Language and the birth of "literature." A preface to transgression. Language to infinity. The father's "no." Fantasia of the library.--Counter-memory: the philosophy of difference. What is an author? Nietzsche, genealogy, history. Theatrum philosophicum.--Practice: knowledge and power. History of systems of thought. Intellectuals and power. Revolutionary action: "until now.".

Argues that Nietzsche tried to create a specific literary character in his writings and discusses the paradoxes of his work.

The function of Nietzsche in our present intellectual life is a salient example of the continued vitality of the nineteenth-century in the thought of today. In Germany, in France, in Italy, and in the United States new work of editing and commentary has made Nietzsche a current force. The monumental Colli-Montinari edition, which includes many of Nietzsche’s hitherto unpublished notebooks and drafts, is the most conspicuous evidence of this on the textual side. This edition will make available in German, French, (...) Italian, and Japanese versions a far more complete and accurate Nietzsche than we have had. Mention should also be made of the new English translations by Walter Kaufmann. These have made good versions of most of Nietzsche’s books available to those with no German, though the Kaufmann translations are far less complete than the Colli-Montinari edition. On the side of commentary, the bibliography of new work on Nietzsche is enormous. Two collective volumes may be mentioned. They indicate at least a sketch map of this rugged terrain: The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation, edited and introduced by David D. Allison, and Nietzsche Aujourd’hui? The new work appropriates Nietzsche for present purposes. Ideas which may seem especially characteristic of the literature and philosophy of our own day are found to have been already worked out by Nietzsche in his own way. These would include linguistic, artistic, historical, social, and psychological concepts. Among these is Nietzsche’s systematic putting in question of the idea that the self is a substantial and integral entity. (shrink)

I focus on Nietzsche's architectural metaphor of self‐construction in arguing for the claim that postmodern readings of Nietzsche misunderstand his various attacks on dogmatic philosophy as paving the way for acceptance of a self characterized by fundamental disunity. Nietzsche's attack on essentialist dogmatic metaphysics is a call to engage in a purposive self‐creation under a unifying will, a will that possesses the strength to reinterpret history as a pathway to “the problem that we are”. Nietzsche agrees with the postmodernists that (...) unity is not a pre‐given, however he would disavow their rejection of unity as a goal. Where the postmodernists celebrate “the death of the subject” Nietzsche rejects this valorization of disunity as a form of Nihilism and prescribes the creation of a genuine unified subjectivity to those few capable of such a goal. Postmodernists are nearer Nietzsche's idea of the Last Man than his idea of the Overman.I define postmodernism as incredulity towards meta‐narratives.Jean‐François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition.When the past speaks it always speaks as an oracle: only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it.Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life.”. (shrink)

I focus on Nietzsche's architectural metaphor of self‐construction in arguing for the claim that postmodern readings of Nietzsche misunderstand his various attacks on dogmatic philosophy as paving the way for acceptance of a self characterized by fundamental disunity. Nietzsche's attack on essentialist dogmatic metaphysics is a call to engage in a purposive self‐creation under a unifying will, a will that possesses the strength to reinterpret history as a pathway to “the problem that we are”. Nietzsche agrees with the postmodernists that (...) unity is not a pre‐given, however he would disavow their rejection of unity as a goal. Where the postmodernists celebrate “the death of the subject” Nietzsche rejects this valorization of disunity as a form of Nihilism and prescribes the creation of a genuine unified subjectivity to those few capable of such a goal. Postmodernists are nearer Nietzsche's idea of the Last Man than his idea of the Overman.I define postmodernism as incredulity towards meta‐narratives.Jean‐François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition.When the past speaks it always speaks as an oracle: only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it.Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life.”. (shrink)

Article (Reprinted in "Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Nietzsche", edited by B. Leiter and J. Richardson, Oxford University Press, 2001.

More than any other figure, Friedrich Nietzsche is cited as the philosopher who anticipates and previews the philosophical themes that have dominated French theory since structuralism. Informed by the latest developments in both contemporary French philosophy and Nietzsche scholarship, Alan Schrift's Nietzsche's French Legacy provides a detailed examination and analysis of the way the French have appropriated Nietzsche in developing their own critical projects. Using Nietzsche's thought as a springboard, this study makes accessible the ideas of some of the most (...) important and difficult of contemporary French poststructuralist theorists including Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Helene Cixous. Through a careful analysis and close reading of the texts of Nietzsche and French poststructuralism, Schrift illuminates the ways in which Nietzsche's thought prefigures certain poststructuralist motifs. He demonstrates how several dominant themes in contemporary Frenchphilosophy emerge out of Nietzsche's own thinking. As one of the first books to critically examine the work of the new French anti-Nietzschean's, Schrift defends the value of poststructuralism and Nietzsche as critical resources for confronting the present. (shrink)

The four short works in Untimely Meditations were published by Nietzsche between 1873 and 1876.They deal with such broad topics as the relationship between popular and genuine culture, strategies for cultural reform, the task of philosophy, the nature of education, and the relationship between art, science and life. They also include Nietzsche's earliest statement of his own understanding of human selfhood as a process of endlessly 'becoming who one is'. As Daniel Breazeale shows in his introduction to this new edition (...) of R. J. Hollingdale's translation of the essays, these four early texts are key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought and clearly anticipate many of the themes of his later writings. Nietzsche himself always cherished his Untimely Meditations and believed that they provide valuable evidence of his 'becoming and self-overcoming' and constitute a 'public pledge' concerning his own distinctive task as a philosopher. (shrink)

Modernity's Consciousness of Time and Its Need for Self- Reassurance In his famous introduction to the collection of his studies on the sociology of ...

Praised for its rare combination of scholarly rigor and imaginative interpretation, _Nietzsche and Philosophy_ has long been recognized as one of the most important analyses of Nietzsche. It is also one of the best introductions to Deleuze's thought, establishing many of his central philosophical positions. In _Nietzsche and Philosophy_, Deleuze identifies and explores three crucial concepts in Nietzschean thought-multiplicity, becoming, and affirmation-and clarifies Nietzsche's views regarding the will to power, eternal return, nihilism, and difference. For Deleuze, Nietzsche challenged conventional philosophical (...) ideas and provided a means of escape from Hegel's dialectical thinking, which had come to dominate French philosophy. He also offered a path toward a politics of difference. In this new edition, Michael Hardt's foreword examines the profound influence of Deleuze's provocative interpretations on the study of Nietzsche, which opened a whole new avenue in postwar thought. (shrink)

This book argues, against recent interpretations, that Nietzsche does in fact have a metaphysical system--but that this is to his credit. Rather than renouncing philosophy's traditional project, he still aspires to find and state essential truths, both descriptive and valuative, about us and the world. These basic thoughts organize and inform everything he writes; by examining them closely we can find the larger structure and unifying sense of his strikingly diverse views. With rigor and conceptual specificity, Richardson examines the will-to-power (...) ontology and maps the values that emerge from it. He also considers the significance of Nietzsche's famous break with Plato--replacing the concept of "being" with that of "becoming." By its conservative method, this book tries to do better justice to the truly radical force of Nietzsche's ideas--to demonstrate more exactly their novelty and interest. (shrink)

Kolb discusses postmodern architectural styles and theories within the context of philosophical ideas about modernism and postmodernism. He focuses on what it means to dwell in a world and within a history and to act from or against a tradition.