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James A. Mollison [6]James Andrew Mollison [1]
  1. Nietzsche contra Stoicism: Naturalism and Value, Suffering and Amor Fati.James A. Mollison - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (1):93-115.
    Nietzsche criticizes Stoicism for overstating the significance of its ethical ideal of rational self-sufficiency and for undervaluing pain and passion when pursuing an unconditional acceptance of fate. Apparent affinities between Stoicism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially his celebration of self-mastery and his pursuit of amor fati, lead some scholars to conclude that Nietzsche cannot advance these criticisms without contradicting himself. In this article, I narrow the target and scope of Nietzsche’s complaints against Stoicism before showing how they follow from his other (...)
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  2. A Leibniz-Informed Approach to Nietzsche’s Drive Psychology.James A. Mollison - 2023 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 54 (2):177-202.
    Despite drives’ importance for Nietzsche’s explanation of individuals’ values, controversies persist over how to interpret Nietzsche’s attribution of normative capacities to the drives themselves. On one reading, drives evaluate their aims and recognize the normative authority of other drives’ aims. On another, drives’ normative properties reduce to nonnormative, causal properties. Neither approach is satisfying. The former commits Nietzsche to the homuncular fallacy by granting drives complex cognitive capacities. The latter reading either commits Nietzsche to the naturalistic fallacy, having him derive (...)
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  3. Meta-metaphysics, constructivism, and psychology as queen of the sciences.James A. Mollison - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1):1-10.
    Remhof contends that Nietzsche is a metaphysician. According to his Meta-Metaphysical Argument, Nietzsche’s texts satisfy the criteria for an adequate conception of metaphysics. According to his Constructivist Argument, Nietzsche adopts a metaphysical position on which concepts’ application conditions constitute the identity conditions of their objects. This article critically appraises these arguments. I maintain that the criteria advanced in the Meta-Metaphysical Argument are collectively insufficient for delineating metaphysics as a distinct field of inquiry and that the Constructivist Argument attributes a position (...)
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  4. Against Focusing on the Internal Conditions of Nietzschean Greatness.James A. Mollison - 2023 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 54 (1):76-101.
    After reconstructing three arguments for Nietzsche’s descriptive analysis of the self as complex, this article clarifies some of greatness’s psychological conditions. It then offers three arguments for why we should not focus on these internal conditions when seeking to verify or to achieve greatness. First, Nietzsche’s descriptive analysis of the self renders introspection too coarse-grained and error-prone to verify the subtle type of unity required for greatness. Second, Nietzsche associates introspective appraisal of one’s psyche with a moral project that weakens (...)
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  5. “An unreserved yea‐saying even to suffering”: A skeptical defense of Nietzschean life affirmation.James A. Mollison - 2024 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 62 (2):231-245.
    After examining the problem that gratuitous suffering poses for Nietzsche's notion of life affirmation, I mount a skeptical response to this problem on Nietzsche's behalf. I then consider an orthogonal objection to Nietzschean life affirmation, which argues that the need to justify life is symptomatic of life denial and show how strengthening the skeptical defense sidesteps this worry. Nietzsche's skepticism about our all‐too‐human, epistemic position thus aids his project of life affirmation in two ways. First, it suggests that we are (...)
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  6.  87
    (1 other version)Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life by Daniel Came (ed.). [REVIEW]James A. Mollison - 2024 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 55 (1):110-116.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life ed. by Daniel CameJames A. MollisonDaniel Came, ed., Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 220 pp. isbn: 978-0-198-72889-4. Hardback, $70.00Daniel Came's most recent edited collection features original essays from leading figures in the field. As most of its chapters are well-written and well-argued, it will interest Nietzsche scholars generally. It's difficult to narrow (...)
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