•  215
    Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy and the Sovereign Individual
    with Ken Gemes
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80 (1): 321-357. 2006.
    [Ken Gemes] In some texts Nietzsche vehemently denies the possibility of free will; in others he seems to positively countenance its existence. This paper distinguishes two different notions of free will. Agency free will is intrinsically tied to the question of agency, what constitutes an action as opposed to a mere doing. Deserts free will is intrinsically tied to the question of desert, of who does and does not merit punishment and reward. It is shown that we can render Nietzsche's prima faci…Read more
  •  21
    Naturalism and genealogy
    In Keith Ansell-Pearson (ed.), A Companion to Nietzsche, Blackwell. pp. 337-52. 2006.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Methodological Naturalism Nietzsche's Antagonists in the Genealogy Rée and Selflessness Real History Rhetorical Method and the Affects Perils of Present Concepts: Causa fiendi and False Unity Conclusion.
  •  41
    The real essence of human beings: Schopenhauer on the unconscious will
    In Angus Nicholls & Martin Liebscher (eds.), Thinking the Unconscious: Nineteenth-Century German Thought, Cambridge University Press. pp. 140-155. 2010.
    This paper elucidates and interrogates Schopenhauer’s notion of will and its relation to ideas about the unconscious, with the aim of addressing its significance as an exercise in philosophical psychology. Schopenhauer aims at a global metaphysics, a theory of the essence of the world as it is in itself. He calls this essence will (Wille), which, to put it briefly, he understands as a blind striving for existence, life, and reproduction. Human beings have the same essence as all other manifestat…Read more
  •  181
    This original new book argues for a reassessment of Plato's challenge to the arts. Plato was the first great figure in Western philosophy to assess the value of the arts; he argued in the Republic that traditionally accepted forms of poetry, drama, and music are unsound. While this view has been widely rejected, Janaway argues that Plato's hostile case is a more coherent and profound challenge to the arts than has sometimes been supposed. Denying that Plato advocates "good art" in any modern sen…Read more
  •  108
    Schopenhauer's Pessimism
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 44 47-63. 1999.
    This series of lectures was originally scheduled to include a talk on Schopenhauer by Patrick Gardiner. Sadly, Patrick died during the summer, and I was asked to stand in. Patrick must, I am sure, have been glad to see this series of talks on German Philosophy being put on by the Royal Institute, and he, probably more than anyone on the list, deserves to have been a part of it. Patrick Gardiner taught and wrote with unfailing integrity and quiet refinement in the Oxford of the 1950s, '60s, '70s …Read more
  •  450
    Against the claim that Nietzsche’s early and late views on confronting the truth about human existence differ widely, this article argues that in The Birth of Tragedy tragic art is affirmative of life and not limited to beautifying illusion, while later works still contain the idea that artistic production of beauty is a falsification necessary to make existence bearable for us. Nietzsche did not start with the view that art’s value lies in sheer illusion, nor end with the view that truth should…Read more
  •  15
    Borges and Danto: A reply to Michael Wreen
    British Journal of Aesthetics 31 (4): 72-76. 1991.
    In response to Michael Wreen, 'Once is Not Enough?' (British Journal of Aesthetics 1990), this article argues that the short story by Jorge Luis Borges, 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' supports Arthur Danto's account of the individuation of art works, according to which two verbally identical compositions can be two distinct works. Wreen argues that the Menard story is a case of copying. But the story is one of intentional coincidence of texts, not copying. Hence Wreen lacks a convincing …Read more
  •  99
    What’s So Good about Negation of the Will?: Schopenhauer and the Problem of the Summum Bonum
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 54 (4): 649-669. 2016.
    The final part of Schopenhauer’s argument in The World as Will and Representation concerns “affirmation and negation of the will”. He argues, with a fervor that borders on the religious, that “negation of the will” is a condition of unique value, the only state that enables “true salvation, redemption from life and from suffering”. Some commentators have asserted without qualification that this condition is his “highest good.” However, Schopenhauer in fact claims that there cannot be a highest g…Read more
  •  27
    There are two familiar strategic approaches to Kant's Critique of Judgement which commentators have not always found easy to combine. One would regard the work as fitting snugly into Kant's enterprise as the keystone that absorbs the forces of his theoretical and practical philosophies, uniting them and itself into a single sound structure. That Kant saw it this way is obvious from his Introduction to the Critique. But the other approach has sometimes seemed more fruitful: start with the Analyti…Read more
  •  561
    Authored item in a collection of original research papers, arising out of the University of Southampton's AHRC-funded research project 'Nietzsche and Modern Moral Philosophy'
  •  58
    What a musical forgery isn't
    British Journal of Aesthetics 39 (1): 62-71. 1999.
    The central question addressed in this article is whether anyone can make a piece of music, intending to assert falsely that it is identical with a notationally equivalent but distinct piece. It is argued that this is impossible, because we cannot regard an agent, thus described, as having fully coherent intentions and beliefs. This opposes Jerrold Levinson's view that there are no art forms whose works are strictly nonforgeable.
  •  3
    Schopenhauer: On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and Other Writings (edited book)
    with David E. Cartwright and Edward E. Erdmann
    Cambridge University Press. 2013.
    This volume of translations unites three shorter works by Arthur Schopenhauer that expand on themes from his book The World as Will and Representation. In On the Fourfold Root he takes the principle of sufficient reason, which states that nothing is without a reason why it is, and shows how it covers different forms of explanation or ground that previous philosophers have tended to confuse. Schopenhauer regarded this study, which he first wrote as his doctoral dissertation, as an essential preli…Read more
  •  13
    Knowledge and Tranquility: Schopenhauer on the value of art
    In Dale Jacquette (ed.), Schopenhauer, Philosophy and the Arts, Cambridge University Press. pp. 39--61. 1996.
    The article argues that Schopenhauer seeks to defend art against Plato's critique, but that he does so by adopting two distinct strategies that to some extent conflect: a 'cognitivist strategy' according to which art provides the most objective knowledge of reality, and an 'aesthetic experience' strategy, in which there is a peculiarly aesthetic state of mind which gives our pleasure in art a value of its own. The truly unifying notion in Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory is that of tranquil, will…Read more
  •  56
    The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 1999.
    Arthur Schopenhauer is something of a maverick figure in the history of philosophy. He produced a unique theory of the world and human existence based upon his notion of will. This collection analyses the related but distinct components of will from the point of view of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, ethics, and the philosophy of psychoanalysis. This volume explores Schopenhauer's philosophy of death, his relationship to the philosophy of Kant, his use of ideas drawn …Read more
  •  19
    History of Philosophy: The Analytical Ideal
    with Peter Alexander
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 62 (1). 1988.
    A two-part symposium. Janaway's article offers an analysis and critique of a methodological assumption current in the history of philosophy, which he labels 'the Analytical Ideal'. It discusses the views of P.F. Strawson, Michael Ayres, and Richard Rorty among others.
  •  54
    Schopenhauer: a very short introduction
    Oxford University Press. 2002.
    Schopenhauer is considered to be the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will--a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behavior as that of a natural organism governed …Read more
  •  1
    Review of: Aaron Ridley, Music, Value and the Passions (1995) (review)
    British Journal of Aesthetics 39 (2): 198-200. 1999.
    Review of: Aaron Ridley, Music, Value and the Passions (1995).
  •  77
    Plato's analogy between painter and poet
    British Journal of Aesthetics 31 (1): 1-12. 1991.
    The paper discusses Plato's example of the 'painter of craftsmen' at Republic 598b–601b, arguing that its function is to provide the analogy for the special case of the poet, and in particular the tragic or Homeric poet. The point of the analogy is that people mistake the poet for someone who is knowledgeable about what he fictionally represents. Given this explanation, Plato's treatment of poetry may be neither as inconsistent nor as absurd as it is sometimes said to be.
  •  13
    Julian Young, Willing and Unwilling: A Study of the Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1987). (review)
    International Studies in Philosophy 24 (1): 151-152. 1992.
    Review of the book by Julian Young.
  •  29
    Review: Naturalism and Value in Nietzsche (review)
    with Ken Gemes
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (3). 2005.
  •  18
    Review of: T. J. Difffey, The Republic of Art and Other Essays (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 43 (171): 250. 1993.
    Book review.
  •  5
    IX—The Subject and the Objective Order
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 84 (1): 147-166. 1984.
  •  17
    Schopenhauer's philosophy of value
    with Alex Neill
    In Alex Neill & Christopher Janaway (eds.), Better Consciousness: Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Value, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.
    Editor's contribution to the edited volume, Better Consciousness: Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Value, which reassesses Schopenhauer's aesthetics and ethics and their contemporary relevance.
  •  12
    Editorial
    with Alex Neill
    European Journal of Philosophy 16 (2): 163-163. 2008.
    The short 'Editorial' introduces the published papers in 'Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Value', and explains their origin in a conference at the University of Southampton in July 2007.
  •  2
    Recent work in aesthetics
    Philosophical Books 30 (4): 193-201. 1989.
  •  215
    Beauty is false, truth ugly: Nietzsche on art and life
    In Daneil Came (ed.), Nietzsche on Art and Life, Oxford University Press. 2014.
    Against the claim that Nietzsche’s early and late views on confronting the truth about human existence differ widely, this article argues that in The Birth of Tragedy tragic art is affirmative of life and not limited to beautifying illusion, while later works still contain the idea that artistic production of beauty is a falsification necessary to make existence bearable for us. Nietzsche did not start with the view that art’s value lies in sheer illusion, nor end with the view that truth should…Read more
  •  57
    Nietzsche's Psychology as a Refinement of Plato's
    Journal of Nietzsche Studies 45 (1): 12-21. 2014.
    In their recent book The Soul of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick claim that Nietzsche takes Plato’s theory of the soul to be ‘a hypothesis, which his own psychology is an attempt to refine’. This essay accepts that claim, but argues for a more streamlined account of the relation between Nietzsche and Plato than Clark and Dudrick give. There is no justification for their suggestion that Nietzsche diagnoses an ‘atomistic need’ as responsible for what he objects…Read more