Debra Nails (born November 15, 1950) is an American philosophy professor who taught at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

. Nails earned her M.A. in philosophy and classical Greek from

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

, Johannesburg in 1993.Michigan State University/philosophy/Debra Nails
(accessed July 11, 2016) Previously, she taught in the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at Mary Washington College. Nails taught courses on the history of philosophy, continental rationalism, metaphysics, and modern philosophy.

Contributions to philosophy

Nails' work primarily focuses on ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics, feminist philosophy, and early modern philosophy. She is the chair of the Committee for Professional Ethics of the

American Association of University Professors The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States that was founded in 1915 in New York City and is currently headquartered in Washington, D.C. AAUP membership inc ...

and was previously on the Committee for the Defense of Professional Rights of Philosophers, and the Committee on Academic Career Opportunities and Placement of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

Awards and distinctions

In addition to being named chair of the Committee for Professional Ethics of the

, Nails was also a Research Fellow at the

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

Center for the Philosophy and History of Science and a University Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Witwatersrand University.

Selected works

Books

* Nails, D. ''The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics'' (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2002). :This is a biographical encyclopedia for Platonic and related ancient Greek scholarship. The

Prosopography Prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a group of people, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable. Research subjects are analysed by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line a ...

relates the lives of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

and other Socratics through the biographical detail of persons mentioned in the Socratic literature. Plato introduces many contemporaries of Socrates as characters and as interlocutors in far-reaching philosophical explorations. * Nails, D. ''Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy.'' Philosophical Studies Series 63 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995).

Anthologies

* ''Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato.'' Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 132 (Scientiarum Fennica, 2015). Ed. D. Nails, H. Tarrant. * ''The Bloomsbury Companion to Plato.'' Bloomsbury Companions Series (Bloomsbury, 2015). Ed. G. A. Press, D. Nails, F. Gonzales, H. Tarrant. * ''Plato's ''Symposium'': Issues in Interpretation and Reception.'' Hellenic Studies Series 22 (Harvard University Press, 2006). Ed. D. Nails, J. H. Lesher, and Frisbee C. C. Sheffield. * ''Naturalistic Epistemology: A Symposium of Two Decades.'' Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Series 100 (Reidel, 1987). Ed. D. Nails, A. Shimony. * ''Spinoza and the Sciences.'' Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Series 91 (Reidel, 1986). Ed. D. Nails and M. Grene.Reviews of ''Spinoza and the Sciences'': Don Garrett, ''Philosophy of Science'', ; A. Rupert Hall, ''Isis'', ; A. Lichtigfeld, ''Tijdschrift voor Filosofie'', ; James Morrison, ''Philosophy in Review''

Cristina Santinelli, ''Archives Internationales d'histoire des Sciences'', ; Ernestine G. E. van der Wall, ''J. Hist. Phil.'', * ''Women and Morality.'' Social Research 50:3 (1983). Ed. D. Nails, M. A. O'Loughlin and J. C. Walker.

Chapters in books

* Nails, D. "The Trial and Death of Socrates." In ''A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought,'' ed. Ryan Balot, pp. 323–38 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009). eprinted from "A Companion to Socrates", ed. Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar, pp. 5–20 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).] * Nails, D. "Tragedy Off-Stage." In ''Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception,'' ed. J. H. Lesher, D Nails, and Frisbee C. C. Sheffield, pp. 179–207. Hellenic Studies Series 22 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). * Nails, D. "The Life of Plato of Athens." In ''A Companion to Plato,'' ed. Hugh Benson, pp. 1–12 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). * Nails, D. "Metaphysics at the Barricades: Spinoza and Race." In ''Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy,'' ed. Andrew Valls, pp. 57–72 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005). * Nails, D. "Mouthpiece Schmouthpiece." In ''Who Speaks for Plato,'' ed. Gerald A. Press, pp. 15–26 (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999).

Articles

* Nails, D. "Seduced by Prodicus," ''Southwest Philosophy Review'' 17:2 (2001), 129–39. * Nails, D. "The Dramatic Date of Plato's Republic." ''The Classical Journal'' 93 (1998), 383–396. * Nails, D. "Human Nature and the Founding of the Polis," ''Skepsis'' 8 (1997), 92–102. * Nails, D. "Plato's 'Middle' Cluster," ''Phoenix'' 48:1 (1994), 62–67. * Nails, D. "Problems with Vlastos's Platonic Developmentalism," Ancient Philosophy 13:2 (1993), 273–291.

References

External links

Debra Nails' Home Page at Michigan State University

Curriculum vitae
* * * * (A concise guide to the persons represented in the Platonic dialogues) *

JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...

(free with registration) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nails, Debra Living people Louisiana State University alumni Michigan State University faculty American women philosophers Scholars of feminist philosophy American scholars of ancient Greek philosophy 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers 1950 births 20th-century American women 21st-century American women Plato scholars