Living with Nietzsche : what the great "immoralist" has to teach us / Robert C. Solomon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Solomon, Robert C.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm.

Physical Description:

x, 243 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most popular and controversial philosophers of the last 150 years. Narcissistic, idiosyncratic, hyperbolic, irreverent -- never has a philosopher been appropriated, deconstructed, and scrutinized by such a disparate array of groups, movements, and schools of thought. Adored by many for his passionate ideas and iconoclastic style, he is also vilified for his lack of rigor, apparent cruelty, and disdain for moral decency.

In Living with Nietzsche, Solomon suggests that we read Nietzsche from a very different point of view, as a provocative writer who means to transform the way we view our lives. this means taking Nietzsche personally. Rather than focus on the "true" Nietzsche or trying to determine "what Nietzsche really meant" by his seemingly random and often contradictory pronouncements about "the Big Questions" of philosophy, Solomon reminds us that Nietzsche is not a philosopher of abstract ideas but rather of the dazzling personal insight, the provocative challenge, the incisive personal probe. He does not try to reveal the eternal verities but he does powerfully affect his readers, goading them to see themselves in new and different ways. It is Nietzsche's compelling invitation to self-scrutiny that fascinates us, engages us, and guides us to a "rich inner life." Ultimately, Solomon argues, Nietzsche is an example as well as a promulgator of "passionate inwardness," a life distinguished by its rich passions, exquisite taste, and a sense of personal elegance and excellence.

Contents:

Introduction: Living with Nietzsche 3

What Are We to Make of Nietzsche? 5

Nasty Nietzsche 7

Nietzsche's Virtues 10

How Should We Read Nietzsche? 12

What Would Nietzsche Make of Us? (An "Existential" Approach) 14

Thinking through Nietzsche 16

1. Nietzsche ad Hominem 19

Philosophy ad Hominem: Exemplary Virtues (and Vices) 19

Nietzsche's Style and Nietzsche's Philosophy 22

In Defense of ad Hominem Arguments 26

Ecce Homo: "Nietzsche Was Mad, Wasn't He?" 30

Nietzsche's Perspectivism and the Perspectives of Morality 35

Confessions and Memoirs: A Plea for the Personal in Philosophy 42

2. Nietzsche's Moral Perspectivism 44

Nietzsche's Moral Perspectivism 46

Genealogy as ad Hominem Argument: Resentment as a Diagnosis of Morality 51

Is Genealogy a Genetic Fallacy? 53

Perspectives on Responsibility: Nietzsche's "Blaming" Perspective 59

3. Nietzsche's Passions 63

Nietzsche on "Deep" Emotions 65

The Truth of an Emotion as Its Meaning 67

In Defense of the Passions: Nietzsche on Human Nature 70

Nietzsche's Physiological Psychology 74

Nietzsche on the Emotions as Strategies 79

Life-Enhancing and Life-Stultifying Passions 81

The Will to Power and the Passionate Life 85

4. Nietzsche on Resentment, Love, and Pity 89

What Is Wrong with Resentment? 91

Nietzsche on Love and Pity 93

Ressentiment Reexamined 101

Eagles and Lambs: Metaphors of Strength and Weakness 105

Masters, Slaves, and the Origins of Justice 109

5. Nietzsche's Affirmative Ethics 160

Nietzsche in the Tradition: Nihilism For and Against 117

Nietzsche, Kant, and Aristotle 121

The Meanings of Morality 124

Virtue Ethics: Nietzsche and Aristotle 128

Aristotle's Polis, Nietzsche's Problem 132

6. Nietzsche's Virtues: What Would He Make of Us? 137

After Virtue ("The Revaluation of Values") 140

Virtue by Example 142

How Are We Virtuous? Let Me Count the Ways 145

Nietzsche's Aristotelian Virtues 147

Distinctively Nietzschean Virtues 158

Nietzsche's Crypto-Virtues 166

The Ubermensch: A Cubist Portrait 173

7. Nietzsche's Existentialism 175

Nietzsche's Fatalism, Determinism, and Destiny 177

Nietzsche on Freedom and Fatalism: Paradox or Perspectives? 181

Nietzsche's Classical Fatalism 183

"Become Who You Are" 187

Making Good Sense of Fatalism 189

What Is Self-Creation? (Does It Require "Free Will"?) 192

Nietzsche on Responsibility 198

Existential Life-Affirmation and Eternal Recurrence, Again 201

Conclusion: Is Nietzsche an Existentialist? 206.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-233) and index.

ISBN:

0195160142

OCLC:

50841058