Paolo Stellino

The first time that Nietzsche crossed the path of Dostoevsky was in the winter of 1886–87. While in Nice, Nietzsche discovered in a bookshop the volume L’esprit souterrain. Two years later, he defined Dostoevsky as the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn. The second, metaphorical encounter between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky happened on the verge of nihilism. Nietzsche announced the death of God, whereas Dostoevsky warned against the danger of atheism. This book describes the double encounter between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Following the chronological thread offered by Nietzsche’s correspondence, the author provides a detailed analysis of Nietzsche’s engagement with Dostoevsky from the very beginning of his discovery to the last days before his mental breakdown. The second part of this book aims to dismiss the wide-spread and stereotypical reading according to which Dostoevsky foretold and criticized in his major novels some of Nietzsche’s most dangerous and nihilistic theories. In order to reject such reading, the author focuses on the following moral di-lemma: If God does not exist, is everything permitted?

This volume presents a collection of papers on Nietzsche written by Volker Gerhardt over the past twenty-five years. The trait d’union among them is the idea that, more than a hundred years after Nietzsche’s death, the sparks of his thought—the Funken of Gerhardt’s title—can still ignite fires in contemporary readers, even to the extent that for no other nineteenth-century thinker is the definition of “arsonist” more appropriate. The range of subjects that Gerhardt tackles is wide: from the relations among the body, the self, and the “I” in Zarathustra’s speech, “On the Despisers of the Body” to Nietzsche’s perspectivism, immoralism, and moral individualism; and from Nietzsche’s and Kant’s conceptions ..

Nietzsche’s view of suicide is a topic which in the last years has been the focus of works such as Julian Young’s and Paul S. Loeb’s. Within this context, this paper seeks to add new elements to the discussion. To this purpose, Nietzsche’s attitude to suicide will be explored from two different points of view. The first part of the paper focuses on the distinction between voluntary (free) and involuntary (natural) death. Nietzsche’s appraisal of both will be scrutinized. In particular, through the comparison with the Classical and, especially, Stoic philosophy and through the critique of the religious (particularly Christian) conception of death, it will be shown, among other things, that Nietzsche defends the rationality of suicide, presents a view of voluntary death as emptied of morality and fights against the Christian denaturalization of suicide. In the second part of the paper, suicide will be considered from a philosophical-existentialist viewpoint, that is, as a possible consequence of the meaninglessness of human existence. The problem is to judge whether life is or is not worth living in a world devoid of meaning and purpose. Nietzsche’s attitude to suicide will be analyzed in a chronological way (early, middle and late Nietzsche). Special attention will be given to the role played by art. The relevant conclusion is that, although in different ways, Nietzsche gives an affirmative answer to the question whether life is worth living in a world devoid of meaning and purpose.

Cet article a pour but de développer la critique qu’Amartya Sen adresse à la théorie du conflit de Samuel P. Huntington. Plus spécifiquement, je me propose d’appuyer l’idée de Sen, selon laquelle l’identité est toujours plurielle et dynamique, sur la conception de ‘généalogie’ élaborée par Friedrich Nietzsche et, postérieurement, développée par Michel Foucault. Dans un second temps, je reprendrai l’affirmation de Sen, selon laquelle une vision ‘solitariste’ de l’identité humaine s’avère potentiellement dangereuse. Cela permettra de montrer qu’une approche non monolithique à la question de l’identité favorise l’apaisement des tensions sociales et des conflits culturels déterminés, entre autres, par la crise migratoire récente.