The main aim of this paper is to analyse the applications of Nietzschean genealogical method to the study of religions. We focus firstly on Nietzsche’s basic concepts: force, will to power, value, evaluation, and power and then go on to discuss some genealogical investigations of the religious phenomena. According to Nietzsche, the nihilist structure of European history is metaphysics itself, understood as Platonism, other-wise explained as a separation between “the real world” (of values and ideals) and the (...) “apparent world” (of sensitive things). With the help of genealogy, values and ideals are proven to be illusions or appearances; on the contrary, senses and instincts, feelings and affections are rehabilitated. In this way, Nietzsche discovers the finitude of man and reveals the original unity between body and value, between what is given to man and what he can do alone. (shrink)

Nietzsche's importance -- Nietzsche's ideas -- Nietzsche's legacy -- Aphorisms, 1875-1889 -- On truths and lies in an extramoral sense, 1873 -- On the uses and disadvantages of history for life, 1874 -- Human, all too human, 1878 -- The gay science, 1882 -- Thus spoke Zarathustra, 1883-1884 -- Beyond good and evil, 1886 -- On the genealogy of morals, 1887.

Drawing on philosophy, theology, comparative religion, spirituality, Holocaust studies, physics, biology, psychology, and personal experience, I argue that continued human existence depends on our willingness to reject nihilism–not as an expedient “noble lie” but because faith in a meaningful cosmos and the power of love is at least as validly grounded in human experience as insistence on cosmic indifference and ultimate futility. I maintain that hope will free us to develop nonimperialistic methods of bridging cultural differences by forming a (...) mutually intelligible vocabulary that celebrates diversity, enters the worlds of others in respectful dialogue, and fosters a postmechanistic, organic, ecological, holistic, dynamic, interactive, open‐ended model of reality. I lay the foundation for a “hermeneutics of love” to complement Paul Ricoeur's “hermeneutics of suspicion” and invite speculation on the ways science, technology, and society would be transformed if those “glasses of friendship” were widely applied. (shrink)

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On the Genealogy of Morals is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral (...) certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. (shrink)

On the Genealogy of Morals is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral (...) certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. (shrink)

Marx and Nietzsche are often compared as practitioners of a hermeneutic of suspicion. I pursue this comparison by focusing on an overlooked similarity between the two. In strangely similar passages, Marx (in Capital) and Nietzsche (in the Genealogy of Morals) introduce explicitly theatrical scenarios into the course of their discussions, complete with what Marx calls dramatis personae, where we witness a descent into a workshop (in some sense underground) in order to learn the secrets of production—the production, in both cases, (...) of value. But neither scenario conforms to the structure of the discovery of a concealed truth—in fact, each challenges this structure directly. By looking at the specific nature of these theatrical descents, we can come to a better understanding of the task of the philosopher in both Nietzsche and Marx, as well as the distinctive position of historical knowledge within a hermeneutics of suspicion. (shrink)

Dole provides a thought-provoking critique for critical religious studies scholars who draw on the work of the 'masters of suspicion', as well as for anyone working in critical theory more broadly. This book revisits Paul Ricoeur's well-known classification of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud as the 'masters of suspicion'. Whereas Ricoeur saw suspicion as a mode of interpretation, Andrew Dole argues that the method common to his 'masters' is better understood as a mode of explanation. In place of (...) Ricoeur's 'hermeneutics of suspicion' Dole presents the method of 'suspicious explanation', which claims the existence of 'hidden' phenomena that are bad in some recognizable way, and which each of the 'masters' practiced in his own way. Reconstructing Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud in this way brings their work into conversation with conspiracy theories, which are themselves a type of suspicious explanation. Dole argues that conspiracy theories and other types of suspicious explanation are cognitively ensnaring, to borrow a term from Pascal Boyer, such that 'if they are true they are importantly true, and their truth or falsity can be very difficult to ascertain'. (shrink)

In this provocative book, Randall Havas articulates an approach to Nietzsche which demonstrates that the authentic individual need not stand apart from his or her culture in order to resist the demands of conformism. On Havas's reading, the task of the Nietzschean individual is instead to replace the illusion of culture - "herd morality" - with real community, and in this way to avoid nihilism. It is such community that Nietzsche aspires to establish with his readers - a claim (...) that, in the author's view, suggests that Nietzsche's conception of the nature of community and, hence, of individuality must be understood in terms of his theory of reading and interpretation. Nietzsche holds that the category of the individual is itself a historical construct. Havas's interpretation of this view dissolves the threat it appears to pose to individualism. By treating genealogical method as a response to this threat, he shows how Nietzsche's defense of individualism, his conception of history, and his commitment to truth reinforce one another. On this reading, Nietzsche's more properly ethical concerns lie at the heart of his understanding of the will to knowledge. Havas argues that, for Nietzsche, ostensibly epistemological questions can be assessed only in the light of an understanding of the interdependence between individual and community. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo explora el concepto de corrupción siguiendo la categoría nietzscheana de decadencia en los ámbitos religiosos, morales, metafísicos y epistémicos en el horizonte del nihilismo. El campo de interés estuvo centrado en la constante presencia de la decadencia como elemento definitorio de nuestra cultura occidental según el diagnóstico genealógico nietzscheano. Sobre la base del análisis hermenéutico de las obras de Nietzsche, se evidenció que la corrupción no solo rompe la confianza como pilar antropológico y político, sino que quiebra (...) la promesa como fundamento teológico y filosófico, y reemplaza el ethos de convivencia por el pathos de la sospecha. Se concluye que esta cualidad de corruptibilidad del hombre surge en la actualidad como una condición causal en la arquitectónica del abuso y para el crecimiento decisivo de un nuevo tipo de nihilismo: el nihilismo de la consciencia.This article explores the concept of corruption following the Nietzschean category of decadence in the religious, moral, metaphysical and epistemic realms in the horizon of nihilism. The focus was the constant presence of decadence as a defining element in our Western culture according to the Nietzschean genealogical diagnosis. Based on the hermeneutic analysis of Nietzsche's works, it is demonstrated that corruption not only breaks down trust as a pillar of anthropology and politics, but it also breaks promise as a theological and philosophical basis and replaces the ethos of cohabitation with the pathos of suspicion. It is concluded that this quality of man's corruptibility arises as a causal condition in the architecture of abuse and for the decisive growth of a new type of nihilism: the nihilism of consciousness. (shrink)

In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche expounds on the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. He declares it to be the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche critiques the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture (...) and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. A wide ranging discussion of the nature of art, science, and religion, The Birth of Tragedy's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still valid today. (shrink)

Divided into three essays, this title offers an investigation into the origins of our moral values, or as the author calls them 'moral prejudices'. It addresses the concept of guilt and its role in the development of civilization and religion. It also considers suffering and its role in human existence.

Skillful, sophisticated translations of two of Nietzsche's essential works about the conflict between the moral and aesthetic approaches to life, the impact of Christianity on human values, the meaning of science, the contrast between the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits, and other themes central to his thinking.

Martin Heidegger is now widely recognized as the most influential philosopher of the Twentieth Century. Until the late 1960's, this impact derived mainly from his early magnum opus, 1927's Being and Time. Many of this century's most significant Continental thinkers---including Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Gadamer, Marcuse, Habermas, Bultmann, and Levinas---acknowledge profound conceptual debts to insights first elaborated in this text. But Being and Time was never finished, and Heidegger continued to extend, develop, and in some places revolutionize his own thinking for (...) another fifty years. This "later" Heidegger's prolific body of work has decisively influenced the next generation of Continental thinkers, shaping the concepts and concerns of important figures such as Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Blanchot, and Baudrillard. Despite this unparalleled impact, several basic aspects of Heidegger's later philosophy remain shrouded in mystery, confusion, and controversy. ;The End of Onto-Theology: Understanding Heidegger's Turn, Method, and Politics explains four central aspects of Heidegger's later thought: his controversial understanding of metaphysics as onto-theology, his famously recondite Kehre, his heretofore overlooked philosophical methodology, and his appalling misadventure with Nazism. ;Chapter I introduces the basic structure and unifying thesis of the text. Chapter II clarifies and periodizes Heidegger's mysterious Kehre or "turn," the philosophical transformation which distinguishes his "early" and "later" work. Chapter III uncovers another sense of Kehre, connecting this "turning" to Heidegger's infamous political misadventure. Chapter IV reconstructs Heidegger's famous Destruktion of the history of metaphysical foundationalism, showing how this "deconstruction" both disabused Heidegger of his own politically disastrous metaphysical ambition to recover a "fundamental ontology" and provides the necessary philosophical background for understanding Heidegger's later philosophy. Chapter V explicates Heidegger's later methodology, "ontohistorical placement through hermeneutic altercation," using the case of Nietzsche to demonstrate how Heidegger developed and deployed this method to situate other philosophers' contributions to the history of intelligibility. Chapter VI addresses the complex intersection of Heidegger's critique of Nietzsche's nihilistic legacy with his failed bid to assume philosophical leadership of the National Socialist "revolution," isolating its philosophical sources and establishing the important philosophical lessons Heidegger learned from his "great political error.". (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers of the past 150 years and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) is his most important work on ethics and politics. A polemical contribution to moral and political theory, it offers a critique of moral values and traces the historical evolution of concepts such as guilt, conscience, responsibility, law and justice. This is a revised and updated edition of one of the most successful volumes to appear in Cambridge Texts in the (...) History of Political Thought. Keith Ansell-Pearson has modified his introduction to Nietzsche's classic text, and Carol Diethe has incorporated a number of changes to the translation itself, reflecting the considerable advances in our understanding of Nietzsche in the twelve years since this edition first appeared. In this new guise the Cambridge Texts edition of Nietzsche's Genealogy should continue to enjoy widespread adoption, at both undergraduate and graduate level. (shrink)

This is an important, curious book that is worth the effort it takes to get through it. It makes a distinctive case for the centrality of Nietzsche's grappling with nihilism, giving content to his notoriously thin notion of "affirming life," and it offers a nuanced account of "will to power," specifically in relation to Schopenhauer's "will to live." Among its curiosities are its method of extensive reliance on the collection of notes published as The Will to Power and its (...) characterization of a paradox at the core of Nietzsche's project: affirming life turns on embracing the idea that "will to power requires pain as one of the conditions of its satisfaction" . Only the second of these can be discussed here. And while the writing style tediously resembles a form of scholasticism that gets in the way of understanding what exactly Reginster is arguing, the book repays the reader's forbearance by offering some genuinely provocative ideas.Reginster's main project is to show how nihilism and its solution are central to Nietzsche's thinking about the "affirmation of life." This hinges on revaluing suffering as intrinsic to satisfying an ultimate desire to overcome resistance. In a nutshell, that is Nietzsche's "doctrine of the will to power," and it leads Reginster to claim that the. (shrink)

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, Nietzsche embodies (...) the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

Stephen Mulhall traces the development of an ideal of asceticism through Western culture. He shows how influential this self-denying attitude to life has been not just in religion and morality but in aesthetics, science, and philosophy. And he illuminates the role of the ascetic ideal in the thought of Nietzsche, who introduced the concept.

'Yes, what is Dionysian? - This book provides an answer - "a man who knows" speaks in it, the initiate and disciple of his god.' The Birth of Tragedy is a book about the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy is the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline (...) and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche undertakes a critique of the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. In its wide-ranging discussion of the nature of art, science and religion, Nietzsche's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still of concern today. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Nietzsche referred to his critique of Judeo-Christian moral values as philosophizing with the hammer. On the Genealogy of Morals (originally subtitled A Polemic) is divided into three essays. The first is an investigation into the origins of our moral values, or as Nietzsche calls them moral prejudices. The second essay addresses the concept of guilt and its role in the development of civilization and religion. The third essay considers suffering and its role in human existence. What might be of most (...) value to today's reader is not necessarily Nietzsche's views on particular ethical issues, but rather his encouragement to think independently and to actualize the self. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with ways in which history is used in an anti-foundationalist context. Taking the example of Hans Blumenberg's attempt to provide a defence for modern reason without appeal to transcendental or teleological supports, it argues that such an approach is insufficient, and that its attempt to rest upon an ontological minimum only allows residual metaphysical components to remain within it. This becomes clear when Blumenberg is compelled to engage Nietzsche, a thinker who puts the chronological understanding (...) of time into question, and with it any attempt to use chronological history as a replacement for metaphysics. The remainder of the paper explores Nietzsche's genealogical method as an attempt to engage with an excessive becoming that goes unnoticed by conceptions of history such as Blumenberg's. This is, in a sense, an abuse of history, but it is directed against an abuse found within historical analysis when such analysis remains blind to an ontology of time. (shrink)

Daybreak marks the arrival of Nietzsche's 'mature' philosophy and is indispensable for an understanding of his critique of morality and 'revaluation of all values'. This volume presents the distinguished translation by R. J. Hollingdale, with a new introduction that argues for a dramatic change in Nietzsche's views from Human, All Too Human to Daybreak, and shows how this change, in turn, presages the main themes of Nietzsche's later and better-known works such as On the Genealogy of Morality. The main themes (...) of Daybreak are located in their intellectual and philosophical contexts: in Nietzsche's training as a classical philologist and his fascination with the Sophists and Thucydides; in the moral philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer, which are the central foci of Nietzsche's critique of morality; and in the German Materialist movement of the 1850s and after, which shaped Nietzsche's conception of persons. The edition is completed by a chronology, notes and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

Hermeneutics has had a pervasive influence on contemporary philosophy, social and cultural theory, literary criticism, and aesthetics. In this book one of Europe's foremost contemporary philosophers provides hermeneutics with a fresh relevance and a substantive account of its philosophical meaning for science, ethics, religion, and art. Vattimo argues for a reading of hermeneutics that radicalises it according to what the author calls its 'nihilistic vocation', a term referring to the interpretive character of truth and taken from Nietzsche's (...) statement that there are, in the modern period, no facts, only interpretations. Modernity, for Vattimo, is conceived as the advent of nihilism, and the central question of the book is to ask what it means to take this nihilistic vocation seriously. This involves not simply accepting the current status of hermeneutics, but evaluating why it appears when, and where, it does. (shrink)

Viewing Foucault in the light of work by Continental and American philosophers, most notably Nietzsche, Habermas, Deleuze, Richard Rorty, Bernard Williams, and Ian Hacking, Genealogy as Critique shows that philosophical genealogy involves not only the critique of modernity but also its transformation. Colin Koopman engages genealogy as a philosophical tradition and a method for understanding the complex histories of our present social and cultural conditions. He explains how our understanding of Foucault can benefit from productive dialogue with philosophical allies to (...) push Foucaultian genealogy a step further and elaborate a means of addressing our most intractable contemporary problems. (shrink)

Nietzsche stands alone among the great nineteenth-century philosophers of history to have been trained and employed as an historian. As a classical philologist, he was trained not only in Ancient languages, but also in the methods of critical hermeneutics, textual genealogy, and cultural theory. Despite this there has been comparatively little scholarly attention paid to Nietzsche's most pointed reflection on history: _On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life _, the second of his _Untimely Meditations_. (...) In this monograph, Anthony K. Jensen demonstrates how ‘timely’ this work of Nietzsche’s is, revealing a text that offers insight into the most important aspects of Nietzsche’s then-contemporary philosophy of history, including teleological theories, Hegelianism, Positivism, romantic historiography, classical philology, and the role of history in education and politics. Using a straightforward and conversational approach, Jensen contextualizes the figures and movements that serve as Nietzsche’s interlocutors, and situates this text within Nietzsche’s larger philosophical project. Through an examination of Nietzsche's views, the author argues for the contemporary philosophical relevance of _On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life_, and advances the scholarly discussion of this oft-overlooked but nevertheless essential text. (shrink)

Written in 1888, while Nietzsche was at the height of his brilliance, these two polemics blaze with provocative, inflammatory rhetoric. Nietzsche's "grand declaration of war," Twilight of the Idol s examines what we worship and why. Intended by the author as a general introduction to his philosophy, it assails "idols" of Western philosophy and culture (Socratic rationality and Christian morality among them) and sets the scene for The Antichrist . In addition to its full-scale attack on Christianity and Jesus Christ, (...) The Antichrist denounces organized religion as a whole. Students of philosophy, history, and German literature will find both works essential reading. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works of (...) Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

The Beginnings of Nietzsche's Theory of Language is concerned with the years 1865 through Winter/Spring 1870-71. Four texts of Nietzsche's, "Vom Ursprung der Sprache", "Zur Teleologie", "Zu Schopenhauer", and "Anschauung Notes", are translated into English and interpreted from the perspective of Nietzsche's developing theory of language. An examination of the major influences of Schopenhauer, Kant, Eduard von Hartmann, and Frederick A. Lange are pursued. ;Theory, in this work, does not assume that it is possible to take a position of authority (...) or truth in the interpretation of texts, rather that interpretation of texts constitutes an attempt to uncover a discursive practice, to describe a discourse-object. The method used is Nietzsche's method of genealogy, which follows the formation of discourse, at once scattered, discontinuous, and regular and analyzes the process of rarefaction, consolidation and unification in that discourse. Genealogy is exegesis in Nietzsche's sense of it as rumination, as the slow, repetitive, gray activity of deciphering what is documented. Major genealogical nodes or elements of Nietzsche's beginning theory of language are used and reused in different contexts throughout the work, resulting in a cumulative effect which explores specific elements in Nietzsche's thinking about language. ;This work offers five major contributions to Nietzsche studies: a detailed introduction of the significant influence of Eduard von Hartmann upon Nietzsche's thinking; a comprehensive look at the influence of Lange's History of Materialism upon Nietzsche's beginning theory of language; a thorough analysis of "Zur Teleologie" and "Zu Schopenhauer" in the overall contexts of Nietzsche's thinking with regard to metaphysics and teleology; the gathering together and interpretation into a world view of the "Anschauung Notes"; and a close examination of Nietzsche's breaking away from Schopenhauer as it takes place before the publication of The Birth of Tragedy. ;Nietzsche's primary contributions to a theory of language in these beginning years are three: the adoption of the role of the unconscious instincts in the origins and ongoing production of language; the assertion that unconscious thought processes are a precondition for conscious thought; an examination of the relationships of language to epistemology, which results in the recognition of the limits of language as an instrument of truth, but a realization of the inestimable value and force of its symbolic and figurative aspects, aspects necessitated by the very nature of language itself. (shrink)

This book offers a historical introduction to fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion. It is divided into twenty-five chapters. The first chapter discusses the nature of piety drawing on Plato's Euthyphro. The next three chapters discuss the nature of evil, free will, foreknowledge, and sin in the context of Augustine's On Free Choice of Will. Chapter Five discusses Anslem's "ontological" argument for the existence of God. Chapter Six explores Ibn Sina's account of the nature of the soul and immortality. (...) The next two chapters explore the foundations of religious belief and mysticism in the company of al-Ghazali's The Rescuer from Error. Chapters nine through eleven discuss Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God as well as his account of God's impersonal and personal attributes. The twelfth chapter explores Marguerite Porete's account of mystical ascent as well as the doctrines of heaven and hell. Chapter Thirteen discusses Pascal's pragmatic argument for belief in the existence of God. Chapters Fourteen through Sixteen discuss Spinoza's understanding of God, our relationship to God, and the foundations of morality. Chapters Seventeen through Nineteen explore the argument from design, the existence of God, deism, and the problem of evil. Chapter Twenty investigates Mary Shepherd's defense of belief in miracles, while Chapter Twenty-One explores Mill's views on the utility of religion. Finally, chapters Twenty-Three through Twenty-Five explore the origins of modern morality and the relationship between religion and nihilism in the company of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality. (shrink)

The article situates Vico's hermeneutical science of history between a hermeneutics of suspicion and a redemptive hermeneutics. It discusses Vico's early writings and his ambivalent trajectory from Cartesian rationalism to counter-enlightenment historicist and critic of natural law reasoning. The complexity of Vico's thinking belies some of the popular treatments of his thought developed by Isaiah Berlin and others.

This article is an attempt to both reconstruct and sort out the hermeneutics of upbuilding emerging from Kierkegaard’s discourses. This hermeneutics turns out to be a method of transferring the Christian ideal from the level of idea to the level of life within the larger Christian anthropological project that Kierkegaard’s discourses constitute. What is shown herein is that this general hermeneutics of upbuilding consists of three dialectical movements defining, respectively, the relation between: the discourse and the reader (...) (the hermeneutic of spiritual life), Scripture and the reader (the hermeneutic of content internalization) and the reader and the temporal world (the hermeneutic of repetition). At the center of Kierkegaard’s Christian anthropological project is the relation between Scripture and the reader, a relation to whose description three hermeneutic levels (presentation—understanding—appropriation) are introduced here. These levels are in line both with three movements of the upbuilding process (the terrifying—consolation—upbuilding), which one can identify on the basis of a reading of the discourses, and with three conditions that are, in the opinion of the Danish philosopher, required in order “to look at oneself with true blessing in the mirror of the word.”. (shrink)

On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about interpretation and the history of ethics which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both. This is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. The introduction places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments THE GENEALOGY OF PRAGMATISM by Anthony J. Cascardi At SEVERAL POINTS in Philosophy and the Minor ofNature (1979) and in.the essays collected as Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), Richard Rorty mentions John Dewey as one of a group of "edifying" philosophers whose tutelary presence and audiority are invoked in the project which he elsewhere describes as die "circumvention" of Western metaphysics.1 Dewey joins the ranks of his (...) fellow American pragmatiste James and Peirce as well as those of two odier rather disparate groups: on die one hand, those philosophers like Davidson, Sellars, and Quine, who demonstrate from within diat analytical philosophy eventually transcends and cancels itself; and on the other, those "continental" philosophers like Foucault, Gadamer, and Derrida, who comfortably accept the image of philosophy as a subgenre of "literature" or "writing," a discourse with no privileged insights into the nature of rationality or claims to truth. Rorty's own project is a blend of all diree. Widi James he claims that truth is simply "what is good in die way of belief," not the proper or even fruitful object of theoretical speculation ("truth is not the sort of thing one should expect to have a philosophically interesting dieory about.... Pragmatiste think that the history of attempts to isolate the True or the Good, or to define die word 'true' or 'good,' supports their suspicion that there is no interesting work to be done in this area.... The history of attempts to do so, and of criticisms of such attempts, is roughly coextensive wim the history of that literary genre we call 'philosophy' — a genre founded by Plato," Consequences ofPragmatism, pp. xiii-xiv). Yet he shares widi Davidson, Sellars, and Quine the will to demonstrate the limits of analytical phdosophy while framing his own propositions in the language ofanalysis. 295 296Philosophy and Literature Foucault and Derrida in their turn complete the image of life in a "postphilosophical " culture, where the designation of "post" indicates a final refusal to regard pragmatism as yet another metanarrative ofthe history of philosophy. In this case, die historicist part of the Hegelian teaching, which is dieir common inheritance, the assimilation of logic to history, is accepted, while the assimilation of history to logic, which completes the Hegelian syndiesis, is rejected on account of its totalizing designs and its reliance on die notion of Absolute Spirit. So seen, the genealogy of pragmatism is of considerably broader scope than die initial intentions of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature would suggest. In diat book, Rorty claimed to be marshalling the various forces named above not so much in response to Platonism as in reply to a single episode in the history of philosophy — viz., that which begins in Descartes and receives its fullest expression in Kant, and considers truth as a matter of the accurate correspondence of ideas held inforo intemo to objects in the external world, and accordingly regards die world as a representation of the mind. Heidegger articulated a similar complaint when he spoke of the Cartesian age as that in which die world was first determined as a "picture" ("Die Zeit des Weltbildes") and noted diat from this time forward epistemology was determined as "first philosophy": "a dieory ofknowledge had to be erected before a theory of the world."2 Pragmatism is on mis more limited view primarily a response to the conditions of a technological age and to the conception ofreason as mathematical representation which sustains modern science. Thus Rorty should well be surprised at Dewey's claim to have applied a scientific and empirical method in die study of metaphysics, whose proper objects consist, in Dewey's description, of"die large and constant features of human sufferings, enjoyments, trials, failures, and successes together with the institutions of art, science, technology, politics, and religion,"3 for to have done so would have been to have countered the Cartesian division between science on the one hand and qualities and values ("experience") on die other. Instead, Rorty imputes a different claim to Experience and Nature and sees it as a way-station on the pam toward that hypothetical book called Nature and Culture, in which die idea of an empirical method... (shrink)

The project of inquiring into the history of our morals is premised upon the idea that some of our deeply held moral convictions might have emerged through a complicated historical process, rather than, say, through a process of rational deliberation. Were that the case, our philosophical efforts to properly understand our present moral conceptions, as well as our efforts to criticize them, would certainly profit from serious attention to the history of our morals. Jesse Prinz notes, however, that (...) there are several different genealogical methods we could employ in pursuit of this project of historicizing morals.1 Prinz focuses upon three such methods—utilitarian genealogies (such as the ones offered by... (shrink)

Hermeneutics originates in the mediation of meaningful utterances understood as arising from a suprahuman, divine domain. The religious origin of hermeneutics is centrally connected with the history of Christianity both in the Patristic period, ending with St. Augustine, and in the modern era of Reformation and Counter‐Reformation. Schleiermacher outlines a general theory of interpretation, while resisting any claims to special status of biblical hermeneutics. This chapter charts both facets of hermeneutics before ending with the relation (...) of hermeneutics to the phenomenology of the sacred. The masters of suspicion, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, understood religion as a cultural phenomenon, and one which masks a deeper reality. The hermeneutics of religion continues to be a fundamental philosophical and theological concern. Hermeneutics and religious phenomena inform each other in the development of a hermeneutics of religion and an exploration of the religious origins of hermeneutics. (shrink)

In the present article I wish to discuss the positive aspect of Nietzsche’s thought. This includes the attempt to avoid the nihilism of a simple inversion of Platonism and the fact that for Nietzsche, critical/genealogical philosophy is always subordinate to the will to affirm existence “as it is.” In this regard, I will be drawing especially on the work of Gilles Deleuze, whose Nietzsche and Philosophy remains the canonical defense of the positive in Nietzsche’s thought. In the secondpart (...) of the paper, however, I will argue that the “higher morality” generated by this position is essentially “otherless.” While this critique is not in itself devastating,I will go on to argue that this ethic ultimately generates a paradox in Nietzsche’s thought against which the will to affirmation is finally destroyed. (shrink)

In the present article I wish to discuss the positive aspect of Nietzsche’s thought. This includes the attempt to avoid the nihilism of a simple inversion of Platonism and the fact that for Nietzsche, critical/genealogical philosophy is always subordinate to the will to affirm existence “as it is.” In this regard, I will be drawing especially on the work of Gilles Deleuze, whose Nietzsche and Philosophy remains the canonical defense of the positive in Nietzsche’s thought. In the secondpart (...) of the paper, however, I will argue that the “higher morality” generated by this position is essentially “otherless.” While this critique is not in itself devastating,I will go on to argue that this ethic ultimately generates a paradox in Nietzsche’s thought against which the will to affirmation is finally destroyed. (shrink)

In the recent past, attempts to revitalize historico-religious studies have challenged the charismatic appeal of some of the most celebrated scholars of the twentieth century. At the same time, the old and ideological frameworks that characterized the field have been critically analyzed and deconstructed. The disciplinary status quo, taken for granted for quite a long time, has been shaken to its foundation, paving the way for new approaches. However, the postmodern tenet of problematizing any authority has also become a convenient (...) shortcut to blur the distinction between scientific signal and nonepistemic noise. Despite this troublesome feature, some scholars have deployed postmodern and poststructuralist tools to study the genealogy, reception, implementation, and diffusion of cultural representations within the aforementioned academic discipline. The present article briefly reviews one of the most recent and remarkable examples of such scholarship, that is, The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Change, 1800–2000. (shrink)

In this extraordinary contribution to Nietzsche studies, Robert Alejandro offers an original interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy viewed as a complete whole. Alejandro painstakingly traces the different ways in which Nietzsche reconfigured and shifted his analyses of morality and of the human condition, until he was content with the final result: nothing was dispensable; everything was necessary. This is a philosophy of reconciliation--hardly nihilism--and it is a perspective that is not adequately addressed elsewhere in the literature on Nietzsche. Alejandro (...) traces the evolution of Nietzsche's thought by identifying the different layers of his philosophy, expressed in a complex array of stories and historical narratives. Alejandro analyzes the different stories of Nietzsche, places those stories within a tradition of genealogical theorizing, and interprets both the stories and the genealogy in terms of one of Nietzsche's unique features, his use of "historiobiography." According to Alejandro, historiobiography blends the idea of an attunement with all history and one's awareness of this attunement. As a mode of philosophizing, historiobiography allows Nietzsche to view all human history as if it runs through his own life and thoughts. Alejandro argues that Nietzsche deployed three strategies to find relief from his sense of the meaninglessness of life: his magnified concept of what he himself represented in human history, his doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and his philosophy of reconciliation. "I am confident that this book will be considered essential reading for any scholar doing serious research into Nietzsche's thought and its implications.... The author carefully traces the shifts and turns and occasionally the contradictions and dead-ends in the development of Nietzsche's major themes. I have never read an account of Nietzsche's thought as fully and convincingly supported by textual reference as this book. Others will disagree with the author's readings of Nietzsche, that is the nature of scholarship, but I cannot see how they could be ignored." --_Edward Portis, Texas A & M University_ "This is a major work on Nietzsche. Robert Alejandro offers us a reading of Nietzsche's Herculean efforts that Nietzsche scholars and scholars who write about modernity and postmodernity will be unable to ignore. This wide ranging and deep book addresses major issues in cultural history, psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology, and the vast literature on modernity and secularization. I expect this to be a book that generates debate and discussion for years to come." --_Robert Hollinger, Iowa State University_ "Robert Alejandro delivers a rich, lively account of Nietzsche's quest for meaning. By focusing on the theme of _historiobiography_, Alejandro illuminates Nietzsche's bold attempt to place himself at the center of a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of Western civilization. A thoughtful, well-crafted book, written very much in the spirit of Nietzsche himself." --_Daniel Conway, Texas A & M University_. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Wilhelm Dilthey, Selected Works, Volume IV: Hermeneutics and the Study of History ed. by Rudolf A. Makkreel, Frithjof RodiCharles BambachRudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi, editors. Wilhelm Dilthey, Selected Works, Volume IV: Hermeneutics and the Study of History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 409. Cloth, $59.50.Contemporary hermeneutics has been dominated by the work of Heidegger and Gadamer. Their phenomenological approach (...) to the human world has exerted such a powerful influence in recent years that one can hardly enter a discussion about the philosophical meaning of hermeneutics that is not already framed in the terms of their discourse. At the same time, there is less familiarity with the origins and sources of the hermeneutic method or with the thought of Wilhelm Dilthey. The editors of Dilthey’s Selected Works, Rudolf Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi, have set about trying to rectify this situation. They have sought to provide a richer context for the study of hermeneutics by bringing out a six-volume collection of writings from one of the major hermeneutical philosophers in the Western tradition. The publication of Volume Four in this series helps to accomplish this task by offering new translations of important Dilthey texts covering both the history and genesis of hermeneutics and a genealogical account of Dilthey’s own hermeneutical approach to history. Only one short essay in this volume, “The Rise of Hermeneutics” (1900), has been published before, and even this older translation has been revised and supplemented by material from the Nachlass. But what is the significance of this material and how does it help to achieve a fuller understanding of hermeneutics and its history?The selections in Volume Four cover the period from 1860 to 1903 with a heavy emphasis on the period from 1860 to 1868 (over two-thirds of the book focuses on Dilthey’s 1860 Preisschrift on “Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutical System in Relation to Earlier Protestant Hermeneutics,” notes from his 1867–68 lectures “On Understanding and Hermeneutics,” and three reviews from 1862 on historical literature from Buckle, Burckhardt, and F.C. Schlosser). The remaining essays from 1900–1903 provide a sense of Dilthey’s later reflections on hermeneutics and on the meaning of the eighteenth century for historiography and as a philosophical approach to history. The editors of this collection have chosen these texts carefully; the selections in Volume Four are organized around a specific theme. By culling significant early texts about hermeneutics and history and juxtaposing them with a number of later texts on the same topics, they hope to show the genesis of Dilthey’s own path of thought. What emerges from an attentive reading of these sources—especially when carried out within the context of the editors’ own principle of selection—is a highly persuasive view of Dilthey and his work. In the texts themselves we see Dilthey moving from his earlier role as the chronicler and historian of Protestant thought (who conceives of hermeneutics as an ancillary method of textual exegesis) to his later position as the philosopher of the historical world (who views hermeneutics as the epistemological method for the grounding of the human sciences). What we see here is a developmental account of Dilthey’s thought path: from the traditional scholar who conceives of hermeneutics as a method for interpreting texts to the philosopher who understands it as the fundamental science for interpreting historical life. This shift within Dilthey’s work from a hermeneutics of textuality to a hermeneutics of historicity marks an important turning point in the history of the hermeneutical [End Page 641] tradition, a turning point that helped to form the basis of all later philosophical hermeneutics.The five essays from Part Two—“Interpretations of History”—offer a smattering of Dilthey’s own writings on historiography, the theory of history, and the role of the eighteenth-century German tradition in forging an historicist understanding of “human affairs” (373) whose “organic nexus” and “inner purposiveness as a whole” opened up a radically new conception of historical being. Most contemporary continental philosophers will get lost in the textured details of Dilthey’s analyses because what passes for “philosophy” in our epoch pales by comparison with the rich... (shrink)

The aim of this study is to analyse the fundamentals of Eliade’s view of the History of Religions, with a focus on the origins of this view, in the context of the criticism against the field of study corresponding to religious studies as they have developed over the last two centuries. The first part of the study briefly evaluates religious studies as to where it falls on a spectrum ranging from scientific objectivity to ideology, while the second part aims (...) at developing the hypothesis according to which the principles of the study of religions are found in the notion of “experience,” under the determinative influence of Nae Ionescu’s lectures. (shrink)

Nietzsche's Critique of Staticism Manuel Dries Part 1: Time, History, Method Nietzsche's Cultural Criticism and his Historical Methodology 23 Andrea Orsucci Thucydides, Nietzsche, and Williams 35 Raymond Geuss The Late Nietzsche's Fundamental Critique of Historical Scholarship 51 Thomas H. Brobjer Part II: Genealogy, Time, Becoming Nietzsche's Timely Genealogy: An Exercise in Anti-Reductionist Naturalism 63 Tinneke Beeckman From Kantian Temporality to Nietzschean Naturalism 75 R. Kevin Hill Nietzsche's Problem of the Past 87 John Richardson Towards Adualism: Becoming and Nihilism (...) in Nietzsche's Philosophy 113 Mamuel Dries Part III: Eternal Recurrence, Meaning, Agency Shocking Time: Reading Eternal Recurrence Literally 149 Lawrence J. Hatab Suicide, Meaning, and Redemption 163 Paul S. Loeb Nietzsche and the Temporality of (Self-)Legislation I91 Herman W. Siemens Part IV: Nietzsche's Contemporaries Geschichte or Historie? Nietzsche's Second Untimely Meditation in the Context of Nineteenth-Century Philological Studies 213 Anthonyl K. Jensen 'An Uncanny Re-Awakening': Nietzsche's Renascence of the Renaissance out of the Spirit of Jacob Burckhardt 231 Martin A. Ruehl Part V: Tragic and Musical Time Metaphysical and Historical Claims in The Birth of Tragedy 275 Katherine Harloe Nietzsche's Musical Conception of Time 291 Jonathan R. Cohen. (shrink)

This volume comprises papers presented at a conference marking the 50th anniversary of Joachim Wach's death, and the centennial of Mircea Eliade's birth.

This collection of essays by some of the leading scholars in religion in North America explores the complex relationship between the academic study of religion and personal religious experience. Each volume in this new series explores a central theme or topic that has informed the religious experiences of humanity throughout history. Each theme is discussed from a comparative perspective using a variety of methodological approaches.

Our objective will be to argue in favor of the idea that in Nietzsche there is no genealogical method, stricto sensu, with universalist and systemic-substantivist epistemic claims (traditionally conceived by justificationist and foundationalist philosophies from Plato to Hegel). However, there is a characteristic genealogical program, which opposes the majority genealogies and philosophies insofar as a self-suppression of the method is imposed as the primary and heterodox register of its reflection. We start from the hypothesis that Nietzsche’s genealogy, understood (...) programmatically, became viable because it was markedly structured on the basis of three reflexive movements that free his genealogical thinking from an analytical-methodological conduct, like the canon, which are: (i) variation of style in his writing; (ii) critical historicism or radical and (iii) discontinuity of origin. However, it would be pointless to show how clearly the Nietzschean genealogical program was outlined if we couldn’t say where it came from, for whom and for what purpose, or even more so, what it is intended to denounce. Therefore, in our conclusion, we will show, with some reservation, how the Nietzschean genealogical program lends itself to evaluating the dimension of power. (shrink)

This volume is the first of two to provide a new edition of Human, All Too Human, the earliest of Nietzsche's works in which his philosophical concerns and methodologies can be glimpsed. Published in 1878, it marked both a stylistic and an intellectual shift away from Nietzsche's own youthful affiliation with Romantic excesses of German thought and culture. It presents the precursors of the ideas that would later become Nietzsche's theories on genealogy and of the U;bermensch. This new translation presents (...) Nietzsche's text in the straightforward, direct prose of the original. It is the first English edition to include the significant variants and revisions of the original published text, and the first to provide cross-references to the forthcoming volume of Nietzsche's notebook material from the same period. It includes explanatory notes and a translator's afterword detailing the history of the work. (shrink)