This chapter contains sections titled: Subordinated Actions Dramatic Images Nietzsche's Objection Timeless Life Further Reading.

The object of my dissertation is to demonstrate that the conceptual thrust of Nietzsche's philosophical activity is a sustained endeavor to negate the Socratic basis of Western ontology through the re-implementation of the Aeschylean tragic paideia. Nietzsche's most consequential objection against Socrates is the latter's neutralizing of Hellenic mythos with the "cold edge" of reason and the "naive optimism" of science. Accordingly, we may most properly understand Nietzsche's effort as a movement against aesthetic Socratism, since (...) it is with its "supreme law," "To be beautiful everything must be intelligible," that Socrates--from behind his "Euripidean mask"--quelled the Dionysian spirit in Attic aesthetics, ipso fact put into operation an impulse-taming didacticism, and thus made ready the social climate for the institutionalization of the Judeo-Christian moral system. ;Nor, as I urge, is this a mere intellectual position, a philosophical exercise for Nietzsche. Just as the Platonic Socrates saw the need for a new moral and aesthetic direction, so does Nietzsche regard the culturo-political reformulation of Western society as a practical goal. Two interrelated themes of his appear to speak in favor of this observation: his regard of the composer Richard Wagner as the new Aeschylus who would reanimate the Dionysian spirit within German culture, and his persistent call for the somato-intellectual overcoming of humankind as we know it. That is, Wagner's musical dramas would at once transform Western/Socratic aesthetics and prepare the socio-cultural mentality for the rise and establishment of the Ubermensch as a new and profoundly "superior" "species" of human beings. That the younger Nietzsche did indeed regard Wagner as useful toward the achievement of such an artistic and cultural inversion may be noticed from the fact that he terminated their friendship virtually immediately after the composer signalled that he was turning to a more traditional and acceptable subject--Christianity. ;Despite this loss, Nietzsche ineluctably presses on his vision of the future "masters" of the earth. Indeed, in The Will to Power he implicitly offers at least two dissimilar "blueprints" whereby that goal could be realized. Only one of these plans of action, however, could ultimately prove useful in the establishment of the Ubermensch, while the other could at best permit only isolated communities of Ubermenschen to exist for a relatively short time, before succumbing to the rabble's socio-cultural levelling tendency. Only after the rabble's lifestyle would have become intolerable even to themselves, such that they would collectively rise up to transcend their mass-identity in all its manifestations, could the emergence and future of the Ubermensch as a phenomenal being be assured. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 44 Heft: 1 Seiten: 267-290 In this paper, I examine the possibility of constructing an ontological phenomenology of love by tracing Nietzsche’s questioning about science. I examine how the evolution of Nietzsche’s thinking about science and his increasing suspicion towards it coincide with his interest for the question of love. Although the texts from the early and middle period praise science as an antidote to asceticism, the later texts associate the scientifi c spirit (...) with asceticism. I argue that this shift is motivated by Nietzsche’s realization that asceticism and science share the same fetish of facts. It is now for Nietzsche no longer a matter of proving the so-called facts of the backworlds to be wrong (something science is very capable of doing), but a matter of rejecting the very structure of thought that reduces a shapeless reality into a series of facts, subjects and objects. It is this second attitude that Nietzsche regards as the common core of science and asceticism. From this critique of science and its correlative critique of facts, Nietzsche begins searching for a counter-attitude able to perform the reduction of the factual attitude. This is the attitude he calls love. Although Nietzsche’s concept of love has oft en been elucidated in terms of its object or its subject, I argue that such interpretations precisely defeat Nietzsche’s point, which is to recover a ground that precedes the division of the world into subjects and objects. Love becomes the name of this intra-relationship of being, opening up to new perspectives on Nietzsche’s ontology of the will to power. (shrink)

Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', (...) not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater. (shrink)

When contemplating the origins of philosophical paideia one is tempted to think of Socrates, perhaps because we feel that Socrates has been a philosophical educator to us all. But it is Plato and his literary genius that we have to thank as his dialogues preserve not just Socratic philosophy, but also the Socratic educational experience. Educators would do well to better understand Plato's pedagogical objectives in the Socratic dialogues so that we may appreciate and utilize them in our own (...) educational endeavors, and so that we may adapt the Socratic experience to new interactive educational technologies. Plato designed his Socratic dialogues to arm students for real world challenges and temptations. First, in both form and function the dialogues attempt to replicate the Socratic experience for their audience. They demand from their readers what Socrates demanded from his students: active learning, self-examination, and an appreciation for the complexity and importance of wisdom. Second, the dialogues challenge the conflation of professional and personal excellence, best exemplified by sophists such as Hippias, and exhort their reader to pursue personal aretê separately from and alongside practical and professional skills or technai. Third, they aim not to transmit some prepackaged formula for success, but to teach students to learn for themselves; that is to love and pursue wisdom. The Socratic dialogues, and philosophic dialogue itself, are educationally important in that they teach us to be philosophers in the literal sense. (shrink)

Nietzsche was persistently concerned with what an object is and how different views of objects lead to different views of facts, causality, personhood, substance, truth, mathematics and logic, and even nihilism. Yet his treatment of objects is incredibly puzzling. In many passages he assumes that objects such as trees and leaves, tables and chairs, and dogs and cats are just ordinary entities of experience. In other places he reports that objects do not exist. Elsewhere he claims that objects exist, but (...) as mere bundles of forces. And sometimes he proposes that we bring all objects into existence. Nietzsche’s writings, then, appear to support various secondary readings, which are jointly inconsistent. My chief aim is to present and defend the reading that Nietzsche embraces constructivism about objects, the neo-Kantian view that all objects are socially constructed. I first explain this view and argue that all non-constructivist readings are not supported by Nietzsche’s texts. I then present Nietzsche’s object constructivism, reconstruct his argument for the position, and defend it from internal objections. I finish by suggesting that Nietzsche might have embraced such a radical conception of objects because it plays a crucial role in overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

`Anyone who wants to gain a quick idea of how before me everything was topsy-turvy should make a start with this work. That which is called idol on the title-page is quite simply that which was called truth hitherto. Twilight of the Idols - in plain words: the old truth is coming to an end...' Nietzsche intended Twilight of the Idols to serve as a short introduction to his philosophy, and as a result it is the most synoptic of all (...) his books. Continuing in the spirit of its immediate predecessors On The Genealogy of Morals and The Wagner Case, it is a masterpiece of polemic, targeting not only `eternal idols' like Socratic rationality and Christian morality but also their contemporary counterparts, as Nietzsche the `untimely man' goes roaming in the gloaming of nineteenth-century European culture. He allies philosophy with psychology and physiology, relentlessly diagnozing the symptoms of decadence, and his stylistic virtuosity is such that the sheer delight he takes in his 'demonic' mischief-making communicates itself on every page. A brilliant new translation, this edition provides detailed commentary on a highly condensed and allusive work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Nietzsche appears to adopt a radical Kantian view of objects called constructivism, which holds that the existence of all objects depends essentially on our practices. This essay provides a new reconstruction of Nietzsche's argument for constructivism and responds to five pressing objections to reading Nietzsche as a constructivist that have not been addressed by commentators defending constructivist interpretations of Nietzsche.

Written on the threshold of Thus Spoke Zarathustra during a highpoint of social, intellectual and psychic vibrancy, The Joyful Science is one of Nietzsche's thematically tighter books. Here he debuts and practices the art of amor fati, love of fate, to explore what is "species preserving" in relation to happiness (Book One); inspiration and the role of art as they keep us mentally fit for inhabiting a world dominated by science (Book Two); the challenges of living authentically and (...) overcoming after the death of God (Book Three); and the crescendo of life affirmation in which Nietzsche revealed the doctrine of eternal recurrence and previewed the figure of Zarathustra (Book Four). Invigorated and motivated by Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche in 1887 added a new preface, an appendix of poems, and Book Five, where he deepened the critique of science and displayed a more genealogical approach. This volume provides the first English translation of the Idylls from Messina and, more importantly, it includes the first English translation of the notebooks of 1881-1882, in which Nietzsche first formulated the eternal recurrence. Structurally and stylistically, The Joyful Science remains Nietzsche's most effective book of aphorisms, immediately after which he took on the voice and alter ego of Zarathustra in order to push beyond the boundaries of even the most liberating prose. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAmor fati—the love of fate—is one of many Nietzschean terms which seem to point towards a positive ethics, but which appear infrequently and are seldom defined. On a traditional understanding, Nietzsche is asking us to love whatever it is that happens to have happened to us—including all sorts of horrible things. My paper analyses amor fati by looking closely at Nietzsche's most sustained discussion of the concept—in book four of The Gay Science—and at closely related passages in (...) that book. I argue that by ignoring the context in which Nietzsche writes about amor fati in The Gay Science, we are liable to ignore several exegetical and philosophical problems with the traditional understanding of the term. I'll argue for a different interpretation which locates Nietzsche's amor fati within the philosophical project of The Gay Science and which copes better with the objections that plague the traditional view. (shrink)

This essay examines Nietzsche’s thought on hatred in the light of the realist and perfectionist impulses of his philosophy. Drawing on remarks scattered across his writings, both unpublished and published, it seeks to reconstruct the “philosophy of hatred‘ that, as he himself observed, “has not yet been written‘. In S1 it is shown that hatred is a necessary ingredient in Nietzsche’s dynamic and pluralist ontology of conflict. Hatred plays an indispensable role in the drive to assimilate or incorporate other life-forms (...) into life’s struggle for expansion and self-overcoming. According to Nietzsche’s philosophical physiology, hatred is greatest where struggle and the resistance to assimilation are greatest; that is, among equal powers. It is also distinguished from revulsion and contempt, since these are attached to the process of excretion, not assimilation. What is more, since genuine hatred serves to assimilate what is more or less equal, it is bound up with love, understood as attraction and the desire to appropriate what we wish to make our own; this is one of several ways in which the opposition between love and hate is overcome. But for Nietzsche, hatred can take a variety of forms, and his distinctive claim is that it need not be a destructive force, but can take creative forms. Two different forms of creative hatred are then examined: an active agonal hatred inter pares that allows for an affirmative pride in one’s enemy ; and the reactive hatred of the “spirit of revenge‘ that gives birth to slave morality. Attending to Nietzsche’s argumentation on the etymological relations between “hatred‘ and “ugliness‘, one can distinguish genuine hatred inter pares, affirmative and creative, from contempt towards what is inferior from a position of strength, and from hatred-as-ressentiment towards what is superior from a position of weakness. Nietzsche’s analysis of the creative hatred that gave birth to slave morality reveals its destructive core in the “imaginary revenge‘ that degrades its noble opponent, raising the problem: How to respond constructively to the necessity of hatred and conflict implied by Nietzsche’s ontology? In the final section, two responses to this problem are considered: on the one hand to seek ways to “improve‘ hatred by drawing on its idealising powers for constructive ends; on the other hand, to use physiological self-knowledge to correct the errors intrinsic to hatred and cultivate an episteme beyond love and hate. These responses can pull in different directions, but they can also be co-ordinated in a way that addresses the realist and perfectionist impulses in Nietzsche’s philosophy. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s encounter with Socrates is examined in all of the relevant passages in the former’s writings. Dannhauser depicts this encounter as a quarrel between a modern and an ancient that runs through all the stages of Nietzsche’s intellectual development. The ambiguous, not to say ambivalent, nature of Nietzsche’s "view" of Socrates as a man and thinker is carefully shown even though it does not appear that any depth interpretation of this issue actually emerges. It is pointed out that, for the (...) most part, Nietzsche sees Socrates as a turning-point in Western history, as the arch-rationalist, the dialectician who advocates the supremacy of morality over all else, a decadent personality, and the enemy of instinctive life. (shrink)

Twilight of the Idols was the second to last book Nietzsche finished for publication. It was written in three to four months and after some editorial changes the manuscript was sent to the printer in October 1888, and published in January 1889. Nietzsche does not mince words regarding the aim of the book. In the Foreword to the text he claims that it is a "grand declaration of war," not on the idols of the age, but "eternal idols," those he (...) considers to be "the most believed in."1 In Nietzsche's view, there are "more idols in the world than there are realities" and he wants to "sound out idols" as much with a hammer "as with a tuning fork" so that their harmful influence may be avoided in the future. 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)

The Beginnings of Nietzsche's Theory of Language is concerned with the years 1865 through Winter/Spring 1870-71. Four texts of Nietzsche's, "Vom Ursprung der Sprache", "Zur Teleologie", "Zu Schopenhauer", and "Anschauung Notes", are translated into English and interpreted from the perspective of Nietzsche's developing theory of language. An examination of the major influences of Schopenhauer, Kant, Eduard von Hartmann, and Frederick A. Lange are pursued. ;Theory, in this work, does not assume that it is possible to take a (...) position of authority or truth in the interpretation of texts, rather that interpretation of texts constitutes an attempt to uncover a discursive practice, to describe a discourse-object. The method used is Nietzsche's method of genealogy, which follows the formation of discourse, at once scattered, discontinuous, and regular and analyzes the process of rarefaction, consolidation and unification in that discourse. Genealogy is exegesis in Nietzsche's sense of it as rumination, as the slow, repetitive, gray activity of deciphering what is documented. Major genealogical nodes or elements of Nietzsche's beginning theory of language are used and reused in different contexts throughout the work, resulting in a cumulative effect which explores specific elements in Nietzsche's thinking about language. ;This work offers five major contributions to Nietzsche studies: a detailed introduction of the significant influence of Eduard von Hartmann upon Nietzsche's thinking; a comprehensive look at the influence of Lange's History of Materialism upon Nietzsche's beginning theory of language; a thorough analysis of "Zur Teleologie" and "Zu Schopenhauer" in the overall contexts of Nietzsche's thinking with regard to metaphysics and teleology; the gathering together and interpretation into a world view of the "Anschauung Notes"; and a close examination of Nietzsche's breaking away from Schopenhauer as it takes place before the publication of The Birth of Tragedy. ;Nietzsche's primary contributions to a theory of language in these beginning years are three: the adoption of the role of the unconscious instincts in the origins and ongoing production of language; the assertion that unconscious thought processes are a precondition for conscious thought; an examination of the relationships of language to epistemology, which results in the recognition of the limits of language as an instrument of truth, but a realization of the inestimable value and force of its symbolic and figurative aspects, aspects necessitated by the very nature of language itself. (shrink)

In the Phaedrus, Plato’s Socrates distinguishes himself from the natural scientists of his day and indicates that the true philosophical attitude, the love of realhuman wisdom, shares something essential with the mythical attitude. In the following essay, I argue that Socrates criticizes science here for its failure to attend to aporia, to recognize an essentially questionworthy aspect of the world of human experience, an aspect I will refer to as distance. Furthermore, I argue that Socrates aligns his own philosophical (...) activity with myth in its maintenance of this distance. (shrink)

As in America, so in Athens, citizens received a basic education that made them literate and gave them simple skills. But if Athenian families wanted their children to be successful, more was needed. This concern with success led to the birth of sophism in the second half of the fifth century BCE. The Daily Show commonly takes on sophists in its satirical news segments. Jon Stewart's primary objects of derision, though, are sophists in politics and the mainstream media. The ironic (...) element in Enter Socrates' and Stewart's method should not be denigrated or underestimated, for it's what helps both of them to attract such large audiences. Based on a shared understanding of the deeper underlying meaning of an ironic exchange, people bond, and bond more closely. In their way, both Socrates and Stewart seek to create a dialogue among people who use their minds in an active way. (shrink)

Scholars have recently argued that in the Symposium Plato is critical of Socrates and falls closer than his philosophic spokesman to the side of poetry in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. Contrary to such interpretations, I argue that on the basis of his experience of a philosophic life, Socrates responds to the poets Plato presents in that dialogue, offering a superior understanding not only of Love but of poetry itself. Far from self-sufficient, but like Love “dwell[ing] (...) always in need” and generating through teaching, Socrates both requires and supports political life. The state between poverty and resource that accounts for the pursuit of wisdom and its self-generation through questioning others also accounts for the ongoing human activities that keep political communities alive and flourishing. At issue is not simply Plato’s attitude toward Socrates, but the very nature of philosophy and its relation to the political community. (shrink)

This book first published in the year 2021 June. Paperback: 240 pages Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Includes bibliographical references. 1). Philosophy. 2). Metaphysics. 3). Philosophy, German. 4). Philosophy, German -- 19th century. 5). Philosophy, German and Greek Influences Metaphysics. 6). Nihilism (Philosophy). 7). Eternal return. I. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. II. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-.[Translation from German into English of Friedrich Nietzsche’s notes of 1881]. New Translation and Notes by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Many of the notes have never been (...) translated into English before. Go inside the workshop of a great philosopher's mind and read these notes. Table of Contents Introduction and Preface (Pages: 1-11 ) Notebook: 11 = M III 1. Spring - Autumn 1881 11 [1 to 348] (Pages: 12-167 ) Nietzsche’s Notebooks in English: a Translator’s Introduction and Afterward (Pages: 168-183 ) The thought of the eternal return of the same (Pages: 184-197 ) Later Recapitulation note of 1888 14 [188] (Pages: 198-204 ) Rejection of the idea of eternal (Pages: 205 ) Translation of 4 notes by Nietzsche on Perspectivism (Pages: 206-210 ) Nietzsche gets some final few words (Pages: 211-216 ) Bibliographies (Pages: 217-236 ) Project started in summer of 2012. No one else has read this book for errors. As always, any errors, mistakes or oversights etc. are mine alone. Given a couple more years, I could improve this book. This is a philosophical translation and not a philological translation. If you want to get in to more philological details you must learn German (see Nietzschechannel plus many published books on the topics). Translation notes. I have not tried to fix, polish-up, or clarify Nietzsche’s unpublished writings. Some of the translator have really refined Nietzsche’s ideas and positions. I have not “fixed” Nietzsche. I have not dropped or added words or changed the wording to make Nietzsche’s position clearer or stronger (others have done enough damage). Learn German and read the texts in German – my best recommendation and advice to you the reader. There are groups on the internet that work on all the details of translating Nietzsche’s remarks. There are many nuances and shades of the meaning in attempting to translate anyone’s language. Some words I could not translate from German and French; and I left those few words in German, but more words in French. I think most of the French texts are quotes that Nietzsche wrote down from French authors that he was reading at the time he wrote these notes. Reader beware. There are many historical and philosophical allusions as in all of Nietzsche’s philosophical writings and these notebooks are similar. Remember these are “notebooks” and include lots of notes or jottings -- and these are neither fragments nor polished drafts for publication. Nietzsche may have written these notebooks from back to front and re-used various notebooks at a later time. In the German text there are missing punctuations marks, missing quotation marks, missing words, abbreviation of words, miss numbered section, working table of contents for project books he wanted to publish, projects outlined, quotes without quote marks. Enjoy reading and thinking with Nietzsche in his unpublished notes. (shrink)

This article shows how the triumph of Socratic optimism in Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, is due to a slave revolt in morality that promulgates a religious faith in the value of scientific truth. This early argument parallels his critique of the ascetic ideal that infects science in The Genealogy of Morality. I draw out the resemblance between Socrates’s martyrdom in The Birth and Jesus’s crucifixion in the Genealogy in order to illuminate how ritual human sacrifice mythically immortalizes (...) both figures, together inaugurating the ascetic ideals that Christianity will eventually unite. I discuss Nietzsche’s understanding of religious martyrdom and his explanation for the success of Christian Platonism, whose ascetic ideals ground the European value system that he is known for attacking. (shrink)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the elusiveness of fulfillment was a source of much perplexity. You believe that the possession of something that you desire will bring you fulfillment, but the acquisition of it leaves you dissatisfied. Arthur Schopenhauer said that this is because the objects of desire lack any intrinsic value. By contrast, Nietzsche argued that our experience of boredom reflects our desire to engage in a challenging form of activity.

radicalization of Kant 's critical project inverts or opposes traditional readings of Kant 's critical program. Nietzsche aligns both Kant and Schopenhauer with what he named the effectively, efficiently pathological optimism of the rationalist drive to knowledge, patterned on the Cyclopean eye of Socrates in The Birth of Tragedy. For the rest of Nietzsche's writerly life, the name of Socrates would serve both as a signifier for the historical personage marking the end of the "tragic age" of the Greeks (...) as well as a signifier for the philosophical tradition of the idealization of reason, knowledge, and truth: Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer. (shrink)

In order to better understand the meaning of Socrates’ philosophic life, Nichols explores the theme of caring that is prominent in Socrates’ Apology. What is the relation between the examined life that he says is the only one worth living for a human being and the care he claims and shows for others, especially the young of Athens? Nichols discusses Socrates’ illustrations of philosophic caretaking from the Symposium, Phaedrus, and Theaetetus, both his own caretaking activities as well as his (...) teachings about love and generation, the art of words, and midwifery. Finally, she argues that the god who “commands” an answer to his oracular riddle, as Socrates interprets it in the Apology, serves as a model for the union of questioning and caretaking central to Socrates' life of philosophizing. Through his presentation of Socrates, Plato therefore offers an alternative to the Eleatic Stranger’s view of divine and human care in the Statesman that forms a backdrop to Socrates’ defense in the Apology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT What is the best way to confront the thought of eternal recurrence—the thought that we would have to live our life “once again and innumerable times again”—this great, heavy burden that, as Nietzsche warns, may crush us? In this article, I argue that learning to love oneself plays a privileged role in preparing us for facing this abysmal thought. Self-love consists in the cultivation of self-knowledge and in an engagement with the past that enables us to give (...) it new meaning and significance. Furthermore, Nietzsche’s revaluation of self-love in Thus Spoke Zarathustra brings with it a rethinking of our relations to others. To love oneself implies care for the empowerment and growth of others, as well as the capacity for self-sacrifice. (shrink)

These are the 22 notebooks of Nietzsche’s last notebooks from 1886-1889. Nietzsche stopped writing entirely around 6th of January 1889. There are 1785 notes translated here. This group of notes translated in this book is not complete for the year 1886. There are at least two other notebooks that were done in the year 1886. However, Nietzsche wrote in his notebooks sometime from back to front and currently the notebooks are only in a general chronological order. Refer to the German (...) Nietzsche philology literature for more exact dating. (shrink)

This article discusses how a wide range of apparently conflicting metaethical theories have been ascribed to Nietzsche. It reviews the major kinds of contemporary metaethical theories and the initial textual evidence for ascribing some version of each kind to Nietzsche. It then considers the objections to such ascriptions as well as arguments in favor of claims of the relative plausibility of ascribing one metaethical interpretation to Nietzsche over another. The article concludes with a serious consideration of the view that perhaps (...) Nietzsche simply does not have a considered metaethical stance. (shrink)

This paper advances a novel account of how active forgetting underpins Nietzsche’s conception of health. Recent work has focused on what active forgetting is but does not explain how this process facilitates what Nietzsche calls “spiritual health.” I show that active forgetting – unlike Freudian repression or sublimation – preserves spiritual health when it is challenged by experiential content such as trauma, and that it allows for the incorporation of such experiences. I offer a reconstruction of active forgetting which makes (...) reference to the use of therapeutic narratives, which, although neither necessary nor sufficient for active forgetting, can aid and optimize this process in the face of traumatic experiences. My account provides a complex and clear distinction between forgetting and narrativization, in keeping with Nietzsche’s comments on the utility of adversity and the importance of resilience in relation to spiritual health. (shrink)

This article concerns whether Nietzsche is sympathetic to monism about concrete objects, the heterodox metaphysical view that there is exactly one concrete object. I first dispel prominent reasons for thinking that Nietzsche rejects monism. I then develop the most compelling arguments for monism in Nietzsche’s writings and check for soundness. The arguments seem to be supported by the texts, but they have not been developed in the literature. Despite such arguments, I suggest that Nietzsche is actually not sympathetic to monism (...) about objects—but his reasons for siding against monism are not at all obvious. The result should be a new understanding of some of Nietzsche’s fundamental ontological commitments. (shrink)

One hundred years after his death, Friedrich Nietzsche remains the most influential philosopher of the modern era. Basic Writings of Nietzsche gathers the complete texts of five of Nietzsche's most important works, from his first book to his last: The Birth of Tragedy; Beyond Good and Evil; On the Genealogy of Morals; The Case of Wagner; and Ecce Homo. Edited and translated by the great Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann, this volume provides a definitive guide to the full range of (...) Nietzsche's thought. Included also are seventy-five aphorisms, selections from Nietzsche's correspondence, and variants from drafts for Ecce Homo. (shrink)

Nietzsche has a surprisingly significant and strikingly positive assessment of mathematics. I discuss Nietzsche's theory of the origin of mathematical practice in the division of the continuum of force, his theory of numbers, his conception of the finite and the infinite, and the relations between Nietzschean mathematics and formalism and intuitionism. I talk about the relations between math, illusion, life, and the will to truth. I distinguish life and world affirming mathematical practice from its ascetic perversion. For Nietzsche, math (...) is an artistic and moral activity that has an essential role to play in the joyful wisdom. (shrink)

Giving Voice to Values is a very important tool that has helped many professionals better align what they do with what they value and believe. This book introduces the methodology of Socratic Dialogue as a complementary set of tools for creating spaces of joint reflection in which one can gain clarity about one's values and gain the confidence to voice them effectively. Socrates' main concern was to progressively reach a higher alignment between ideas and actions: that is, to achieve (...) a harmony between what we think, what we say and what we do. The first step to giving voice to our values involves introspection and dialogue with others - which is how we can become aware of what we really think and value. An examined life, Socrates reminds us, is a fulfilled one. Based on more than 10 years' experience teaching Socratic Dialogue to business and law students, executives and professionals, faculty, incarcerated people and other vulnerable groups, the book provides teachers and practitioners with a roadmap to conceive, design and conduct Socratic Dialogue courses and sessions. It provides context for the method and its adaptation to the challenges of the 21st century. The book also offers guidance on how to structure a Socratic Dialogue classroom, as well as a series of tried-and-true activities and exercises, practical recommendations, and testimonies of the transformative impact that dialogue courses have had on participants. The book is of prime interest to professors and educators of business ethics, as well as professional consultants working to help organizations become more responsible and introduce ethical reasoning in their decisions. It also serves as a valuable resource for social educators and practitioners in prisons and rehabilitation units, as well as teachers in primary and secondary education. (shrink)

Philosophy and Truth offers the first English translation of six unpublished theoretical studies written just after the publication of The Birth of Tragedy and simultaneously with Untimely Meditations. In addition to the texts themselves, which probe epistemological problems on philosophy's relation to art and culture, this book contains a lengthy introduction that provides the biographical and philological information necessary for understanding these often fragmentary texts. The introduction also includes a helpful discussion of Nietzsche's early views concerning culture, knowledge, philosophy, (...) and the Greeks. (shrink)

Introduction -- The problem of Socrates : Kierkegaard and Nietzsche -- Kierkegaard : Socrates vs. the God -- Nietzsche : call for an artistic Socrates -- Plato's Socrates -- Love, generation, and political community (the Symposium) -- The prologue -- Phaedrus' praise of nobility -- Pausanias' praise of law -- Eryximachus' praise of art -- Aristophanic comedy -- Tragic victory -- Socrates' turn -- Socrates' prophetess and the daemonic -- Love as generative -- Alcibiades' dramatic entrance -- Alcibiades' (...) images of socrates -- Alcibiades' praise of Socrates' virtues -- Aftermath -- The incompleteness of the Symposium -- Self-knowledge, love, and rhetoric (Plato's Phaedrus) -- The setting -- Non-lovers (Lysias' speech and Socrates' first speech) -- Souls and their fall -- Lovers and their ascent -- Prayer to love -- Contemporary rhetoric and politics -- A genuine art of rhetoric -- Writing -- Prayer to Pan -- Who is the friend? (the Lysis) -- Joining the group -- Getting acquainted -- Seeking a friend -- Are friends the ones loving, the ones loved, or both? -- Are likes friends? -- Are unlikes friends? -- Are those who are neither good nor bad friends to the good? -- Are the kindred friends? -- Who might friends be? -- Friendly communities -- Socratic philosophizing -- Socrates' youthful search for cause -- Socrates' second sailing and the ideas -- Piety, poetry, and friendship. (shrink)

The passages composed by Nietzsche around the time he spent at Sorrento reflect an engagement with the anarcho-utopian socialist milieu into which he had been introduced by Malwida von Meysenbug. The “Sorrentino politics” that appear in Human, All Too Human I and II and later works need to be understood in the context of an affirmative form of political thought that could remedy the pessimism and nihilism that he finds in the politics of all sides. Nietzsche argues that the monarchical (...) state, modern industrialism, and the restricted ownership of capital and property all undermine the goal of creating a life-affirming culture for Europe. He also provides a criticism of a utopian teleology of equality in the future – whether religious or socialist – that imposes an objective notion of purpose. Nietzsche rejects the Schopenhauerian pessimism of resignation while affirmatively engaging with the thought of Alexander Herzen and Guiseppe Mazzini. (shrink)

This paper investigates the argument that substantiates Nietzsche's refusal of teh Kantian concept of thing in itself. As Maudmarie Clark points out, Nietzsche dismisses this notion because he views it as self-contradictory. The main concern of the paper will be to account for this position. In particular, the two main theses defended here are that the argument underlying Nietzsche's claim is that the concept of thing in itself amounts to the inconsistent idea of a propertyless thing and that (...) this argument is a sound one. Finally, I will show that the reading proposed allows a deflationary response to the objection that Nietzsche's will to power is simply a new version of the post-Kantian thing in itself.Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die Argumentation, die Nietzsches Zurückweisung des kantischen Begriffs des Dings an sich untermauert. Wie Maudmarie Clark betont, berwift Nietzsche diesen Begriff als selbstwidersprüchlich. Hauptanliegen des Aufsatzes ist, dies deutlich zu machen. Insbesondere werden folgende zwei Thesen vertrenen: dass das Nietzsches Position zugrundeliegende Argument darin besteht, der Begriff des Dings an sich sei der inkonsistente Begriff eines eigenschaftslosen Dings; dass dieses Argument stichhaltig ist. Schließlich wird gezeigt, dass diese Interpretation eine delfationäre Antwort auf den Einwand ermöglicht, Nietzsches Wille zur Macht sei einfach eine neue Variante des postkantischen Dings an sich. (shrink)

Nietzsche implicitly endorses a positive value system grounded in his concept of the will to power, a “noble” alternative to the “slavish” and life-denying values that he believes characterize modern European morality. His own power-affirming value system is usually presented amorally: as an alternative to morality, rather than as a competing morality. Most commentators believe this is necessarily so: because Nietzsche founds his values in the affirmation of power, they are incompatible with the concern for the well-being of others that (...) is characteristic of any authentic morality. This paper argues, on the contrary, that Nietzsche’s noble, power-affirming values are fully compatible with morality. It defends this view by rejecting two common misconceptions about Nietzsche’s philosophy: 1) the view that Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power is inseparable from domination, and 2) the view that noble values require and actively promote social hierarchy. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche embraces a conception of science that falls between the two dominant interpretations in the literature. Many thinkers in the continental tradition claim that Nietzsche believes science should be either reconceived or overcome altogether by another discourse, such as art, because it is nihilistic. They maintain that Nietzsche regards science as nihilistic because it either presumes that the world is some way it is not or functions on the erroneous assumption that truth rather than art is best (...) for humanity. By contrast, most analytic commentators contend that Nietzsche has a positive rather than nihilistic conception of science, so he does not hold that the discipline should be either reinterpreted or superseded. They claim that for Nietzsche science represents the way the world is and uncovers truths that are important for humankind. I argue for the middle position that Nietzsche has a positive conception of science, scientific constructivism, which he develops in response to nihilistic conceptions of science, particularly scientific realism. Scientific constructivism helps overcome nihilism because it correctly captures the nature of scientific investigation. Affirming constructivism thus allows inquirers to commit to the scientific project without deceiving themselves about the nature of the objects of inquiry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NIETZSCHE AND MIMESIS by Mark P. Drost The phenomenon of imitation as it operates in Nietzsche's dieory of ecstasy is the central and most important element in his theory of tragedy and art in general. In Nietzsche's vision oftragedy we see diat this ecstasy is not limited to the individual artist, but it infects the tragic chorus and the spectators as well. Nietzsche's reinterpretation of the (...) concept of imitation is presented through the Apollonian and Dionysian artistic impulses which express themselves as distinct tendencies in die arts. In order to understand Nietzsche's concept of imitation one must trace the artwork back to the artist whose activity is an imitation of the Apollonian or die Dionysian state. The fusion of these artistic impulses in their highest development occurs in the chorus. The ecstatic impulse of the chorus results in a paradoxical act of self-displacement: a vision which exceeds the boundaries of the stage and diminishes die distance which is normally secured through the theatrical conventions of distance. We shall see how Nietzsche's vision oftragedy can be understood as a reinterpretation ofthe classical concept of imitation by contrasting it with Aristotle's theory. The classical concept ofart as imitation (mimesis) is best expressed in die Poetics ofAristotle. Under the term "mimesis" there is included an array of artistic activity, e.g., epic poetry, "the poetry of tragic drama, and, moreover comedy and dithyrambic poetry, and most flute-playing and lyre-playing" (1447al4). Since tragedy has its roots in poetry, the causes from which tragedy arises are similar to (if not identical with) the causes from which poetry arises. Poetic imitation itself appears to have two causes. First, imitation is natural to man from childhood (1448b2). Man is the most mimetic of creatures, and in childhood he learns by imitating the 309 310Philosophy and Literature people, diings, and events around him. Second, because he learns through them, man takes delight in seeing die images of things and recognizing that they are imitative. Since the pleasure of such recognition is so great, one can in fact take delight in seeing images ofthings which are painful to see in their original (1448b12). The former cause yields pleasure from the knowledge of the original while die second cause yields pleasure because one knows it is not an original. Thus the knowledge that what is being witnessed is an imitation is required for the mimetic pleasure to be experienced. Ifone has not seen the original, the pleasure one experiences is somediing different from die pleasure one takes in imitation (1448b6). It is not that imitation can never merely reproduce or copy its original in the manner of a perfect imitation, but artistic imitation requires that diere always be a sufficient difference between the representation and the original to allow for knowledge and die mimetic pleasure subsequent to it. The paradox of imitation is this: the more perfect the imitation is, the less it is known as a work ofimitation. In general, the greater die degree of the realism ofthe imitation, the greater is the need for some indication that it is art and not reality. With respect to this Arthur Danto says, "Mimesis itself, providing diat the conventions of dislocation are clear to the audience, in fact inhibits just those beliefs that would be activated widiout those conventions."1 The spectator could not obtain mimetic pleasure from the "perfect imitation" if the illusion it generated were so effective as to render the artistic medium completely transparent. The causes of mimetic pleasure are die fact diat one is presented widi an imitation and that one is aware of die difference (and/or similarity) between an object and its representation dirough an artistic medium which is never completely transparent. Although by perceiving an imitation we learn of the thing imitated, it is not essential to die concept ofimitation that there actually and empirically exist an original event or figure which explains the content of die imitation. Though the concept ofimitation is a relational concept, it is not so in the sense that there must be an originally existing personage or state ofaffairs against which we may measure the accuracy ofme mimetic representation. The... (shrink)

Nietzsche’s Ecce homo, Notebooks and Letters: 1888-1889 / Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. ©2023 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. -/- Ecce homo: How One Becomes What One Is (Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist). -/- Who should read Nietzsche? You can disagree with everything Nietzsche wrote and re-read Nietzsche to sharpen your attack. Philosophy. Not for use without adult supervision (required). Philosophy is a designated area for adults only. Read at your own risk. You have the pleasure (...) of reading and of course disagree with all philosophy. Warning philosophical ideas are present. Reading Nietzsche does not mean you will gain anything, in fact, you might lose your previous ideas. -/- Nietzsche does not call this book an autobiography (he has written many short autobiographical sketches before); but rather, uses the expression “I tell myself my life”. -/- Nietzsche was the past philosopher who wrote about our future, “The time is coming when the struggle for the domination of the earth will be waged - it will be waged in the name of basic philosophical doctrines.” KGWB/NF-1881, 11[273]. The world has seen plenty of wars and death, since 1881. The process of the domination of the earth and world is still on-going. -/- What is Nietzsche’s overall project with Ecce homo? -/- Main Leitmotifs in Ecce homo. -/- Christianity as the denial of the will to life, revaluation of all values (Umwerthung aller Werthe), Amor fati, Dionysus as a god and his philosophy (future project for Nietzsche), overthrowing idols, two worlds (“true world" finally became a fable) against Plato eternal world and forms, eternal recurrence or the eternal return of the same (Nietzsche heaviest thought, also his most abysmal thought “abgründlichsten Gedanken”), opposite and counterpart to type of person decadent (décadent), “I count the overcoming of pity among the noble virtues”, against the concept of God (Christian), overman or superman (Übermensch), Will to Power (Wille zur Macht), great politics, immoralist, morality of the Christian church, and Declaration of war (“Kriegserklärung”). -/- Table of Contents -/- Motto [page 3]. Epigraph [pages 4-6]. -/- Preface to the Translation of Ecce homo [pages 7-16] -/- Major Leitmotifs in Nietzsche [pages 17-24]. -/- Translations from Nietzsche’s German to English include. -/- 1). Ecce homo: How One Becomes What One Is (Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist. [pages 25-113]. -/- 2). This poem was included in the first publications of Ecce homo (1908). Glory and Eternity (Ruhm und Ewigkeit). [pages 114-124]. -/- 3). These are all of Nietzsche’s last notebooks (complete) they are numbered 21, 22, 23, and 24. There are a total of 82 notes. Final notes by Nietzsche from the Nachlass (Nachlaß). Sometime in German called the Notizheft. Nietzsche’s notebooks that include some drafts for Ecce homo and other topics he was thinking during his last writings. Dating from October 1888 until early Janurary 1889. [pages 125-191]. -/- 4). Nietzsche’s Letters Regarding Ecce homo. Nietzsche’s letters starting at the end of October 1888 discussing Ecce homo. These are not always the complete letters but include all of the passages of Nietzsche discussing Ecce homo. Complete translation of the last letter Nietzsche wrote. Dated until BVN-1889. #1256. Letter to Jacob Burckhardt in Basel. Turin, about 6 January 1889. [pages 192-223]. -/- Bibliographies [pages 224-254]. -/- Nietzsche’s Philosophy Final Thoughts [pages 255-259]. -/- Enjoy reading Nietzsche's last book. (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)

In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for (...) an ontology are explicitly articulated. We distinguish three such desiderata. The first is a more permissive descriptive ontology of science, the second a more reductive ontology prioritising understanding, and the third a more reductive ontology prioritising minimalism. We compare MDC’s entities-activities ontology to its closest rival, the entities-capacities ontology, and argue that the entities-activities ontology does better on all three desiderata. (shrink)

This essay argues that although political thinkers frequently draw on his thought, Friedrich Nietzsche has not been read as a ‘thinker of politics’ in his own regard because the Euro-American field of political thought owes its very notion of ‘politics’ to the conceptual heritage Nietzsche's project directly challenges. The first part of the essay traces the prevailing conception of politics to Aristotle, in whose view politics is the quintessentially human ( anthropos) activity of organising collective life through reason/speech (...) ( logos). The second part presents Nietzsche's project as a novel type of political naturalism, one which replaces the two Aristotelian axioms underpinning standard construals of politics, namely logocentrism and anthropocentrism. For Nietzsche, politics is not a unique, intra-species behaviour of certain bipedal primates, but the relational power dynamics present in all of nature, humans included. Nietzsche's political naturalism thereby gifts us an image of politics befitting the thoroughly entangled, volatile world we urgently have to come to terms with today. (shrink)

Why are we still intrigued by Nietzsche? This chapter argues that sustained interest stems from Nietzsche’s challenge to what we might call the ‘staticism’ inherent in our ordinary experience. Staticism can be defined, roughly speaking, as the view that the world is a collection of enduring, re-identifiable objects that change only very gradually and according to determinate laws. The chapter discusses Nietzsche’s rejection of remnants of staticism in Hegel and Schopenhauer (1). It outlines why Nietzsche deems belief in any variant (...) of the staticist picture as problematic (2); and examines his adualistic-dialetheic stance towards, for example, first-person and third-person descriptions in the philosophy of mind (3). The chapter closes with a discussion of the contributions of "Nietzsche on Time and History". (shrink)

Nietzsche is known for his penetrating critique of Mitleid. He seems to be critical of all compassion but at times also seems to praise a different form of compassion, which he refers to as “our compassion” and contrasts it with “your compassion”. Some commentators have interpreted this to mean that Nietzsche’s criticism is not as unconditional as it may seem – that he does not condemn compassion entirely. I disagree and contend that even though Nietzsche appears to speak favorably of (...) some forms of compassion, he regards the nature of all compassion to be fundamentally bad. Furthermore, I suggest that Nietzsche’s discussion on different forms of compassion have significant implications for achieving greatness and meaning in life. More specifically, I argue that, for Nietzsche, “our compassion,” however regrettable qua compassion it is, may give occasion for a rare and peculiar insight into “co-suffering” with others, which in turn results in overcoming compassion entirely. I also argue that although Nietzsche objects to compassion, he approves of a form of what feminist theorists might now call “anticipatory empathy.” Even though a large body of literature has evolved over Nietzsche’s critical evaluation of compassion, his understanding of a non-compassionate response to suffering is, in my view, rather overlooked and should receive more attention. (shrink)

Victor Eremita proposes that the reader understand parts I and II of Either/Or as parties in a dialogue; most readers in fact view II as a devastating reply to I. I suggest that part I be read as a reaction or follow-up to Kierkegaard’s dissertation. Much of part I presents reflective characters who are aware of their freedom but reluctant or unable to adopt the ethical life. The modern Antigone and the Silhouettes are sisters of Alcibiades—failed students of Socrates. (...) I articulate and defend their modes of loving, which are significantly different from Don Giovanni’s and Johannes the Seducer’s purely aesthetic approaches to love. Such feminine love, I argue, dwells in the disputed territory between passion and action, substance and freedom, the aesthetic and the ethical. Antigone’s love is a passion she both suffers and tries to appropriate. The Silhouettes’ devotion to their beloved makes them dependent on him. I defend this dependence even though it is undoubtedly a form of despair. By appealing to Sartre’s account of love, I argue moreover that this love involves a recognition and appraisal of the beloved absent in the love exemplified by Fear and Trembling’s knight of infinite resignation. (shrink)

Plato’s Phaedrus is a dialogue in which rhetoric is not only discussed, but also displayed. The first half of the plot depicts a rhetorical contest in which Socrates himself offers two opposite speeches on love, a kind of dissoi logoi. The current paper tries to explain that the second half of the dialogue offers the necessary keys to understand that for Plato true rhetoric is nothing but dialectic and that beyond the apparent antilogic exercise carried out by Socrates there (...) can be found philosopher’s dialectical practice itself. Last but not least, the article defends that dialectic does not necessarily deal with Forms. (shrink)

I present an interpretation of the works of Nietzsche’s middle period as offering a phenomenological inquiry. This constitutes an extension of the famous existentialist interpretation of his philosophy. Nietzsche’s concern with the individual qua individual leads him to consider how the human being experiences 1) himself, 2) the presence of others and 3) how the world and the objects therein appear to him. This concern focuses on the human being as an embodied intentional consciousness. I propose to consider Nietzsche as (...) a phenomenologist avant la lettre, that is, as a philosopher whose inquiry anticipates traditional phenomenology. To flesh this out, I explore Nietzsche’s phenomenological view on embodiment and his notion of the body as „die große Vernunft“ (grand reason). I also explore how this view of the situated body forms the ground for Nietzsche’s ethical elaborations. This leads me to conclude that the embodied Übermensch is the phenomenological ethical ideal of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the only one that may allow the individual to flourish. (shrink)

In the recent literature, it has been argued that Nietzsche’s perspectivism should not be reconstructed as an epistemological position. This article criticizes both this view and interpretations that reduce perspectivism to a theory of knowledge. It claims that “perspectivism” is also an appropriate name for Nietzsche’s meta-ethical position. The paper argues that Nietzsche should be interpreted as an anti-realist and moral skeptic. Its epistemological claim is that Nietzsche perspectivism provides a hermeneutic method that allows the human animal to achieve knowledge (...) and truth about the world. The article distinguishes between a strong metaphysical and a weak hermeneutic version of the correspondence theory of truth. It argues that Nietzsche only rejects the former: the possibility of knowledge about the essence of the world and things-in-themselves. With his perspectival hermeneutic method, Nietzsche mainly aims at knowledge and truth about objects that are human products and phenomena. (shrink)

In "Nietzsche's Perspectivism", Steven Hales and Rex Welshon offer an analytic approach to Nietzsche's important idea that truth is perspectival. Drawing on Nietzsche's entire published corpus, along with manuscripts he never saw to press, they assess the different perspectivisms at work in Nietzsche's views with regard to truth, logic, causality, knowledge, consciousness, and the self. They also examine Nietzsche's perspectivist ontology of power and the attendant claims that substances and subjects are illusory while forces and (...) alliances of power constitute the only reality. Hales and Welshon present Nietzsche's treatment of perspectivism as both more complex and more fruitful than the common view of it as a doctrine that truth is not objective. Neither a metaphor nor a methodology, perspectivism emerges as a protean concept akin to a unifying theme; an alternative to the absolutism that recurs in science, philosophy, and religion; and a technique for revealing the unimagined possibilities open to every individual. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nietzsche’s Reading and Private Library, 1885–1889Thomas H. BrobjerOne can easily get the impression that Nietzsche read little, especially later in his life. He criticizes reading because it is not sufficiently life-affirming and Dionysian: “Early in the morning at the break of day, in all the freshness and dawn of one’s strength, to read a book—I call that vicious!...” 1 He also criticizes it for making one reactive and forcing (...) one to be concerned with the thoughts of others rather than with one’s own:My eyes alone put an end to all bookwormishness, in plain terms philology: I was redeemed from the “book,” for years I read nothing—the greatest favour I have ever done myself!—That deepest self, as it were buried and grown silent under a constant compulsion to listen to other selves (—and that is what reading means!) awoke slowly, timidly, doubtfully—but at length it spoke again. 2This impression is strengthened by the fact that in his published books from 1885–88 very few contemporary and minor authors and books are mentioned. [End Page 663] He also explicitly claims that he read little: “It does not perhaps lie in my nature to read much or many kinds of things: a reading room makes me ill.... Caution, even towards new books is rather part of my instinct.” 3 Concretely, he claims in Ecce Homo that, “I have to reckon back half a year to catch myself with a book in my hand. But what was it?—An excellent study by Victor Brochard, les Sceptiques Grecs.” 4 As suggested in a quotation above, and as a major leitmotif in his letters, his health and especially that of his eyes is another reason to assume that he read little. This is also how most philosophers and historians have tended to treat Nietzsche—as an isolated, profound thinker.However, this impression and Nietzsche’s claims here are to a large extent incorrect. Nietzsche was, in fact, a rather substantial reader. This is true not only for his younger days but also for his last four active years, 1885–88. 5 Contrary to his claim that he is hostile to new books, he was very pleased with the large trilingual bookshop Löscher in Turin. He was a frequent and good enough customer to know its “Chef “ and to make contacts through it. 6 Nietzsche frequently used other bookshops, ordered book catalogues, and asked for recommendations of new book titles. 7 Nietzsche found some of the most important books in his life as random discoveries in bookshops, for example, those of Schopenhauer, Stendhal, and Dostoyevsky. Contrary to his claim that a reading room made him ill, he praised Turin for its good libraries, 8 and he wrote to his sister: “one cannot even with ten horses draw me to a place where, if I am correctly informed, not even a good library is to be found.” 9 Libraries were [End Page 664] important for Nietzsche’s reading, and the quality of the libraries was an important determining factor in deciding Nietzsche’s travels and places of residence. He even occasionally wrote to libraries to inquire if they were suitable for his purposes and for deciding if he would visit the town. 10 During the period 1885–88 Nietzsche used the libraries in Nice, Leipzig, Chur, Venice, Turin, and the Hotel Alpenrosen’s library in Sils-Maria. He probably also used the library in Zürich and possibly in other towns, and he planned to visit Stuttgart for the sake of its library.Nietzsche did not have a permanent address during the period discussed in this article and hence travelled frequently. But travelling was difficult for him and almost without exception made him ill, and it was more difficult still with a heavy load of books. During these years Nietzsche lived on a low pension from the University of Basel and constantly worried about his expenses. In spite of this he bought a not insignificant number of books. His private library today contains 60 books published from 1885 to 1888 and in 23 of these Nietzsche has made markings, often extensively, and from several... (shrink)