This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Why the Blues will Always be With Us Why Epictetus Never Sang the Blues Akrasia, or ‘I can't help myself’ Objections (‘This Life Sounds Horrible!’) I Can't Get No Satisfaction, and I Like it, I Like it, Yes I Do In Place of a Conclusion.

The author attends to pedagogical dilemmas educators face in introductory philosophy courses in large universities. Large bureaucratic structures often produce poor student attendance and produce large classroom settings with brief classes, which blocks instructors from cultivating productive class room experience and philosophical engagement. Students are unable to engage in courses either because of lack of interest or because they are unable to speak due to the short duration of the class. The author suggests an online community structured after the Socratic (...) agora to allow students to engage with philosophical issues outside the classroom setting and enable them to initiate dialogue amongst other students. (shrink)

Nietzsche's use of metaphor has been widely noted but rarely focused to explore specific images in great detail. A Nietzschean Bestiary gathers essays devoted to the most notorious and celebrated beasts in Nietzsche's work. The essays illustrate Nietzsche's ample use of animal imagery, and link it to the dual philosophical purposes of recovering and revivifying human animality, which plays a significant role in his call for de-deifying nature.

Our concern with what others think of us can ruin our day or put us in foul moods. Despite its long history of success, critical thinking cannot treat this problem adequately. I propose a therapeutic approach based on a version of Stoic epistemology updated with some quasi-evolutionary biology, articulated with help from Sartre, Rousseau, and Nietzsche.

Ecce Homo aims to prepare its readers for the coming reevaluation of all values to be inaugurated by The Antichrist(ian). Nietzsche explicitly tells his friends and publisher this, and he is relatively clear about it in Ecce Homo itself.1 From the opening line "Seeing that before long I must confront humanity with the most difficult demand ever made of it," the reader knows Ecce Homo is a propaedeutic. Again in letters and in Ecce Homo itself, Nietzsche describes the preparation as (...) consisting of an explanation of who exactly he is.2 The opening line continues: "[I]t seems indispensable to me to say who I am."3 If humanity is going to abandon its values for a set of new tablets, we need to know who this bifurcator .. (shrink)

With its list of awards received and one-word reviews, the paperback cover of Prideaux's biography resembles a movie poster. Along with the absence of "philosophical" or "intellectual" in the subtitle, this cover alerts the reader that this is a biography in the narrow sense. Barely halfway through the first chapter, one wonders how Prideaux will maintain the reader's interest, as she has already described the two most cinematographic episodes in Nietzsche's life—the comical preparations for his first meeting with Wagner, and (...) his childhood dream of his recently deceased father emerging from the grave to reclaim his younger brother—yet she does. Like a well-made film, the book gracefully immerses the reader into the... (shrink)

When Ecce Homo was finally published in 1908, a New York Times reviewer declared that its “the most interesting portions... are those in which Nietzsche..., without delving into the depths of philosophy, shows himself primarily as a master of charming satirical prose”. The review largely consists of quotations in which Nietzsche satirizes, which is to say, mocks, Germans. The author apparently missed Nietzsche’s sarcastic report of another reviewer who characterized Thus Spoke Zarathustra “as an advanced exercise in style, and expressed (...) the wish that later on I might provide some content as well”. Over a century later, Nicholas D. More argues that Ecce... (shrink)

I present my experience using a model of team-teaching where a philosophy class “tours” the campus, participating in other classes for ethical discussions throughout the semester. Although prompted by low enrollment in my ethics class, this technique allows for an engaging interdisciplinary experience for the students while offering a low- or no-cost alternative to traditional team teaching where two faculty members teach one class. I describe the experience my students and I had during the inaugural tour, and make several suggestions (...) for improvement. (shrink)

In 1975 E. O. Wilson called for biologists to appropriate ethics.1 Few philosophers worried deeply about this potential usurpation because they felt firmly ensconced on the other side of the Humean wall from the biologists. Science can provide neither guidance nor values. Perhaps nowhere is this more clear than in the crowning question of ethics; namely, what is the meaning of life? Since evolution proposes an ateleological account of the natural world, biologists can dismiss the question to which we all (...) desperately want an answer as a category mistake. If pressed to understand the question metaphorically, biologists begrudgingly reply that the meaning of life is to get as much of your genetic material. (shrink)

May's monograph concerns one aspect of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns. He presents six meditations on the relation between wisdom and knowledge, taking his bearings from a free interpretation of Nietzsche's Nachlaß. In an early notebook entry, Nietzsche remarks that science struggled with wisdom in the ancient Greek philosophers. That is, there was an agon between the salubrious but false Homeric myths and the "true" but toxic products of the drive toward knowledge. May attempts to resurrect this (...) agon by reappraising knowledge and the soul. (shrink)

The volume consists of twenty-one essays, many of which were part of a conference organized by the editors. Although the authors were apparently given the opportunity to revise their presentations, the collection retains the vibrancy of oral presentations. This seems entirely fitting given that the collection focuses on a short, cheerful book, one in which scholars are distinguished from professors. The collection’s organization somewhat follows the structure of EH. Like Nietzsche’s book, Martin and Large’s collection begins with their introduction, which (...) is followed by Daniel Conway’s discussion of the intercalated passage. “Why I am So Wise,” arguably the closest EH... (shrink)

I present my experience using a model of team-teaching where a philosophy class “tours” the campus, participating in other classes for ethical discussions throughout the semester. Although prompted by low enrollment in my ethics class, this technique allows for an engaging interdisciplinary experience for the students while offering a low- or no-cost alternative to traditional team teaching where two faculty members teach one class. I describe the experience my students and I had during the inaugural tour, and make several suggestions (...) for improvement. (shrink)

The author attends to pedagogical dilemmas educators face in introductory philosophy courses in large universities. Large bureaucratic structures often produce poor student attendance and produce large classroom settings with brief classes, which blocks instructors from cultivating productive class room experience and philosophical engagement. Students are unable to engage in courses either because of lack of interest or because they are unable to speak due to the short duration of the class. The author suggests an online community structured after the Socratic (...) agora to allow students to engage with philosophical issues outside the classroom setting and enable them to initiate dialogue amongst other students. (shrink)