F. Nietzsche does interesting indications on the anthropological foundation of language in his lessons on classical rhetoric, at the University of Basel in 1874. Many quotations of Gerber and Humboldt, and older notions, drawn from the Aristotle's Rhetoric are discussed in this dissertation. Many studies highlighted Nietzsche's attempts during thirty years (1976-2006) to draw a consistent anthropological foundation of the language. Some of them shed light on the metaphor, described from the point of view of (...) anthropology, as an innovative perspective on the philosophy of rhetoric. Would metaphor be a verbal vehicles for conveying scientific and philosophical concepts by attaching unusual importance to the veracity or the truthfulness of a claim? Is that in contradiction to any conceptual truth? Some interpreters suggest that metaphors seen as linguistic products fail to explain the unnatural way meaning is transmitted from the unconscious musicality of language. If imperceptible bonds move the meaning of a word in the musicality of language, then to transmit a message by non verbal means or metaphors relates to a subjectively felt musicality of language. Meaning is expressed, not because there are words with fixed meaning in a conventional way, but because the word is seen in the first place as an action. Living language, seen as metaphorical by essence, is a view shared by German idealism, on the so-called origins of language. A consequence of this view on language is a wide reinterpretation of the reason, from the point of view of a rhetorical turn. Schopenhauer, Von Hartmann and Lichtenberg are some thinkers who pointed out the possibility of a pan-psychist notion of reason that inspired Nietzsche, and later Piaget (e. g. his theory of analogy is built on similar roots). A first part of this dissertation presents the historical genesis of doctrines that don't see language as an innate substratum of the conscious mind, but as rhetorical and conditioned by environment in the wide sense. In the second part, we read the main arguments of contemporary studies in cognitive sciences, discovering new structural similarities compared to the 19th Century views of Nietzsche. In the third part, we discuss the form of poetic imagination regarding a relation between metaphor and melancholy in Greek empirical medicine. (shrink)

There is a deep-seated neopositivist view which regards the language of science as a neutral medium of communication, radically different from indirect symbolic forms of discourse characteristic of arts and humanities. But naturalists, like poets and social scientists, also draw on the dominant images in their culture to organize their thoughts and simplify complex concepts. By conceptualizing one thing in terms of another, metaphors in science not only aid mutual communication between researchers but also structure their understanding of (...) experience and reality. Too transparent to be noticed and critically analyzed within the framework of science itself, metaphors act as lenses, making selected aspects of complex phenomena visible to study and investigation (Reynolds 2018). By linking two seemingly unrelated ideas, for example, those of a machine and DNA replication, metaphors establish new interactions of meaning evoking shared associated connotations between these interacting concepts (Black 1962). This, in turn, may not only transform the perception of a target domain but also open up new prospects for experimental and interpretative avenues. Understanding Metaphors by Andrew Reynolds draws on this vision of metaphors as indispensable tools of scientific thinking to elucidate their role in the life sciences. (shrink)

Many scholars often use the terms “metaphors,” “analogies,” and “models” interchangeably and inadvertently overlook the uniqueness of each word. According to recent cognitive studies, the three terms involve distinct cognitive processes using features from a familiar concept and applying them to an abstract, complicated concept. In the field of science and religion, there have been various objects or ideas used as metaphors, analogies, or models to describe the science–religion relationship. Although these heuristic tools provided some understanding of the complex (...) interaction, they failed to address the broad nature of science and religion as well as the multifarious relationship between the two in a sociocultural context. Unlike the previous candidates, the concept of language, including the notions of linguistic worldview, linguistic identity, dialects, power, and bilingualism, offers a unique and comprehensive window through which science, religion, and the relationship between the two are seen with clarity. (shrink)

Nietzsche hat Herder bekanntlich nur geringe und vor allem polemische Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet. Wie Nietzsche verstand jedoch schon Herder den Menschen und seine Kultur betont aus Analogien mit natürlichen Prozessen; beiden ging es - mit Nietzsches Begriff - um eine 'Vernatürlichung' des Menschen. Dabei nimmt der ursprung der Sprache eine Schlüsselstellung ein, und hier untersteichen widerum beide die Rolle unbewusster Instinkte und Triebe, die zur Produktion von Analogien und Metaphern führen. Da sie sich aber dessen bewusst sind, dass auch (...) ihre Ursprungsdiskurse an die Sprach gebunden bleiben und keine wissenschaftlichen Theorien sein können, werden diese Instinkte und Triebe, jenseits jeden biologistischen Reduktionismus, nur als heuristische Zeichen kenntlich. Während Herder jedoch an der Rolle des Bewusstseins bei der Sprachgenesis festhält, macht Nietzsche, auch hier noch konsequent pragmatisch ansetzend, die Entstehung des Bewussteins selbst von der Kommunikation abhängig.As is well known, Nietzsche gave Herder's thought only cursory attention, and the few remarks he did make were usually polemical and often dismissive. Nevertheless, both Herder and Nietzsche understood humans and their culture on the analogy with natural processes. Both thinkers are concerned with the, to use Nietzsche's phrase, "Vernatürlichung" (naturalization", of human beings. Moreover, both emphasize the importance of understanding the origin of language, especially the way in which instincts and drives lead to the production of analogies and metaphors. Because they are aware that their own discussion of the origin of language remains bound to language and cannot hope to attain the status of scientific theories, since these instincts and drives can only be knowable as heuristic signs. While Herder held that consciousness plays a role in the origin of language, Nietzsche rather sees the origin of consciousness itself dependent on communication. (shrink)

“It is a noble task to try to understand others, and to have them understand you but it is never an easy one”, says Everett. This paper argues that a basic prerequisite for understanding others is to have some shared concepts on which this understanding can build. If speakers of different languages didn’t share some concepts to begin with then cross-cultural understanding would not be possible even with the best of will on all sides. Current Anthropology (...) For example, Everett claims that Pirahã has no word for “mother”, no words for “before’ and “after”, no words for “one”, “two” and “all” and no words comparable to ‘think” and “want”. These claims are based, I believe, on faulty semantic analysis, and in particular, on a determination not to recognize polysemy under any circumstances. As I see it, at many points this stance makes nonsense of Everett’s own data and distorts the conceptual world of the Pirahã. Since he does not want to recognize the existence of any shared concepts, Everett is also not prepared to address the question of a culture-neutral metalanguage in which Pirahã and English conceptual categories could be compared. This often leads him to imposing cultural categories of English on the conceptual world of the Pirahã. The result is a combination of exoticism and Anglocentrism which doesn’t do justice to Everett’s long and intimate engagement with the Pirahã people and their language. Sadly, it blinds him to what Franz Boas called “the psychic unity of mankind”, reflected in the common semantic features of human languages and fully compatible with the cultural shaping of their lexicons and grammars. (shrink)

A significant discrepancy in Wittgenstein's studies is whether Philosophical Investigations contains any trace of positive philosophy, notwithstanding the author's apparent anti-theoretic position. This study argues that the so-called ‘Chapter on philosophy’ in the Investigations §§89–133 contains negative and positive vocabulary and the use of various voices through which Wittgenstein employs his primary method of language-games, thus providing a surveyable understanding of several philosophical concepts, such as knowledge and time. His positive philosophy aims to reorient our attention from (...) understanding the theories on these concepts to understanding the concepts themselves, regardless of any theorisation. (shrink)

The idea that language is metaphoric in nature has often been suggested or stated since Vico and Rousseau. Derrida, too, often writes about metaphor and the impression he gives is that he is arguing for the metaphoric nature of both thought, whether philosophic or not, and language. Interpreters like de Man or Culler have helped to spread this impression. If it is correct, Derrida shares a pan-metaphoric view of language and whatever can be made with (...) it. It is useful to refer to Derrida's view because in my opinion he has been very good at saying what language is, even if he has been very much in the wrong in seeing no distinction between language and language use. Let us consider first what he has been good at. (shrink)

This volume provides the first English translation of Nietzsche's unpublished notes from late 1879 to early 1881, the period in which he authored Dawn, the second book in the trilogy that began with Human, All Too Human and concluded with The Joyful Science. In these fragments, we see Nietzsche developing the conceptual triad of morals, customs, and ethics, which undergirds his critique of morality as the reification into law or dogma of conceptions of good and evil. (...) Here, Nietzsche assesses Christianity's role in the determination of moral values as the highest values and of redemption as the representation of humanity's highest aspirations. These notes show the resulting tension between Nietzsche's contrasting thoughts on modernity, which he critiques as an unrecognized aftereffect of the Christian worldview, but also views as the springboard to "the dawn" of a transformed humanity and culture. The fragments further allow readers insight into Nietzsche's continuous internal debate with exemplary figures in his own life and culture - Napoleon, Schopenhauer, and Wagner - who represented challenges to hitherto existing morals and culture - challenges that remained exemplary for Nietzsche precisely in their failure. Presented in Nietzsche's aphoristic style, Dawn is a book that must be read between the lines, and these fragments are an essential aid to students and scholars seeking to probe this work and its partners. (shrink)

Presenting the entire German text of Nietzsche's lectures on rhetoric and language and his notes for them, as well as facing page English translations, this book fills an important gap in the philosopher's corpus. Until now unavailable or existing only in fragmentary form, the lectures represent a major portion of Nietzsche's achievement. Included are an extensive editors' introduction on the background of Nietzsche's understanding of rhetoric, and critical notes identifying his sources and independent contributions.

"Nietzsche versus Wagner", sometimes translated "Nietzsche against Wagner", is a critical examination of the composer Richard Wagner, whom Nietzsche praised in his early years and later declared his enemy. Nietzsche was close to the entire Wagner family, even Wagner's wives, but later had a falling out and spent a significant amount of energy attacking him. In this work, Nietzsche distances himself from Wagner's music and ideology, criticizing the composer's embrace of German nationalism and his turn (...) to Christianity. Nietzsche contrasts Wagner's decadent, pessimistic art with his own vision of a life-affirming, Dionysian aesthetic. The book reflects Nietzsche's broader concerns about the role of art and culture in society and his ongoing exploration of the tensions between Apollonian and Dionysian forces. Nietzsche also addresses the psychological and philosophical implications of Wagner's music, arguing that it represents a retreat from the complexities of reality into the comforting illusions of myth and religion. He sees Wagner's work as symptomatic of a broader cultural malaise characterized by a loss of vitality and authenticity. Through his critique of Wagner, Nietzsche seeks to reaffirm the values of individualism, creativity, and the joyful affirmation of life that he believes are essential to the rejuvenation of culture and the realization of human potential. This is one of three major works attacking Wager's music and legacy Nietzsche issued. This work was assembled and published at the end of 1888 under the title Nietzsche contra Wagner, shortly before his final mental collapse in January 1889. The text was published in December 1888 by C. G. Naumann in Leipzig. This new 2024 translation of the original 1888 German manuscript includes a new afterword by the translator, a timeline of Nietzsche's life and works, an index with descriptions of his key concepts, and summaries of his complete works. This translation is designed to allow the armchair philosopher to engage deeply with Nietzsche's works without having to be a full-time Academic. The language is modern and clean, with simplified sentence structures and diction to make Nietzsche's complex language and arguments as accessible as possible. This Reader's Edition also contains extra material that amplifies the manuscript with autobiographical, historical and linguistic context. This provides the reader a holistic view of this very enigmatic philosopher as both an introduction and an exploration of Nietzsche's works; from his general understanding of his philosophic project to an exploration of the depths of his metaphysics and unique contributions. This edition contains: • An Afterword by the Translator on the history, impact and intellectual legacy of Nietzsche • Translation notes on the original German, Latin and Greek manuscript • An index of Philosophical concepts used by Nietzsche with a focus on Existentialism and Phenomenology • A chronological list of Nietzsche's entire body of works • A detailed timeline of Nietzsche's life and works. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an account of Wittgenstein's conception of what it is to understand religious language. I show that Wittgenstein's view undermines the idea that as regards religious faith only two options are possible – either adherence to a set of metaphysical beliefs (with certain ways of acting following from these beliefs) or passionate commitment to a ‘doctrineless’ form of life. I offer a defence of Wittgenstein's conception against Kai Nielsen's charges that Wittgenstein removes (...) the ‘content’ from religious belief and renders the religious form of life ‘incommensurable’ with other domains of discourse, thus immunizing it against rational criticism. (shrink)

The four short works in Untimely Meditations were published by Nietzsche between 1873 and 1876.They deal with such broad topics as the relationship between popular and genuine culture, strategies for cultural reform, the task of philosophy, the nature of education, and the relationship between art, science and life. They also include Nietzsche's earliest statement of his own understanding of human selfhood as a process of endlessly 'becoming who one is'. As Daniel Breazeale shows in his introduction (...) to this new edition of R. J. Hollingdale's translation of the essays, these four early texts are key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought and clearly anticipate many of the themes of his later writings. Nietzsche himself always cherished his Untimely Meditations and believed that they provide valuable evidence of his 'becoming and self-overcoming' and constitute a 'public pledge' concerning his own distinctive task as a philosopher. (shrink)

Language has often served both as a metaphor for thought. It is highly plausible that language serves as an epistemic entre into thought and that language structures adult human thought to a considerable degree. The language metaphor is, however, uncritically extended as a literal model of thought.This paper criticizes this extension, arguing that thought is not literally implemented in language and distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate uses of (...) class='Hi'>language as a device for understanding thought. (shrink)

As AI systems become increasingly competent language users, it is an apt moment to consider what it would take for machines to understand human languages. This paper considers whether either language models such as GPT-3 or chatbots might be able to understand language, focusing on the question of whether they could possess the relevant concepts. A significant obstacle is that systems of both kinds interact with the world only through text, and thus seem ill-suited to (...) class='Hi'>understanding utterances concerning the concrete objects and properties which human language often describes. Language models cannot understand human languages because they perform only linguistic tasks, and therefore cannot represent such objects and properties. However, chatbots may perform tasks concerning the non-linguistic world, so they are better candidates for understanding. Chatbots can also possess the concepts necessary to understand human languages, despite their lack of perceptual contact with the world, due to the language-mediated concept-sharing described by social externalism about mental content. (shrink)

Understanding Organizational Leadership through Ubuntu offers a creative, innovative and holistic approach to understanding organizational leadership using the principles embodied in the African philosophy of personhood known as ubuntu - or the essence of being human. Using African proverbs, folktales and indigenous concepts, the book discusses the organizational principles of ubuntu and the leadership lessons that modern organizations can learn from these principles. The principles include sharing and collective ownership of opportunities, responsibilities and challenges, the importance of (...) people and relationships over things, participatory leadership and decision making, loyalty, reconciliation, experiential learning and knowledge management By using humorous ways that touch people's heart to communicate organizational and personal management and improvement strategies, the book demystifies organizational language while at the same time enhancing its power. It also contributes to the much-needed cross-cultural dialogue among organizations and societies. _______________________ Chiku Malunga is a consultant and author with many years experience of organizational development work among African and European NGOs. He is currently the director of Capacity Development Consultants (CADECO), an organization that promotes African- centered organizational improvement models. His books include: Understanding Organizational Sustainability through African Proverbs, Organizational Wisdom in African Proverbs, and Making Strategic Plans Work: Insights from African Indigenous Wisdom (2009). He holds a doctorate degree in Development Studies from the University of South Africa and is married with two children and is based in Malawi. He can be contacted at: cadeco@sdnp.org.mw Publication date: June 2009. (shrink)

This convenient new compendium contains the five most philosophically significant of Nietzsche’s post- Thus Spoke Zarathustra writings. Nietzsche wrote of these works that he intended them as “fish hooks” for catching readers who shared his sense that a cataclysmic shift in human psychology had suddenly occurred with the advent of nihilism - the uncanny and pervasive feeling that life is devoid of all meaning, purpose, and value. Taken together these books offer the reader a definitive account (...) of Nietzsche’s mature philosophy as he intended it to be presented and a sweeping attack upon everything the modern Western world holds to be good about itself. (shrink)

The most popular of Friedrich Nietzsche's works, Thus Spoke Zarathustra ranks among the most remarkable feats of German literature. A symphony of language, it abounds in every kind of wordplay and an intricate network of leitmotifs. This dual-language edition features one third of Nietzsche's work, keeping the most famous concepts intact and encompassing a variety of moods and modes as well as the author's full linguistic scope. Editor Stanley Appelbaum presents accurate English translations on the pages (...) facing the original German, an informative introduction to the author's life and oeuvre, plus notes throughout the text and brief summaries of the omitted chapters. (shrink)

Images, sounds and thoughts as orientation factors: Clues with Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. – The paper demonstrates how images and sounds become clues both for Nietzsche and Wittgenstein in order to understand sentences and thoughts (I). Nietzsche pursues the question of how we orient ourselves not only through thoughts but also through images and sounds from his philosophical beginnings and, by doing so, he draws horizon lines for answering this question (II). In approximately these leeways, Wittgenstein asks how (...) thinking, instead of simply thinking itself, shows itself: he explores the possibilities of methodically describing this showing itself and finds them in analogizing the understanding of a sentence on the one hand and the understanding of an image and of a piece of music on the other (III). (shrink)

The present paper intends to study Avicenna’s and Nietzsche’s approaches to the relationship between philosophy and medicine by examining their understanding of the multiple analogous meanings of “sickness” and “health” with regard to human existence. Avicenna considers philosophy itself as a form of “medicine” insofar as it can cure the soul from the sceptical doubt concerning the possibility of knowing the truth and thus create a perfect harmony between body, soul, and spirit. But in a second step, (...) he claims that earthly life itself is an “illness” that keeps us from the perfect contemplation of God as supreme intelligible object and, therefore, has to be “cured” by death. Nietzsche shares with Avicenna not only the particular interest in dietetics but also the conviction that philosophy has a deeply therapeutic dimension. However, he replaces the vertical movement of metaphysical ascension towards absolute, divine truth with the horizontal journey of philosophical transformation that allows each human being to find their own inalienable concept of “sickness” and “health” and in doing so, become their own healer. (shrink)

The question examined in this study is not merely how a Nietzschean critique of law would look had Nietzsche ever applied his genealogical method to the question of law, but also what positive function Nietzschean philosophy may ascribe to law, and how law must then be transformed. The methodological parable imagines a “post-genealogy” or “pot-ressentiment” phase of the human condition, akin to the Marxist “post-revolutionary” phase: how would law look for the person of power - overman or otherwise (...) - who needs to live among others? How is normativity possible - what are its forms and functions - in a social world that has undergone a reevaluation of all values? The study traces three possible models for conceptualizing law in Nietzschean terms, each requiring a radical shift from traditional (in different contexts: liberal, Christian, bourgeois) conceptions. The first one is play: law as affirming and embracing the essence of the Dionysian, which is perpetual becoming. Play requires us to let go of law's role as the curtailer of arbitrariness. An integral part of the Nietzschean program, it requires a radical reevaluation: not just law's content is overcome, nor merely its bourgeois forms (in Pashukanis' critical terms), but its “internal” or “inherent” values of certitude and stability are overcome as well. The model I offer for play is not Zarathustra's dicethrow but Borges' The Lottery in Babylon. The second model is that of resistance, framed by Nietzsche's analysis of power and Deleuze's distinction between active and reactive forces. The insight here is that power requires resistance, and it is law's primary function to empower the other in order to invest value in meeting and confronting her; thus the monism of the will to power not only does not do away with normativity in the public sphere but actually requires it - but for goals opposite to those of liberalism. Resistance is linked to the third model, fashioned after Nietzsche's model of education: here, law performs not as a socializing agent but rather as a “liberator” of authenticity. Its function is analogous to that of a mentor whose role is to ultimately encourage the pupil into coming into her own will, shedding ressentiment and bad conscience in an active, i.e. non-conscious way; in its relation to consciousness it is the opposite of psychoanalysis. A fourth consideration is then offered, the role of normativity in self-overcoming, or self-legislating; namely, how does normativity figure in the will to power's most significant challenge. While all these models work from an interpretation of the will to power as becoming, the last two are especially dependent on the active-reactive distinction. The cornerstone is not to mix up power with representations of power; to realize that the case is not the will that desires power (as an object of desire, this would necessarily involve a representation of power) but power that wills becoming. In dealing with this metaphysical question I expound on a similar crucial interpretation, originally offered by Deleuze; however, I break off from Deleuze's claim that the will to power has nothing to do with any notion of struggle. If this discussion of the will to power is missed , or if it is wrong, the main argument of this article can not hold. Finally, I use this interpretation of the will to power to solve Kafka's riddle in The Trial: a necessary move once one realizes that, in the ethical history of western culture, Kafka's parable of the seeker of the law before its closed gates continues a sequence that began with Plato's fable of the cave and continued with Zarathustra's cave parable. I add three points that may be termed methodological or contextual. The first is positioning Nietzsche's limited discussion of law and politics as a derivative of his metaphysics of the will and treatment of moral psychology, not as an independent topic to be searched and indexed in some textual corpus. The second is to understand the question of normativity in its particularly Nietzschean sense, i.e. “what is X to me/to the overman?”, and not in the Kantian sense of uncovering the conditions that entail any synthetic, a-priori sentence (such as normative ones). The last comment places the Nietzschean project in a larger pattern that defined radical thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and whose other cases are Marx and Freud: a new metaphysics (will to power/materialism/id) that uncovers a state of bondage, psychological and material, in which law plays a pivotal role in its function of reinforcer and supplier of a legitimizing language (respectively, of ressentiment, of the relations of production, of Oedipus and the bourgeois family); and finally radical, yet partial ways of overcoming bondage that are not mutually translatable - genealogy, revolution, psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Published posthumously in 1908, Ecce Homo was written in 1888 and completed just a few weeks before Nietzsche’s complete mental collapse. Its outrageously egotistical review of the philosopher’s life and works—featuring chapters called Why I Am So Wise and Why I Write Such Good Books—are redeemed from mere arrogance by masterful language and ever-relevant ideas. In addition to settling scores with his many personal and philosophical enemies, Nietzsche emphasizes the importance of questioning traditional morality, establishing autonomy, and (...) making a commitment to creativity. Essential reading for students of philosophy, this unique memoir is crucial to an understanding of Nietzsche’s other works. (shrink)

I consider ethics to be the essence and the end of the philosophy of both Wittgenstein and Nietzsche. While in Nietzsche’s case this statement is quite obvious, especially in the light of his Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals, one may think, mistakenly in my opinion, that Wittgenstein thought was very little related to ethical problems for they were for him a part of the domain which one must be silent about. I argue that (...) the aim of Nietzsche’s and Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is a sort of secular salvation. I call it salvation having in mind some the ideas common to both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein for whom the concepts of freeing, releasing, healing and overcoming oneself, as well as of removing misunderstandings, were main aims of their philosophies. It is a salvation because both philosophers strove for a change in human life, a revolution within the self, and they evidently did not accept our ‘being in the world’ as it is. In conclusion I argue that Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are philosophers who aimed to define the good available to humans, and the life worthy of humanity. Key words WITTGENSTEIN, NIETZCHE, ETHICS. (shrink)

In this paper, I first review previous interpretations of Wittgenstein's remarks on private language, revealing their inadequacies, and then present my own interpretation. Basing mainly on Wittgenstein's notes for lectures on private sensations, I establish the following points: ‘remembering the connection right’ means ‘reidentifying sensation-types’; the reason for ‘no criterion of correctness’ is that nothing, especially no inner mechanisms nor external devices, can be utilised by the private speaker to tell whether some sensations are of one type (...) or different types; and private names are not really names, private language is not really a language, therefore, private language is a grammatical illusion. My interpretation has the advantage of being able to reconcile Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, which is to dissolve philosophical problems by rearranging grammatical facts, with his actual philosophical practice, at least in the case of private language. (shrink)

This remarkable collection of almost 1,400 aphorisms was originally published in three instalments. The first (now Volume I) appeared in 1878, just before Nietzsche abandoned academic life, with a first supplement entitled The Assorted Opinions and Maxims following in 1879, and a second entitled The Wanderer and his Shadow a year later. In 1886 Nietzsche republished them together in a two-volume edition, with new prefaces to each volume. Both volumes are presented here in R. J. Hollingdale's distinguished translation (...) (originally published in the series Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy) with a new introduction by Richard Schacht. In this wide-ranging work Nietzsche first employed his celebrated aphoristic style, so perfectly suited to his iconoclastic, penetrating and multi-faceted thought. Many themes of his later work make their initial appearance here, expressed with unforgettable liveliness and subtlety. Human, All Too Human well deserves its subtitle 'A Book for Free Spirits', and its original dedication to Voltaire, whose project of radical enlightenment here found a new champion. (shrink)

We introduce a computational theory of situated language understanding in which the meaning of words and utterances depends on the physical environment and the goals and plans of communication partners. According to the theory, concepts that ground linguistic meaning are neither internal nor external to language users, but instead span the objective‐subjective boundary. To model the possible interactions between subject and object, the theory relies on the notion of perceived affordances: structured units of interaction that can be (...) used for prediction at multiple levels of abstraction. Language understanding is treated as a process of filtering perceived affordances. The theory accounts for many aspects of the situated nature of human language use and provides a unified solution to a number of demands on any theory of language understanding including conceptual combination, prototypicality effects, and the generative nature of lexical items.To support the theory, we describe an implemented system that understands verbal commands situated in a virtual gaming environment. The implementation uses probabilistic hierarchical plan recognition to generate perceived affordances. The system has been evaluated on its ability to correctly interpret free‐form spontaneous verbal commands recorded from unrehearsed game play between human players. The system is able to “step into the shoes” of human players and correctly respond to a broad range of verbal commands in which linguistic meaning depends on social and physical context. We quantitatively compare the system's predictions in response to direct player commands with the actions taken by human players and show generalization to unseen data across a range of situations and verbal constructions. (shrink)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are _transparent_ in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, I aim to (...) show that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads, after we learn of what is going on outside. In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no _de re_ awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation-words; for example, I am never aware _of _the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensation is always _de dicto_. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned _that _ blue is the color that usually causes in us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

"Prefaces to Unwritten Works is a collection of five essays, prefaces to books that Nietzsche never went on to write. Nietzsche himself put these prefaces together in the form of a small leather-bound, handwritten book, and gave that book to Cosima Wagner as a Christmas present in 1872. The dedicatory letter indicates that Nietzsche sent this little book to Cosima "in heartfelt reverence and as an answer to verbal and epistolary questions." As such, this work is a (...) window into Nietzsche's relations with the Wagners at the height of their association, but it is also a continuation of Nietzsche's radical confrontation with Greek antiquity that had begun with the then-recently published Birth of Tragedy. The Wagners read Nietzsche's book of prefaces on the evening of New Year's Day 1873, and Cosima records in her diary five days later that at night, "again" she reflected about the essence of art as a consequence of Nietzsche's work. A month later, Cosima sent Nietzsche a letter encouraging him to write at least two of the books promised by his prefaces." "Nietzsche did not go to write the books heralded by these prefaces, but the prefaces themselves provide substantial challenges of their own and intriguing clues as to the form and content of the books Nietzsche may have intended. Some of these prefaces are better known to students of Nietzsche than others and have attracted significant attention from scholars. The first essay is entitled On the Pathos of Truth, and it consider the relative value of truth and art for human life. The second essay, Thoughts on the Future of Our Educational Institutions, is the only preface in this collection regarding which Nietzsche did actually go on to write a book, albeit a book he did not publish (entitled On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, available from St. Augustine's Press). This essay is a revised version of the preface Nietzsche wrote for that book, and the changes Nietzsche made are indicative of the plans he had for an improved version. The topic of the essay is almost entirely the art of careful reading. The third essay is entitled The Greek State, and it treats of the relation of slavery to culture and of the genius to the state. This essay is also an interpretation of Plato's Republic, in which Nietzsche claims to reveal everything he has "divined of this secret writing." The fourth essay, The Relation of Schopenhauerian Philosophy to a German Culture, neither assumes that there is in fact, at present, a German Culture, nor hardly mentions Schopen-hauer at all, except to suggest that he is one about whom a culture could be built. The final essay is entitled Homer's Contest and is an exploration of the place of jealousy, strife, and agonistic competition in Greek culture."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

In a rare discussion of Gadamer's work, Davidson takes issue with Gadamer's claim that successful communication requires that interlocutors share a common language. While he is right to see a difference between his own views and Gadamer's on this point, Davidson appears to have misunderstood what motivates Gadamer's position, conflating it with that of his more familiar conventionalist interlocutors. This paper articulates Gadamer's view of the role of language in communicative understanding as an alternative to both Davidson's (...) and that of the conventionalist writers Davidson critiques. It is argued, first, that Gadamer employs a conception of what individuates a language, and thus of what it means for two speakers to “share” a language, that Davidson never considers. By emphasizing the role of “application” in the historical development of languages, Gadamer develops a view in which languages are distinguished not by their particular semantic or syntactic rules, but by subtle differences between the concepts they express. Second, it is argued that the instances of “asymmetrical” communication—communication between interlocutors who have different sets of concepts at their disposal—that motivate Gadamer's position pose a challenge to Davidson's account of interpretative charity. (shrink)

Aaron Ridley explores Nietzsche's mature ethical thought as expressed in his masterpiece On the Genealogy of Morals. Taking seriously the use that Nietzsche makes of human types, Ridley arranges his book thematically around the six characters who loom largest in that work—the slave, the priest, the philosopher, the artist, the scientist, and the noble. By elucidating what the Genealogy says about these figures, he achieves a persuasive new assessment of Nietzsche's ethics. Ridley's intellectually supple interpretation (...) reveals Nietzsche's ethical position to be deeper and more interesting than is often supposed: the relation, for instance, between Nietzsche's ideal of the noble and the ascetic or priestly conscience does not emerge as a stark opposition but as a rich interplay between the tensions inherent in each. Equally, he shows that certain under-appreciated confusions in Nietzsche's thought reveal much about the positive aspects of the philosopher's moral vision. The only book devoted entirely to the Genealogy, Nietzsche's Conscience offers a sympathetic but tough-minded critical reading of the philosopher's most important work. Delivered in clear and vigorous language and employing a broadly analytical approach, Ridley's commentary makes Nietzsche's reflections on morality more accessible than they have been hitherto. (shrink)

In this article, it has been aimed to examine Nietzsche’s main critique towards different understandings of morals in his era. With this criticism, it is aimed to integrally understand the opinions -which are articulated directly or metaphorically- towards morals which have been encountered. In here, while keeping in mind the difference between the concepts of immoralism and amoralism, Nietzsche’s views are interpreted. Being parallel to that aim mentioned above, it has been investigated if there is a thinking in (...) Nietzsche which can be seen as a kind of understanding of morals (maybe as the understanding of morals without morals) or not. And finally, it has been thought that if Nietzsche’s views on morals have any value for the 21st century and upcoming 22nd century human or not, whether there’s something left to learn for this human from his critiques or not. (shrink)

Few philosophers are as widely read or as widely misunderstood as Friedrich Nietzsche. When Danto's classic study was first published in 1965, many regarded Nietzsche as a brilliant but somewhat erratic thinker. Danto, however, presented a radically different picture, arguing that Nietzsche offered a systematic and coherent philosophy that anticipated many of the questions that define contemporary philosophy. Danto's clear and insightful commentaries helped canonize Nietzsche as a philosopher and continue to illuminate subtleties in Nietzsche's (...) work as well as his immense contributions to the philosophies of science, language, and logic. This new edition, which includes five additional essays, not only further enhances our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy; it responds to the misunderstandings that continue to muddy his intellectual reputation. Even today, Nietzsche is seen as everything from a precursor of feminism and deconstruction to a prophetic writer and spokesperson for disgruntled teenage boys. As Danto points out in his preface, Nietzsche's writings have purportedly inspired recent acts of violence and school shootings. Danto counters these misreadings by elaborating an anti-Nietzschian philosophy from within Nietzsche's own philosophy "in the hope of disarming the rabid Nietzsche and neutralizing the vivid frightening images that have inspired sociopaths for over a century." The essays also consider specific works by Nietzsche, including _Human, All Too Human_ and _The Genealogy of Morals_, as well as the philosopher's artistic metaphysics and semantical nihilism. (shrink)

In 1978 Jacques Derrida published a short text on Friedrich Nietzsche, entitled Spurs. Nietzsche’s Styles. Basing on it and on other of both authors’ writings, the article presents their understanding of truth, conceived metaphorically as a woman. The Nietzschean-Derridian concept of truth involves a mutual style of writing, therefore of thinking — since for the two philosophers language is an impassable sphere of thought. It turns out that philosophy — as an affirmation of the woman-truth (...) — must rely on repeating the existing notions and problems in new configurations, therefore on a continuous interpretation and on undertaking all over again the effort of writing. (shrink)

There are no men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood.... On the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect or happily circumstanced which can do the like.-Descartes Language is more like a snowflake than a giraffe's neck. Its specific properties are determined by laws of nature, they have not developed through the accumulation of historical accidents.-Noam (...) Chomsky In I Speak, Therefore I Am, the Italian linguist and neuroscientist Andrea Moro composes an album of his favorite quotations from the history of linguistics, beginning with the Book of Genesis and the power of naming and concluding with Noam Chomsky's metaphor that language is a snowflake. Moro's seventeen linguistic thoughts and his commentary on them display the humanness of language: our need to name and interpret this world and create imaginary ones, to express and understand ourselves. This book is sure to delight anyone who enjoys the ineffable paradox that is human language. (shrink)

Metaphor enters contemporary philosophical discussion from a variety of directions. Aside from its obvious importance in poetics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, it also figures in such fields as philosophy of mind (e.g., the question of the metaphorical status of ordinary mental concepts), philosophy of science (e.g, the comparison of metaphors and explanatory models), in epistemology (e.g., analogical reasoning), and in cognitive studies (in, e.g., the theory of concept-formation). This article will concentrate on issues metaphor raises for the philosophy of (...) language, with the understanding that the issues in these various fields cannot be wholly isolated from each other. Metaphor is an issue for the philosophy of language not only for its own sake, as a linguistic phenomenon deserving of analysis and interpretation, but also for the light it sheds on non-figurative language, the domain of the literal which is the normal preoccupation of the philosopher of language. A poor reason for this preoccupation would be the assumption that purely literal language is what most language-use consists in, with metaphor and the like sharing the relative infrequency and marginal status of songs or riddles. This would not be a good reason not only because mere frequency is not a good guide to theoretical importance, but also because it is doubtful that the assumption is even true. In recent years, writers with very different concerns have pointed out that figurative language of one sort or another is a staple of the most. (shrink)

Daybreak marks the arrival of Nietzsche's 'mature' philosophy and is indispensable for an understanding of his critique of morality and 'revaluation of all values'. This volume presents the distinguished translation by R. J. Hollingdale, with a new introduction that argues for a dramatic change in Nietzsche's views from Human, All Too Human to Daybreak, and shows how this change, in turn, presages the main themes of Nietzsche's later and better-known works such as On the (...) Genealogy of Morality. The main themes of Daybreak are located in their intellectual and philosophical contexts: in Nietzsche's training as a classical philologist and his fascination with the Sophists and Thucydides; in the moral philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer, which are the central foci of Nietzsche's critique of morality; and in the German Materialist movement of the 1850s and after, which shaped Nietzsche's conception of persons. The edition is completed by a chronology, notes and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” (PI §580) there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument (henceforth PLA) overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are transparent in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic (...) viewpoint, I aim to show that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts (henceforth PCs) is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads after we learn of what is going on outside (PI §580). In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no de re awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation words; for example, I am never aware of the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensations is always de dicto. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that (de dicto knowledge) blue is the color that usually causes us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plato's Political Analogy: Fallacy or Analogy? ROBERT W. HALL THE INTERPRETATIONOf the familiar political analogy between the state and the soul is crucial to a proper understanding of Plato's conception of the individual and his relation to the polls. Interpretations which, consciously or not, tend to identify the justice of the individual with that of the state result either in a subordination of justice of (...) the individual to that of the state, or in endowing the ordinary citizen with an inferior justice. These interpretations of the political analogy have beert adequately dealt with? Recently, Vlastos has stressed what he considers to be the logical or deductive character of the analogy." He finds defects or fallacies in Plato's logic, which, while not necessarily fatal to the significance of the analogy, seriously impair its cogency. What is of particular interest is Vlastos' claim that the primary goal of the analogy is a demonstration, unknown to most scholars, albeit an unsuccessful one, that the justice of the individual necessarily instantiates or entails ordinary acts of justice,a Vlastos has thus raised the question of what kind of approach is most fruitful in unlocking the meaning of the political analogy. My own conviction is that the political analogy can best be understood through a careful examination or observation of the two wholes, the state and the individual, and the character of their relationship. A consideration of the essentials of Vlastos' outlook on the analogy will be a useful introduction to what may be termed a "phenomenological" approach. Such a perspective may provide a better understanding of what Plato is attempting to establish in the analogy, and of how he goes about it. Vlastos' interpretation of the political analogy is strongly colored by his assessment of the central concern of the Republic, the proof that justice "pays." By this Vlastos means that what he terms "psychological justice," the correct, hierarchical arrangement of the three parts or aspects of the soul, must be proven to result in acts of external justice. It is this relationship between psychological justice and ordinary or social justice which sets the problem of logical consistency in Vlastos' account of the political analogy. As the definition of justice of the individual or psychological justice, Vlastos offers Socrates' statement, "In the case of each one of us, whoever is such that each of the three [psychic elements] in him does its own, he is a just man." The social description of justice is: What we laid down at the start as a general requirement when we were founding the polls this, or some form of it, is justice. We did lay down, and often stated, if you recall, that every single person ought to engage in the social function.., for which his own nature is I For exponents of these positions and their critics, cf. my "Plato's Theory of Justice in the Republic," Bucknell Review, XV, 2 (May, 1967), 60, n. I. G. Vlastos, "Justice and Psychic Harmony in the Republic," The 1ournal of Philosophy, LXVI, 16 (August 21, 1969), 505-521. All further references to this article will be by page number. s 506, 515. [419] 420 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY best fitted.uWe did say this.--And indeed that to do one's own and not to be meddlesome is justice, this we have often heard from many others, and have often said ourselves.-Wc have said it.--This, then, my friend, if taken in a certain way, appears to be justice: to do one's own. (433A-B) 4 Vlastos admits that this social description is not really a definition of the justice of the individual, "that 'doing one's own' was not meant to constitute a definition of the justice of an individual person.''~ Nonetheless, this social description functions for him as a definition of the individual's justice, and plays a prominent role in the supposed fallacy of equivocation in the meaning of justice. Vlastos argues for this social description on the grounds that "/or Plato every just man must have the disposition named by the 'doing one's own' formula.''e The basis for this claim is Socrates' declaration that "the same (moral) characters... (shrink)

My dissertation examines the significance of value creation in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. In working out Nietzsche’s view, my strategy is twofold. I begin by reconstructing Nietzsche’s metaethical commitments, offering an interpretation of Nietzsche’s conception of values that shows it to be consistent, and then I explore the nature and importance of value creation to Nietzsche’s project. I argue that value creation provides the core of Nietzsche’s response to his two most significant concerns: (...) the failures of traditional morality and the loss of meaning in the modern world. In Chapter 1 I examine the current literature concerning Nietzsche’s metaethics. Recently, scholars have engaged in debates over whether Nietzsche offers a version of moral realism or anti-realism. I argue that neither side of this debate adequately captures Nietzsche’s understanding of value. Moreover, by starting from these contemporary categories we cannot make sense of the importance Nietzsche places on value creation. In Chapter 2 I defend my account of Nietzsche’s conception of value by examining two features of his view: the nature of valuing and the connection between values and reasons. I argue that Nietzsche presents standards of value that are internal to the activity of valuing, and I explore the standards of health and honesty. Nietzsche’s strategy becomes clearer when we examine the connection he makes between values and tastes, and my view has the added interpretive benefit of revealing a motivation for Nietzsche’s untraditional philosophical methodology. In Chapters 3-4 I examine the processes and functions of value creation. I begin with the historical examples of value creation Nietzsche presents, and from these I elucidate the task of value creation. I argue that Nietzsche’s aim through value creation is the development of richer, shared sensibilities or forms of concern, which provide the foundation for a new approach to ethical reasoning and justification. Furthermore, value creation comprises Nietzsche’s principal strategy to avert nihilism. My development of value creation as both a new ethical ideal and a source of meaning results in a surprising conclusion about Nietzsche’s view of social relations. Many read Nietzsche as a radical individualist, believing his ideal of value creation must require solitude or the life of a hermit. Yet, value creation is best understood as a social activity. Despite Nietzsche’s reliance on the solitary individual, I suggest that Nietzsche’s commitments to value creation are best captured by a model of competitive collaboration, which he calls friendship. The contribution of my project extends beyond mere Nietzsche interpretation. In Chapter 5 I argue that Nietzsche offers compelling arguments that address contemporary ethical debates. I offer a Nietzschean critique of a recent call for value creation by J. David Velleman. I conclude by suggesting that Nietzsche offers an intriguing twist on Bernard Williams’ conception of ethical confidence; creating values creates the normative concepts that provide the basis for meaningful action. (shrink)

A startling and thought-provoking work from one of the most powerful philosophers in the Western canon Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Philosophy Classic, is Friedrich Nietzsche’s classic masterpiece of philosophy and literature. Nietzsche writes from the perspective of Zarathustra who, after years of meditation, has come down from a mountain to provide his wisdom to an unsuspecting world. He offers enduring observations on God, the Übermensch, the will to power, and the nature of human beings. This deluxe (...) hardback Capstone edition includes an insightful introduction from leading Nietzsche scholar Dirk R. Johnson Perfect for students and scholars of philosophy, literature and history, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Philosophy Classic belongs in the libraries of anyone interested in the philosophy of Nietzsche and in his powerful explorations of God, life, power, and humanity. (shrink)

This radical reading of Wittgenstein's third and last masterpiece, On Certainty, has major implications for philosophy. It elucidates Wittgenstein's ultimate thoughts on the nature of our basic beliefs and his demystification of scepticism. Our basic certainties are shown to be nonepistemic, nonpropositional attitudes that, as such, have no verbal occurrence but manifest themselves exclusively in our actions. This fundamental certainty is a belief-in, a primitive confidence or ur-trust whose practical nature bridges the hitherto unresolved categorial gap between belief (...) and action. (shrink)

Ever since Heidegger lectured on Nietzsche, philosophers have stressed the active side of the Übermensch, the self who aggressively consumes and exploits value. Sheridan Hough, however, argues that there is a distinctly receptive and passive side to the Nietzschean self, and thus a pervasive doubleness in Nietzsche's thought that hasn't been explored before. This doubleness is the focus of Hough's attention here. Hough argues that Nietzsche's favorite way to describe the self is to use opposed pairs (...) of metaphors. The sea and the land, the pursuit of archaeology and the "granite stratum" of the self, the child and pregnancy are tropes he uses to show the self as both an active critic of culture and a creation of that culture. Noon and shadow exemplify this dual thinking. The free spirit, according to Nietzsche, is dogged by a shadow, a shadow cast by the free spirit's efforts to overcome himself. Perfect noon—emblematic of the Übermensch—is the moment of ecstatic release for the free spirit. Thus the Übermensch is not a separate "superhuman" being but rather an ecstatic moment in the experience of free spirits. Hough succeeds in showing that the doubleness motif strikes deeper into the heart of Nietzsche's thinking than has been realized. Favorite Nietzschean images, such as that of pregnancy, suddenly take on new meaning when considered in this light. Careful to avoid a reductionist view, Hough adds significantly to our understanding of Nietzsche's contribution to modern thought. (shrink)

The paper explicates a version of dispositionalism and defends it against Kripke's objections (in his "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language") that 1) it leaves out the normative aspect of a rule, 2) it cannot account for the directness of the knowledge one has of what one meant, and 3) regarding rules for computable functions of numbers, a) there are numbers beyond one's capacity to consider and b) there are people who are disposed to make systematic mistakes in computing (...) values of functions they understand perfectly well. (shrink)

This paper aims to exemplify the language acquisition model by tracing back to the Socratic model of language learning procedure that sets down inborn knowledge, a kind of implicit knowledge that becomes explicit in our language. Jotting down the claims in Meno, Plato triggers a representationalist outline basing on the deductive reasoning, where the conclusion follows from the premises (inborn knowledge) rather than experience. This revolution comes from the pen of Noam Chomsky, who amends the empiricist position (...) on the creativity of language by pinning down it with the innateness hypothesis. However, Chomsky never rejects the external world or the linguistic stipulation that relies on the objective reality. Wittgenstein’s model of language acquisition upholds a liaison centric appeal that stands between experience (use theory of meaning) and mentalism (mind based inner experiences). Wittgenstein’s Tractatus never demarcates the definite mental processes that entangle with the method of understanding and meaning. Wittgenstein’s ‘language game’ takes care of the model of language acquisition in a paradigmatic way. The way portrait language as the form of life and the process of language acquisition is nothing but a language game that relies on the activity of men. (shrink)

Despite his rejection of the metaphysical conception of freedom of the will, Nietzsche frequently makes positive use of the language of freedom, autonomy, self-mastery, self-overcoming, and creativity when describing his normative project of enhancing humanity through the promotion of its highest types. A number of interpreters have been misled by such language to conclude that Nietzsche accepts some version of compatibilism, holding a theory of natural causality that excludes metaphysical or “libertarian” freedom of the will, while (...) endorsing morally substantial alternative conceptions of freedom, autonomy, and responsibility. I argue to the contrary that although Nietzsche’s rejection of... (shrink)

Chulpforta, 1862 -- Napoleon III as president -- Saint-just -- Two-poem cycle two kings -- Louis the sixteenth -- Louis the fifteenth -- Agonistic politics, 1871-1874 -- The Greek state, 1871 -- On the future of our educational institutions, third lecture, February 27th, 1872 -- Homer's contest -- Untimely meditations -- David Strauss : the confessor and the writer, 1873 -- Schopenhauer as educator, 1874 -- The free spirit, 1878-1880 -- Human, all too human : a book for (...) free spirits, 1878 -- Miscellaneous maxims and opinions, 1879 -- The wanderer and his shadow, 1880 -- The campaign against morality, 1881-1885 -- Dawn of day thoughts on the prejudices of morality, 1881 -- The joyful wisdom, 1882 -- Thus spoke Zarathustra : a book for everyone and no one, 1883-1885 -- On the new idol -- On the rabble -- On the Tarantulas -- On old and new law tablets -- Conversation with the kings -- Nachlass fragments, 1883-1885 -- Aristocratic radical, 1886-1887 -- Beyond good and evil : prelude to a philosophy of the future, 1886 -- The joyful wisdom, book v, 1887 -- On the genealogy of morals : a polemical tract, 1887 -- First essay, good and evil, good, and bad -- Second essay, guilt, bad conscience, and related matters -- Third essay, what do ascetic ideals mean? -- Nachlass fragments, 1885-1887 -- The antichrist, 1888 -- Twilight of the idols : or how one philosophises with a hammer, 1888 -- Morality as anti-nature -- The improvers of mankind -- What the Germans lack -- Skirmishes of an untimely man -- The antichrist : a curse on Christianity, 1888 -- Ecce homo : how one becomes what one is, 1888 -- Why I am so wise -- Why I write such good books -- The case of Wagner : a musician's problem -- Why I am a destiny -- Nachlass fragments, 1887-1888. (shrink)

Understanding Wittgenstein's Tractatus provides an accessible and yet novel discussion of all the major themes of the Tractatus. The book starts by setting out the history and structure of the Tractatus. It then investigates the two main dimensions of the early Wittgenstein's thought, corresponding to the division between what language can say by means of its propositions and what language can only show. It goes on to discuss picture theory, logical atomism, extensionality, truth-functions and (...) truth-operations, semantics, metalogic and mathematics, solipsism and value, metaphysics, and finally, Wittgenstein's idea of the duty of maintaining silence. Frascolla also proposes a new interpretation of the ontology of the Tractatus. Based on the identification of objects with qualia, the argument put forward in the book challenges the currently prevalent ideas of the ‘New Wittgenstein'. The paradoxical nature of the Tractatus itself, and the theme of "throwing away the ladder", are thus revisited in a new key. _Understanding Wittgenstein's Tractatus_ is essential reading for anyone wishing to further their insight into one of the most influential works of twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

The paper is primarily devoted to Nietzsche’s account of cruelty, which represents an indispensable key to understanding Nietzsche’s genealogical project in many of its essential aspects. This study is complemented by parallels with two other outstanding intellectual figures of the late nineteenth century: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Dostoevsky wrote that “civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty.” Nietzsche went a step further in this assessment: not (...) only does civilisation not make us immune to cruelty, but it must itself be seen to emerge directly from cruelty at every significant step it has taken. What brings Nietzsche close to Masoch, on the other hand, is the fact that these historical or even prehistorical developments that have shaped humankind and civilisation are not only related to cruelty, but must be observed as various forms of the internalisation (“spiritualisation”, “deification”) of cruelty. The core of the study is devoted to analyses of different forms and aspects of Nietzsche’s concept of the internalisation of cruelty (in relation to power-relations, subject-object relations, mutations of pleasure, and perversions). (shrink)

This book presents a suggestive, creative, to some extent impatient reading of Nietzsche from the viewpoint of metaphor. Kofman has studied under Jacques Derrida, and this fact is evidenced in her book, e.g., in the consideration given to ériture [[sic]]. Kofman shows how the pre-Socratics are paradigmatic for Nietzsche’s understanding of philosophy. "It is a matter of making the original Greek philosophy return, of rescuing it from the oblivion where the triumph of nihilistic forces had caused (...) it to sink, of repeating it by taking it as a model". For Nietzsche, this means a return to the richness of metaphorical writing, as exemplified in Heraclitus, as opposed to the strictures of reason and its rigid concepts in Aristotle. Kofman goes on to discuss the oblivion of the metaphor, and the development of conceptual thinking. The world becomes simplified, generalized, in terms of the concept, which is itself, however, the product of a more diversified metaphorical activity. (shrink)

What is it to share the same concept? The question is an important one since sharing the same concept explains our ability to non-accidentally coordinate on the same topic over time and between individuals. Moreover, concept identity grounds key logical relations among thought contents such as samesaying, contradiction, validity, and entailment. Finally, an account of concept identity is crucial to explaining and justifying epistemic efforts to better understand the precise contents of our thoughts. The key question, then, is what (...) psychological and social facts could play these roles? Elsewhere, we have argued for a specific relational model of concept identity, the connectedness model (e.g. Schroeter 2012, Schroeter and Schroeter 2014, 2015). Our aim in this chapter is to further explain the motivations behind that account, to address worries about transitivity and vagueness, and to contrast our approach with closely related accounts of concept identity developed by François Recanati and Simon Prosser. -/- What’s distinctive of our approach is that we seek to vindicate the first-person epistemic perspective of concept users. Concepts, on our account, play a crucial normative role in setting regulative ideals for the representational practices in which individual subjects participate. This focus on the normative role of concepts – as opposed to a purely causal explanatory role – motivates our approach to concept identity and our toleration of vagueness and borderline cases. (shrink)

The article Metaphorical Nature of Language in Herder aims to demonstrate how Herder’s thesis regarding the metaphoricity of language reflects itself in his conception of the relationship between language and the world. A comparison with Friedrich Nietzsche’s understanding of this relationship in his essay On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense helps clarify Herder’s position. While both thinkers share the postulate of the metaphoricity of language, the implications they draw from it are different: (...) unlike Nietzsche, Herder does not turn sceptical regarding the capacity of language to reveal the world, and he understands language not only as a tool of survival but also as a tool of knowledge – not in spite of its metaphorical nature, but rather precisely because of it. (shrink)