Christopher Janaway

Designed for readers with no or little prior knowledge of the subject, this concise anthology brings together key texts in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Designed for readers with no or little prior knowledge of the subject. Presents two contrasting pieces on each of six topics. Texts range from Plato’s famous critique of art in the ‘Republic’ through Nietzsche’s ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ to Barthes’ ‘The Death of the Author’ 'and pieces in recent philosophical aesthetics from a number of traditions. Interactive editorial commentary helps readers to engage with the philosophical train of thought. Explains the argumentative and historical context in which each piece was written. Includes questions for debate and suggestions for further reading.

This paper aims to distinguish a conception of ‘free will’ that Nietzsche opposes (that of the pure agent unaffected by contingencies of character and circumstance) and one that he supports. In Human, All Too Human Nietzsche propounds the ‘total unfreedom’ of the will. But by the time of Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy he is more concerned (a) to trace the affective psychological states underlying beliefs in both free will and ‘unfree will’, (b) to suggest that the will might become free in certain individuals, a matter of having a consistent strong character, self-knowledge, and ability to create values. The paper explores the kind of autonomy required in agents who would ‘revalue’ existing values.

One feature of my book (Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy) that is perhaps worth some comment is the historical background that I place Nietzsche against.2 It is noteworthy, I think, that in GM P, Nietzsche mentions just two thinkers as his antagonists: Schopenhauer and Rée. My aim was to take these thinkers, the former still somewhat underread by Nietzsche commentators (though the situation is improving) and the latter very poorly studied until recently, and map out Nietzsche’s position as structured in opposition to them in the first instance. Why does this matter? First, some of the detail of what he says in certain places makes better sense if these are his targets. Just to give some examples, the famous passage on perspectives and affects in GM III:12 is directed against conceiving “objectivity” as the stance of a “pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge,” which is precisely Schopenhauer’s view of objectivity (attainable in aesthetic experience). Nietzsche’s preoccupation with attacking compassion (Mitleid) stems from the fact that compassion is the sole moral incentive in Schopenhauer’s ethics. Again, the account of the origins of morality given by the so-called English psychologists with which Nietzsche opens GM I is demonstrably Rée’s account; as is the account of punishment as deterrence criticized in GM II for confusing the uses or meanings of a thing with its origins. In general, if we are to get a picture of what is truly bugging Nietzsche, as it were, it may be helpful to take a closer look at his targets. For example, much [End Page 124] has been made recently about Nietzsche opposing theories of morality that are based on a particular notion of free will, that of the causa sui, uncaused cause, neutral subject of free choice, and so on. Well, yes, Nietzsche is opposed to such theories, but if that were his dominating concern, why would he be so explicitly against Schopenhauer and Rée, both adamant determinists? Alternatively, we may think that Nietzsche’s main point is to oppose theistic metaphysics: but both his named antagonists are already decided atheists. Recently it has been suggested that Nietzsche’s guiding aim is to oust everything supernatural or transcendent and establish a strict form of naturalism. That is one of his aims, but although Rée at least is as strict a naturalist as you could want in the late nineteenth century, Nietzsche nonetheless represents himself as saying no to everything he found in Rée’s book The Origin of the Moral Sensations—and even Schopenhauer, though overall a metaphysician offering a global account of the thing in itself that Nietzsche must oppose, believes that the empirical world can be correctly described in wholly causal, materialist terms. It seems to me important that Nietzsche treats as his principal opponents thinkers who are atheists, naturalists, and determinists—not because they hold these positions but on other grounds, which we should seek to clarify. What unites Schopenhauer and Rée—and I think Nietzsche makes this very clear in GM P—is the centrality they give to “the unegoistic” in their account of morality or, as Nietzsche says, to “the value of the unegoistic, of the instincts of compassion, self-denial, self-sacrifice” (GM P:5).

The essay draws attention to some of the different uses made of Schopenhauer throughout Nietzsche's writings. Different roles for Schopenhauer coexist at all stages of Nietzsche's writing. He functions as an exemplar for European culture, but at the same time Nietzsche can find serious fault with his philosophical doctrines, as he does in early unpublished notes. In later writings Schopenhauer is assigned the role of Nietzsche's antipode, but even then Schopenhauer is paid the compliment of being Nietzsche's great and only teacher. The essay includes a commentary on Genealogy III:12 in which Nietzsche's conception of 'perspectival knowledge' is anti-Schopenhauerian, but can only be seen for what it is once an underlying Schopenhauerian structure is made explicit.