The aim of this thesis is to provide a systematic account of Nietzsche’s philosophy of value by examining his exemplars. It will be argued that these exemplars represent his favoured evaluative practices and therefore illustrate what I will call his evaluative ideals. The thesis will be structured in three chapters, each examining a different exemplar that emerges from a particular period of Nietzsche’s work. Proceeding in this way will allow me to examine what I take to be three strands of (...) his philosophy of value; the critical ideal through the exemplar of the Free Spirit, the ethical ideal through Zarathustra, and the meta-ethical ideal through the exemplar of the Future Philosopher. These standpoints, it will be claimed, reflect Nietzsche’s central insights about what we should value and the way in which we should value, and are in this sense his evaluative ideals. Moreover, in doing so I will also attempt to provide some key insights on Nietzsche’s reasons for his evaluative preferences, as given through these exemplars as evaluative ideals. (shrink)

A recepção de Nietzsche da filosofia transcendental de Kant é intermediada por diversos autores de diferentes tendências filosóficas que se viam em continuidade com o projeto kantiano de uma filosofia crítica. Um desses autores é Afrikan Spir, filósofo que levou a cabo um programa de renovação da filosofia crítica que ia na contramão da tendência hegemônica na segunda metade do século XIX de naturalização do kantismo. A influência de Spir na construção de algumas das teses epistemológicas centrais do pensamento de (...) Nietzsche é variada, assim como sua importância no que tange à recepção e à crítica nietzscheana ao idealismo transcendental. Nietzsche se apropriou e reinterpretou várias teses e temas presentes na reformulação da teoria kantiana do transcendental proposta por Spir. O objetivo do presente trabalho é investigar o alcance e a importância dessa apropriação e suas consequências para a crítica de Nietzsche ao transcendentalismo. Esta crítica é formulada a partir do pensamento do devir, que constitui a base do seu programa de uma filosofia histórica. Nietzsche's reception of Kant's transcendental philosophy is mediated by various authors from different philosophical tendencies who saw themselves in continuity with the kantian project of critical philosophy. One of these authors is Afrikan Spir, a philosopher who undertook a program of renovation of critical philosophy that went against the tendency of naturalization of kantianism which was hegemonic in the second half of the 19th century. Spir's influence on some of Nietzsche's central epistemological theses is variegated, as well as his importance concerning Nietzsche's reception and criticism of transcendental idealism. Nietzsche appropriated and reinterpreted many theses and themes that featured Spir's reformulation of Kant's theory of the transcendental. The objective of this paper is to investigate the reach and the importance of this appropriation and their consequences for Nietzsche's criticism of transcendentalism. This critique is formulated on the basis of the thought of becoming, which provides, on its part, the basis for his program of a historical philosophy. (shrink)

The crisis of modern reason culminates in Nietzsche's proclamation of nihilism. Drawing upon Nietzsche, postmodernists suggest that reason itself is defective, while “premodernists” argue we can regain our balance by returning to premodern rationalism. Peter Berkowitz suggests, however, that Nietzsche is a contradictory thinker who fails in his attempt to combine ancient rationalism with modern voluntarism. Postmodernism thus rests upon a defective foundation. Berkowitz's critique of postmodernism is telling, but he does not recognize dangerous millenarian elements in Nietzsche's thought. Moreover, (...) the concept of ancient reason he holds up as an alternative is underdeveloped and undifferentiated. (shrink)

In response to Hegel’s thesis concerning the “end of art,” John Sallis suggests that the future or the “promise of art” may be opened in thinking through Heidegger’s essay “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Sallis proposes that this promise of art may lie in the capacity to “set forth various elements through transfigurement into shining.” In this paper I reflect on what this suggestion concerning the promise of art may mean. Furthermore, I propose that “The Origin of the (...) Work of Art” shows a resonance with Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy that Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche obscures, and that this resonance is suggested in Sallis’ earlier work on Nietzsche’s book. I suggest that the Gestalt configuration of “world” and “earth” in Heidegger’s essay echoes the configuration of the Apollonian and Dionysian in Nietzsche’s thought. I further suggest in the conclusion that this resonance enables one to draw the connection between “The Origin of the Work of Art” and Heidegger’s later work in which the promise of art opens up a different mode of dwelling upon the earth. (shrink)

This paper explores similarities between the sacrilegious revaluations Nietzsche and Spinoza undertook with regards to Christianity and Judaism respectively. In both cases, these revaluations involve a devaluation of an ancestral religious tradition, followed by the infusion of alternative values posited through forms of secular salvation linked to immanent conceptions of eternity. Given the importance of the structural and phenomenological similarities the paper analyses, it is argued that if Nietzsche thought of himself as the Anti-Christ, there is a convincing case to (...) think of Spinoza as the Anti-Moses. And because both the Anti-Christ and the Anti-Moses not only devaluated their respective religious traditions, but also suggested forms of beatitude based on a valorizing notion of eternity, their efforts are profoundly religious. Accordingly, Nietzsche and Spinoza are not only arguably the greatest Christian and Jewish heretics, but also the prophets of innovative forms of secular and immanent religiosity. (shrink)

How can the medium be addressed when it is always already saturated in religious over-determinations and ever marked by theological concerns (such as revelation and incarnation) while, at the same time, religion would not be practiced and theology not be done without using some such medium? We encourage methodological and conceptual shifts, first, from medium to mediality; second, from religion to its partial negation (or, perhaps, partial permeation); third, from theology to doing the theological differently. With these shifts we desire (...) to initiate, continue, and intensify debates, specifically between theologians and scholars of religious studies and media theory. (shrink)