Nietzsche S Postmoralism

An important collection of essays offering a full assessment of Nietzsche's contribution to philosophy, first published in 2000.

Nietzsche is one of the most subversive thinkers of the western philosophical canon. Yet until recently, his ethics has been sidelined within Anglophone moral philosophy. Simon Robertson offers the first sustained, single-authored critical assessment of his ethical thought and its significance, arguing that Nietzsche raises well-motivated challenges to morality's objectivity, authority, and value. Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics develops insightful arguments about ethical objectivity, the pitfalls of internalising moral values, and the relation between good and bad. Robertson concludes by considering Nietzsche's broader import: how he challenges our usual views of what ethics itself is—and what it, and we, should be doing.

Written at the height of the philosopher's intellectual powers, Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals has become one of the key texts of recent Western philosophy. Its essayistic style affords a unique opportunity to observe many of Nietzsche's persisting concerns coming together in an illuminating constellation. A profound influence on psychoanalysis, antihistoricism, and poststructuralism and an abiding challenge to ethical theory, Nietzsche's book addresses many of the major philosophical problems and possibilities of modernity. In this unique collection focusing on the Genealogy, twenty-five notable philosophers offer diverse discussions of the book's central themes and concepts. They explore such notions as ressentiment, asceticism, "slave" and "master" moralities, and what Nietzsche calls "genealogy" and its relation to other forms of inquiry in his work. The book presents a cross section of contemporary Nietzsche scholarship and philosophical investigation that is certain to interest philosophers, intellectual and cultural historians, and anyone concerned with one of the master thinkers of the modern age.

A landmark work of western philosophy, "On the Genealogy of Morality" is a dazzling and brilliantly incisive attack on European "morality". Combining philosophical acuity with psychological insight in prose of remarkable rhetorical power, Nietzsche takes up the task of offering us reasons to engage in a re-evaluation of our values. In this book, David Owen offers a reflective and insightful analysis of Nietzsche's text. He provides an account of how Nietzsche comes to the project of the re-evaluation of values; he shows how the development of Nietzsche's understanding of the requirements of this project lead him to acknowledge the need for the kind of investigation of "morality" that he terms "genealogy"; he elucidates the general structure and substantive arguments of Nietzsche's text, accounting for the rhetorical form of these arguments, and he debates the character of genealogy (as exemplified by Nietzsche's "Genealogy") as a form of critical enquiry. Owen argues that there is a specific development of Nietzsche's work from his earlier "Daybreak" (1881) and that in "Genealogy of Morality", Nietzsche is developing a critique of modes of agency and that this constitutes the most fundamental aspect of his demand for a revaluation of values. The book is a distinctive and significant contribution to our understanding of Nietzsche's great text.

Nietzsche believed in the horror of existence: a world filled with meaningless sufferingA suffering for no reason at all. He also believed in eternal recurrence, the view that that our lives will repeat infinitely, and that in each life every detail will be exactly the same. Furthermore, it was not enough for Nietzsche that eternal recurrence simply be acceptedA he demanded that it be loved. Thus the philosopher who introduces eternal recurrence is the very same philosopher who also believes in the horror of existence. In this groundbreaking study, Philip Kain develops an insightful account of Nietzsche's strange and paradoxical view that a life of pain and suffering is perhaps the only life it really makes sense to want to live again.

What can Aristotle teach us that is relevant to contemporary moral and educational concerns? What can we learn from him about the nature of moral development, the justifiability and educability of emotions, the possibility of friendship between parents and their children, or the fundamental aims of teaching? The message of this book is that Aristotle has much to teach us about those issues and many others. In a formidable display of boundary-breaking scholarship, drawing upon the domains of philosophy, education and psychology, Kristján Kristjánsson analyses and dispels myriad misconceptions about Aristotle’s views on morality, emotions and education that abound in the current literature – including the claims of the emotional intelligence theorists that they have revitalised Aristotle’s message for the present day. The book proceeds by enlightening and astute forays into areas covered by Aristotle’s canonical works, while simultaneously gauging their pertinence for recent trends in moral education. This is an arresting book on how to balance the demands of head and heart: a book that deepens the contemporary discourse on emotion cultivation and virtuous living and one that will excite any student of moral education, whether academic or practitioner.

On the Genealogy of Morality contains some of Nietzsche's most disturbing ideas and images: eg the 'slave revolt' in morality, which he claims began with the Jews and has now triumphed, and the 'blond beast' that must erupt, which he claims to find behind all civilisation. It is therefore a major source for understanding why 'Nietzschean' ideas are controversial. Further, it is one of Nietzsche's most important books, a work of his maturity that shows him at the height of his powers both as a thinker and as an artist in the presentation of ideas.

The essays in this anthology are versions of papers originally presented at the 'Friedrich Nietzsche and Ethics' Conference conveyed by the Nietzsche Society in 2004 at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Contributors are respected Nietzsche scholars from around the globe and their essays cover the full range of Nietzsche's moral thinking. They include papers on evolution and development, eudaemonia, art and morality, agon and transvaluation, will to power, as well as free will and genuine selfhood, immoralism, equality, sexual ethics, and the value of pity and compassion. These topics reflect the continuing and ever increasing interest in and relevance of Nietzsche's moral thinking and confirm Nietzsche's status as a moral philosopher of great importance.