In this paper I will argue that The Birth of Tragedy is not a pessimistic book. If it is a pessimistic book, my argument would not be valid because Nietzsche has later developed anti pessimistic teachings such as Amor Fati, eternal recurrence and the will to power. As I have argued in the earlier writings, (Nietzsche’s Response to Schopenhauer) BT can be understood as a template for Nietzsche’s later work, rather than just the early phase during which he, according (...) to Julian Young, completely succumbs to Schopenhauer’s pessimism. As he asserts: ‘The Birth incorporates without modification Schopenhauer’s metaphysics’ (1992, p. 26, emphasis mine). I will prove that the message of BT is very different from that of Schopenhauer’s. To do this, I will show how BT reflects Nietzsche’s position that life is worth living and opposes Schopenhauer’s pessimism and life denial. If I am right, this chapter will prove, contrary to the view propounded by Young that Nietzsche could not escape life-denying pessimism in BT, that BT is the beginning of Nietzsche’s development of the teaching of life affirmation and also the will to power. (shrink)

Wagner's treatise Beethoven (1870), written to celebrate the centenary of Beethoven's birth, is one of his most influential theoretical works. Its influence on Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy is well known, and Gustav Mahler regarded it as one of the most profound writings on music he knew, on a par with Schopenhauer's theory on the subject. Wagner's main concern in this text is to bring his theory of opera into line with his recent 'conversion' to Schopenhauer's philosophy. It contains (...) an account of the relation of music and drama which emphasizes the superiority and dominance of music, true to the philosopher's ideas on this subject. This aspect of Beethoven is in fact the main focus of most commentaries devoted to this work. (shrink)

Taking Heidegger's prominent critique of Nietzsche's treatment of Kant's notion of 'aesthetic disinterestedness' as a foil this paper argues that, contrary to the dominant interpretation, Nietzsche's text contain a positive and radical notion of 'aesthetic disinterestedness'. It is argued that Nietzsche's naturalistic notion of aesthetic disinterestedness is a key feature of his conception of art as natural life process that contests the boundaries, values and libidinal constitution of the 'human'. The ramifications of this for Heidegger's reading of Nietzche's aesthetics (...) are considered. The paper reviews Nietzsche's critical treatment of the notion of 'aesthetic disinterestedness' in both "The Birth of Tragedy" and the "Genealogy of Morality" and relates these to his overall vision of the relationship between art and life. (shrink)

Both for Kant and for Nietzsche, aesthetics must not be considered as a systematic science based merely on logical premises but rather as a set of intuitively attained artistic ideas that constitute or reconstitute the sensible perceptions and supersensible representations into a new whole. Kantian and Nietzschean aesthetics are both aiming to see beyond the forms of objects to provide explanations for the nobility and sublimity of human art and life. We can safely say that Kant and Nietzsche (...) used the dualities of the beautiful/sublime and Apollonian/Dionysian to advocate their general philosophical worldview, and that the initial formation (in Observations and The Birth of Tragedy) and final dissolution (in the Critique of Judgment and Zarathustra and other later works) of these dualities are determined by the gradually established telos of their philosophical endeavor. Therefore, by observing the evolution of these so-called dualities, Kaplama gathers important clues as to how Kant’s and Nietzsche’s aesthetics transformed into different ways to affirm human art and life. On the one hand, Kaplama argues, the Dionysian came to be the heart and soul of Nietzschean aesthetics and ethics, and the Apollonian (or the formal drive of individuation) was reduced into a mere aesthetic criterion. On the other, Kant treats the sublime (which is originally an idea-producing feeling and/or judgment) as a mere appendix to his Critique of Judgment and aesthetic theory teleologically reducing it into its possible moral consequences. This is why Schopenhauer calls the sublime “by far the most excellent thing in the Critique of Judgment” which touches on the real problem of aesthetics very closely but does not provide a real solution for it. Kant’s forced teleological move is to make his theory of aesthetic judgment stand as a ‘reaffirmation’ of the earlier ethical justification he believed to have accomplished in the first two Critiques and the Groundwork where he defends an affirmation of human life through a teleological morality centered on the principle of free-will. In contrast, Nietzsche’s aesthetics (particularly the Dionysian) guides his ethics and metaphysics again through defining an ideal human nature without which ethos would be static and meaningless, lacking the ability to move and change and represent the tragic pathos of human life. (shrink)

The tragic philosophy of Nietzsche was conceived in his first book: that famous essay The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music [Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik] published in 1872. In this paper we will approach the intimate relation between greek Art and greek Religions from a philosophical aesthetical point of view, reflecting how the tragic reconciliation of the dionysiac phenomenon would have promoted, according to Nietzsche, a time of great artistic sensibility and relative (...) balance of the political life for the greeks, by creating a permanent tension between the impulse of individuation and the impulse of denial of individuation. (shrink)

O presente ensaio tem como objetivo mostrar consequências teóricas de uma tensão latente entre a noção de tragédia no Nietzsche d’O nascimento da tragédia e a compreensão schopenhaueriana da música. Tal tensão se dá não apenas no âmbito de interpretações estéticas das referidas artes por parte dos filósofos mencionados, mas demonstra disparidades fundamentais no pensamento do jovem Nietzsche em relação à metafísica de O mundo como Vontade e Representação. A hipótese é que essas disparidades culminariam num ponto de cesura entre (...) as filosofias de Schopenhauer e Nietzsche, bem como no fenecimento da amizade deste com Richard Wagner. The following essay aims to show the theoretical consequences of a latent tension between the notion of tragedy in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and the Schopenhauerian comprehension of music. This tension occurs not just within the aesthetics interpretations of the mentioned arts by the philosophers cited, but it demonstrates fundamental disparities in the young Nietzsche’s thought in respect to the metaphysics of The World as Will and Representation. The hypothesis is that these disparities would culminate in a caesura point between the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well in the decline of the friendship of this one with Richard Wagner. (shrink)

The aims of this paper are twofold: firstly, to give the reader a comprehensive- but not exhaustive- understanding of Schopenhauer’s theory of will, and, secondly, to elucidate certain problems inherent in this theory. Schopenhauer’s epistemology, dual aspect ontology, aesthetics, ethics, and pessimism are explored. Additionally, a cursory exposition of Kant’s metaphysics is presented, along with Schopenhauer’s critique of this. Possible solutions to problems in his theory are expounded and subsequently critiqued. Most salient of these problems is his identification of (...) the will with the Kantian thing-in-itself. I argue that Schopenhauer’s theory of will contradicts the Kantian confines on metaphysical knowledge. Consequently, and in light of his own epistemology, there are serious, if not intractable, problems with his contentions that the will is the thing-in-itself, and is knowable. (shrink)

Nietzsche talks about style [Stil and cognates] in all of his published and authorized works, from The Birth of Tragedy to Ecce Homo. He refers to style in over one hundred passages. Yet the scholarly literature on Nietzsche and style includes only a handful of publications, among them Derrida’s notorious Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles (1978), which barely even engages with Nietzsche’s writings (see also Magnus 1991 and Babich 2011, 2012). Much of the rest of the literature is about Nietzsche’s style, (...) rather than about what he has to say about style. And none of it is comprehensive. In this paper, I aim to fill the gap in the secondary literature by using digital humanities methods to systematically investigate the functions of style in Nietzsche’s writings. I argue that, for Nietzsche style emerges in the context of a tradition in a community. It can then become personalized and individualized, though there are dangers with such innovations. One’s personal style is expressive of one’s psychology and physiology, and can go wrong by mis-expressing. Correlative with style, in Nietzsche’s conception, is the taste of the audience. Only those who share important psychological characteristics with the stylist will be able to fully comprehend their expressions. Finally, moving beyond aesthetics, Nietzsche connects style with moral and intellectual character, contending that the good stylist seeks recognition as such from those with good taste. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the metaphysical foundations of Throne of Blood , Kurosawa's reworking of Shakespeare's Macbeth . Using Hegel's theory of tragedy, I develop the distinction between Greek and modern tragedy, with their differing bases in ethical and subjective freedom. I then show that Noh drama also includes a very different metaphysical account, stemming from its theoretical roots in Buddhism. I then use these three differing accounts (Greek, modern and Noh drama) to explore the effect (...) of Kurosawa's use Noh aesthetics in Throne of Blood on the metaphysical ground of the film itself. (shrink)

This chapter looks at Nietzsche's notion of the affirmation of life. It begins with the origins of the concept in Schopenhauer and in the Schopenhauerian philosophy known to Nietzsche. It then examines affirmation in three phases of Nietzsche's writing: early, middle and late. It relates affirmation to other key Nietzschean concepts like the Apollonian and the Dionysian, eternal recurrence, amor fati and will to power.

Nietzsche talks about shame [scham*, schmach*, schand*] in all of his published and authorized works, from The Birth of Tragedy to Ecce Homo. He refers to shame in over one hundred passages – at least five times as often as he refers to resentment/ressentiment. Yet the scholarly literature on Nietzsche and shame includes just a handful of publications, while the literature on Nietzsche and resentment includes over a thousand. Arguably, this disproportionate engagement has been driven by the fact that (...) English translations of Nietzsche’s writings systematically italicize and transliterate ‘ressentiment’ rather than treating it as the normal word it is. In any case, this chapter aims to fill the gap in the secondary literature by using digital humanities methods to systematically investigate the functions of shame in Nietzsche’s writings. I argue that Nietzsche is ambivalent about shame, depending on the function that it serves. There are four main functions. First, in a society of near-equals, it regulates interactions and incentives in ways that preserve game-theoretic equilibria. Second and relatedly, Nietzsche associates the capacity to experience nuanced and appropriate feelings of shame – and to anticipate them in others – with the pathos of distance, a virtue that he associates with nobility. Third, when shame is directed towards fixed aspects of human nature, it transforms those aspects into vices; by contrast, when it is directed towards malleable aspects of human nature, it may foster self-improvement and virtue. Nietzsche frequently laments the way that shame targets immutable aspects of ourselves. Finally and relatedly, Nietzsche casts counter-shame on those who would direct first-order shame on fixed aspects of human nature, as well as a paradoxical form of uplifting shame on their victims. If this is right, then Nietzsche does not offer a univocal verdict on shame. Instead, like many other emotions and emotional capacities, shame is inescapable, complex, and function-relative. (shrink)

The philosophy of the art of living asks the age-old question of orienting one’s own life: ‘How can I live well?’ An art of living is always called for when people do not know what to do and how to go on, when the ways of life are no longer self-evident, when traditions, conventions, rules, and norms lose their plausibility and individuals begin to worry about themselves. The art of living and of its philosophy has a practical aim: It is (...) not concerned with ethical principles, but with the concrete practice of people’s everyday life, with their individual and successful lives. Friedrich Nietzsche, as he often did, pushed the problem of the art of living to the extreme, making it palpable both in its dignity and in its force. For him, the modern uncertainty of human orientation caused by nihilism pointed to art and aesthetics, which, he supposed, makes life if not justifiable, at least bearable. The arts open up a multi-perspectival seeing and hearing, they experiment with alternative forms and techniques, and create the finest sensibilities for both – Nietzsche himself, with his rich forms of philosophical writing, is an outstanding example of this. -/- The volume we present here, entails contributions of German-speaking scholars on Nietzsche and the ways of living he proposes, especially, but not alone in Dawn. The papers are selected from a book series on the common issue “Critical Art of Living,” edited by Günter Gödde, Jörg Zirfas, and others, and translated on behalf of the Foundation for Philosophical Orientation. (shrink)

In this essay, I will look into Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism, which culminates in the view that since life is not worth living, it is better for us to deny it than try to affirm it. I will argue that his pessimism is not sustainable, and that it fails on its own propositions. In section 1, I will look at the importance of suffering as the central point in Schopenhauer’s pessimism. For Schopenhauer, the essence of the world, which he calls will, (...) is a never-ending, blind and purposeless striving that objectifies itself in the organic and inorganic world. Will, which can also be called the will to live, is constantly driving us from one desire to another, leaving us almost without rest in the constant state of need, hence suffering. I will argue against his position that only suffering is of a positive nature, while happiness can only be negative. According to Schopenhauer, the rare moments of happiness we experience consist only in the absence of suffering. I will also look into his view that absolute happiness is impossible to achieve and question this statement as a weak argument for pessimism. -/- Section 2 will focus on Schopenhauer’s use of the concepts of pain and suffering. As it seems that he uses them as co-extensive terms, I will explain why they are not co-extensive. -/- In section 3, I will discuss Schopenhauer’s view that the world has a moral meaning. Because of inevitable suffering, according to Schopenhauer, our only moral solution to the problem of suffering will be to deny suffering, consequently, life itself. And this is, for him, the hidden moral meaning of the world that only philosophy can uncover. -/- In section 4, I will look at the importance of aesthetic experience, which for Schopenhauer, represents the proof that the will can be abandoned and that the short periods of liberation from the will/suffering can be reached. As for Kant, for Schopenhauer, the aesthetic experience must be purposeless and unintentional and never contemplated or purposeful. Since our contemplated activities belong to the knowledge driven by the principle of practical reason that operates on the basis of our innate categories of time, space and causality and is related only to the phenomenal world, ideas that are the essence of artistic experience cannot be grasped by such knowledge. They can only be contemplated by objective knowledge by genius, who, in the process of artistic creation, abandons his individuality and disconnects from the phenomenal world completely, grasping the idea of a perceived object purely by its rare gift and not by reason. -/- In the final section, I will look at compassion, which can help us overcome suffering, according to Schopenhauer. By abandoning our selfishness through compassion, we can identify with the suffering of others and understand that we are the same as others. That will help us comprehend that our individuality is the main cause of suffering and trigger our attempt to overcome suffering through compassion. I will argue that compassion cannot be devoid of self-interest and, as such, still requires a strong presence of the will. I will also show why asceticism is, as the ultimate attempt to completely redeem suffering, antipodal to compassion. (shrink)

The purpose of this thesis is to make explicit the specificity of the following themes: the Bildung (formation/cultivation), education (Erziehung) and experimentation [Experimentieren – Erlebnis (experience)] in Nietzsche’s thought. As for that, it sustains that Nietzsche’s abandonment movement of the formation concept in favor of the notion of education and the subsequent substitution of education by the theme of experimentation, revealed a wide process of conceptual modification through which the author develops a radical theory of the constitution of the human (...) being. There are three distinct, although connected, moments of this process: the first one (chapters 1 and 2) in which the formation theme, not only in Nietzsche’s but in all the German tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is linked to discussions on the educational and formative value of art. For this reason, after presenting a contextualization of the relation between art and formation in the German tradition (chapter 1), it is presented (chapter 2) Nietzsche’s relation – the way it happens in his first important piece of writing The Birth of Tragedy – with the German aesthetic theories that reflected on the Greek culture, more specifically, on the problem of tragedy. Besides showing the influence of these theories on Nietzsche’s idea of formation, it is also shown the particularity of this idea and the elements that enabled the author to criticize the image of Greek serenity. Such critique happened due to the acknowledgement of an irretrievable split between public, art and culture in the Germany of the nineteenth century; the second one, (chapter 3), situated between his first important piece of writing, The Birth of Tragedy, and the extraordinary change of his thought, represented by the work Human, All too Human, is concerned about the problem of the authentic personality formation. In this period, the reflection on the authentic personality formation or the genius formation occurs in two distinct, although complimentary, registers: the first one, of analysis and critique of German teaching institutions, carried out in the five conferences delivered by him in the University of Basileia; and a second one, in which Nietzsche, based on his own experience with Schopenhauer, shows the dangers, the difficulties as well as the peculiarities of the formative experience to which one is submitted in the presence of a true philosopher. At last, the third moment (chapter 4), in which, based on the works produced after Human, All too human, the transformations of Nietzsche’s idea concerning the constitution of the human being are presented, characterized by the abandonment of the notion of formation, by the temporary use of the notion of education and by the choice of the experimentation notion as the most adequate to express the radicalism of the human being constitution process. The experimentation theme is presented in two registers: in the first one (in the first three items of chapter 4), based on Human, All too human; The Dawn and The Gay Science, it is shown the relation between the formation theme and the metaphysics critique based on the valorization of history, psychology and moral analysis; in the second one (in the last two items of chapter 4), it is reached the most advanced and radical formulation of Nietzsche’s thought on the theme of the human being constitution. Since the breach of the novel of self-cultivation (Bildungsroman) in Thus Spoke Zaratustra, dealing with the training and selection theme in On the Genealogy of Morality, to the establishment of figures of the overman and the sovereign individual, it is always focused an imperious obligation, which is to refer the theme of the human being constitution to the notion of experimentation that shows up under the sign of the concept of time and the solitude experience. (shrink)

In his debut book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche presents what he understands as a metaphysics of art or metaphysics of the artist. As it becomes clear throughout the argument developed in the work, his aim is to favor a justification of the world and of existence as an aesthetic phenomenon. The path to his metaphysics passes through the interaction with Kantian and, mostly, Schopenhauerian formulations, and through a deep dialogue with Greek culture in general and, indirectly, with Pre-Socratic (...) thought. The objective of this article is to delimit the retentions and displacements of the critical tradition in his book from 1872, and highlight the importance of the interlocution with the Greek cultural repertoire in the conformation of his metaphysics of the artist. In particular, the working hypothesis is that Nietzsche, in these approaches and appropriations of critical and archaic philosophical tradition, finds the possibility of an immanent metaphysics in the post-Kantian context, conceived as a physiology (in the antique sense) of aesthetic bias. (shrink)

When considering the value of friendship, most philosophers ignore the negatives. Most assume that humans need friends to flourish, and some argue that friendships can be good, no matter the risks entailed. This makes conversations about the value of friendship one-sided. Here, I argue that Cynics and Pessimists have an important view on friendship, despite it being ignored. They hold that: (a) friendship is unnecessary for flourishing, and (b) friendship presents ethical risks, especially to one’s own self-sufficiency. I defend these (...) views. Then I conclude with reflections on why Cynics and Pessimists actually make great friends. By helping people to focus on vulgar human nature and the flaws that humans have, they create an unpretentious basis for friendship. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate Nietzsche’s views about realism in art, and use the resulting textual evidence to explain the connection between realism, health and life-affirmation. First, I show that Nietzsche’s contrasting claims about artists like Flaubert and Stendhal reflect a distinction between two types of realism: the unhealthy realism of Flaubert, and the healthy realism of Stendhal. I then use this understanding of healthy realism in art to argue that for Nietzsche, healthy realism is vital for life-affirmation. Finally, I (...) apply this evidence to a debate between Daniel Came and Bernard Reginster concerning whether Nietzsche thinks life-affirmation requires falsifying reality using illusions, especially artistic illusions, for the purpose of masking life’s terrible truths. Against Came, I argue that Nietzsche’s remarks about realism in art support Bernard Reginster’s claim that Nietzsche abandons his emphasis on illusion in The Birth of Tragedy in favor of tough-minded realism about life’s terrible truths. (shrink)

Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche has been canonized in the philosophical tradition as an almost perfect demonstration of how the forgetfulness of Being continues the dominant positions of modern metaphysics. However, the role of reading in the interpretative process casts a different light on Heidegger's approach to Nietzsche and his relationship to the philosophical tradition. This paper is concerned with three aspects of Heidegger's work, namely, (i) the role of Kant and Schopenhauer in Nietzsche's critique of metaphysics; (ii) Nietzsche's 'inversion' of (...) Platonism; and (iii) Heidegger's contribution to a hermeneutical reappraisal of Nietzsche's thought. (shrink)

This article explores the utility of Nietzsche’s ethical thought for philosophical counselling. Central to the philosophical counseling process is philosophical counsellors applying the work of philosophers to inspire, educate, and guide their counselees in dealing with life problems. For example, Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a method of philosophical counselling developed by Elliot Cohen, provides a rational framework for confronting problems of living, where the counselor helps the counselee find an uplifting philosophy that promotes a guiding virtue that acts as an antidote (...) to unrealistic and often self-defeating conclusions derived from irrational premises. I present the argument that Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, and more specifically his analysis of suffering, is one such uplifting philosophy which can be of utility to philosophical counselors to help their counselees with confronting problems of living. According to Bernard Reginster, suffering forms the bedrock of Nietzsche's life-affirming concept of the will to power. Nietzsche’s notion of the will to power radically alters our conception and significance of suffering – and that the will to power is best understood as man’s desire for the activity of overcoming resistance. Nietzsche's analysis implies that the fundamental human impulse is not to avoid suffering, but instead to will nothing less than suffering itself. To find meaning in suffering is tantamount to affirming life itself. (shrink)

Free Will & The Tragic Predicament : Making Sense of Williams -/- The discussion in this paper aims to make better sense of free will and moral responsibility by way of making sense of Bernard Williams’ significant and substantial contribution to this subject. Williams’ fundamental objective is to vindicate moral responsibility by way of freeing it from the distortions and misrepresentations imposed on it by “the morality system”. What Williams rejects, in particular, are the efforts of “morality” to further “deepen” (...) or “refine” the notion of the voluntary, with a view to securing “ultimate justice”. It is these aims and aspirations, he argues, that take us to the precipice of scepticism. In Shame and Necessity (1993) Williams advances a vindicatory genealogy that unmasks the “illusions” and “fantasies” of our current ethical ideas as they relate to agency and responsibility. What we are then left with is the task of “recasting our ethical conceptions” . It is here that Williams is especially insistent on the importance and value of historical consciousness and reflection. The role of our reflections about the Greeks and tragedy is precisely to show that in order to move forward, into the future, we need to first look back at where we have come from. The value of these “untimely” observations is that they provide us with alternatives and options that we might otherwise lack. What we discover, when we consider the Greeks, is their commitment to a “pessimism of strength” that rests on rejecting scepticism. It is this two-sided perspective on our ethical predicament that delivers a more truthful account of our human situation, one that will help us discard those illusions and fantasies of "morality" that we are “better off” without. An account of this kind refuses to accept an optimism that insists that any form of responsible ethical life must be one that is immune to the influence of luck and fate. This is the fundamental lesson that we can learn from the ancient Greeks and that Williams seeks to “recover” for us. (shrink)

This book aims at six important conceptual tools developed by philosophers. The author develops each particular view in a chapter, hoping to constitute at the end a concise, interesting and easily readable whole. These concepts are: 1. Ethics and realism: elucidation of the distinction between understanding and explanation – the lighthouse type of normativity. 2. Leadership, antirealism and moral psychology – the lightning rod type of normativity. 3. Bright light on self-identity and positive reciprocity – the reciprocity type of normativity. (...) 4. The virtue of generosity and its importance for inclusive education – the divine will type of normativity. 5. Ethical education as normative philosophical perspective. The normativity of self-transformation in education. 6. Aesthetics as expression of human freedom and concern for the whole world in which we live. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of (...) the two following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic for our current understanding of nature. I will show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophy can be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental ethics is a (...) highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I argue that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

Nietzsche on the Banishment of Supererogation by Luther and its Influence on Modern Ethical Life and Moral Theorizing. Much attention has been paid to Nietzsche’s refusal of obligation-centred moral theories (such as Kantian deontology and Utilitarian consequentialism), but little or no attention to the historical roots of such conceptions. The aim of this paper is to explore the ways Nietzsche connects the Kantian version of legal moral theory to the Lutheran Reformation, taking as its leitmotif the exclusion by Luther of (...) the so-called supererogation (the ideal of a Christian perfect life of sainthood being the most evident case) from the horizon of our ethical life (see D 88; GS 355; NL 1884, 25[271]). After establishing this historical connection, we are better positioned to understand the motivation behind his rejection of legal moral theories, particularly the Kantian version. This also allows us to shed new light on the contemporary attempts to characterize Nietzsche’s much-discussed perfectionist normative commitments. (shrink)

Arthur Schopenhauer's “The World as Will and Representation” is a continuation and completion of the Kantian philosophical project. Schopenhauer proposes that rather than causality being an empirical consequence, as Kant implies in his Critique of Pure Reason, causality is an a priori phenomenon, happening independent of any knowledge of causality itself. Therefore, he challenges Kantian rationalism with pessimism. To begin this work stating the stark contrast between Kant’s epistemology and Schopenhauer’s, I note the few yet crucial characteristics to consciously consider (...) from Schopenhauer’s aesthetics: (1) there is no rationality to nature; (2) there is no ‘purposeness’ in life; and (3) human beings are not fundamentally rational. These each are expanded upon and discussed in unison with Kant's sentiments. In describing Schopenhauer's philosophy of the human experience, it is useful to refer to his interest in Indian philosophies and religions, which is briefly mentioned in this work by way of the famous paradox proposed by Nāgārjuna. The major point of divergence, it appears, between the two great minds reveals itself in their conception of the human experience and perception. Kant describes a reality consisting of mental representations whose nature is suggested to be a posteriori, Schopenhauer understands reality to be noumenal and its perception by sentient life to be indirect, subject-dependent, and consequently a priori. (shrink)

Let me begin with a quote: “The universal organum of philosophy—the ground stone of its entire architecture—is the philosophy of art.”1 This statement, made in 1800 by the German Idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling, is rather striking, not only because of its grandiosity, but also because it contrasts with what the majority of contemporary philosophers would be prepared to say on the subject. There is nevertheless a grain of truth in the claim that there is a peculiar connection between art and (...) philosophy and in the claim that aesthetics is a central area of philosophy. First of all, it is worth noting that, even if the philosophy of art has not played a role in the systems of all the indisputably great philosophers, or even of most of them, it has occupied an important place in the thought of quite a few, among them Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hegel and Sartre. And a good number of philosophers of lesser rank—including Croce, Collingwood, Dewey, Bergson, Santayana, Gadamer and, evidently, Schelling, also had a philosophy of art; one finds them perhaps more interested in it than in, say, ethics. Why this natural, even if not inevitable, link between philosophy and art? (shrink)

Nietzsche talks about trust [vertraue*] and mistrust [misstrau*] in all of his published and authorized works, from The Birth of Tragedy to Ecce Homo. He refers to trust in 90 passages and mistrust in 101 – approximately ten times as often as he refers to resentment/ressentiment. Yet the scholarly literature on Nietzsche and trust includes just a handful of publications. Worse still, I have been unable to find a single publication devoted to Nietzsche and mistrust. This chapter aims to (...) fill the gap in the secondary literature by using digital humanities methods to systematically investigate the functions of trust and mistrust in Nietzsche’s writings. I argue that Nietzsche offers three main insights into trust and an additional two into mistrust. When it comes to trust, in his free spirit works, he reflects on the development of interpersonal trust, with an eye to situations in which trust is or is not reciprocated. He also criticizes some of the heuristics people use to identify trustworthy partners, especially the notion that all and only people with stable character are trustworthy. And perhaps Nietzsche’s most interesting thoughts about trust relate to self-trust, which he thinks is often unjustifiably undermined. When it comes to mistrust, although he regards generalized mistrust as a sign of bad character, he also thinks that harnessing mistrust can be valuable in at least two domains. One is morality, where we are disposed to accept traditional pieties and would benefit from turning a suspicious eye towards these pieties. The other is science, which systematizes both trust and mistrust in pursuit of the truth. (shrink)

Two assumptions are common in discussions of the paradox of tragedy: (1) that tragic pleasure requires that the work be fictional or, if non-fiction, then non-transparently represented; and (2) that tragic pleasure may be provoked by a wide variety of art forms. In opposition to (1) I argue that certain documentaries could produce tragic pleasure. This is not to say that any sad or painful documentary could do so. In considering which documentaries might be plausible candidates, I further argue, against (...) (2), that the scope of tragic pleasure is limited to works that possess certain thematic and narrative features. (shrink)

Aesthetic transfiguration, as described by Nietzsche, is the capacity of art to alchemize the meaningless sufferings of natural existence into the aesthetically magnificent struggle that is human ‘life’. Like Nietzsche, Schopenhauer assessed ‘art from the perspective of life’. As Schopenhauer is standardly read, however, his conception of aesthetic experience has little in common with that offered by Nietzsche. Against the standard reading, this chapter argues that Nietzsche’s psychology of aesthetic experience—and in particular his idea that aesthetic transfiguration invests human experience (...) with positive value—is essentially an elaboration of insights owed to Schopenhauer. (shrink)

I set the stage for Socrates and Aristophanes’ alliance by beginning with Hegel’s question, what is the object of art?, in the context of his analysis of ancient Greek “art-religion.” Hegel traces the shifting object of art through a variety of artistic practices before arriving at comedy, which he identifies as the last stage of Greek aesthetic life. He finally asks, what is the object of comedy? Unlike other artistic practices that are positively defined by their created object or creative (...) activity, ancient comedy appears to be purely destructive, terminating anything that might be traditionally recognizable as an object of art. Hegel points to Aristophanes and Socrates as representing two sides of the defacement of the object of art-religion as such. Moving beyond Hegel, I turn to Aristophanes and Plato to consider how in the performative destruction of the object of aesthetic and philo- sophical reflection, something slips into being that may be identified as the phantom form of the Subject. (shrink)

Man essentially is a being who pursues meaning and love. Socrates’ speech in the Symposium well characterizes man as driven by Eros, or Love. Socrates, expounding Diotema’s Ladder of Love, explains that man is driven by the erotic impulse. Nowhere in her teachings does Diotema mention the concept of self-interest or maximizing profit as the essential nature of man. Despite this, the concept of man as the rational economic man dominates the human stage of thought. Why and how has this (...) concept of man taken precedence over the Platonic description? What has made for the triumph of Homo economicus? (shrink)

ABSTRACT Schopenhauer's argument against suicide has served as a punching bag for many modern-day commentators. Dale Jacquette, Sandra Shapshay, and David Hamlyn all argue that the premises of this argument or its conclusion are inconsistent with Schopenhauer's wider metaphysical and ethical project. This paper defends Schopenhauer from these charges. Along the way, it examines the relations between suicide, death by voluntary starvation, negation of the will, compassion, and Schopenhauer's critiques of cynicism and stoicism. The paper concludes that there may be (...) gaps in Schopenhauer's system, but not where the aforementioned commentators tried to locate them. (shrink)

This thesis is primarily an attempt at solving some issues in Schopenhauer’s theory of salvation. My aim is to provide ways in which Schopenhauer’s soteriology could work. It is a partially reconstructive project in that I will be bringing to the forefront some of Schopenhauer’s assertions at the expense of others. My aim is to show that we are able to provide a much more cohesive and satisfying reading of Schopenhauer’s philosophical project if we let go of some of the (...) more orthodox assumptions in the Schopenhauer scholarship – chief amoung these being that Schopenhauer is committed to the view that the will constitutes ultimate reality. While this reading is a departure from the vast majority of the traditional readings of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, I believe it has the twin advantages of both aligning Schopenhauer’s thought much closer with the eastern traditions he believes his work is in sympathy with, and ultimately, providing a new platform from which to assess the ‘traditional’ reading of Schopenhauer’s thought as ‘hopelessly pessimistic’. It is my contention that while it remains true that Schopenhauer is very much a pessimist about the world as manifested will, it is the perceived difficulties of his philosophy of salvation that have provided the most significant road block preventing critics from seeing that there are dimensions to Schopenhauer’s thought that cannot so easily be labelled as either pessimistic or optimistic. This thesis is an attempt to shed light on possible new readings of Schopenhauer’s project in light of attempts to resolve issues in his soteriology. I begin with the question – why do we need saving? I attempt to answer this through an analysis of the terms ‘will’, ‘will-to-life’ and ‘affirmation and negation of the will-to-life’. Next, I attempt to argue that the will should not be seen as ultimate reality in Schopenhauer’s system and that this is both closer to the account which Schopenhauer himself was inclining towards later in his writings as well asa necessary sacrifice in order to save Schopenhauer from more problematic inconsistencies. I next attempt to solve inconsistencies in Schopenhauer’s account of personal identity. I argue that there can only be a denial of the will-to-life if there is more to our identity than willing. I will also examine the possibility of a denial of the will-to-life at all. I will be engaging with recent scholarship from Christopher 3 Janaway on the possibility of negating the will-to-life and the implications of this for Schopenhauer’s account of willing. I will then attempt to resolve the on-going debate in the secondary literature concerning Schopenhauer’s ethical pronouncements and his theory of the negation of the will-to-life. I will argue, contrary to Sandra Shapshay and Tristan Ferrell, that it is possible to be one in whom the will has denied itself while remaining one who wills ethically and that this can be the case if we focus our attention on what Schopenhauer may truly mean by a compassionate will to help others. Next, I will be asking why exactly it is good to be one in whom the will has denied itselfand what this means for our understanding of value for the will-less subject. Finally, I will be focusing on Schopenhauer’s pessimism and how a new reading of Schopenhauer’s soteriology means that we can introduce new ways of assessing both the world as well as the place of Schopenhauer’s philosophical system within it. Ultimately, I will conclude that any interpretation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy presents the scholar with a choice and that we are subsequently only able to make new evaluative assessments on Schopenhauer’s philosophy, as well push back against the charge that it is wholly pessimistic, if we choose to accept major revisions to his metaphysics of the will. However, because Schopenhauer himself seemed to be moving towards such revisions, we should not be afraid of doing so either. (shrink)

What role does the wild duck play in Ibsen's famous drama? I argue that, besides mirroring the fate of the human cast members, the duck is acting as animal subject in a quasi-experiment, conducted in a private setting. Analysed from this perspective, the play allows us to discern the epistemological and ethical dimensions of the new scientific animal practice (systematic observation of animal behaviour under artificial conditions) emerging precesely at that time. Ibsen's play stages the clash between a scientific and (...) a romantic understanding of animals that still constitutes the backdrop of most contemporary debates over animals in research. Whereas the scientific understanding reduces the animal's behaviour, as well as its environment, to discrete and modifiable elements, the romantic view regards animals as being at one with (or violently disconnected from) their natural surroundings. (shrink)

In this thesis I offer an interpretation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism. I argue against interpreting Schopenhauer’s pessimism as if it were merely a matter of temperament, and I resist the urge to find a single standard argument for pessimism in Schopenhauer’s work. Instead, I treat Schopenhauer’s pessimism as inherently variegated, composed of several distinct but interrelated pessimistic positions, each of which is supported by its own argument. I begin by examining Schopenhauer’s famous argument that willing necessitates suffering, which I defend (...) against the misrepresentative interpretation advocated by Ivan Soll. I also offer a metaphysical reading of Schopenhauer’s claim that no amount happiness can compensate for the mere fact of suffering, based upon his negative conception of happiness. I proceed by analysing Schopenhauer’s criticisms of two prominent optimists, Leibniz and Rousseau. I attempt to salvage something of Schopenhauer’s counterargument against Leibniz that this is the worse of all possible worlds, and I also examine Schopenhauer’s claim that the optimistic metaphysics of a priori rationalistic philosophy cannot cope with the evidence of meaningless suffering. In the case of Rousseau, I interpret Schopenhauer’s brief objection to Rousseau’s assumption of original goodness, by means of an examination of Schopenhauer’s conception of the contrary doctrine, original sin. Next I consider the metaphysics of Schopenhauer’s account of eternal justice. After defending it against a number of objections, I argue that the nature of his version of eternal justice, which he admits constitutes a justification for suffering, does not conflict with the fact that he so strongly condemns Leibniz’s and Rousseau’s optimistic justifications for suffering. Finally I assess whether and to what extent Schopenhauer’s ethics of salvation are either pessimistic or optimistic. I conclude that the mere fact that salvation is possible is not necessarily a cause for optimism, but that Schopenhauer’s doctrine of salvation is made partly optimistic by the higher form of cognition that he describes as part of it. I also argue that Schopenhauer’s views on the essentially mystical nature of the state of salvation ultimately commit him to being neither positively optimistic nor positively pessimistic about salvation. I conclude overall with some brief remarks about the meaning of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and how in spite of its diverse nature, it is able to lay down a singular challenge to all future philosophers concerned with the question of suffering. (shrink)

This study investigates Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe's claim in "The Caesura of the Speculative" that Hölderlin is a "modern" writer. Its aim is to establish what is at stake in this claim and to evaluate whether it can be substantiated. In Chapter One I discuss the relationship between tragedy and philosophy. I show that the uneasy relationship between philosophy and the arts is premised upon Plato's understanding and judgement of mimesis. I contrast Plato and Aristotle's treatment of poetry by examining how they (...) understand the mimetic process. In Chapter Two I focus on Hölderlin's understanding of the relationship between Ancient Greece and 18th Century Germany. After discussing the background to Hölderlin's work I provide detailed readings of two texts, The Perspective from which We Have to Look at Antiquity, (1799) and the first letter to Böhlendorff, dating from 1801. I argue that in these texts Hölderlin, through his acknowledgement of the divided nature of Greek culture, offers a unique understanding of the relationship between Greece and Germany which isolates him from his contemporaries. In Chapters Three and Four, I examine Hölderlin's understanding of tragedy. After establishing the centrality of the aesthetic presentation for Hölderlin's project I examine the "poetological" writings which date from 1798-1800. I give a close analysis of the implications of Hölderlin's statement that the tragic "is the metaphor of an intellectual intuition" which occurs in the text On the Difference of the Poetic Modes, (1800), showing why the tragic form is central to Hölderlin's poetological project. To illustrate the problems inherent in this project, in Chapter Four I examine Hölderlin's attempts to write a tragic drama which corresponds to his theoretical beliefs. I discuss the two theoretical texts - The Ground to Empedocles and Becoming in Dissolution - which accompany Hölderlin's drama Empedocles. In analysing these texts I argue that there is an inherent tension between the presuppositions of the theory and the way they can be realised in the drama. In Chapter Five, I turn to Hölderlin's final work, his project to translate Sophocles' tragedies. Through close analysis of the theoretical Remarks which accompany the translations, I show how Hölderlin's theoretical and poetological interests in Greece and Tragedy are brought together through this project. I argue that these texts give an insight into the problems which confront Hölderlin's poetological project. However, simultaneously, these texts provide an alternative way of understanding the function of the tragic form. In this discussion I show how the questions concerning the status of dramatic mimesis and the "mimetic" relation between Greece and Germany coincide in the analysis of Sophocles' dramas. In conclusion I return briefly to the questions that I raised in the introduction concerning the status of tragedy in the present time, and assess the accuracy of the claim that Hölderlin is a "modern" thinker. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how Nietzsche’s critique of nihilism concerns the complicity between Christian morality and modern atheism. I unpack in what sense Schopenhauer’s ascetic denial of the will signifies a return to nothingness, what he calls the nihil negativum. I argue that Nietzsche’s formulation of nihilism specifically targets Schopenhauer’s pessimism as the culmination of the Western metaphysical tradition, the crucial stage of its intellectual history in which the scientific pursuit of truth finally unveils the ascetic will to nothingness (...) that motivates it. I contend that Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer anticipates current scholarly debates around the significance of the nihil negativum and offers a compelling objection against contemporary proponents of philosophical nihilism such as Eugene Thacker and Ray Brassier. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges only from attitudes attributable to (...) actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

This study attempts to reconstruct Nietzsche’s reading of Aristotle in the 1860s and 1870s—the years before he left his career as a philologist. Against the popular view that Nietzsche read only one book by Aristotle, namely the Rhetoric, the present study hopes to show that he had direct knowledge of several of Aristotle’s main works, while much of his interest in Aristotle centred on the latter’s account of art. The particular aim of this study is to explore how Nietzsche’s reading (...) of Aristotle contributed to the formation of The Birth of Tragedy. It will show that, although Nietzsche mentions Aristotle in his first book only en passant, his theory of tragedy should be understood against the background of Aristotelian poetics, especially as interpreted by such contemporaries as Jacob Bernays, Joseph Hubert Reinkens, and Gustav Teichmüller. (shrink)

I argue that Schopenhauer’s ascription of (moral) rights to animals flows naturally from his distinctive analysis of the concept of a right. In contrast to those who regard rights as fundamental and then cast wrongdoing as a matter of violating rights, he takes wrong (Unrecht) to be the more fundamental notion and defines the concept of a right (Recht) in its terms. He then offers an account of wrongdoing which makes it plausible to suppose that at least many animals can (...) be wronged and thus, by extension, have rights. The result, I argue, is a perspective on the nature of moral rights in general, and the idea of animal rights in particular, that constitutes an important and plausible alternative to the more familiar views advanced by philosophers in recent decades. (shrink)

This essay offers an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the birth of tragedy (Poetics 1448b18–1449a15) as a mimesis of poetic praxis. The workings of this passage emerge when read in connection with ring composition in Homeric speeches, and further unfold through a comparison with the Shield of Achilles and with an ode from Euripides’ Heracles. Aristotle appears to draw upon a traditional pattern enacting cyclical rebirth or revitalization. It is suggested that his puzzling insistence on “one complete action” in (...) plot is bound up with moment-to-moment performance. The poetics of Aristotle’s account suggest a pedagogy of mimesis. (shrink)

Perfazendo a primeira filosofia existencial trágica, a doutrina de Schopenhauer atribui a origem do caráter simultaneamente trágico, absurdo e doloroso da existência ao querer viver, implicando um pessimismo que impõe à felicidade uma condição negativa, à medida que o sofrimento emerge como o fundamento de toda a vida, constituindo-se o prazer estético uma possibilidade quanto à superação da dor e do tédio, conforme assinala o artigo cujo trabalho mostra a correlação envolvendo a perspectiva da metafí­sica da vontade e o pensamento (...) de Nietzsche que, detendo-se no niilismo como um acontecimento que expressa a negação da vida e converge para a sua própria superação, sobrepõe ao dualismo metafí­sico o princí­pio da unidade-múltipla através da construção da sua metafisica de artista, que supõe um movimento da consciência ética para o pathos artí­stico. (shrink)

Call the view that it is possible to acquire aesthetic knowledge via testimony, optimism, and its denial, pessimism. In this paper, I offer a novel argument for pessimism. It works by turning attention away from the basis of the relevant belief, namely, testimony, and toward what that belief in turn provides a basis for, namely, other attitudes. In short, I argue that an aesthetic belief acquired via testimony cannot provide a rational basis for further attitudes, such as admiration, and that (...) the best explanation for this is that the relevant belief is not itself rational. If a belief is not rational, it is not knowledge. So, optimism is false. After addressing a number of objections to the argument, I consider briefly its bearing on the debate concerning thick evaluative concepts. While the aim is to argue that pessimism holds, not to explain why it holds, I provide an indication in closing of what that explanation might be. (shrink)

The importance, and urgency, of a Roboethics lay in the lesson of our recent history. Two of the front rank fields of science and technology, Nuclear Physics and Genetic Engineering, have already been forced to face the ethical consequences of their research’s applications under the pressure of dramatic and troubling events. In many countries, public opinion, shocked by some of these effects, urged to either halt the whole applications, or to seriously control them. Robotics is rapidly becoming one of the (...) leading field of science and technology, so that we can forecast that in the XXI century humanity will coexist with the first alien intelligence we have ever come in contact with - robots. It will be an event rich in ethical, social and economic problems. Public opinion is already asking questions such as: “Could a robot do "good" and "evil”? “Could robots be dangerous for humankind?”. (shrink)

This introductory essay addresses Nietzsche's famous claim that God is dead, develops his arguments for it, and examines its potential implications for contemporary religious and ethical thought.

Much has been written about Schopenhauer’s use of Kant’s aesthetics as well as Schopenhauer’s adherence to and departures from Kant’s theoretical philosophy, not least by Schopenhauer himself. The hypothesis I propose in this paper combines these two research trajectories in a novel way: I wish to argue that Schopenhauer’s main theoretical innovation, the doctrine of the will, can be regarded as the development of an aspect of Kant’s aesthetic theory, specifically that the intransitive, goalless striving of the will in (...) Schopenhauer is the intellectual air to Kant's understanding of the mental processes required for the appreciation of beauty as 'conforming to law without a law'. (shrink)

Like many other philosophical disciplines, ethics is sometimes highly abstract. And many key notions of the discipline are vague, ambiguous or both. Abstractness, vagueness, and ambiguity invite confusion. My objective in this paper is to draw attention to a serious problem that, despite being widespread, has so far remained largely unrecognized: the confusion of different questions in teaching ethics. This confusion occurs, for example, when a philosopher’s viewpoint is presented as an answer to one question, but in fact, the philosopher (...) is addressing a different question with that viewpoint. In the first part of this paper, I will present and clarify several ethical questions that are often confused, and point out damaging consequences that the confusion of such questions entails. In the second part, I will demonstrate the confusion of ethical questions by drawing attention to cases of confused teaching of Schopenhauer’s ethics. Finally, for those interested, I outline how Schopenhauer’s ethics could be taught without confusion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scrutinizing the Art of TheaterAaron Meskin (bio)IntroductionIn his 1992 address to the American Society for Aesthetics, Peter Kivy suggested that philosophers of art might do best by giving up on “grand theorizing” (that is, pursuing the definition of art).1 In its place he proposed that they pursue the “careful and imaginative philosophical scrutiny of the individual arts and their individual problems.”2 Of course John Passmore and others had (...) said similar things at earlier points,3 but philosophical aesthetics has, it seems to me, finally and robustly taken the turn toward the philosophies of the arts. Much of the best work in philosophical aesthetics over the last fifteen years or so has pursued the route Kivy suggested. James Hamilton’s The Art of Theater is part of this turn—it is careful and imaginative scrutiny of the art of theater done at the very highest level, and I am delighted to have this opportunity to comment on it.4In what follows I shall address a number of issues raised by Hamilton’s work: the definition of theatrical enactment; the place of pretending and imagining in theatrical performance; the nature of Hamilton’s “ingredients model” and its relation to more traditional accounts of the work/performance relation; the account of theatrical style on offer; and the question of what we have learned from experimental theater.But before I move on to address those aspects of the book’s content in detail, let me say something about the pedagogical significance of this work. Although there are a number of legitimate ways to teach introductory courses on aesthetics and the philosophy of art (for example, by following a historical progression or by structuring it around certain key issues), one increasingly attractive option is to teach a course that focuses on those aforementioned individual arts and their individual problems. So, for example, I used to regularly teach graduate seminars in aesthetics to students enrolled [End Page 51] in a fine arts doctoral program. These students studied music, art education, the visual arts, theater, and dance; the seminars were designed to provide them with a broad foundation in philosophical aesthetics. Since they typically had no background in philosophy, I made the effort to assign readings and topics relevant to their own artistic practices and interests. Providing them with contemporary cutting-edge philosophical material on music and the visual arts was not hard. Kivy’s work, as well as that by Jerrold Levinson, Arthur Danto, Richard Wollheim, and others, makes that fairly easy. And intriguingly—since philosophers are commonly said to have ignored the art of dance—there’s even a decent amount of recent philosophical work on that art form by such authors as Graham McFee, Frances Sparshott, and Noël Carroll and Sally Banes.5 But where to turn to for the theater students? I would often read some of Aristotle’s Poetics with them, but I have to admit that the serious students of the theater that I encountered in those seminars typically knew that text much better than I did. (Still, I hope I challenged their breezy assumptions about catharsis!) We would read Hume on tragedy together—fun, but not really so much about the theater—and sometimes a bit of Nietzsche. But there was never much to give them from contemporary philosophers on the subject—a few articles here and there, of course, but nothing that clearly laid out the big and distinctive issues that the art form of theater raises. Nothing, to put the point a bit differently, that would provide any evidence that there really was a lively and extant philosophy of theater out there, as there are lively and extant philosophies of film, music, literature, and photography. In short, for those attracted to the prospect of teaching aesthetics as the philosophies of arts, the dearth of good work on theater by contemporary philosophers has been a significant source of frustration and even a bit of an embarrassment.The book in question is not the only recent philosophical work on theater. There are fine articles on the topic by David Osipovich, David Saltz, and Paul Woodruff, among others. Hamilton himself has a string of... (shrink)