Bernard Reginster has argued that in "Nietzsche's terminology, 'experimentation [Versuch]' is a paradigmatic exercise of curiosity."1 According to Reginster, the kind of curiosity in question, as far as Nietzsche's concept of the free spirit is concerned, is not the state of knowing or of being certain of the truth of some proposition, but is rather a matter of the activity or process of truth seeking and of inquiry.2 My own view is very similar: I have argued that experimentalism is a (...) form of virtue for Nietzsche.3 Specifically, as I have suggested, Nietzsche employs experimentalism in two main ways: as a strategy for philosophical engagement, for example through his use of diverse writing styles and authorial... (shrink)

This unique book explores Nietzsche’s philosophy at the time of Dawn’s writing and discusses the modern relevance of themes such as fear, superstition, terror, and moral and religious fanaticism. The authors highlight Dawn’s links with key areas of philosophical inquiry, such as “the art of living well,” skepticism, and naturalism. The book begins by introducing Dawn and discussing how to read Nietzsche, his literary and philosophical influences, his relation to German philosophy, and his efforts to advance his ‘free spirit’ philosophy. (...) Subsequent discussions address a wide range of topics relevant to Dawn, including presumptions of customary morality, hatred of the self, free-minded thinking, and embracing science and the passion of knowledge. (shrink)

My particular focus in this article is on getting clearer about what Nietzsche’s experimentalism entails. Some immediate resistance may form in response to this proposal, based on my use of the term experimentalism. As Walter Kaufmann has pointed out in a discussion of experimentalism, Nietzsche himself does not discuss his work using this concept; in the original German, Nietzsche uses the terms “Experiment” and “Versuch.”1 In light of this, two main concerns may be raised about my proposal that experimentalism is (...) worth some of our time and attention: whether it is necessary or helpful to focus discussion on yet another “ism” within Nietzsche scholarship and given that experimentalism is not Nietzsche’s.. (shrink)

Abstract:I raise several concerns with Earp and colleagues' analysis of enhancement through neurochemical modulation of love as a key issue in contemporary neuroethics. These include: (i) strengthening their deflation of medicalization concerns by showing how the objection that love should be left outside of the scope of medicine would directly undermine the goal of medicine; (ii) developing stronger analysis of the social and political concerns relevant to neurochemical modulation of love, by exploring and suggesting possible counters to ways in which (...) 'wellbeing' may be used as a tool of oppression; (iii) providing reasons to support a broad need for ecological investigation of, and indeed ecological education concerning, neurotechnology; (iv) suggesting ways in which philosophy, and the humanities more broadly, remain directly relevant to responding effectively to issues in contemporary neuroethics. (shrink)

Here I argue that aspects of Nietzsche's thought may be productively compared with the role played by the concept of ubuntu in talk of cultural renaissance in South Africa. I show that Nietzsche respects and writes for humanity conceived of in a vital sense, thereby imagining a sense of authenticity that may prove significant to talk of cultural renaissance in South Africa. I question the view that Nietzsche is an individualist, drawing on debate between Conway (1990) and Gooding-Williams (2001), concerning (...) the interpretation of ‘The Dance-Song' in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, as well as on the notion of reciprocity intrinsic to the concept of ubuntu (Shutte, 1993). South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (1) 2007: pp. 85-97. (shrink)

I argue that moral intuitions about Nietzsche as an exemplar of practical cruelty can be overturned. My argument is based upon the possibility of abandoning the notion of pure and unmediated passivity as intrinsic to the phenomena of human suffering and of Mitleid, as identified by Nietzsche. I claim that wrongly identifying intrinsic passivity in the phenomenology of Mitleid and of suffering generates the moral sceptical intuition. Once this case of mistaken identity is uncovered, 1 suggest, there is no reason (...) to remain subject to the force of the intuition. I support my account with a fresh reading of 'The Ugliest Man', from Book IV of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (shrink)

A major collection of essays by a panel of leading Nietzsche scholars exploring Nietzsche's philosophy of the free spirit.

This chapter focuses on Nietzsche's analyses of religion and Christianity, as well as a religious figure such as Saint Paul, so as to highlight the character of his critical procedures and the probing manner in which he subjects so‐called “spiritual” phenomena and matters to psychological scrutiny. Nietzsche attempts to develop a purely psychological explanation of the religious states, including the need for salvation, one that will be free of mythology. One prejudice Nietzsche attacks in Dawn is that of “pure spirit”. (...) He seeks to expose the costs to the health of the body of a teaching of pure spirituality. An important point to note is that, on Nietzsche's account, Paul and Christianity both stand in opposition to science. According to Nietzsche, Christianity is said to be a religion out of touch with reality and is mortally opposed to the wisdom of the world or to “science”. (shrink)

This chapter considers how care of the self is a fundamental part of the task of experimenting with what the ethical, when freed from the constraints of moral fanaticism, might mean. Nietzsche provides a sustained critique of moral fanaticism that carries important implications for contemporary analysis of security. Through his psychological probing of the “fantastical instincts” and of the need for the feeling of power Nietzsche is led to cultivate skepticism about politics in Dawn and to favor instead a program (...) of therapeutic self‐cultivation. Nietzsche also admires Epictetus on account of his dedication to his own ego and for resisting the glorification of thinking and living for others. Nietzsche holds to the view that human beings need to be discouraged from making important decisions while in a condition of romantic love, observing how too much of life is easily squandered with the chanciness of marriages rendering any great advance of reason and humanity impossible. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article, invited for presentation to the North American Nietzsche Society at the 2020 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, is a commentary on Mark Alfano's 2019 monograph, Nietzsche's Moral Psychology. It critically discusses Alfano's synoptic digital humanities approach and examines the efficacy of two aspects of his argument about Nietzsche's philosophy developed using this methodology: the connection between life and will to power, and the role of speech acts.

(2014). Getting Even More Specific About Physicians’ Obligations: Justice, Responsibility, and Professionalism. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 14, No. 9, pp. 46-47.

This chapter discusses how the final aphorism, 575, of Nietszsche's Dawn, presents a positive vision of humanity as future‐oriented and self‐cultivating. It explores how Nietzsche's vision of humanity as future‐oriented and self‐creating is taken up once again by him in his later writings. In the final aphorism Nietzsche's use of the symbolism of flight is significant. This final aphorism is entitled "We aeronauts of the spirit". As Duncan Large has pointed out, the aeronauts in the aphorism are flying an "air‐ship", (...) and their flying out over the sea indicates "how close is their kinship to their more earthbound, or at least sea‐bound mariner‐cousins". In addition to his use of the sea as a metaphor for both the infinity of the future and humanity's orientation toward this future, Nietzsche draws upon the metaphor of flight to elaborate on this continuation of human development. (shrink)

This chapter examines Nietzsche's thinking on the concept of Mitleid and discusses the complexities of translating this concept into English in Dawn. It describes how Nietzsche's critical engagement with this concept is importantly dependent on the role of drives in his wider moral psychology. The chapter also examines the role of mood and social transmission of feeling in his critique, arguing that these factors play key roles in Nietzsche's development of a substantial critique of an ethic of compassion, and in (...) his pursuit of an alternative ethic. It shows how Nietzsche's exposure of an ethic of compassion as fundamentally flawed opens up the possibility of a reconfiguration of the concept of moral imagination, and facilitates development of a more robust, creative, and experimental concept of ethical imagination as a part of Nietzsche's broader effort to provide a framework for ongoing moral therapy. (shrink)

This chapter clarifies several of the main aspects of Nietzsche's work on subjectivity, self, and drives in Dawn. It shows how Nietzsche's thinking on subjectivity, the self, and drives in Dawn emerges from his affirmation of the Enlightenment spirit, his hope for a new enlightenment, and his critical engagement with morality. The chapter examines the skeptical dimension of Nietzsche's thinking on subjectivity and the self. It points out how Nietzsche criticizes some of common presumptions about subjectivity and the self, using (...) the notion of drives to stimulate the critical engagement he is calling for. The chapter explores how Nietzsche maintains a commitment to the notion of self‐cultivation in Dawn. It also considers how Nietzsche's undermining of such presumptions leads him to make an important distinction between the subjectivity of an agent shaped by customary morality, and that of a free‐spirited ethical agent. (shrink)

Nietzsche's wider political thinking has been widely recognized as therapeutic in orientation, as part of its connection to the history of psychology. This chapter examines the remarks that Nietzsche does make with respect to the political in Dawn, focusing on his concern with the effects on humanity of capital and industrial development upon Europeans. It explores his remarks on migration as a therapeutic measure for the workers of Europe and considers some of the problematic claims involved in Nietzsche's appeal to (...) migration as a key part of his therapeutic approach. The chapter discusses whether or not Nietzsche's therapeutic politics in Dawn can be defended. Nietzsche contends that money substitutes for truth, and that the same fanaticism that previously drove truth‐seeking now drives people to the increasing, and increasingly rapid, acquisition of wealth. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Editions of Nietzsche's Writings Used with Abbreviations.

Many of Nietzsche's texts, particularly those that form part of his later writings, have received significant individual attention within English‐speaking Nietzsche studies. This chapter argues that Nietzsche's core critical innovations in Dawn are in identifying why customary morality is a significant problem for humanity, and in developing a sustained critique of this form of morality in order to motivate critical re‐engagement with the ethical. In Dawn, Nietzsche attacks the view that everything that exists has a connection with morality and thus (...) a moral significance can be projected onto the world. Nietzsche's project in Dawn focuses on addressing the presumptions and prejudices of customary morality. The challenge of understanding the philosophical contribution that Dawn makes is complicated by Nietzsche's writing styles: he combines innovative deployment of aphorism and punctuation with use of multiple voices or characters, and a range of rhetorical devices. (shrink)

This chapter examines the basis of Nietzsche's campaign against customary morality in Dawn. It consider what problems there are with mounting a successful campaign against morality, and to what extent Nietzsche's campaign against morality leaves room for a positive ethics. The chapter shows that Nietzsche's fundamental concern is that morality as it currently stands is bad for humans. The basic problem with the campaign against morality that Nietzsche pursues in the original aphorisms of Dawn can be developed in greater depth (...) by examining evidence from its 1886 Preface, which illustrates Nietzsche's awareness of the challenge that his campaign against morality faces. Aphorism supports Nietzsche's experimental disruption of the social and emotional systemic functioning of customary morality, and allows for exploration of alternatives to the mood of fear that Nietzsche shows to be pervasive to customary morality. (shrink)

This chapter examines Nietzsche's remarks on Epicurus in the earlier middle writings, to provide an interpretative framework through which to clarify Nietzsche's thinking on death in Dawn. It considers some points of continuity between Nietzsche's account of death in Dawn and in his later texts. Nietzsche champions Epicurus as a figure who has sought to show mankind how it can conquer its fears of death. The chapter contends that Nietzsche uses Epicurean thinking as a strategy to do his work in (...) Dawn, picking up the Epicurean doctrine on death and putting it to critical effect. Nietzsche's fundamental aim in writing about death, within the wider context of his project in Dawn, is to counter our socially conditioned yearning for immortality. A careful reading of Epicurus attests to the significance of Epicureanism as a strategy informing Nietzsche's thinking on death in Dawn. (shrink)

This chapter examines the consequences of Nietzsche's campaign against morality for the pursuit of knowledge in philosophy, and specifically, on values and methods of the German Enlightenment. In Dawn, Nietzsche explores how an experimental approach to knowing and to knowledge involves us in adopting different ways of being toward things in the world, as well as toward ourselves and our experiences, and in using associated diverse methods of inquiry. Nietzsche's free‐spirit writings, including Dawn, are works of a particular kind of (...) enlightenment project that works against all expressions of fanaticism, especially religious and moral, and in an effort to temper emotional and mental excess. Nietzsche's primary commitment in Dawn is to experimentation in which the love of, or passion for, knowledge gives humanity back its right to engage in self‐experimentation. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to clarify the development of Nietzsche’s account of objectivity in his published and authorized works. In the available scholarship, it has been noted that Nietzsche explicitly differentiates between two types of objectivity. What I shall here call type 1 objectivity is the type that Nietzsche often criticizes, namely objectivity as pure disinterested. Type 2 objectivity is the type that Nietzsche refers to in On the Genealogy of Morality as “future ‘objectivity’”. Having clarified what Nietzsche’s objections (...) to type 1 objectivity are, I will explain his view of type 2 objectivity, showing how type 2 or “future ‘objectivity’” is indebted in its conception to Nietzsche’s free spirit project. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 1, Page 16-18, January 2012.

Essays exploring to what extent Nietzsche's thought can aid us in understanding politicized identities.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 9, Page 37-39, September 2011.

We present a two-pronged criticism of Ramos's argument. Our main contention is that the logic of the author’s argument is flawed. As we demonstrate, the author conflates probability with necessity, in addition to conflating free will having causal efficacy with the merely illusory conscious experience of free will; such conflations undermine the claim that individual free will should be both exhibited on a social scale and necessarily cause a particular organized pattern to emerge. In addition, we will show that the (...) author makes a series of inadequately supported assertions concerning the relationship between, and degree of scholarly consensus upon, causally effective free will and mind-body interactionist dualism, which further undermine his argument. (shrink)

I provide a critical interpretation of Morgenröthe: Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile that identifies the key philosophical work done by Nietzsche in this text, as well as presenting the text as a type of medical narrative. I show how Nietzsche engages with three main questions, drawing thematic connections between themes of physical and psychological health and of ethics, in order to develop a foundation for his critical transvaluation project: First, what is the nature of, and relationship between psycho-physiological and cultural (...) health? Second, by which method of critical engagement may our health be diagnosed and promoted? And third, what virtues are required for such work? (shrink)

Nietzsche offers us a critique of modern culture as threatened by a nihilistic crisis in values. Philosophy is specifically incorporated into Nietzsche's critique, resulting in the claim that modern philosophy, as well as modern culture, is nihilistic. But why should contemporary philosophers give this view credence? In this paper, I put forward some reasons to take Nietzsche's view seriously, focusing on the relationship between science and philosophy. I suggest that modern philosophy still tends to idealise science as an exemplar of (...) objectivity, particularly as this relates to judgement, even despite widespread acknowledgement that science is not value-free. I therefore argue that Nietzsche's critique is valuable in two respects: first, it calls the notion of a scientific ideal grounding objective, cross-cultural, judgement into question, and second, it facilitates a distinction between this scientific ideal and science itself. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(4) 2005:241-259. (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)

Readers might be forgiven raised eyebrows on first noting the title of Julian Young's book. Young's chief and surprising claim is that, even though Nietzsche "rejects the God of Christianity, he is not anti-religious," and that he is " above all a religious thinker" , whose atheism only applies in the case of the Christian God , and whose early "religious communitarianism" or "Wagnerianism" persist throughout the texts . Young defines Nietzsche's early thought as communitarian by virtue of concern with (...) the flourishing of the community as a whole, and as religious given Nietzsche's view that a people cannot flourish or indeed truly be a community without a "festive, communal" religion . Nietzsche is seen as broadly in step with the anti-modernist tradition of "Volkish" thinking in nineteenth-century Germany, but as rejecting "genuinely wicked" aspects of Volkish thinking that might prompt his identification as the "godfather of Nazism" . While tempting even to Young himself, however, his discussion of Nietzsche cannot simply be summarized by the Heideggerian "slogan" that only a god can save us. (shrink)