"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." This is the book in which Nietzsche put forth his boldest declaration. It is also his most personal. Essential reading for students of philosophy, history, and literature, it features some of Nietzsche's most important discussions of art, morality, knowledge, and, ultimately, truth.

The essay offers a philosophical reconstruction of Nietzsche’s theory of the will, focusing on (1) Nietzsche’s account of the phenomenology of “willing” an action, the experience we have which leads us (causally) to conceive of ourselves as exercising our will; (2) Nietzsche’s arguments that the experiences picked out by the phenomenology are not causally connected to the resulting action (at least not in a way sufficient to underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility); and (3) Nietzsche’s account of the actual causal genesis (...) of action. Particular attention is given to passages from Daybreak, Beyond Good and Evil and Twilight of the Idols and a revised version of my earlier account of Nietzsche’s epiphenomenalism is defended. Finally, recent work in empirical psychology (Libet, Wegner) is shown to support Nietzsche’s skepticism that our “feeling” of will is a reliable guide to the causation of action. (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)

Written in 1888, while Nietzsche was at the height of his brilliance, these two polemics blaze with provocative, inflammatory rhetoric. Nietzsche's "grand declaration of war," Twilight of the Idol s examines what we worship and why. Intended by the author as a general introduction to his philosophy, it assails "idols" of Western philosophy and culture (Socratic rationality and Christian morality among them) and sets the scene for The Antichrist . In addition to its full-scale attack on Christianity and Jesus Christ, (...) The Antichrist denounces organized religion as a whole. Students of philosophy, history, and German literature will find both works essential reading. (shrink)

I show that Nietzsche's puzzling and seemingly inconsistent claims about consciousness constitute a coherent and philosophically fruitful theory. Drawing on some ideas from Schopenhauer and F.A. Lange, Nietzsche argues that conscious mental states are mental states with conceptually articulated content, whereas unconscious mental states are mental states with non-conceptually articulated content. Nietzsche's views on concepts imply that conceptually articulated mental states will be superficial and in some cases distorting analogues of non-conceptually articulated mental states. Thus, the claim that conscious states (...) have a conceptual articulation renders comprehensible Nietzsche's claim that consciousness is "superficial" and "falsifying.". (shrink)

This paper examines how Nietzsche’s view of the mind and its relationship to nature informs his account of human agency. In particular, it focuses on his approach to the causal efficacy of conscious mental states. By examining the Leibnizean and Kantian background to this approach, I contend that Nietzsche proposes a naturalist but non-eliminativist account of mind, central to which is his anti-Cartesian denial that consciousness is intrinsic to the mental. However, Nietzsche ultimately oscillates between two accounts: the first, which (...) I call the ‘enchantment thesis,’ sacrifices the extrinsicality of consciousness but secures the causal efficacy of conscious mental states, whilst the second avoids enchanting nature, securing the extrinsicality of consciousness but sacrificing its causal efficacy. I argue that it is possible to reconstruct his arguments to combine elements of the conflicting accounts and to successfully hold together his anti-Cartesian account of mind with the possibility of autonomous human action. (shrink)

The latest volume in the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, this work brings together some of the best and most influential recent philosophical scholarship on Nietzsche. Opening with a substantial introduction by John Richardson, it covers: Nietzsche's views on truth and knowledge, his 'doctrines' of the eternal recurrence and will to power, his distinction between Apollinian and Dionysian art, his critique of morality, his conceptions of agency and self-creation, and his genealogical method. For each of these issues, the papers show (...) Nietzsche's continuing philosophical importance. Giving a clear and accessible overview, while retaining an analytical philosophical approach throughout, this volume is essential reading for all students of Nietzsche. (shrink)

For much of his adult life, Nietzsche wrote notes on philosophical subjects in small notebooks that he carried around with him. After his breakdown and subsequent death, his sister supervised the publication of some of these notes under the title The Will to Power, and that collection, which is textually inaccurate and substantively misleading, has dominated the English-speaking discussion of Nietzsche's later thought. The present volume offers, for the first time, accurate translations of a selection of writings from Nietzsche's late (...) notebooks, dating from his last productive years between 1885 and 1889. Many of them have never before been published in English. They are translated by Kate Sturge from reliable texts in the Colli-Montinari edition, and they are edited by Rüdiger Bittner, whose introduction places them in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

Consciousness is arguably the most important area within contemporary philosophy of mind and perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world. Despite an explosion of research from philosophers, psychologists, and scientists, attempts to explain consciousness in neurophysiological, or even cognitive, terms are often met with great resistance. In The Consciousness Paradox, Rocco Gennaro aims to solve an underlying paradox, namely, how it is possible to hold a number of seemingly inconsistent views, including higher-order thought (HOT) theory, conceptualism, infant and animal (...) consciousness, concept acquisition, and what he calls the HOT-brain thesis. He defends and further develops a metapsychological reductive representational theory of consciousness and applies it to several importantly related problems. Gennaro proposes a version of the HOT theory of consciousness that he calls the "wide intrinsicality view" and shows why it is superior to various alternatives, such as self-representationalism and first-order representationalism. HOT theory says that what makes a mental state conscious is that a suitable higher-order thought is directed at that mental state. -/- Thus Gennaro argues for an overall philosophical theory of consciousness while applying it to other significant issues not usually addressed in the philosophical literature on consciousness. Most cognitive science and empirical works on such topics as concepts and animal consciousness do not address central philosophical theories of consciousness. Gennaro’s integration of empirical and philosophical concerns will make his argument of interest to both philosophers and nonphilosophers. (shrink)

Abstract: Nietzsche’s famously wrote that “consciousness is a surface” (EH, Why I am so clever, 9: 97). The aim of this paper is to make sense of this quite puzzling contention—Superficiality, for short. In doing this, I shall focus on two further claims—both to be found in Gay Science 354—which I take to substantiate Nietzsche’s endorsement of Superficiality. The first claim is that consciousness is superfluous—which I call the “superfluousness claim” (SC). The second claim is that consciousness is the source (...) of some deep falsification—which I call the “falsification claim” (FC). I shall start by considering Nietzsche’s notion of consciousness. Here, I shall argue that the kind of consciousness he is concerned with is in fact self-consciousness and that he put forward a higher-order theory of it. Then, I shall address the two claims. Regarding (FC), my proposal will be that, according to Nietzsche, the content of (self-)conscious mental states is falsified in virtue of its being articulated propositionally. Regarding (SC), I shall claim that it is best read as a weak version of epiphenomenalism about conscious causation. In addressing both points, I shall discuss in particular the influential reading of Nietzsche’s theory of consciousness offered by Katsafanas (2005). (shrink)