Christopher Janaway
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279692
- eISBN:
- 9780191707407
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279692.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book presents a full commentary on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality and combines close reading of key passages with an overview of Nietzsche's wider aims. It argues that Nietzsche's ...
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This book presents a full commentary on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality and combines close reading of key passages with an overview of Nietzsche's wider aims. It argues that Nietzsche's practice of genealogy pursues psychological and historical truths concerning the origins of modern moral values, but also emphasizes the significance of his rhetorical methods as an instrument of persuasion. Nietzsche's outlook is broadly one of naturalism, but he is critical of typical scientific and philosophical methods for their advocacy of impersonality and suppression of the affects. Nietzsche's principal opponents are Schopenhauer and Paul Rée, both of whom account for morality in terms of selflessness. Nietzsche believes that our allegiance to a post-Christian morality that centres around selflessness, compassion, guilt, and denial of the instincts is not primarily rational but affective: underlying feelings, often ambivalent and poorly grasped in conscious thought, explain our moral beliefs. The Genealogy is designed to detach the reader from his or her allegiance to morality and prepare for the possibility of new values. According to Nietzsche's ‘perspectivism’, this book argues that one can best understand a topic such as morality through allowing as many of one's feelings as possible to speak about it. And Nietzsche's further aim is to enable us to ‘feel differently’: to this end his provocation of the reader's affects both helps us grasp the affective origins of our attitudes and prepares the way for healthier values such as the affirmation of life and the self-satisfaction to be attained by ‘giving style to one's character’.Less
This book presents a full commentary on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality and combines close reading of key passages with an overview of Nietzsche's wider aims. It argues that Nietzsche's practice of genealogy pursues psychological and historical truths concerning the origins of modern moral values, but also emphasizes the significance of his rhetorical methods as an instrument of persuasion. Nietzsche's outlook is broadly one of naturalism, but he is critical of typical scientific and philosophical methods for their advocacy of impersonality and suppression of the affects. Nietzsche's principal opponents are Schopenhauer and Paul Rée, both of whom account for morality in terms of selflessness. Nietzsche believes that our allegiance to a post-Christian morality that centres around selflessness, compassion, guilt, and denial of the instincts is not primarily rational but affective: underlying feelings, often ambivalent and poorly grasped in conscious thought, explain our moral beliefs. The Genealogy is designed to detach the reader from his or her allegiance to morality and prepare for the possibility of new values. According to Nietzsche's ‘perspectivism’, this book argues that one can best understand a topic such as morality through allowing as many of one's feelings as possible to speak about it. And Nietzsche's further aim is to enable us to ‘feel differently’: to this end his provocation of the reader's affects both helps us grasp the affective origins of our attitudes and prepares the way for healthier values such as the affirmation of life and the self-satisfaction to be attained by ‘giving style to one's character’.
Christopher Janaway
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198250036
- eISBN:
- 9780191597817
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198250037.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Centres on Schopenhauer's conception of the self and how it relates to the world, primarily dealing with his book The World as Will and Representation. It locates Schopenhauer in relation to Kant, of ...
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Centres on Schopenhauer's conception of the self and how it relates to the world, primarily dealing with his book The World as Will and Representation. It locates Schopenhauer in relation to Kant, of whom he was both a follower and a critic. While accepting Kant's transcendental idealism and the associated notion of the ‘I’ as a pure subject of knowledge distinct from the world of objects, Schopenhauer undercuts this notion with a conception of the self as will. The self as will is primarily active, embodied, organic, and manifests pre‐rational ends and drives. The book shows how Schopenhauer arrives at a position in which idealism and materialism are correlative positions, but where a metaphysical account of the thing in itself as will takes primacy. It explores Schopenhauer's arguments that willing is identical with acting, and that at the level of individual willing there is no freedom. The book assesses the relevance of Schopenhauer's conception of the self to recent philosophical debates, and explores its influence on Wittgenstein and on Nietzsche.Less
Centres on Schopenhauer's conception of the self and how it relates to the world, primarily dealing with his book The World as Will and Representation. It locates Schopenhauer in relation to Kant, of whom he was both a follower and a critic. While accepting Kant's transcendental idealism and the associated notion of the ‘I’ as a pure subject of knowledge distinct from the world of objects, Schopenhauer undercuts this notion with a conception of the self as will. The self as will is primarily active, embodied, organic, and manifests pre‐rational ends and drives. The book shows how Schopenhauer arrives at a position in which idealism and materialism are correlative positions, but where a metaphysical account of the thing in itself as will takes primacy. It explores Schopenhauer's arguments that willing is identical with acting, and that at the level of individual willing there is no freedom. The book assesses the relevance of Schopenhauer's conception of the self to recent philosophical debates, and explores its influence on Wittgenstein and on Nietzsche.
Robert G. Morrison
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238652
- eISBN:
- 9780191679711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238652.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter traces the development of Nietzsche's thoughts on Buddhism. Nietzsche believed that the only acceptable response to nihilism was not the founding of a European Buddhism, but the creation ...
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This chapter traces the development of Nietzsche's thoughts on Buddhism. Nietzsche believed that the only acceptable response to nihilism was not the founding of a European Buddhism, but the creation of a new vision of man and existence with values not founded on some fictitious transcendental world or being, but in life as it is in the natural world, which is man's only world. Thus, the possible advent of a European form of Buddhism was a danger that would obscure the sight of that open sea, and was something he therefore wished to avoid. Nevertheless, Buddhism might have a purpose: ‘a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable’ as one of the ‘many types of philosophy which need to be taught…as a hammer’. The metaphor of the hammer, however, does not imply destruction but the hammer's use as a means of ‘sounding out’, as when one strikes a bell to examine whether it rings true or is flawed. The implication here is that the flawed would be those who were attracted to Buddhism.Less
This chapter traces the development of Nietzsche's thoughts on Buddhism. Nietzsche believed that the only acceptable response to nihilism was not the founding of a European Buddhism, but the creation of a new vision of man and existence with values not founded on some fictitious transcendental world or being, but in life as it is in the natural world, which is man's only world. Thus, the possible advent of a European form of Buddhism was a danger that would obscure the sight of that open sea, and was something he therefore wished to avoid. Nevertheless, Buddhism might have a purpose: ‘a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable’ as one of the ‘many types of philosophy which need to be taught…as a hammer’. The metaphor of the hammer, however, does not imply destruction but the hammer's use as a means of ‘sounding out’, as when one strikes a bell to examine whether it rings true or is flawed. The implication here is that the flawed would be those who were attracted to Buddhism.
Jerrold Levinson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199206179
- eISBN:
- 9780191709982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206179.003.0022
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This essay explores Schopenhauer's relationship to Kant, and stresses the extent to which the great pessimist's aesthetic philosophy relies on Kant's metaphysics even more than it does on Kant's ...
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This essay explores Schopenhauer's relationship to Kant, and stresses the extent to which the great pessimist's aesthetic philosophy relies on Kant's metaphysics even more than it does on Kant's aesthetics. It highlights the breadth of Schopenhauer's vision of the role of art and of the liberating aesthetic experiences it makes possible. It addresses the puzzle of how the art of music — which according to Schopenhauer presents us with blind, ceaseless, and hateful willing in its most unvarnished form — can yet provide aesthetic experience of the highest order, justifying Schopenhauer's according to music the foremost position among the arts.Less
This essay explores Schopenhauer's relationship to Kant, and stresses the extent to which the great pessimist's aesthetic philosophy relies on Kant's metaphysics even more than it does on Kant's aesthetics. It highlights the breadth of Schopenhauer's vision of the role of art and of the liberating aesthetic experiences it makes possible. It addresses the puzzle of how the art of music — which according to Schopenhauer presents us with blind, ceaseless, and hateful willing in its most unvarnished form — can yet provide aesthetic experience of the highest order, justifying Schopenhauer's according to music the foremost position among the arts.
Bryan Magee
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198237228
- eISBN:
- 9780191706233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198237227.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Schopenhauer wrote candidly about sex at a time when almost nobody did. He saw consideration of it as the means of reproduction whereby human beings come into existence as inescapable for ...
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Schopenhauer wrote candidly about sex at a time when almost nobody did. He saw consideration of it as the means of reproduction whereby human beings come into existence as inescapable for metaphysics, indeed for serious thinking. He conjectured that homosexual impulses were implanted by nature in adolescent and elderly males because, although they have sexual urges and can procreate, it is undesirable that they should do so, and therefore the urge is diverted. This, he thinks, is why homosexual activity has been widespread in all known societies. The manner in which he writes about it suggests that he had felt homosexual impulses himself but had not given way to them.Less
Schopenhauer wrote candidly about sex at a time when almost nobody did. He saw consideration of it as the means of reproduction whereby human beings come into existence as inescapable for metaphysics, indeed for serious thinking. He conjectured that homosexual impulses were implanted by nature in adolescent and elderly males because, although they have sexual urges and can procreate, it is undesirable that they should do so, and therefore the urge is diverted. This, he thinks, is why homosexual activity has been widespread in all known societies. The manner in which he writes about it suggests that he had felt homosexual impulses himself but had not given way to them.
Bryan Magee
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198237228
- eISBN:
- 9780191706233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198237227.003.0019
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Dylan Thomas made his name with one particular poem, ‘The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower’, which he wrote and published in his teens. Not only the theme but also the imagery in ...
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Dylan Thomas made his name with one particular poem, ‘The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower’, which he wrote and published in his teens. Not only the theme but also the imagery in detail is too close to certain passages in Schopenhauer for a coincidence to be likely. It is more probable that there was some influence. This is made more likely by the fact that there are good reasons to believe that the young Thomas had read a book called Thomas Hardy's Universe, by Ernest Brennecke, which contains many quotations from Schopenhauer, including, in its first chapter, the one closest to Thomas's poem.Less
Dylan Thomas made his name with one particular poem, ‘The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower’, which he wrote and published in his teens. Not only the theme but also the imagery in detail is too close to certain passages in Schopenhauer for a coincidence to be likely. It is more probable that there was some influence. This is made more likely by the fact that there are good reasons to believe that the young Thomas had read a book called Thomas Hardy's Universe, by Ernest Brennecke, which contains many quotations from Schopenhauer, including, in its first chapter, the one closest to Thomas's poem.
Ara Paul Barsam
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195329551
- eISBN:
- 9780199870110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329551.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
It has been said that there is no ethics without meta‐ethics: too true, Schweitzer would say. The philosophical ground‐plan against which Schweitzer operates — particularly Schopenhauer's and ...
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It has been said that there is no ethics without meta‐ethics: too true, Schweitzer would say. The philosophical ground‐plan against which Schweitzer operates — particularly Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's metaphysics of the “will” — is explored in this chapter in order to understand Schweitzer's particular characterization of life as the “will‐to‐live”. Moreover, whereas previous commentators have focused on reverence for life as a philosophical ethic located in that tradition, this Chapter demonstrates that Schweitzer's theology provides the hitherto undiscerned foundation for his “ethical mysticism”.Less
It has been said that there is no ethics without meta‐ethics: too true, Schweitzer would say. The philosophical ground‐plan against which Schweitzer operates — particularly Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's metaphysics of the “will” — is explored in this chapter in order to understand Schweitzer's particular characterization of life as the “will‐to‐live”. Moreover, whereas previous commentators have focused on reverence for life as a philosophical ethic located in that tradition, this Chapter demonstrates that Schweitzer's theology provides the hitherto undiscerned foundation for his “ethical mysticism”.
Christopher Janaway
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279692
- eISBN:
- 9780191707407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279692.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This opening chapter introduces Nietzsche's primary aims: genealogy and revaluation of values. Genealogy is the attempt to explain current moral feelings and beliefs by tracing their origins to ...
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This opening chapter introduces Nietzsche's primary aims: genealogy and revaluation of values. Genealogy is the attempt to explain current moral feelings and beliefs by tracing their origins to generic psychological states — typically drives and affects — in past human beings that caused our present attitudes via forms of cultural mediation. The values Nietzsche wishes to call into question centre around forms of selflessness. It is argued that the polemic of the Genealogy attacks not only morality, but his two named opponents in the Preface of the Genealogy, Schopenhauer and Rée, for their construal of morality as selflessness. Genealogy is instrumental towards a revaluation of values, in which positive value would cease to be assigned to being ‘unegoistic’. Both genealogy and revaluation presuppose arousal of affects, and the prevailing conception of philosophy as dispassionate and impersonal is, for Nietzsche, another manifestation of the promotion of selflessness that he finds in morality.Less
This opening chapter introduces Nietzsche's primary aims: genealogy and revaluation of values. Genealogy is the attempt to explain current moral feelings and beliefs by tracing their origins to generic psychological states — typically drives and affects — in past human beings that caused our present attitudes via forms of cultural mediation. The values Nietzsche wishes to call into question centre around forms of selflessness. It is argued that the polemic of the Genealogy attacks not only morality, but his two named opponents in the Preface of the Genealogy, Schopenhauer and Rée, for their construal of morality as selflessness. Genealogy is instrumental towards a revaluation of values, in which positive value would cease to be assigned to being ‘unegoistic’. Both genealogy and revaluation presuppose arousal of affects, and the prevailing conception of philosophy as dispassionate and impersonal is, for Nietzsche, another manifestation of the promotion of selflessness that he finds in morality.
Christopher Janaway
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279692
- eISBN:
- 9780191707407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279692.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter gives a section-by-section commentary on the Preface to the Genealogy. It includes comment on Nietzsche's opening theme of the impossibility of self-knowledge among ‘we knowers’, arguing ...
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This chapter gives a section-by-section commentary on the Preface to the Genealogy. It includes comment on Nietzsche's opening theme of the impossibility of self-knowledge among ‘we knowers’, arguing that the group in question here is philosophers or scholars. The use of various rhetorical devices is examined — selective autobiography to define his position as unique and consistent, irony, metaphor, heightened emotional tone, the alleged ‘unreadability’ of his writings. The chapter highlights conceptions of the self that Nietzsche alludes to, his statement of the origins and purposes of his book — investigating the origins of our morality and preparing to call them into question in the interests of furthering the flourishing of humanity — and provides some background orientation on the disagreements with Schopenhauer and Rée that Nietzsche especially mentions. Selflessness emerges as the definitive feature of the morality Nietzsche attacks.Less
This chapter gives a section-by-section commentary on the Preface to the Genealogy. It includes comment on Nietzsche's opening theme of the impossibility of self-knowledge among ‘we knowers’, arguing that the group in question here is philosophers or scholars. The use of various rhetorical devices is examined — selective autobiography to define his position as unique and consistent, irony, metaphor, heightened emotional tone, the alleged ‘unreadability’ of his writings. The chapter highlights conceptions of the self that Nietzsche alludes to, his statement of the origins and purposes of his book — investigating the origins of our morality and preparing to call them into question in the interests of furthering the flourishing of humanity — and provides some background orientation on the disagreements with Schopenhauer and Rée that Nietzsche especially mentions. Selflessness emerges as the definitive feature of the morality Nietzsche attacks.
Christopher Janaway
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279692
- eISBN:
- 9780191707407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279692.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Part of Nietzsche's discussion of the ascetic ideal in Genealogy III concerns aesthetic experience. This chapter first examines Nietzsche's criticisms of Kant for conceiving of beauty from the ...
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Part of Nietzsche's discussion of the ascetic ideal in Genealogy III concerns aesthetic experience. This chapter first examines Nietzsche's criticisms of Kant for conceiving of beauty from the passive spectator's point of view and in terms of disinterestedness. Nietzsche diagnoses all philosophers as having a propensity towards the ascetic, and uses Schopenhauer as an illustration: Schopenhauer's conception of aesthetic experience as a pure will-lessness was motivated by his own wish to escape from tormenting sexual desire. Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory provides the model for Nietzsche's discussion of pure, disinterested objectivity in Genealogy III, 12. Nietzsche argues that such pure objectivity is an impossibility, and that its motivation is very much ‘interested’. Nietzsche can also be seen here as turning Schopenhauer's doctrine of the primacy of the will over the intellect against Schopenhauer.Less
Part of Nietzsche's discussion of the ascetic ideal in Genealogy III concerns aesthetic experience. This chapter first examines Nietzsche's criticisms of Kant for conceiving of beauty from the passive spectator's point of view and in terms of disinterestedness. Nietzsche diagnoses all philosophers as having a propensity towards the ascetic, and uses Schopenhauer as an illustration: Schopenhauer's conception of aesthetic experience as a pure will-lessness was motivated by his own wish to escape from tormenting sexual desire. Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory provides the model for Nietzsche's discussion of pure, disinterested objectivity in Genealogy III, 12. Nietzsche argues that such pure objectivity is an impossibility, and that its motivation is very much ‘interested’. Nietzsche can also be seen here as turning Schopenhauer's doctrine of the primacy of the will over the intellect against Schopenhauer.
