Nietzsche is undoubtedly one of the most original and influential thinkers in the history of philosophy. With ideas such as the overman, will to power, the eternal recurrence, and perspectivism, Nietzsche challenges us to reconceive how it is that we know and understand the world, and what it means to be a human being. Further, in his works, he not only grapples with previous great philosophers and their ideas, but he also calls into question and redefines what it means to do philosophy. Nietzsche and the Philosophers for the first time sets out to examine explicitly Nietzsche’s relationship to his most important predecessors. This anthology includes essays by many of the leading Nietzsche scholars, including Keith Ansell-Pearson, Daniel Conway, Tracy B. Strong, Gary Shapiro, Babette Babich, Mark Anderson, and Paul S. Loeb. These excellent writers discuss Nietzsche’s engagement with such figures as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Socrates, Hume, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Rousseau, and the Buddha. Anyone interested in Nietzsche or the history of philosophy generally will find much of great interest in this volume.
Introduction
Mark T. Conard
1. Nietzsche's Place in the Aristotelian History of Philosophy
Paul S. Loeb
2. Twilight of an Idol: Nietzsche’s Affirmation of Socrates
Daniel Conway
3. Nietzsche’s Subversive Rewritings of Phaedo-Platonism
Mark Anderson
4. Nietzsche and Anaximander: The Innocence of Becoming, Or Life Without a Mortgage.
Gary Shapiro
5. The Pivot of Nihilism: Buddha Through Nietzsche’s Eyes
Douglas L. Berger
6. Nietzsche and Epicurus: In Search of the Heroic-Idyllic
Keith Ansell-Pearson
7. Nietzsche and Hume on the Genealogy and Psychology of Religion
Mark T. Conard
8. Nietzsche’s Critique: Reading Kant’s Critical Philosophy
Babette Babich
9. Nietzsche and Schopenhauer: ‘For Me what Mattered was the Human Being’
Anthony K. Jensen
10. Emerson Recomposed: Nietzsche’s Uses of his American ‘Soul-Brother’
David LaRocca
11. Nietzsche and Bernard Williams: Pessimism, Naturalism, and Truth.
Rex Welshon
12. The Obstinance of Voice: Rousseau and Nietzsche on Music, Language, and Human Association
Tracy B. Strong
Biography
Mark T. Conard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. He’s the co-editor of The Simpsons and Philosophy, and Woody Allen and Philosophy, both published by Open Court Press; and is editor of The Philosophy of Film Noir, The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese, The Philosophy of The Coen Brothers, and The Philosophy of Spike Lee.
"This volume proposes a major reassessment of Nietzsche’s position within the history of philosophy. Each chapter—written by some of the foremost scholars in the field—offers a novel interpretation of the role that specific thinkers, from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century, played in shaping Nietzsche’s subversive and critical perspective on what philosophy is meant to be. From Anaximander and Epicurus to Kant and Schopenhauer, including Nietzsche’s reception of Buddhism and his lasting effect on current moral philosophy, this volume presents a Nietzsche whose thought develops in detailed conversation with the history of philosophy itself. Far from breaking with the philosophical tradition, Nietzsche thus emerges as a genuinely modern thinker that seeks to write himself into this very tradition, highlighting its contradictions and possibilities."—Christian J. Emden, Rice University, USA
