In the shadow of anximander: Philosophical temperaments and schopenhauerian pessimism in Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (original) (raw)
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The Heraclitean Model as the Unifying Principle of Nietzsche's Thought
I argue that both the form and the content of Heraclitus' philosophy remain a constant throughout Nietzsche's career. As for form, Nietzsche shares his aphoristic style, close attention to language, and tone or mood of proud, solitary philosophizing with Heraclitus; as for content, Nietzsche shares a denial of being and an affirmation of becoming with Heraclitus, at least as he interpreted Heraclitus.
2014
Nietzsche’s work was shaped by his engagement with ancient Greek philosophy. Matthew Meyer analyzes Nietzsche’s concepts of becoming and perspectivism and his alleged rejection of the principle of non-contradiction, and he traces these views back to the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that Plato and Aristotle critically analyze in the Theaetetus and Metaphysics IV, respectively. At the center of this Heraclitean-Protagorean position is a relational ontology in which everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. Meyer argues that this relational ontology is not only theoretically foundational for Nietzsche’s philosophical project, in that it is the common element in Nietzsche’s views on becoming, perspectivism, and the principle of non-contradiction, but also textually foundational, in that Nietzsche implicitly commits himself to such an ontology in raising the question of opposites at the beginning of both Human, All Too Human and Beyond Good and Evil.
What We Owe to Nietzsche Hope, Pessimism, and the Tragic-Art of the Greeks
College of Dupage, 2020
NB: This paper, now expanded, appears as Chapter One, "Nietzsche on Pessimism and Nihilism: The Tragic Greeks and the Dionysian Artist-Philosopher," in the 2023 book: Philosophical Sojourns in Aesthetics, Existence, and Education (Cambridge Scholars, 2023, pp. 9-44). For a PDF of this chapter, email author. This essay explores Nietzsche's interpretation of the artistic responses to the bleak and pessimistic conditions of the Greeks' lives found in the Apolline art of the Homeric Greeks and the Dionysiac dramatic-art of the Greeks of the tragic age, which Nietzsche argues is the ultimate expression of art as the merging of the psychological-metaphysical "aesthetic" principles of the Apolline and Dionysiac. The Greeks thriving and inspirational aesthetic responses are elucidated in and through their comparison to modes of existence, as they are developed across Nietzsche's philosophical corpus, that impede the spirit's optimal, flourishing development, specifically, as expressed through Christianity and "Socratic optimism" in terms of the superior power of human reason. Concluding the analysis of Nietzsche's texts, there is speculation regarding how it is that Nietzsche's philosophy might inspire our rethinking about the "tradition" in onto-theological metaphysics, which continues to hold us, in a variety of ways, in its sway and grip. NB: This is an edited version of the essay recently completed for the Journal of Philosophical Investigations. I thank the editor and referees for their excellent comments and suggestions for improving this essay.
Nietzsche Failed Engagement with Schopenhauer's Pessimism: An Analysis
Inquiry, 2019
While a common view in the literature is that Nietzsche cannot successfully argue against Schopenhauer’s pessimism, a detailed explanation of why this is so is lacking. In this paper I provide such a detailed analysis. Specifically, a consideration of three of Nietzsche’s strategies for a revaluation of pain and suffering reveals two problems: the problem of “the direction of revaluation” and the “dilemma of the intransigence of hedonism”. According to the first, the success of a revaluation cannot be guaranteed on strictly argumentative grounds and can in principle bring about a revaluation that proceeds in the opposite direction than the one desired. According to the second, Nietzsche‘s revaluations are of no significance since they either ground an un-Nietzschean affirmation of life, or they do not engage pessimism’s hedonistic perspective on the basis of which it condemns life. I then examine two strategies that Nietzsche can be seen to employ in his attempts to revalue the hedonistic perspective itself and explain why they too are unsatisfactory. The analysis illuminates the nature of the dialectical stand-off between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and clarifies the limitations of Nietzschean revaluations as a philosophical tool.
Continental Philosophy Review, 2011
This essay focuses on and attempts to uncover the truly radical character of Nietzsche's early "philological" work, specifically asking after the benefit he claims the study of classical culture should have for our present, late-modern historical moment. Taking up his study of the Pre-Platonic thinkers in 1873's Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen, the first section analyzes Nietzsche's statement that history's principle task is the uncovering of Persönlichkeiten. I argue that it is not at all the subjective character of a psychologized individual that Nietzsche has in mind, but rather the moment of persönliche Stimmung or 'being attuned' to the world, which grounds and gives rise to thinking. In the second section, I show that the phusis or 'nature' to which the thinker is exposed in this attunement is comparable to the tension between the Dionysian and Apollonian natural forces in tragic poetry, as Nietzsche understands it. This dynamic conception of phusis does not provide a metaphysical substrate or an objectively real ground to which we might return via that Greeks, but is rather essentially phenomenal, i.e. it is nothing other than the movement into and out of appearance, which always entails and requires its reception by the human being to whom it appears. In the final section of the essay, this origin proves for Nietzsche not to be located in a distant past moment. Rather, it is the abyssal origin of the tradition that is always already effective in our present moment, informing our contemporary conceptions of our world and ourselves.
Nietzsche on Pessimism and Nihilism The Tragic Greeks and the Dionysian Artist-Philosopher
College of Dupage, 2024
This essay explores nihilism and pessimism in Nietzsche while developing an understanding of the self-in-transition (becoming who you are), a view to self-hood that stands opposed to the traditional nucleated metaphysical self as indelible, hypostatized, or transcendental mind or soul. Moving from The Birth of Tragedy through the later writings, such as The Gay Science and Twilight of the Idols, we analyze the evolving view of Dionysus-from primordial metaphysical principle to idealized persona. It is argued that in Nietzsche's later writings Dionysus is brought down from the soaring metaphysical heights to serve as an inspirational symbolization of the Hellenicinspired view of an ascending life, which is enacted through the artist-philosopher's attuned discharge of will to power. In working toward the interpretive end of elucidating the dangers of hope and philosophical optimism, we turn to the compilation of his voluminous notes ultimately published as The Will to Power, to offer a detailed reading of Nietzsche's understanding of Passive Nihilism/Pessimism of Decline and Active Nihilism/Pessimism of Strength. The latter, it is shown, manifests in what Nietzsche calls "Dionysian Pessimism" and it is linked with the persona of Dionysus and the type of aesthetic response to nihilism this idealized persona inspires. For in his later corpus, Dionysus assumes something of an all-encompassing, all-consuming presence, now in the foreground of Nietzsche's thought, while the Apollonian form of aesthetic attunement (Rausch) appears to recede into the background, playing a distant secondary role in Nietzsche's view of aesthetics. In writing this essay, our thoughts were guided by the ever-present question of what it is that Nietzsche might be able to teach us with all of his inspired poetic thinking on the tragic Greeks and the god of wine and tragedy. In the end, we entertain the following possibility: despite inhabiting a world devoid of intrinsic meanings and established values, it is not an existence without imminent potential for inspiring human self-overcoming and secular transcendence. Therefore, by emulating Nietzsche's Dionysus, it is certainly possible to live in a productive, ascending, and rewarding manner.
Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, 2020
and Keywords The chapter offers a critical analysis of Nietzsche's objections to Schopenhauer's philoso phy. While the influence of Schopenhauer on Nietzsche is widely documented, the author's intention here is to ask how Schopenhauer might respond to Nietzsche's inter pretation of his philosophy and his critical challenges and hence, ultimately, to assess the force of Nietzsche's objections. The chapter considers Nietzsche's central challenge, be ginning with his account of Mitleid (compassion or pity) and, from there, opens out to the analysis of psychology, history, and the affirmation of life. It also considers two ways in which Nietzsche arguably steps out from under Schopenhauer's influence: his "historical philosophy" and his style or philosophical attitude.
Untimely Reflections on Nietzsche's Notions of Nature, Society, and the Self
2020
While Nietzsche is known as a virulent opponent of conventional morality, the critical dimension of his philosophy cannot be divorced from his novel understandings of nature, society, and the self. This dissertation clarifies Nietzsche’s treatments of these notions by comparing his views to those of other figures in the western philosophical tradition. I defend a comparative approach to Nietzsche’s philosophy and provide an overview of my project in chapter one. In chapter two, I argue that although Nietzsche shares Stoicism’s emphasis on self-discipline and on the affirmation of fate, he rejects the Stoics’ teleological understanding of nature and their view of moral values as descriptively objective. This leads Nietzsche to value passion and suffering for helping us realize the world’s indifference to our all-too human concerns and for prompting value creation. In chapter three, I argue that Nietzsche agrees with Leibniz about the existence and character of unconscious perceptions...