The Nietzsche Reader brings together in one volume substantial selections from the entire body of Nietzsche’s writings, together with illuminating commentary on Nietzsche’s life and importance, and introductions to his major works and philosophical ideas. • Includes selections from all the major texts, including The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Anti-Christ, and Ecce Homo • Offers new translations of key pieces from Nietzsche’s unpublished “Lenzer Heide” notebook • Provides a wealth of (...) pedagogical features, such as editorial sections on Nietzsche’s life and importance, an opening introduction to his philosophical ideas, introductions to each major section, and a comprehensive guide to further reading. (shrink)

Ecce Homo is an autobiography like no other. Nietzsche passes under review all his previous books and reaches a final reckoning with his many enemies. Ecce Homo is the summation of an extraordinary philosophical career.

Ecce Homo is an autobiography like no other. Nietzsche passes under review all his previous books and reaches a final reckoning with his many enemies. Ecce Homo is the summation of an extraordinary philosophical career.

The aim of this article is to discuss and scrutinize essential aspects of the relationship between Nietzsche and Burckhardt. In line with fundamental passages and revealing letters, it aims at showing a critical report of their intelectual scenery, and from a countermove towards the traditional model of education, it intends to bring to light a completely different conception of culture.

Nietzsche reflects on translation at two key points in his published works, GS 83 and BGE 28, and these passages have been frequently anthologized in translation studies readers. He was not otherwise much exercised by questions of translation, though, and when he uses the German word for translation, the majority of instances are figurative. As an academic classicist Nietzsche himself translated between German, Greek, and Latin, but his command of modern foreign languages was relatively unimpressive, and he viewed language learning (...) as a necessary evil, looking forward to the time when a new lingua franca would obviate the need for language learning or translation at all. Nonetheless Nietzsche was very keen to secure translators for his own works: early French translations in his mentally active lifetime were followed by a flurry of further translations from the 1890s, when English translations also began to appear. After the Second World War Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale's English versions achieved preeminence, but by now the range of English translations is very diverse. The stylistic challenges facing the prospective translator of Nietzsche filled Peter Newmark with apprehension, but the present author adopts a more pragmatic position and concludes by speculating that the translator might represent the best approximation to Nietzsche's ideal reader. (shrink)

This is a brief, predominantly philological analysis of the term 'Umwerthung,' one of Nietzsche's coinages, which occupies a privileged place in his late philosophy and particularly in the phrase "Umwerthung aller Werthe." Differing translations of the term have reflected differing interpretations of Nietzsche's intent, and arguments in favor of both commonly used English translations are considered. Whereas 'transvaluation' was initially used, the modern consensus favors 'revaluation,' which is preferred in almost all postwar English translations.

ABSTRACT This is a brief, predominantly philological analysis of the term ‘Umwerthung,’ one of Nietzsche’s coinages, which occupies a privileged place in his late philosophy and particularly in the phrase “Umwerthung aller Werthe.” Differing translations of the term have ref lected differing interpretations of Nietzsche’s intent, and arguments in favor of both commonly used English translations are considered. Whereas ‘transvaluation’ was initially used, the modern consensus favors ‘revaluation,’ which is preferred in almost all postwar English translations.

This long-overdue translation brings to the English-speaking world the work that set the tone for the post-structuralist reading of Nietzsche.

This book combines a Nietzschean reading of Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu with a Proustian reading of Nietzsche's philosophy. It focuses on the problem of knowledge, the status of the self, the experience of transcendence, and the complex time structures in the works of the two writers.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s intellectual autobiography Ecce Homo has always been a controversial book. Nietzsche prepared it for publication just before he became incurably insane in early 1889, but it was held back until after his death, and finally appeared only in 1908. For much of the first century of its reception, Ecce Homo met with a sceptical response and was viewed as merely a testament to its author’s incipient madness. This was hardly surprising, since he is deliberately outrageous with the ‘megalomaniacal’ (...) self-advertisement of his chapter titles, and brazenly claims ‘I am not a man, I am dynamite’ as he attempts to explode one preconception after another in the Western philosophical tradition. In recent decades there has been increased interest in the work, especially in the English-speaking world, but the present volume is the first collection of essays in any language devoted to the work. Most of the essays are selected from the proceedings of an international conference held in London to mark the centenary of the first publication of Ecce Homo in 2008. They are supplemented by a number of specially commissioned essays. Contributors include established and emerging Nietzsche scholars from the UK and USA, Germany and France, Portugal, Sweden and the Netherlands. (shrink)

Mindful that philosophy is for Kofman always sublated by literature and psychoanalysis, this essay examines Kofman's rarely discussed text ‘Conversions: The Merchant of Venice under the Si...

Nietzsche intended Twilight of the Idols to serve as a short introduction to the whole of his philosophy, and to be the most synoptic of all his books. A masterpiece of polemic, this `great declaration of war' targets 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. This brilliant new translation is supplemented by a detailed commentary on one of Neitzsche's (...) most condensed works. (shrink)

This volume is the first of its kind to explore the notion of untranslatability from a wide variety of interdisciplinary perspectives and its implications within the broader context of translation studies. Featuring contributions from both leading authorities and emerging scholars in the field, the book looks to go beyond traditional comparisons of target texts and their sources to more rigorously investigate the myriad ways in which the term untranslatability is both conceptualized and applied. The first half of the volume focuses (...) on untranslatability as a theoretical or philosophical construct, both to ground and extend the term's conceptual remit, while the second half is composed of case studies in which the term is applied and contextualized in a diverse set of literary text types and genres, including poetry, philosophical works, song lyrics, memoir, and scripture. A final chapter examines untranslatability in the real world and the challenges it brings in practical contexts. Extending the conversation in this burgeoning contemporary debate, this volume is key reading for graduate students and researchers in translation studies, comparative literature, gender studies, and philosophy of language. The editors are grateful to the University of East Anglia Faculty of Arts and Humanities, who supported the book with a publication grant. (shrink)

The first book that presents key original texts from the modern German philosophical tradition to English-language students and scholars of German, with introductions, commentaries, and annotations that make them accessible.

Affect Theory, Genre, and the Example of Tragedy employs Silvan Tomkins' Affect-Script theory of human psychology to explore the largely unacknowledged emotions of disgust and shame in tragedy. The book begins with an overview of Tomkins' relationship to both traditional psychoanalysis and theories of human motivation and emotion, before considering tragedy via case studies of Oedipus, Hamlet, and Death of a Salesman. Aligning Affect-Script theory with literary genre studies, this text explores what motivates fictional characters within the closed conditions of (...) their imagined worlds and how we as an audience relate to and understand fictional characters as motivated humans. (shrink)

The array of literature on ethical behaviour tends to focus on what's happening at the extremes - either owner managers of start-ups on a strong moral crusade, or large corporations undergoing change due to the personal epiphany of a forward-thinking CEO. This book is directed at the middle ground - individuals who want their companies to adopt more ethical and sustainable practices. Each of the 50 thoughts provide direction to help society and the planet whilst preserving the bottom line. (...) A more thoughtful business practice is also highly commercial. An ethical journey should become central to the company's communications strategy - helping to set you apart from your competition. Ethical practices must be supported from the top down and be a true part of a company's culture, and this book will provide you with the tools to adopt a more ethical approach to the business. (shrink)

As a contribution to a wider discussion on moral discernment in theological anthropology, this paper seeks to answer the question “What is the impact of mental illness on an individual’s ability to make moral decisions?” Written from a clinical psychiatric perspective, it considers recent contributions from psychology, neuropsychology and imaging technology. It notes that the popular conception that mental illness necessarily robs an individual of moral responsibility is largely unfounded. Most people who suffer from mental health problems do not lose (...) the capacity to make moral decisions, and mental illness on its own rarely explains anti-social or criminal behaviour. Moreover, the assumptions of some scientists, that recent developments in neuropsychology and brain imaging suggest biological determinism, must be treated with caution. (shrink)

This article examines the design and situated employment of reported `private thoughts' in both everyday and institutional interaction. By reported `private thoughts' we mean the `active voicing' of utterances characterized as `private thought' done in the first place for the speaker-feeler, rather than the listener. Examples are drawn from a large UK collection of over 240 instances from domestic telephone calls, interview talk, therapy sessions, and patient—provider interactions. Instead of treating reported `private thoughts' as neutral and transparent descriptions of (...) the inner mind, we focus on their `brought off ' nature. Drawing on the cumulative resources of conversation analysis and discursive psychology, we focus on lexical and non-lexical features of their design and its similarity to direct reported speech. We go on to illustrate the flexibilities of positioning reporting `private thoughts' affords, that is, how they can be done for the self as a `one-off ', as generalized or hypothetical and how they can be done for others. Our analyses draw attention to how `private thoughts' might be considered as a speaker's resource for handling everyday rational accountability in reporting and explaining actions and events. (shrink)

(NEG) is widely accepted both by internalist and by externalists. In fact, there have been very few opponents of (NEG). Timothy Williamson (e.g., 2000) rejects (NEG), for reasons that have by now received a great deal of scrutiny.2 John McDowell also rejects (NEG), but his reasons have not received the scrutiny they deserve. This is in large part because those reasons have not been well understood. We believe that McDowell’s challenge to (NEG) is important, worthy of fair assessment, and (...) maybe even correct. In this paper, we explain McDowell’s challenge to (NEG), and also explain how McDowell can address a seemingly fatal objection to his view. (shrink)

During the late 20thcentury numerical rating scales became central to the diagnosis of dementia and helped transform attitudes about its causes and prevalence. Concentrating largely on the development and use of the Blessed Dementia Scale, I argue that rating scales served professional ends during the 1960s and 1970s. They helped old age psychiatrists establish jurisdiction over conditions such as dementia and present their field as a vital component of the welfare state, where they argued that ‘reliable modes of diagnosis’ were (...) vital to the allocation of resources. I show how these arguments appealed to politicians, funding bodies and patient groups, who agreed that dementia was a distinct disease and claimed research on its causes and prevention should be designated ‘top priority’. But I also show that worries about the replacement of clinical acumen with technical and depersonalized methods, which could conceivably be applied by anyone, led psychiatrists to stress that rating scales had their limits and could be used only by trained experts. (shrink)

The Culex remains the most bewildering of poems. The consensus of modern opinion holds that it is a deliberate forgery, post-Ovidian in date, purporting to be a work of the youthful Virgil and thus serving to fill the large biographical vacuum in the career of the poet before the publication of the Eclogues. If this is the case, it must be asked why the forger chose to fill that gap with a poem thematically and stylistically so idiosyncratic which nevertheless (...) managed to gain ready acceptance as Virgilian by the end of the first century A.D. This is a very large question, but in postulating the close dependence of parts of the poem on Cornelius Gallus , particularly on his symbolism of poetic inspiration , I hope to go some of the way towards providing an answer . If this article is directed primarily at the problem of the Culex, I would like to think it makes a contribution also to the much more important study of Gallus, whose reputation has suffered somewhat since the publication of those wretched lines from Qasr Ibrîm. Yet, if not a single line of his work had survived, the one thing we could say of his poetry with confidence is that it inspired. Anyone trying to make an assessment of Gallus' poetic achievement should first make a close study of Virgil's Sixth and Tenth Eclogues and then ask whether fragments have ever formed a firm basis for the evaluation of an author's work. Rehabilitation should not be necessary. (shrink)

The creation of global computer networks has given individuals the ability to communicate directly with each other, linking across national and international boundaries as easily as across the street. Global publication is surprisingly easy; this means, for example, that views that may be abhorrent to large numbers of individuals can be propagated and automatically distributed. Material such as pornography is, potentially, freely available everywhere. However, despite the wishes of politicians and others, it is technically and realistically impossible to censor (...) or otherwise limit electronically published material. The fabric of global computer networks known generically as the Internet is, quite literally, out of political control. Drawing upon research carried out for a recent book or computer ethics, this article examines the current situation. (shrink)

The notion of an extended simple region (henceforth ESR) has recently been marshalled in the service of arguments for a variety of conclusions. Exactly how to understand the idea of extendedness as it applies to simple regions, however, has been largely ignored, or, perhaps better, assumed. In this paper we first (§1) outline what we take to be the standard way that philosophers are thinking about extendedness, namely as an intrinsic property of regions. We then introduce an alternative picture (§2), (...) according to which extendedness is extrinsic. In §3 we argue that it matters which way of thinking about extendedness is the right one, since how ESRs behave is sensitive to what extendedness consists in, and various arguments that appeal to ESRs turn out to be unsound if extendedness is extrinsic rather than intrinsic. (shrink)

There are intriguing hints in the works of Stanley Cavell and Stephen Mulhall of a possible connection between ethics and Wittgenstein’s remarks on private language, which are concerned with expressions of Empfindungen: feelings or sensations. The point of this paper is to make the case explicitly for seeing such a connection. What the point of that is I will address at the end of the paper. If Mulhall and Cavell both know their Wittgenstein and choose their words carefully, which I (...) will take as given, then the (to me) irresistible inference is that they see a connection between Wittgenstein’s thoughts on ethics and his thoughts on private language. Yet this connection has not, as far as I know, been made explicit. Can it be? Should it be? These are my questions. Even if no one ever intended a connection between the “Lecture on Ethics” and the remarks on private language, those remarks do at least touch on issues raised in the lecture, and it is worth thinking about what the author of those remarks would say about the lecture. So in this paper I summarize the “Lecture on Ethics” (in part I), look at the private language remarks themselves (in part II), and then apply some ideas from these remarks to the “Lecture on Ethics” in part III. My conclusion will be that Wittgenstein’s later remarks are largely consistent with his earlier ones, the main difference being that some of what he first called nonsense he later called secondary meaning. One result of this change is that attempts to express the feelings that Wittgenstein regards as fundamental to ethics, aesthetics, and religion are first treated as doomed to result in nonsense but later as risky. Like cries of pain, they might or might not find a sympathetic audience. (shrink)

The State of the Political offers a broad-ranging re-interpretation of the understanding of politics and the state in the writings of three major German thinkers, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann. It rejects the typical separation of these writers on the basis of their allegedly incompatible ideological positions, and suggests instead that once properly located in their historical context, the tendentious character of these interpretative boundaries becomes clear.The book interprets the conceptions of politics and the state in the writings (...) of these three thinkers by means of an investigation of their adaptation and modification of particular German traditions of thinking about the state, or Staatsrechtslehre. Indeed, when the theoretical considerations of this state-legal theory are combined with their contemporary political criticism, a richer and more deeply textured account of the issues that engaged the attention of Weber, Schmitt and Neumann is possible. Thus, the broad range of subjects discussed in this book include parliamentarism and democracy in Germany, academic freedom and political economy, political representation, cultural criticism and patriotism, and the relationship between rationality, law, sovereignty and the constitution.The State of the Political is based on extensive consideration of primary and secondary materials, and is held together by a general focus on the importance to these authors of distilling an adequate account of the state and the political - largely because this could bolster their subsequent criticisms of contemporary politics. The study attempts to restore a sense of proportion to discussion of their writings, focusing on the extensive ideas that they shared rather than insisting on their necessary ideological separation. It is a detailed re-appraisal of a crucial moment in modern intellectual history, and highlights the profound importance of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann for the history of European ideas. (shrink)