Nietzsche's Philosophy Research Articles

Berliner Nietzsche Colloquium

Berliner Nietzsche Colloquium

Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition

Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition

Nietzsche, die Orchestikologie und das dissipative Denken

Nietzsche, die Orchestikologie und das dissipative Denken

Dores do parto, dores do mundo: notas sobre a oposição de Nietzsche a Schopenhauer

The following text deals with the classic question concerning theopposition between the philosophies of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer,trying to discuss the current interpretation that conceives it as basedon the contrast between affirmation and negation of existence’s value.Nietzsche indeed denies explicitly the very possibility of a philosophicalappreciation of life’s value. Therefore, he could not put himself in directopposition to Schopenhauer’s verdict about existence, which could onlybe taken by him, not as a refutable thesis, but rather as a symptom of adeterminate state of life. Such constatations leads to an investigation ofthe meaning of Nietzsche’s diagnosis of Schopenhauer’s philosophy asa symptom of a weak or decadent life, as well as of the sense assignedby him to the idea of affirmation of life

Nietzsche e a filologia, a filologia e Nietzsche. Minhocas e tesouros: a pesquisa das fontes e a "biblioteca ideal" de Nietzsche

Neste artigo, o autor justifica a importância que tem o trabalho editorial realizado por Colli e Montinari para a compreensão da filosofia nietzschiana no século XX. Considera, portanto, que o exaustivo trabalho com as fontes de citação do filósofo e com anotações e correspondências, muitas inéditas, ou consideradas irrelevantes por alguns pesquisadores, ou utilizadas de forma arbitrária e descontextualizada, podem, se bem organizadas, fornecer informações preciosas para a definição da identidade filosófica de Nietzsche. E, para tanto, argumenta ser necessário enfatizar a atividade filológica do próprio Nietzsche. Destaca, por fim, o quanto é útil o aparato para a organização dos escritos nietzschianos feitos por Colli e Montinari, que possibilitaram corrigir equívocos históricos de interpretação.

Abordar o Versuch nietzschiano por um Versuch do leitor?: em direção a uma leitura "als Problem" da obra de Nietzsche

Este artigo define a filosofia de Nietzsche como um Versuch (ensaio, tentativa, experimentação) e não como um conjunto de teses articuladas de maneira fixa. O leitor da obra de Nietzsche é ele mesmo constrangido a abordar os textos deste pensador de maneira tateante: se num primeiro momento a leitura parece impossível de dominar, a segunda parte da contribuição lembra que uma leitura metódica pode ser considerada, leitura que não pode, todavia, pretender absorver totalmente as dificuldades colocadas pelo pensamento de Nietzsche. O Versuch nietzschiano conduz, por conseguinte, a construir um Versuch do leitor em um caminho que, de forma mais ampla, convida a considerar a obra de Nietzsche como problema ("als Problem").

MORALITIES ARE A SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE AFFECTS

AbstractThis essay offers an interpretation and partial defense of Nietzsche's idea that moralities and moral judgments are “sign-languages” or “symptoms” of our affects, that is, of our emotions or feelings. According to Nietzsche, as I reconstruct his view, moral judgments result from the interaction of two kinds of affective responses: first, a “basic affect” of inclination toward or aversion from certain acts, and then a further affective response (the “meta-affect”) to that basic affect (that is, sometimes we can be either inclined towards or averted from our basic affects). I argue that Nietzsche views basic affects asnoncognitive, that is, as identifiable solely by how they feel to the subject who experiences the affect. By contrast, I suggest that meta-affects (I focus on guilt and shame) sometimes incorporate acognitivecomponent like belief. After showing how this account of moral judgment comports with a reading of Nietzsche's moral philosophy that I have offered in previous work, I conclude by adducing philosophical and empirical psychological reasons for thinking that Nietzsche's account of moral judgment is correct.

Reading creatively: Why Nietzsche might have enjoyed Winnicott

Nietzsche's philosophy has been adopted by and had an influence on some of the most disparate and opposing thinkers as well as non-academic movements in the west. I shall here attempt a psychoanalytic investigation of this cultural phenomenon. I am going to argue that part of the variation in our understanding and use of Nietzsche's ideas might be accounted for by a specific feature of Nietzsche's writing: contradictions. I shall begin by exploring this concurrence of seemingly opposing ideas in Nietzsche's works and advance the hypothesis that this is a deliberate aspect of his writing style – a performative application of what he calls incomplete thoughts. I suggest that we can gain an understanding of why Nietzsche might use this particular strategy by paralleling his works with those of Winnicott. I shall follow Ogden in saying that Winnicott's way of presenting his ideas can be understood as informed by his theoretical thoughts on playing and creativity. Like Winnicott, as I am going to argue further, Nietzsche might well have chosen to write in an incomplete way in order to provoke creative involvement among his readers. I want to say that, although the scopes of their respective projects are very different, both Winnicott and Nietzsche install the life affirming force of creative experiences at the core of their own thinking. I argue further that both of their writing styles can be understood as making a sacrifice in thematic clarity in order to gain the aesthetic means to provoke experiential evidence for this central claim in the reader. A Winnicottian lens shall therefore allow us to see how conflicting but original interpretations of his own work might be very much in line with Nietzsche's project as a philosopher and as a writer.

The Dionysian Self: C. G. Jung's Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche

The Dionysian Self: C. G. Jung's Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche

Tiziana Andina, Il problema della percezione nella filosofia di Nietzsche

A book that divides its sections like Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophico demands careful reading. Furthermore, the book by Tiziana Andina entitled The Problem of Perception in Nietzsche Philosophy is prefaced by Maurizio Ferraris, who is the Director of a series of studies of The Laboratory for Ontology in Turin. Approaching Andina’s book, one realizes that it is a remarkable work, an important contribution to Nietzsche studies; this is because her scientific and philosophical knowl...

Nietzsche's Enlightenment: The Free-Spirit Trilogy of the Middle Period

Nietzsche's Enlightenment: The Free-Spirit Trilogy of the Middle Period

Heidegger o wartościach, woli mocy i nihilizmie

According to Heidegger, thinking about the world in terms of values makes it impossible for things to appear as they are. Nietzsche's philosophy is for him the philosophy of value par excellence. The will to power (which includes all that is) establishes values as the conditions of its own preservation and growth. Entering into a critical engagement with Nietzschean metaphysics, Heidegger also notes that it is the culmination and fulfillment of the history of Western thought and, as such, it most clearly expresses the way of thinking about reality that defines the modern period. Accordingly, I read Heidegger's discussion of values, will to power and nihilism as an original interpretation of the key concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy and a thorough diagnosis of our age. Toward the end I also point to one element of that philosophy which would allow Nietzsche enter into a critical engagement with Heidegger.

Understanding Dworkin's Law's Empire through Nietzschean Philosophy

Understanding Dworkin's Law's Empire through Nietzschean Philosophy

Ao som do emaranhamento: a música e o discurso filosófico sobre as artes

Quando se acompanha o discurso filosófico acerca da sensibilidade artística, salta aos olhos que nele impera uma dupla tendência no que se refere aos recursos expressivos. Por um lado, nota-se que os meios de expressão acabam resistindo uns em relação aos outros; por outro, percebe-se que tal resistência também se revela bastante fraca, descerrando novas fronteiras e ocasionando ulteriores transições. Tendo isso em vista, o propósito geral do presente artigo consiste em pôr à prova a hipótese de que é no âmbito da música que a moderna ponderação estética descobre o sentido e o alcance do vínculo entre as artes, forjado, em geral, nos termos da auto-compreensão das vanguardas artísticas. Trata-se, em suma, de refazer os passos por meio dos quais a música terminou por se converter, no século XIX, num dos mais importantes veículos de ideias para, a partir do ponto de inflexão representado pela filosofia nietzschiana da maturidade, trazer à plena luz a concepção de "emaranhamento" [Verfransung] das artes, a qual ganha relevo, em especial, na derradeira etapa do itinerário intelectual de Th. W. Adorno.

Nietzsches Musikästhetik der Affekte

Nietzsches Musikästhetik der Affekte

Suffering and the Affirmation of Life

Abstract Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life (2006) purports to fill a gap in our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophical project by explaining why Nietzsche regards the affirmation of life as his defining philosophical achievement. Reginster is not alone in emphasizing the centrality of life affirmation to Nietzsche's thought. What makes Reginster's book new and original is his systematic approach—his attempt to isolate a core of Nietzsche's philosophy and show how everything else, especially the affirmation of life, is related to it. This article challenges the systematicity Reginster finds in Nietzsche's work; above all, it rejects Reginster's claim that what has led to nihilism is the condemnation of suffering, a view Nietzsche is said to inherit from Schopenhauer. I raise questions about how much of Schopenhauer's view Nietzsche in fact retains and about how well Reginster's account of affirmation fits with Nietzsche's account of the will to power, which, as I have argued elsewhere, has played an essential part in producing all the things Nietzsche values.

Nietzsche and the drama of historiobiography

In this extraordinary contribution to Nietzsche studies, Alejandro offers an original interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy viewed as a complete whole. Alejandro painstakingly traces the different ways in which Nietzsche reconfigured and shifted his analyses of morality and of the human condition, until he was content with the final result: nothing was dispensable; everything was necessary. is a philosophy of reconciliation--hardly nihilism--and it is a perspective that is not adequately addressed elsewhere in the literature on Nietzsche. Alejandro traces the evolution of Nietzsche's thought by identifying the different layers of his philosophy, expressed in a complex array of stories and historical narratives. Alejandro analyzes the different stories of Nietzsche, places those stories within a tradition of genealogical theorizing, and interprets both the stories and the genealogy in terms of one of Nietzsche's unique features, his use of historiobiography. According to Alejandro, historiobiography blends the idea of an attunement with all history and one's awareness of this attunement. As a mode of philosophizing, historiobiography allows Nietzsche to view all human history as if it runs through his own life and thoughts. Alejandro argues that Nietzsche deployed three strategies to find relief from his sense of the meaninglessness of life: his magnified concept of what he himself represented in human history, his doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and his philosophy of reconciliation. am confident that this book will be considered essential reading for any scholar doing serious research into Nietzsche's thought and its implications. . . . The author carefully traces the shifts and turns and occasionally the contradictions and dead-ends in the development of Nietzsche's major themes. I have never read an account of Nietzsche's thought as fully and convincingly supported by textual reference as this book. Others will disagree with the author's readings of Nietzsche, that is the nature of scholarship, but I cannot see how they could be ignored. --Edward Portis, Texas A & M University This is a major work on Nietzsche. Alejandro offers us a reading of Nietzsche's Herculean efforts that Nietzsche scholars and scholars who write about modernity and postmodernity will be unable to ignore. wide ranging and deep book addresses major issues in cultural history, psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology, and the vast literature on modernity and secularization. I expect this to be a book that generates debate and discussion for years to come. --Robert Hollinger, Iowa State University Robert Alejandro delivers a rich, lively account of Nietzsche's quest for meaning. By focusing on the theme of historiobiography, Alejandro illuminates Nietzsche's bold attempt to place himself at the center of a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of Western civilization. A thoughtful, well-crafted book, written very much in the spirit of Nietzsche himself. --Daniel Conway, Texas A & M University

A questão da criação em Nietzsche e em Bergson

O artigo tem por objetivo confrontar a filosofia de Nietzsche - da vontade criadora - com a filosofia de Bergson - da duração. Procura perscrutar a compreensão que este filósofo tem da noção de duração, pensada como criação, isto é, como movimento contínuo que traz o passado e gera o futuro no presente: "jorro ininterrupto de novidade".

Nietzsche, Culture and the Fiction of the Artist

ABSTRACTThis article enquires into the rationale of cultural studies from a Nietzschean perspective. Contrary to some views, I will show that Nietzsche's writing is inimical to the aims of the institutional project of cultural studies. The central feature of my argument is Nietzsche's idea of the ‘reactive force’ of slave morality that separates an ‘active force’ from what it can do. This idea aptly describes the representation of power in cultural studies. The relationship between active and reactive forces in Nietzsche's philosophy is complex and certain nuances will be glossed over for want of space, but the aim is to show that ‘fiction’ plays a decisive role in this separation. In contrast to this, and drawing on Alexander Nehamas’ study of Nietzsche's philosophy, I will argue that the fictional character exemplifies what Nietzsche sees as the highest achievements of art and literature inasmuch as they can be understood as active forces. Whilst I do not examine the concept, this article can be understood as an apology for creativity.

High Modernism, Lowly Desires: A Review of Sara Crangle's <em>Prosaic Desires: Modernist Knowledge, Boredom, Laughter, and Anticipation</em>

Sara Crangle’s Prosaic Desires draws attention to the banal, ephemeral, but nevertheless fundamental desires that propel modernist fiction. Using Levinas to write back to the Foucauldian tradition that links desire with the hegemonic structures of power, Crangle argues that modernism was more concerned with the minutiae of longing felt between self and other. Focusing on knowledge, boredom, laughter, and anticipation, Crangle draws a map of the theories of intersubjectivity available in the prose of modernist fiction. The book takes Joyce, Woolf, Stein, and Beckett as its key texts, and puts them into conversation with the philosophy of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Levinas.