Sather Lecturer at UC Berkeley in 1993. Notable works include Virtues of Authenticity (1999), The Art of Living (2000), Only a Promise of Happiness (2007), ‘Aristotleian Philia, Modern Friendship?’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2010), ‘Nietzsche, Intention, Action, Responsibility’ in an anthology of essays on Nietzsche (2015), and ‘The Academy at Work’ Plato’s Academy (2015).
