18 Facts About Harvey Mansfield

1.

Harvey Mansfield has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center; he received the National Humanities Medal in 2004 and delivered the Jefferson Lecture in 2007.

2.

Harvey Mansfield is a Carol G Simon Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

3.

Harvey Mansfield is notable for his generally conservative stance on political issues in his writings.

4.

In interviews Harvey Mansfield has acknowledged the work of Leo Strauss as the key modern influence on his own political philosophy.

5.

Harvey Mansfield has been at Harvard since his own student days in 1949, having joined the faculty in 1962.

6.

Harvey Mansfield was married to Delba Winthrop, with whom he co-translated and co-authored work on Tocqueville.

7.

Harvey Mansfield finds political philosophy in practical politics, which Mansfield considers necessarily partisan, because it involves citizens "arguing passionately pro and con with advocacy and denigration, accusation and defense".

8.

Harvey Mansfield argues that politics does not merely consist of liberal and conservative options, but rather, they are fundamentally opposed to each other, with each side defending its own interest as it attempts to appeal to the common good.

9.

Harvey Mansfield stresses the connection between politics and political philosophy, but he does not find political philosophy in political science, which for Harvey Mansfield is a rival to political philosophy and "apes" the natural sciences.

10.

Harvey Mansfield argues that executive power had to be tamed to become compatible with liberal constitutionalism.

11.

Harvey Mansfield believes that understanding Western civilization is important because the books that explain it deal with problems associated with the human condition.

12.

Nussbaum accuses Harvey Mansfield of misreading, or failing to read, many feminist and nonfeminist texts, in addition to the ancient Greek and Roman classics he cites.

13.

Harvey Mansfield argues that his book is based on overt misogynistic assumptions that take a position of indifference towards violence against women.

14.

In 1993, Harvey Mansfield testified on behalf of Colorado's Amendment 2, which amended the state constitution to prevent gays, lesbians and bisexuals from pursuing legal claims of discrimination.

15.

Harvey Mansfield has voiced criticism of grade inflation at Harvard University and claims it is due in part to affirmative action, but says he cannot show its causal effect.

16.

In November 1997, Harvey Mansfield participated in a debate on affirmative action between Cornel West and Michael Sandel with Ruth Wisse and himself.

17.

Harvey Mansfield commented, "I didn't want my students to be punished by being the only ones to suffer for getting an accurate grade".

18.

On May 8,2007, Harvey Mansfield delivered the 36th Jefferson Lecture.