Friedrich Nietzsche

Light from the Night: Nietzsche’s Philosophical Reevaluation of Light. On the Night Song in Za II. The Night Song in the Second Part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra has been much admired, most of all by Nietzsche himself, as a unique lament about his loneliness in the “language of love.” At the same time, it seems to be proof of an extreme self-aggrandizement, a pathological megalomania. In both cases, the philosophical meaning of the Night Song is passed over. It arises from (...) the Enlightenment metaphors of light and night as their reversal in nihilism: nihilism, the loss of all certainties from a universal and all-illuminating reason, liberates us from the illusions of this reason in favor of a new orientation, the certainties of which individuals must “create” for themselves. Moreover, the individuals suffer from the different superiorities and inferiorities of their orientations, their “rank orders,” and must now try to gain each other through love, or at least in the language of love, as the unreserved encounter of individuals. In the Night Song, Nietzsche has Zarathustra, to whom he ascribes the highest superiority of orientation, experience a personal crisis of orientation, regain his cheerfulness in the following Dance Song and his “will” to elevate humanity as a whole in the Funeral Song. (shrink)

Human, All Too Human, Dawn and The Wanderer and His Shadow. Assigned to Nietzsche’s so-called “middle period,” Human, All Too Human and Dawn have received much less attention than many of his early or later works. Several recent publications attempt to correct this, including the four volumes discussed in this review essay. There are a number of recurring themes, such as Nietzsche’s writing style and the question whether, and to what extent, The Wanderer and His Shadow should be regarded as (...) a separate work within Nietzsche’s œuvre. While Abbey as well as Ansell-Pearson and Bamford take a more general approach that seeks to provide an introductory overview of Nietzsche’s middle period, Brücker as well and Boehm and Villwock are focused specifically on The Wanderer and His Shadow, addressing the meaning of the metaphor of “wanderer and shadow” throughout Nietzsche’s work. (shrink)

Bringing into dialogue the philosophical systems of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche cannot do without investigating pessimism and eternity – issues to which both thinkers attached great significance. The authors analysed in this essay, Martin Morgenstern and Christopher Janaway, partly touch on such issues. Unfortunately, both perpetuate the long-standing opposition between Schopenhauer’s supposed hopeless pessimism and Nietzsche’s life-affirming philosophy. In contrast, I will show how this opposition is no longer tenable. During aesthetic contemplation, Schopenhauer’s genius finds a way to take an interest (...) in the world despite its evils. The genius exhibits a passionate engagement with knowledge, allowing aesthetic affects to come into play, just as Nietzsche’s artist intensifies and multiplies the affects to achieve a more comprehensive perspective on reality. The shared attitudes of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche towards knowledge reveal deep and often overlooked connections among their philosophical systems. It is in the realm of aesthetics that pessimism and eternity can come together. (shrink)

Nietzsche's writings -- Nihilism, will to power, and value -- Perspectivism -- Critique of morality -- Heidegger's Nietzsche -- A different Nietzsche.

Introduction : the English type -- Englishmen underground ; or, The case of the abdicated playwright -- Hobbes against the world -- Locke, life, language -- Hume on the use and abuse of scepticism for life -- "Some have suspected me of Darwinism" -- The impossible John Stuart Mill -- How Monsieur George Eliot added insult to injury -- Wrong but romantic -- Shakespeare, Sterne, and stage -- The great American who loved the world.

New Publications on Nietzsche’s The Antichrist and the „Revaluation of All Values“. Recent publications on The Antichrist and the „revaluation of all values“ reflect a growing interest in the philosophical depth of Nietzsche’s late writings. Among the five discussed works, three explicitly engage with the philosophical content of The Antichrist (Conway 2019, Meier 2019, Bishop 2022), while the others interpret the motif of a „revaluation of all values“ either as a description of Nietzsche’s philosophy as a whole (Guo 2022) or (...) in the context of an unwritten magnum opus (Brobjer 2021). This review brings these approaches into dialogue with research that the authors either consult in a highly selective manner or disregard entirely. Regarding The Antichrist, it becomes particularly evident that neglecting this research often leads to the repetition of aporetic positions. (shrink)

Med udgangspunkt i Nietzsches forestilling om "viljen til magt" redegøres der i kronologisk orden for hans kultursyn fra kristendommens begyndelse og frem til moderniteten, hvor hans humanistiske væmmelse udfoldes. For alle filosofiinteresserede.

Immediately upon reading Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil in 1889, Rudolf Steiner recognized a kindred spirit - a courageous fighter for the freedom of the human individuality who waged a fierce but unconscious battle against the unspiritual views of the age. Rudolf Steiner met Nietzsche once in Naumburg in 1895. By this time, Nietzsche's mental state had already deteriorated. In his autobiography, Steiner recounts his intensely affecting encounter with Nietzsche, facilitated by Nietzsche's sister, Frau Foerster-Nietzsche. There, Steiner describes the profound (...) impact of being led into Nietzsche's room and observing him lying on his bed in a state Steiner called "spirit-night." In a radiant vision, Steiner saw Nietzsche's ill-starred destiny, his soul yearning for the spiritual enlightenment it sought but could not fully grasp. This moment transformed Steiner's previous impression of Nietzsche into an encompassing spiritual understanding. Soon afterward, Frau Foerster-Nietzsche asked Steiner to organize the Nietzsche Library at the Archive in Naumberg, and for several weeks Steiner was able to immerse himself in the books Nietzsche had read. Reflecting on Nietzsche's intense, devoted, and wide-ranging studies, Steiner especially pointed to a heavily annotated volume by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Rudolf Steiner's meeting with Nietzsche and his experience in the Archive immediately preceded his writing this book. They are the heart of Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom and inform the mood in which it was written. Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom is an intimate and unique portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche himself and a true characterization of his eternal creative goal, the "superman." Through authentic spiritual research, Rudolf Steiner illuminates for us Nietzsche's enduring legacy and provides a deep, spiritual understanding of his life and work.This book is a translation from German of Friedrich Nietzsche, ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit (GA 5). (shrink)

Nietzsche's philosophy is provocative and complex and has been hugely influential on modern intellectual history and European culture. But his critical approach and writing style invites misunderstandings, sometimes to disastrous consequences. His ideas-or those loosely associated with him-are often briefly cited in scholarly studies in architectural theory and history. His ideas are thought to have influenced the theories and designs of such iconic architects as Le Corbusier, Henry van de Velde, Bruno Taut, and Louis H. Sullivan, as well as competing (...) approaches to architecture and design, such as those adopted by the Bauhaus School and the Nazis. In the bewildering array of architectural positions that lay claim to Nietzsche as an influence, how can we begin to make sense of Nietzsche's own approach to architecture? And how can we identify within his complex philosophy the key ideas and themes we require to make sense of his contribution to architecture? This first introduction to Nietzsche's philosophy written specifically for architects locates his evaluation of appropriate and inappropriate architecture in the body of his writings and presents a clear overview of Nietzsche's insights into architectural design alongside his advice for architects and designers. (shrink)

This article considers Max Minden Ribeiro’s critical examination of Mattia Riccardi’s Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology (2021). Minden Ribeiro claims that Riccardi’s development of this view involves a doubling both of instances of consciousness and of kinds of consciousness, and he advocates instead for a same-order interpretation of Nietzsche, which need invoke only a single instance and kind of consciousness. This article concedes several of Minden Ribeiro’s results, while taking issue with his interpretation of key points in Nietzsche’s texts. In the end, (...) the article argues, while Minden Ribeiro’s case constitutes a partial correction of Riccardi’s interpretation of Nietzsche on consciousness, its results are thinner than Minden Ribeiro intends. (shrink)

This article argues not only that Nietzsche saw reverence (Ehrfurcht) as a virtue to be included as part of a set of virtues for a particular type of individual, but also, and more radically, that Nietzsche took reverence to be a cardinal virtue—a virtue upon which all other virtues hinge—and that Nietzsche wanted to cultivate reverence, to one degree or another, in every type. The article examines the related textual and philosophical context in which it makes sense for Nietzsche to (...) elevate reverence in the way suggested. Then, reinforcing this claim, it traces the Sophist origin of Nietzsche’s thinking about reverence, showing how Nietzsche’s understanding resembles the mythological account of reverence given by the Sophist Protagoras. This ancient influence upon a central theme of Nietzsche’s work has not been recognized before. (shrink)

This article replies to Max Minden Ribeiro’s critique of the view of consciousness I attribute to Nietzsche in my 2021 monograph, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology, and to João Constâncio’s comments on that critique, in which he agrees with several of Minden Ribeiro’s conclusions and raises his own questions about my reading of Nietzsche on the social character of reflective consciousness. First, this article argues that Minden Ribeiro’s same-order self-representational reading lacks textual support. Hence, Nietzsche is more plausibly read as a higher-order (...) theorist. At the same time, this article defends my own hybrid higher-order reading by arguing that Nietzsche is committed—as Constâncio used to agree—not only to reflective consciousness but also to phenomenal consciousness. Second, by clarifying in which sense Nietzsche takes reflective consciousness to be social, this article responds to Constâncio’s complaint that my book neglects Nietzsche’s insights about the constitutive sociality of human mindedness. (shrink)

The doctrine of eternal recurrence (ER), understood as a cosmological theory, violates the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII): if cycles of events are supposed to recur qualitatively identically, then there is actually only one cycle. Given Nietzsche’s views about logical principles, this conflict may not be too worrisome—were it not for the fact that he does seem to apply the principle within cycles. This article suggests that this apparent conflict can be reconciled by applying a weakened version of (...) PII that has been proposed on independent grounds in more recent philosophy. It allows for the possibility of qualitatively identical but numerically distinct events by employing a special kind of (“weakly discerning”) relations. It turns out that Paul Loeb’s proposal of relations of “recurrence awareness” between cycles is of the kind required by the weakened PII and thus serves to reconcile ER with the principle. (shrink)

“lisez: Nietzsche”. Remarks on Nietzsche’s Last Book. From the perspective of textual criticism, Nietzsche’s last book Ecce Homo – written in 1888, but published for the first time only in 1908 – is as ambiguous as it is controversial. Although Nietzsche completed Ecce Homo, a close reading that focuses on his writing strategies reveals a more fragmentary status. As such, Ecce Homo continues to provide complex editorial and philological problems that undercut any straightforward reading of the book: focusing on Ecce (...) Homo’s paratext highlights how Nietzsche reads himself, thus complicating the relationship between his writings and their reception. (shrink)

Let Judas be constituted by Meursault (Camus' "Stranger") in dispositions / Let Judas' friend ask him to betray Christ and bear infamy on behalf of him who cannot be placated / Let Judas in his Meursault-ness tolerate absurdly too much not to disappoint his friend who is relentless in his pursuit and request. Meursault Version of Judas undergoes theatrical but loyal friendship. His words and his acts are the same. But his thoughts and his words are diametrically opposite. ------ Nietzsche's (...) notion of Camel/Lion/Child metamorphoses constitutes a lens through which we can examine texts. Meursault is Camel emulating Child. (shrink)

In his essay, Tobias Endres devotes himself to the theoretical philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, which continues to have a reputation for self-contradiction, albeit an affirmed one. While this problem is increasingly losing importance in recent and most recent Nietzsche research, the study attempts to dispel the accusation of performative self-contradiction and genetic fallacy. In contrast to the readings inspired by analytical philosophy, however, Nietzsche's metaphilosophy is not understood exclusively as a contribution to classical epistemology, but as a variant of philosophical (...) hermeneutics. -/- In 1968, Jürgen Habermas stated that Nietzsche had “nothing contagious left”. However, the history of the reception and impact of Nietzsche's thought has clearly refuted this judgment. The first volume of the Critical Complete Edition had been published just one year earlier. This marked the beginning of a path that led to Nietzsche no longer being read primarily as an outsider, but as a classic of Western philosophy. While this path was previously a rather Franco-German affair, the edition and the Anglo-American reception of the 1990s contributed to the internationalization of Nietzsche research. Today, Nietzsche is read globally and as one of the most influential philosophers of modernity. (shrink)

---- I ---- Once upon a time, there was a most elegant lady who had a most majestic dog on leash standing but distracted by something other than the dog. The dog struggled impossibly but forcefully to loose free and chase a most ordinary rabbit. ------ II ------ Another time the elegant lady dines at a fancy restaurant. Then she was walking on the sidewalk when she encountered an ordinary homeless in the state of minimal energy giving all in to (...) gravity. She gave him her left-over. He nodded or something. Then she cheerfully and vigorously and most innocently and heartwarmingly and charmingly wished the homeless guy a GREAT night. ----- III ----- IF the rabbit and the homeless guy are the same ordinary entity, and the elegant entity is to represent acutely concentrated political power and the Majestic entity is to represent the free market THEN a fair contract would be: ask for food and security and shelter in exchange for mindless work and give up money or capital and the privilege of procreation. Excursus: cryptocurrency features the rabid dog. (shrink)

This article critically examines two claims Mattia Riccardi ascribes to Nietzsche in his 2021 book Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology. The first is that Nietzsche’s main notion of consciousness should be interpreted as Rconsciousness. Rconsciousness is an awareness of a mental state or process that is achieved when that state is linguistically interpreted by another state. This article finds that Riccardi’s account commits to two instances of states becoming conscious and to two kinds of consciousness. The second claim is that Nietzsche advances (...) a pluralism about consciousness, endorsing a perceptual form of consciousness, Pconsciousness, and a qualitative consciousness of sensations, Qconsciousness. As Riccardi’s account offers no criteria for what it takes to be conscious per se, it is unclear what the pluralism he ascribes to Nietzsche amounts to. Moreover, this article finds that Nietzsche offers no positive reason to conceive any candidate mental phenomena as conscious other than those that are linguistically-reflexively conscious. (shrink)

Tendo como recorte certa produção da intelligentsia brasileira, a obra analisa a recepção da filosofia nietzschiana no período de 1922 a 1945, trazendo à luz um aspecto para o qual poucos pesquisadores atentam. Na literatura, modernistas como Mário de Andrade e Manuel Bandeira, e no registro ensaístico- sociológico, sobretudo Paulo Prado, Gilberto Freyre e Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, teriam recorrido ao pensamento de Nietzsche, em maior ou menor escala, nas suas produções.

An der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften entsteht der erste umfassende historische und kritische Kommentar zum Werk Friedrich Nietzsches. Obwohl Nietzsche zu den wirkungsmächtigsten Denkern der Moderne gehört, fehlte bisher ein übergreifender Kommentar zu seinem Gesamtwerk, der die philosophischen, historischen und literarischen Voraussetzungen und Kontexte erschliesst. Für die künftige Nietzsche-Forschung bildet dieser Kommentar zu Friedrich Nietzsches.

Friedrich Nietzsche est connu pour être un philosophe atypique, optant pour un type de communication philosophique qui se démarque nettement des traditions qui le précèdent. En outre, plus qu'une simple question autour de l'exposition de ses idées, le problème de la communication chez Nietzsche engage toute sa pensée, tant sur la forme que sur le fond. Le présent ouvrage s'attèle à montrer que la philosophie de Nietzsche est un questionnement incessant autour de la possibilité de la communication, soit en tant (...) qu'art, soit en tant que besoin, soit en tant que défi. Par cette triple perspective se comprend le problème du tragique dans son œuvre, mais également celui du corps aussi bien que celui de la culture et des valeurs."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)