The impact of Nietzsche's engagement with the Greek skeptics has never before been systematically explored in a book-length work - an inattention that belies the interpretive weight scholars otherwise attribute to his early career as a professor of classical philology and to the fascination with Greek literature and culture that persisted throughout his productive academic life. Jessica N. Berry fills this gap in the literature on Nietzsche by demonstrating how an understanding of the Pyrrhonian skeptical tradition illuminates Nietzsche's (...) own reflections on truth, knowledge, and ultimately, the nature and value of philosophic inquiry. This entirely new reading of Nietzsche's epistemological and ethical views promises to make clear and render coherent his provocative but often opaque remarks on the topics of truth and knowledge and to grant us further insight into his ethics-since the Greek skeptics, like Nietzsche, take up the position they do as a means of promoting well-being and psychological health. In addition, it allows us to recover a portrait of Nietzsche as a philologist and philosophical psychologist that has been too often obscured by commentaries on his thought. "The book addresses a number of central issues in Nietzsche's philosophy, including perspectivism and his conception of truth. The idea that his views in these areas owe much to the ancient Pyrrhonists casts them in an important new light, and is well supported by the texts. A lot of people from a lot of different areas in philosophy will have good reason to take notice." - Richard Bett, Johns Hopkins University. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Pyrrhonian Revival in Montaigne and NietzscheJessica N. BerryMichel de Montaigne occupies a unique place in Nietzsche's history of ideas. He is one of a very few figures for whom Nietzsche expresses deep admiration and about whom he has virtually nothing critical to say. This is a rare enough mark of distinction; but contrary to what it might lead us to expect, the relationship between Montaigne and Nietzsche has (...) seldom been carefully examined. There has yet to be a book-length study devoted solely to Montaigne and Nietzsche,1 and article-length treatments of the relationship between their works and thought have been surprisingly scarce. What discussions there have been tend to locate the connections between Nietzsche and Montaigne mainly in matters of either literary or personal style,2 but studies that examine Montaigne's influence on Nietzsche with an eye toward philosophical rather than literary or stylistic issues have been almost non-existent.3 This dearth of treatments can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that, while Montaigne is rightly recognized for the literary merits of his work and for its subsequent influence on later prose stylists (and not only in French), his work on the whole has seldom been appreciated as having any philosophical value in its own right. Small wonder, then, that the connection between Montaigne and Nietzsche has [End Page 497] appeared more significant to commentators on Montaigne who are interested in tracing his influence on later thinkers than to scholars of Nietzsche—even those Nietzsche scholars who take an acute interest in his intellectual heritage. What I will argue here is that Montaigne makes a more concrete and philosophically more substantive contribution to Nietzsche's thought than has generally been appreciated; specifically, by giving impetus to the naturalism that develops in Human, All Too Human as an antidote to Schopenhauer's pessimistic metaphysics of will.In this essay, I present a two-fold thesis about Montaigne's influence on Nietzsche's early work. First, I will argue that the "naturalistic turn" in Human, All Too Human reflects Nietzsche's engagement with Montaigne during a crucial moment in the development of his thought. Second, I will demonstrate that the naturalism Nietzsche adopts from Montaigne has roots in the tradition of Pyrrhonian skepticism that Montaigne carries forward into the Renaissance. In the end, a better understanding of the skeptical ancestry of Nietzsche's naturalism should help us make better sense of Human, All Too Human and its immediate successors in Nietzsche's oeuvre, which cultivate what otherwise seems to be an uneasy partnership between naturalism and skepticism.I. It is by now widely accepted that Nietzsche's estimation of the value of the techniques and methods of the natural sciences undergoes radical revision in the period culminating in the first volume of Human, All Too Human (HAH),4 a book sometimes described as inaugurating a "positivist" phase in Nietzsche's work. From the first of its nine major sections, "Of First and Last Things," HAH narrates a struggle between science on the one hand and philosophy on the other. It is important to note the breadth of the extension of the term "science" (Wissenschaft), which includes not only what we think of as the "hard" or physical sciences (physics, chemistry, and the like) but also areas of inquiry we now consider "behavioral sciences" such as psychology and sociology—and, Nietzsche would say, philology as well. "Philosophy," by contrast is specified more narrowly. As Nietzsche uses the term throughout HAH, "philosophy" is usually shorthand for "metaphysical philosophy" and singles out for criticism the discourse of metaphysics that has dominated the philosophical landscape at least since Plato.In the sense in which Nietzsche worries about it "metaphysical philosophy" promotes speculation about such supra-sensible entities as Platonic forms, Descartes's "immaterial substances," and Kantian things-in-themselves. That its contributions include, for instance, theories about the existence and immortality of the soul accounts for Nietzsche's grouping "metaphysical philosophy" [End Page 498] together with religion and art as "arts of narcosis."5 Consciously or not they endeavor to comfort us by assuaging our fear of death, our existential anxieties about the purposelessness of... (shrink)

Nietzsche's Antichrist is subtitled "A Curse on Christianity." In its last numbered section, he pronounces his "eternal indictment" of two millennia of tradition: —Now I have come to the end and I pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity, I indict the Christian church on the most terrible charges an accuser has ever had in his mouth. I consider it the greatest corruption conceivable, it had the will to the last possible corruption. [...] I want to write this eternal indictment of (...) Christianity on every wall, wherever there are walls,—[...] I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great innermost corruption, the one great instinct of revenge that does not consider any method to be poisonous... (shrink)

Dear Readers,This is a time of many transitions for JNS and of exciting new developments in Nietzsche studies. Since 2011, I have had the pleasure and the privilege of working as an Associate Editor under Christa Davis Acampora, and as I now step into her editorial role, I know you will join me in thanking her for service to the journal, where her wise stewardship has secured its reputation as the preeminent venue for English-language scholarship on Nietzsche’s thought and work. (...) Her efforts have increased submissions, kept acceptances competitive, encouraged scholarly accuracy, consistency, and rigor, and enhanced the visibility of the journal through electronic distribution services that have made it an ever more... (shrink)

The papers published in this issue were presented at North American Nietzsche Society (NANS) sessions held in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association from the end of 2007 through 2009. I would like to thank Richard Schacht and the other members of the program committee for their continued service to Nietzsche studies, and I thank Cameron Smith for invaluable editorial assistance in the production of this issue. The first three papers published here were presented on December (...) 29, 2007 at the Eastern Division Meeting in Baltimore, where NANS held an ‘Author Meets Critics’ session devoted to a discussion of Robert B. Pippin’s Nietzsche, moraliste français: La conception .. (shrink)

Dear Readers,Nietzsche's familiarity with the anti-Semitic literature of his era and its various tropes—the nature, depth, and extent of that familiarity, his references and appeals to seminal works, and even his employment of those tropes—have long been an object of grim fascination for Nietzsche scholars and casual readers. The mission of this journal is to advance our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophical thought and significance, and discharging that mission successfully requires our coming to terms with what seem to be even the (...) least agreeable, most uncomfortable aspects of his legacy. In this issue, we bring you a symposium on "The Biology of Evil," by Ken Gemes, a study that illuminates... (shrink)

Three papers included in this issue were presented to the North American Nietzsche Society (NANS) in San Francisco during the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Participants were invited by the NANS program committee to address the theme, “Nietzsche and Antiquity.” The session, held on March 31, 2010 and chaired by R. Lanier Anderson (Stanford), included papers by Nickolas Pappas (CUNY), who proposes to shed new light on BT by examining some peculiar distortions in Nietzsche’s presentation of the (...) god Apollo; Joel E. Mann (St. Norbert College), who delves insightfully into Nietzsche’s “medical posture” and his allusions to Hippocrates and ancient medicine in D; and Wilson H. Shearin .. (shrink)

Introduction : reading Nietzsche skeptically -- Nietzsche and the Pyrrhonian tradition -- Skepticism in Nietzsche's early work : the case of "on truth and lie" -- The question of Nietzsche's "naturalism" -- Perspectivism and Ephexis in interpretation -- Skepticism and health -- Skepticism as immoralism.

This issue includes four papers originally presented to the North American Nietzsche Society at group sessions of the April 2007 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago. The program committee selected these papers by blind review from among responses to its annual call for papers. In Session I, chaired by Jacqueline Scott (Loyola University Chicago), Morgan Rempel, now Associate Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, presented a reading of Daybreak 72, and Bryan Finken, currently teaching at (...) the University of Colorado at Denver, presented his examination of a peculiar type of genetic fallacy against which Nietzsche struggles, especially in his earlier published .. (shrink)

Dear Readers,In this issue, several authors contribute their insights on social and political themes in Nietzsche: Robert Miner looks to the works of the “middle period” to add nuance to Nietzsche’s critical attitude to socialism; Birte Loschenkohl asks again what Nietzsche has in mind with his enigmatic call for “great politics,” arguing that Zarathustra holds the key to understanding his vision; and Sacha Golob looks back to the second Untimely Meditation to analyze Nietzsche’s views on education and the role that (...) exemplary figures like Schopenhauer can and should play in that process. Iain Morrison, too, by focusing on the question of how drives and affects create the systems of value that take hold within... (shrink)

A growing literature in recent epistemology leverages the fact of persistent, systematic disagreement among philosophers to reach deeply skeptical conclusions, not just about philosophical propositions, but about the practice of philosophy itself. This article argues that a version of this argument is implicit in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, and that Nietzsche is best read as occupying a stance that would be called “conciliationist” today. The only sincere effort to date to attribute to Nietzsche a skeptical position on the basis (...) of disagreement, I argue, both overcommits him in some ways and undercommits him in others. Correctly assessing his target and scope and appreciating the conciliationist strain in Nietzsche’s thought improves our understanding of his philosophical project. (shrink)

On April 5, 2012, the North American Nietzsche Society held a session, chaired by myself, at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting in Seattle on reading Nietzsche as a figure within the history of philosophy. Paul Loeb commented on papers by Michael Green and Gary Shapiro. Professor Green’s contribution, published in this issue, argues for the importance of Afrikan Spir’s work for understanding the “falsification thesis” about empirical judgments that he attributes to Nietzsche; here, he responds to Nadeem Hussain’s (...) work on Nietzsche and Spir and brings us a closer look at the arguments of Spir’s.. (shrink)

Between his calling into question, on the one hand, the apparently unquestionable value of compassion itself, and his refusal, on the other hand, to concede that suffering is unconditionally bad, Nietzsche has been understood by many as expressing a callous indifference, or worse, to most human suffering. This article aims to show that this interpretation relies on an oversimplified characterization of the relevant moral emotions. Compassion (or pity, either of which word can be used to translate the German das Mitleid) (...) is ‘a polyphonous being’, as Nietzsche insists in Daybreak (1881). A closer look at some key passages in Nietzsche’s text, and some help from Greek thinkers Nietzsche points us toward, will demonstrate that this term has meanings that have been lost to us. Recovering those meanings will shed light both on Nietzsche’s critique of compassion (or pity) and on his own attitude toward suffering. (shrink)

Dear Readers,With this issue of the Journal of Nietzsche Studies, I am particularly pleased to welcome Chris Fowles, formerly an editorial assistant, to the Associate Editorship desk alongside Scott Jenkins. His sharp editorial eye and sound philosophical judgment will help us continue to bring you some of the best recent work on Nietzsche’s philosophical thought.At the same time, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Alexander Prescott-Couch, whose term as Book Reviews Editor will end with this issue. During (...) his time at the reviews desk, he has worked hard to benefit our entire readership by commissioning substantive engagements with a well-curated... (shrink)

What is the future of Nietzsche studies? What are the most pressing questions its scholars should address? What texts and issues demand our urgent attention? And as we turn to these issues, what methodological and interpretive principles should guide us? The Journal of Nietzsche Studies recently put these questions to some of the most prominent names in Anglophone Nietzsche scholarship. Here, we bring you ten thoughtful responses, as a starting point for shaping discussions in these pages and elsewhere about the (...) most fruitful directions for us to take and the most promising avenues for building on the best recent... (shrink)

Professional philosophy is overdue for a Pyrrhonian revival. For too long, the skeptic has been either overlooked or regarded as an object of pity (for the feebleness of his arguments) or contempt (for his appearing to thumb his nose at the canons of reason and morality). Even among the most learned and philosophically astute commentators, those who would be best positioned to develop a philosophically sophisticated and compelling interpretation of Pyrrhonism, it has found few defenders, many detractors, and has generally (...) suffered by its having been misunderstood, caricatured, or conflated with contemporary varieties of skepticism. Casey Perin's eloquent little essay is therefore a refreshing contribution to the .. (shrink)

This article explores notions about Nietzsche’s career as a philologist and his fascination with the Greeks. It considers his interest in Homer and the Greek philosophers—in particular, Heraclitus and Pyrrho. For Nietzsche, ancient Greeks such as Heraclitus and Homer were interesting not because of their doctrines, but because of the example they themselves provided of certain psychological types. Like the ancient skeptics following Pyrrho, Nietzsche was generally more interested in the psychological consequences of philosophical doctrines than in their content, and (...) like those skeptics he often rejected any ambitions to limn the true nature of reality. (shrink)

The intellectual history of Germany in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is sometimes compared to the philosophical achievement of Athens at the very height of the classical age. Both were tremendously fruitful periods, which saw the birth of revolutionary philosophical systems that inspired a fantastic intellectual commerce among new and rival schools of thought. The plenitude of references to Greek mythology in literary works from Goethe and Lessing to Schiller, Novalis, and Hölderlin; the burgeoning interest in classical philology and (...) the translation and transmission of works of antiquity; and the growing interest in the history of skepticism in ancient Greece; all are instances of a widespread preoccupation with Hellenic thought and culture that persisted throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The intellectual associations between many seminal thinkers during this time make it easy to trace the transmission of this enthusiasm from one figure or group to another. (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in initiating life-sustaining health technology is complex and often conducted at time-critical junctures in clinical care. Many of these decisions have profound, often irreversible, consequences for the child and family, as well as potential benefits for functioning, health and quality of life. Yet little is known about what influences these decisions. A systematic review of reasoning identified the range of reasons clinicians give in the literature when initiating technology dependence in a child, and as a result helps determine the (...) range of influences on these decisions.MethodsMedline, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Web of Science, ASSIA and Global Health Library databases were searched to identify all reasons given for the initiation of technology dependence in a child. Each reason was coded as a broad and narrow reason type, and whether it supported or rejected technology dependence.Results53 relevant papers were retained from 1604 publications, containing 116 broad reason types and 383 narrow reason types. These were grouped into broad thematic categories: clinical factors, quality of life factors, moral imperatives and duty and personal values; and whether they supported, rejected or described the initiation of technology dependence. The majority were conceptual or discussion papers, less than a third were empirical studies. Most discussed neonates and focused on end-of-life care.ConclusionsThere is a lack of empirical studies on this topic, scant knowledge about the experience of older children and their families in particular; and little written on choices made outside ‘end-of-life’ care. This review provides a sound basis for empirical research into the important influences on a child’s potential technology dependence. (shrink)

Wide-ranging essays making up the first major study of Nietzsche and the classical tradition in a quarter of a century. This volume collects a wide-ranging set of essays examining Friedrich Nietzsche's engagement with antiquity in all its aspects. It investigates Nietzsche's reaction and response to the concept of "classicism," with particular reference to his work on Greek culture as a philologist in Basel and later as a philosopher of modernity, and to his reception of German classicism in all his texts. (...) The book should be of interest to students of ancient history and classics, philosophy, comparative literature, and Germanistik. Taken together, these papers suggest that classicism is both a more significant, and a more contested, concept for Nietzsche than is often realized, and it demonstratesthe need for a return to a close attention to the intellectual-historical context in terms of which Nietzsche saw himself operating. An awareness of the rich variety of academic backgrounds, methodologies, and techniques of reading evinced in these chapters is perhaps the only way for the contemporary scholar to come to grips with what classicism meant for Nietzsche, and hence what Nietzsche means for us today. The book is divided into five sections -- The Classical Greeks; Pre-Socratics and Pythagoreans, Cynics and Stoics; Nietzsche and the Platonic Tradition; Contestations; and German Classicism -- and constitutes the first major study of Nietzsche and the classical tradition in a quarter of a century. Contributors: Jessica N. Berry, Benjamin Biebuyck, Danny Praet and Isabelle Vanden Poel, Paul Bishop, R. Bracht Branham, Thomas Brobjer, David Campbell, Alan Cardew, Roy Elveton, Christian Emden, Simon Gillham, John Hamilton, Mark Hammond, Albert Henrichs, Dirk t.D. Held, David F. Horkott, Dylan Jaggard, Fiona Jenkins, Anthony K. Jensen, Laurence Lampert, Nicholas Martin, Thomas A. Meyer, Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek, John S. Moore, Neville Morley, David N. McNeill, James I. Porter, Martin A. Ruehl, Herman Siemens, Barry Stocker, Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen, and Peter Yates. Paul Bishop is William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. (shrink)

Jessica Berry provides the first detailed analysis of whether, and in what sense, Nietzsche was a skeptic (5). Exploring the affinity between Nietzsche’s work and Pyrrhonism in six main chapters, Berry differentiates between modern skepticism, understood as epistemological pessimism or nihilism (33), and Pyrrhonian skepticism as a commitment to continuing inquiry, based on the equipollence of arguments, “roughly equal persuasive weight for and against just about any claim,” and epochē, suspension of judgment (36–37). Berry shows that (...) Nietzsche appreciated this distinction (29–32) and proceeds to read Nietzsche’s remarks on truth skeptically. She argues that—like the ancient Skeptic’s response to the .. (shrink)

The construct of wellbeing has been criticised as a neoliberal construction of western individualism that ignores wider systemic issues such as inequality and anthropogenic climate change. Accordingly, there have been increasing calls for a broader conceptualisation of wellbeing. Here we impose an interpretative framework on previously published literature and theory, and present a theoretical framework that brings into focus the multifaceted determinants of wellbeing and their interactions across multiple domains and levels of scale. We define wellbeing as positive psychological experience, (...) promoted by connections to self, community and environment, supported by healthy vagal function, all of which are impacted by socio-contextual factors that lie beyond the control of the individual. By emphasising the factors within and beyond the control of the individual and highlighting how vagal function both affects and are impacted by key domains, the biopsychosocial underpinnings of wellbeing are explicitly linked to a broader context that is consistent with, yet complementary to, multi-levelled ecological systems theory. Reflecting on the reciprocal relationships between multiple domains, levels of scale and related social contextual factors known to impact on wellbeing, our GENIAL framework may provide a foundation for a transdisciplinary science of wellbeing that has the potential to promote the wellbeing of individuals while also playing a key role in tackling major societal challenges. (shrink)

Scepticism is central to Nietzsche’s philosophical project, both as a tool of criticism and, through its role in self-transformation, as a tool for responding to criticism. While its importance in his thought and its complexity have been acknowledged, exactly what kind of scepticism Nietzsche calls for still stands in need of analysis. Jessica Berry’s [Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011] comparison between Nietzsche and Pyrrhonian scepticism recognized the importance of the practical dimension (...) of Nietzschean scepticism but distorted Nietzsche’s philosophy in attempting to paint it as Pyrrhonian in character. Earlier discussions recognize Nietzsche’s opposition to Pyrrhonian suspension of judgement and tranquillity. They have not, however, explored in sufficient detail Nietzsche’s sceptical practice and how it affects the individual. In this article, I combine Berry’s emphasis on scepticism as a practice with attention to the important differences between Nietzsche and Pyrrhonism. I outline Nietzsche’s scepticism as a transformative practice, arguing that its differences from Pyrrhonian scepticism are as illuminating as any similarities. The scepticism that Nietzsche advocates involves not just destruction of our beliefs but destruction of who we are, and at the same time as cultivating the capacity to do without certainty, requires an experimental engagement with our drives – allowing the creation of new values. (shrink)

In this chapter, Robb Dunphy is concerned with the nature of G.E. Schulze's scepticism as he presents it in his 1792 work Aenesidemus, and with its relation to the metaphysical projects of Kant, Reinhold, and later German Idealists. After introducing Schulze's text, Dunphy turns to a recent interpretation offered by Jessica Berry, who claims that the extent to which Schulze endorsed a genuinely Pyrrhonian Scepticism has gone unacknowledged, both by his idealist contemporaries and by the majority of the (...) secondary literature on the period. Berry suggests that this unacknowledged Pyrrhonism in Aenesidemus provides the resources for a more radical criticism of the German Idealists' scientific, systematic metaphysical ambitions, to which they remain fundamentally vulnerable. Despite agreeing that an exploration of Schulze's debt to Pyrrhonism represents a valuable addition to our understanding of his scepticism, in the latter parts of the chapter Dunphy suggests that the Berry's attribution of a Pyrrhonian Scepticism to Schulze should to some extent be rejected, and that such a scepticism is perhaps not quite as problematic for the projects of Kant and the German Idealists as she suggests. (shrink)

The most arresting aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment is its conception of commercial society as a distinct and distinctive social formation. Christopher Berry explains why Enlightenment thinkers considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, and charts the contemporary debates and tensions between Enlightenment thinkers that this idea raised. The book analyses the full range of literature on the subject, from key works like Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations', David Hume's 'Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects' (...) and Adam Ferguson's 'Essay on the History of Civil Society' to lesser-known works such as Robert Wallace's 'Dissertation on Numbers of Mankind'. (shrink)

One of Kant’s categories—a priori concepts the possession and applicability of which are necessary conditions of possible experience—is a concept of necessity. But it is unclear why the concept of necessity, as Kant defines it, should be a category thus understood. My aim is to offer a reading of Kant that fills this lacuna: the category of necessity is required to make necessity as it features in the world of experience understandable: a concept that the understanding can grasp and employ (...) in cognition of objects. Kant’s view has potential wider significance for accounts of the function of necessity judgments. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers accept a strong generalization of Hume's denial of necessary causal connections, in the form of Hume's dictum (HD), according to which there are no metaphysically necessary connections between distinct, intrinsically typed entities. Hume's version of his dictum occurs during his investigation into the source of the idea of causal connection. The most powerful role that HD plays in Lewis's system concerns its providing a basis for, as Lewis puts it, a "principle of plentitude" that will guarantee "that (...) the worlds are abundant, and logical space is somehow complete". Lewis's combinatorialism promises to provide a principled, extensionally adequate, and reductive generator of metaphysical modal space. Beyond combinatorialism, there are many other accounts of metaphysical modality that need to be considered, not just with an eye to extensional adequacy but also to the clear desideratum to provide an account of the space of metaphysical modality that is principled. (shrink)

The computer revolution has had an enormous effect on all aspects of the practice of medicine, yet little thought has been given to the role of social media in identifying treatment choices for incompetent patients. We are currently living in the ?Internet age? and many people have integrated social media into all aspects of their lives. As use becomes more prevalent, and as users age, social media are more likely to be viewed as a source of information regarding medical care (...) preferences. This article explores the ethical and legal issues raised by the use of social media in surrogate decision making. (shrink)

:Self-ownership theorists argue that many of our most morally urgent and enforceable rights stem from the fact that we own ourselves. Critics of self-ownership argue that the claim that people own their bodies commits self-ownership theorists to several implausible conclusions because self-ownership theory relies on several vague moral predicates, and any precisification of the required predicates is seemingly too permissive or too restrictive. I argue that this line of criticism does not undermine the case for self-ownership theory because self-ownership theory (...) does not require precisification of each moral concept that it is based on and, even if it did, the theory’s alleged extensional inadequacy does not undermine its justification. (shrink)

(Posted version is final pre-publication version.) Is there a need for a distinctively diachronic conception of metaphysical emergence? Here I argue to the contrary. In the main, my strategy consists in considering a representative sample of accounts of purportedly diachronic metaphysical emergence, and arguing that in each case, the purportedly diachronic emergence at issue either can (and should) be subsumed under a broadly synchronic account of metaphysical emergence, or else is better seen as simply a case of causation.