Rather than appealing to universal truth or morality based on the power of reason, Nietzsche’s impassioned plea for resuscitating the embodied self as a source of ethics provides a new perspective on educational philosophy. Within the concept of Will to Power, he offers the notion of the Übermensch as a model for overcoming the social limitations of Christian morality and the dictates of fashion. In a formative state, ‘untimely men’ (and here, read ‘Nietzsche’) stand outside the homogenising influence of the (...) State. Nietzsche’s Übermensch, involving a continuous process of ‘overcoming’ and ‘becoming’, is suggested as an alternative to the autonomous liberal subject as an educational ideal. It provides a perspective that contrasts with the egalitarian and collectivist notions that underpin social democracy and social justice as guiding ideals for educational endeavour. This paper questions the liberal hope that education is automatically the path to freedom and autonomy, arguing that education can be valued as a means of developing a reflective or critical view on our social predicament. Übermensch, perhaps the closest Nietzsche comes to an educational ideal, represents agonistic engagement with our social predicament and an overcoming of instrumental views about education. This paper investigates Nietzsche’s figure of the Übermensch and examines some functional aspects of that same figure that help to explain the notion of education relevant to this paper. (shrink)

This book examines both the personal and the political sides of Nietzsche's writings to show how his writings can expand notions of democratic politics and democratic understanding.

The essays in this book present a complex theme at the heart of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, what in his last writing he called simply "a life." They capture a problem that runs throughout his work--his long search for a new and superior empiricism. Announced in his first book, on David Hume, then taking off with his early studies of Nietzsche and Bergson, the problem of an "empiricist conversion" became central to Deleuze's work, in particular to his aesthetics and (...) his conception of the art of cinema. In the new regime of communication and information-machines with which he thought we are confronted today, he came to believe that such a conversion, such an empiricism, such a new art and will-to-art, was what we need most. The last, seemingly minor question of "a life" is thus inseparable from Deleuze's striking image of philosophy not as a wisdom we already possess, but as a pure immanence of what is yet to come. Perhaps the full exploitation of that image, from one of the most original trajectories in contemporary philosophy, is also yet to come. (shrink)

This new collection enriches our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy by examining his relationship with Schopenhauer. Eight leading scholars contribute specially written essays in which Nietzsche's changing conceptions of pessimism, tragedy, art, morality, truth, knowledge, religion, atheism, determinism, the will, and the self are revealed as responses to the work of the thinker he called his "great teacher.".

Nietzsche claimed to be a philosopher of the future, but he was appropriated as a philosopher of Nazism. His work inspired a long study by Martin Heidegger and essays by a host of lesser disciples attached to the Third Reich. In 1935, however, Karl Jaspers set out to "marshall against the National Socialists the world of thought of the man they had proclaimed as their own philosopher." The year after publishing Nietzsche , Jaspers was discharged from his professorship at Heidelberg (...) University by order of the Nazi leadership. Jaspers does not fall into the same trap as idealogues do, citing bits and pieces from Nietzsche's work to reinforce already held opinions. Instead, he openly shows the wide range of Nietzsche's views, including his endorsement of wars and warriors, his prophecies of world struggle and "new masters," and the cruel arrogance of the supermen. Yet Jaspers finds Nietzsche's philosophy to be extraordinary not only because he foresaw all the monstrosities of the twentieth century, but also because he saw through them. "The appearance which Nietzsche's work presents can be expressed figuratively: it is as though a mountain wall had been dynamited the rock, already more or less shaped, conveys the idea of a whole. But the building for the sake of which the dynamiting seems to have been done has not been erected. However, the fact that the work lies about like a heap of ruins does not appear to conceal its spirit from the one who happens to have found the key to the possibilities of construction for him, many fragments fit together. But not unambiguously many functionally suitable pieces are present in numerous, only slightly varied repetitions, others reveal themselves as precious and unique forms, as though each were meant to furnish a cornerstone somewhere or a keystone for an arch." -- Karl Jaspers, from the introduction. (shrink)

Patrick Aidan Heelan’s The Observable offers the reader a completely articulated development of his 1965 philosophy of quantum physics, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity. In this previously unpublished study dating back more than a half a century, Heelan brings his background as both a physicist and a philosopher to his reflections on Werner Heisenberg’s physical philosophy. Including considerably broader connections to the contributions of Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, and Albert Einstein, this study also reflects Heelan’s experience in Eugene Wigner’s laboratory at (...) Princeton along with his reflections on working with Erwin Schrödinger dating from Heelan’s years at the Institute for Advanced Cosmology in Dublin. A contribution to continental philosophy of science, the phenomenological and hermeneutic resources applied in this book to the physical and ontological paradoxes of quantum physics, especially in connection with laboratory science and measurement, theory and model making, will enrich students of the history of science as well as those interested in different approaches to the historiography of science. University courses in the philosophy of physics will find this book indispensable as a resource and invaluable for courses in the history of science. (shrink)

Praised for its rare combination of scholarly rigor and imaginative interpretation, _Nietzsche and Philosophy_ has long been recognized as one of the most important analyses of Nietzsche. It is also one of the best introductions to Deleuze's thought, establishing many of his central philosophical positions. In _Nietzsche and Philosophy_, Deleuze identifies and explores three crucial concepts in Nietzschean thought-multiplicity, becoming, and affirmation-and clarifies Nietzsche's views regarding the will to power, eternal return, nihilism, and difference. For Deleuze, Nietzsche challenged conventional philosophical (...) ideas and provided a means of escape from Hegel's dialectical thinking, which had come to dominate French philosophy. He also offered a path toward a politics of difference. In this new edition, Michael Hardt's foreword examines the profound influence of Deleuze's provocative interpretations on the study of Nietzsche, which opened a whole new avenue in postwar thought. (shrink)

What Nietzsche Really Said gives us a lucid overview -- both informative and entertaining -- of perhaps the most widely read and least understood philosopher in history. Friedrich Nietzsche's aggressive independence, flamboyance, sarcasm, and celebration of strength have struck responsive chords in contemporary culture. More people than ever are reading and discussing his writings. But Nietzsche's ideas are often overshadowed by the myths and rumors that surround his sex life, his politics, and his sanity. In this lively and comprehensive analysis, (...) Nietzsche scholars Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins get to the heart of Nietzsche's philosophy, from his ideas on "the will to power" to his attack on religion and morality and his infamous Übermensch (superman). What Nietzsche Really Said offers both guidelines and insights for reading and understanding this controversial thinker. Written with sophistication and wit, this book provides an excellent summary of the life and work of one of history's most provocative philosophers. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was immensely influential and, counter to most expectations, also very well read. An essential new reference tool for those interested in his thinking, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context identifies the chronology and huge range of philosophical books that engaged him. Rigorously examining the scope of this reading, Thomas H. Brobjer consulted over two thousand volumes in Nietzsche’s personal library, as well as his book bills, library records, journals, letters, and publications. This meticulous investigation also considers many of the annotations in (...) his books. In arguing that Nietzsche’s reading often constituted the starting point for, or counterpoint to, much of his own thinking and writing, Brobjer’s study provides scholars with fresh insight into how Nietzsche worked and thought; to which questions and thinkers he responded; and by which of them he was influenced. The result is a new and much more contextual understanding of Nietzsche's life and thinking. (shrink)

This is the first book to analyze systematically crucial aspects of ancient Greek philosophy in their original context of mystery, religion, and magic. The author brings to light recently uncovered evidence about ancient Pythagoreanism and its influence on Plato, and reconstructs the fascinating esoteric transmission of Pythagorean ideas from the Greek West down to the alchemists and magicians of Egypt, and from there into the world of Islam.

How the journey began -- Enduring companions -- The last man -- The eternal return -- Zarathustra in love -- The mountaintop -- On genealogy -- Decadence and disgust -- The abysmal hotel -- The horse -- Behold, the man -- Becoming who you are -- Morganstreich.

This article reviews three recent books that enhance our understanding of the work of French feminist Luce Irigaray: Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche and The Irigaray Reader, and Philosophy in the Feminine, a commentary on Irigaray's work by Margaret Whitford. The author emphasizes a dynamic reading of Irigaray's philosophy and integrates theoretical concepts with poetic/utopian passages from the works.

It is well-known that as a term, Nietzsche’sÜbermenschderives from Lucian of Samosata’shyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman acquires new resonances by reflecting on the context of that origination from Lucian’sKataplous– literally, “sailing into port” – referring to the soul’s journey (ferried by Charon, guided by Hermes) into the afterlife. TheKataplous he tyrannos, usually translatedDownward Journey or The Tyrant, is a Menippean satire of the “overman” who is imagined to be superior to others of “lesser” station in this-worldly (...) life and the same tyrant after his (comically unwilling) transport into the underworld. As a reflection on the life and the death of Zarathustra, this essay also explores the politics of kingship for Empedocles as reformer in terms of Hölderlin’s Death of Empedocles and Nietzsche’s unpublished drafts on the same topic. InThus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche points to a perspective beyond the here and now, including the “values” of our all-too-worldly and all-too-human concerns, no matter whether in terms of perceived political/economic advantage, or indeed in the pursuit of more trivial satisfactions. (shrink)

00 Drawing on the phenomenological tradition in the philosophy of science and philosophy of nature, Patrick Heelan concludes that perception is a cognitive, ...

Deleuze & Guattari, Politics and Education mobilizes Deleuzian-Guattarian philosophy as a revolutionary alternative to the lingering forms of transcendence, identity politics, and nihilism endemic to Western thought. Operationalizing Deleuze and Guattari's challenge to contemporary philosophy, this book presents their view as a revolutionary alternative to the lingering forms of transcendence, identity politics, and nihilism endemic to the current state of Western formal education. This book offers an experimental approach to theorizing, creating an entirely new way for educational theorists to approach (...) their work as the task of revolutionizing life itself. Examining new conceptual resources for grappling with and mapping a sustainable political alternative to the cliche's that saturate contemporary educational theory, this collection of essays works toward extracting a genuine image of education and learning that exists in sharp contrast to both the neo-liberal educational project and the critical pedagogical tradition. (shrink)

Elitist readers, such as John Rawls, see Nietzsche as concerned only with the flourishing of a few great contributors to culture; egalitarian readers, such as Stanley Cavell, see Nietzschean culture as a universal affair involving every individual’s self-cultivation. This paper offers a compromise, reading Nietzsche as a ‘cultural elitist’ for whom culture demands that a few great individuals be supported in a voluntary, rather than state-mandated way. Rawls, it claims, is therefore misguided in worrying that Nietzsche’s elitism is a threat (...) to justice. The paper focuses on Nietzsche’s Schopenhauer as Educator, the key text in the elitist-egalitarian debate. (shrink)

David E. Cooper elucidates Nietzsche's educational views in detail, in a form that will be of value to educationalists as well as philosophers. In this title, first published in 1983, he shows how these views relate to the rest of Nietzsche's work, and to modern European and Anglo-Saxon philosophical concerns. For Nietzsche, the purpose of true education was to produce creative individuals who take responsibility for their lives, beliefs and values. His ideal was human authenticity. David E. Cooper sets Nietzsche's (...) critique against the background of nineteenth-century German culture, yet is concerned at the same time to emphasize its bearing upon recent educational thought and policy. (shrink)

Inspired by Camus’ portrayal of Sisyphus, this essay examines the act of teaching as an absurd profession, one that faces numerous obstacles and challenges and continually falls short of its intended goals. I begin my analysis by demonstrating that Camus’ understanding of the absurd was heavily influenced by Nietzsche’s conception of nihilism. I argue that for Camus the sense of absurdity comes from the conflict between humans’ longing for order and meaning and the disorder and meaninglessness that we experience in (...) our daily lives. Next, I show that Camus’ understanding of absurdity can help us make sense of the recent wave of educational reform. More fundamentally, I argue that that the existential conditions of schooling that many teachers have to negotiate daily are themselves absurd in Camus’ sense of the term. In the last part of this article, I take a close look at how a number of teachers are attempting to resist and even rebel against the new educational mandates. (shrink)

A study of the enormous influence of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche on turn-of-the-century German literature. The aim of this book is to explore "that post-Nietzschean archipelago of German literature which no one mind can hope to map, let alone inhabit" (Michael Hamburger) and to introduce it to the English-speaking reader for the firsttime, in accessible form. The study starts from the assumption that the daring imagery and cosmic sweep of Thus Spake Zarathustra provided the impetus for the creation of (...) visionary epics and cosmological poetic universes. The book is original in that it presents for the first time a selection of writers hitherto regarded as impossible of access and reduces their epic scope to manageable proportions while preserving their essential meaning. Among thewriters treated are Alfred Mombert, Theodor Däubler, Rudolf Pannwitz, Ludwig Derleth, Alfred Schuler, Ludwig Klages, Christian Morgenstern, and the members of the Friedrichshagen Circle. Furness draws on the most recent scholarship and provides a fascinating account of a 'lost generation.' The book will be of interest to Nietzsche scholars, to students of Lebensphilosophie, and to those interested in German literature around the turn of the century. It will be of special interest to those drawn to the creation of myths and to radical religious thought. Raymond Furness is professor and former chair of German at St.Andrews University, Scotland. He has published widely on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German literature. (shrink)

"Man ist nicht umsonst Philologe gewesen, man ist es vielleicht noch" - Nietzsches Bekenntnisse zur Philologie sind zahlreich. Auf der Grundlage von Quellenstudien beschreibt die Abhandlung Nietzsches tiefe Prägung durch die historisch-kritische Methode der Bonner Schule. Um Philosoph zu werden, musste er sich nicht, wie bisher angenommen, von der Philologie lösen, sondern sprach ihr gerade im Spätwerk eine zentrale Rolle zu. Diese Einsicht führt zur Neubestimmung von Begriffen wie Text, Genealogie, Interpretation, Perspektivismus und zur Zurückweisung herrschender Auffassungen der Wissenschaftsgeschichte, der (...) Hermeneutik und des Dekonstruktivismus. Die Studie endet mit einem von Nietzsche ausgehenden, historisch begründeten Plädoyer für die skeptisch-philologische Literaturwissenschaft. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: General editor's preface; Editorial notes and references; Introduction; Notes on text and translation; Chronology; Bibliography; Part I. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: 1. Introduction; 2. Survey of what is most important in previous teachings about the principle of sufficient reason; 3. Inadequacy of previous accounts and sketch of a new one; 4. On the first class of objects for the subject and the form of the principle of sufficient reason governing in (...) it; 5. On the second class of objects for the subject and the form of the principle of sufficient reason governing in it; 6. On the third class of objects for the subject and the form of the principle of sufficient reason governing in it; 7. On the fourth class of objects for the subject and the form of the principle of sufficient reason governing in it; 8. General remarks and results; Variants in different editions; Collation of the two editions; Part II. On Vision and Colours: 9. On vision; 10. On colours; Variants in different editions; Part III. On Will in Nature: 11. Introduction; 12. Physiology and pathology; 13. Comparative anatomy; 14. Plant physiology; 15. Physical astronomy; 16. Linguistics; 17. Animal magnetism and magic; 18. Sinology; Reference to ethics; Conclusion; Variants in different editions; Glossary of names; Index. (shrink)

This work investigates Nietzsche's metaphysical, positivistic, and synthetic periods in detail, emphasizing Nietzsche's attention to aesthetics. His work is explicated as a system, a progressive means of aesthetic instruction, where musical knowledge and intellectual power are equivalent. The text seeks to illustrate that Nietzsche was a musical educator committed to raising the consciousness of society so that each human being may become a cultured, communicative, and responsible individual.

1. Introduction It has become a commonplace that philosophy has a special connection to its history. This relation has been addressed in various ways, but I will concentrate on one line of conversation, which has concentrated on two methods of reading historical writings: rational and historical reconstructions. These two genres of the historiography of philosophy are often taken as a starting point, even if one goes on to question the confrontation between the two methods. The most influenti...

The Ethics of Geometry is a study of the relationship between philosophy and mathematics. Essential differences in the ethos of mathematics, for example, the customary ways of undertaking and understanding mathematical procedures and their objects, provide insight into the fundamental issues in the quarrel of moderns with ancients. Two signal features of the modern ethos are the priority of problem-solving over theorem-proving, and the claim that constructability by human minds or instruments establishes the existence of relevant entities. These figures are (...) combined in the emblematic statement of Salomon Maimon, "In mathematical construction we are, as it were, gods." Construction is the mark of modernity. The disciplines of classical philology, literary interpretation and the history of philosophy and of mathematics are woven together in this volume. (shrink)

Kant's remark may sound harsh to our modern sensibility but it raises an issue that is central to an understanding of Nietzsche's critique of "the democratic movement of our times" (BGE 203) and, thus, to an understanding of Nietzsche's salience for contemporary democratic theory. This issue is self-respect—and, more generally, the topic of duties to oneself. The relationship between this issue and democratic theory may not appear a wholly obvious one but, on Nietzsche's account, it is crucial to the kind (...) of equality that is expressed by democratic practices. Nietzsche's concern, I'll argue, is that "the democratic movement of our times" expresses a levelling mode of equality that undermines the conditions of self-respect in the relevant sense. Consequently, the aim of this article will be to elucidate Nietzsche's understanding of self-respect, to clarify the grounds on which he attacks "the democratic movement of our times" and to consider the relationship between these arguments and his advocacy of the agon as a model of cultural and political relations. It concludes by drawing out the implications of this interpretation of Nietzsche for democratic theory. (shrink)

Perhaps more than any philosophy written in the past few centuries, the work of Friedrich Nietzsche has given rise to controversy, misunderstanding, and dissent. Today Nietzsche is remembered as the revolutionary author of such polemical ideas as the death of God, the revaluation of values, the will to untruth, and the Übermensch. Yet is Nietzsche’s philosophy as atheistic, relativistic, nihilistic, and immoral as some commentators have claimed? Or ought we perhaps to give more credence to Nietzsche’s own assertion that one (...) writes books “precisely to conceal what one harbors” (BGE, 9, 289)? If “whatever is profound loves masks” (BGE, 2, 40) then might Nietzsche’s more daring claims be interpreted as clever masks behind which he conceals a deeper philosophy and on which he reveals a hidden truth? Is it not possible that the standard readings of Nietzsche are in fact misreadings—that his work invites misreading, that it is intentionally unclear, deceptive, disguised? The goal of this volume is to reread Nietzsche for all that he shows and all that he hides. It is to dig deeper into his work in order to challenge misreadings of old and invite misreadings anew—as, indeed, his work itself calls for and demands. (shrink)

This book brings together a collection of specially commissioned essays on the theme of Nietzsche's cultural critique and its use in and effect on educational ...

ABSTRACT Can Nietzsche's ideal of man, the overman, be conceived as an educational ideal in post-modern democratic societies? Should it be so conceived? This paper answers both questions positively. The affirmative answer to the first question is based on arguments aimed at overcoming two obvious difficulties: the Contradictions in Nietzsche's various references to his human ideal, and his blatant anti-democratic attitude. The affirmative answer to the second question builds on an analysis portraying Nietzsche's conception of man as one that allows (...) us, in a non-objectivist era, to accord a clear meaning to the term the “good life” and to educate in the light of this meaning. (shrink)

Employing a perspectival technique inspired by Nietzsche himself, Bertram constructs a densely layered portrait of the thinker that shows him riven by deep and ultimately irresolvable cultural, historical, and psychological conflicts.

An intellectual genealogy of the postmodern spirit, this book shows that postmodernism's infatuation with fascism has been widespread and not incidental. It calls into question postmodernism's claim to have inherited the mantle of the left - and suggests that postmodern thought has long been smitten with the opposite end of the political spectrum.

This collection of essays provides an introduction to Nietzsche's thought and educational writings, and examines questions concerning the centrality of values for education in postmodernity.

Haim Gordon; Nietzsche's Zarathustra as Educator, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 181–192, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.