Christopher Janaway

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.

In this paper I juxtapose two well-known thought-experiments concerning duplicate art works, and point out that they appear to have directly conflicting results. I then make a proposal as to how to reconcile the two cases. The two cases are Borges' story of Pierre Menard, in which a text coinciding exactly with Cervantes' Don Quixote is nonetheless a distinct work from it, and Nelson Goodman's claim that a musical work cannot be forged, because anything complying with a work's notation is that work (or a performance of it), not anything distinct. Both claims seem correct, but how can they be reconciled? I suggest two factors that must be present for two indistinguishable works to be numerically distinct: divergent causal histories and distinct 'privileged interpretational instructions'. Notational equivalence of W and W1 plus the instruction to interpret W as W1 leads to the impossiblity of forgery. But in the absence of such instruction, W and W1 can constitute distinct works.

Nietzsche's aims and targets -- Reading Nietzsche's preface -- Naturalism and genealogy -- Selflessness : the struggle with Schopenhauer -- Nietzsche and Paul Rée on the origins of moral feelings -- Good and evil : affect, artistry, and revaluation -- Free will, autonomy, and the sovereign individual -- Guilt, bad conscience, and self-punishment -- Will to power in the Genealogy -- Nietzsche's illustration of the art of exegesis -- Disinterestedness and objectivity -- Perspectival knowing and the affects -- The ascetic ideal, meaning, and truth -- Beyond selflessness.

In On What Matters, Derek Parfit argues that Nietzsche does not disagree with central normative beliefs that ‘we’ hold. Such disagreement would threaten Parfit’s claim that normative beliefs are known by intuition. However, Nietzsche defends a conception of well-being that challenges Parfit’s normative claim that suffering is bad in itself for the sufferer. Nietzsche recognizes the phenomenon of ‘growth through suffering’ as essential to well-being. Hence, removal of all suffering would lead to diminished well-being. Parfit claims that if Nietzsche understood normative concepts in Parfit’s objectivist sense, he would not disagree with the claim that suffering is bad in itself – that intrinsic facts about suffering count in favour of our not wanting it. I argue that Nietzsche would disagree. Suffering for Nietzsche is not merely instrumentally necessary for psychological growth, nor is it easy to construe it as something bad in itself that contributes value as part of a good whole. Suffering that can be given meaning through growth is something we have reason to want. Suffering that remains brute and uninterpreted is something we have reason not to want. But for Nietzsche, suffering as such has no invariant value across all contexts.

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

Nietzsche is concerned with what he calls ‘affirmation of life’, or ‘saying Yes to life’. This article examines attitudes or processes that Nietzsche describes as ‘affirmation’ or ‘Yes-saying’ (Bejahung, Jasagen). Nietzsche often speaks of something other than an individual as the locus of affirmation. Surveying Nietzsche’s uses from the period of Daybreak onwards, we find Bejahung, Jasagen and cognates with a variety of grammatical subjects, referring to human individuals, cultural products and practices such as art forms and value-systems, and sub-personal items such as instincts and drives. This raises the question how he conceives the attitude or process of ‘Yes-saying’. Taking a distinction made by Ken Gemes, between ‘naïve affirmation’ and ‘reflective affirmation’, the article argues that Nietzsche gives priority to affirmation that is the direct expression of instincts or drives in action. However, many drives or instincts are culturally acquired, for Nietzsche. Dispositions to action, feeling and thought can become drives or instincts through cultural transmission, and operate outside conscious control to influence culture in turn. The notion that a drive ‘in us’ says Yes to life and the notion that a surrounding culture says Yes to life do not conflict but are two sides of the same coin.

Nietzsche is well known for stating that there is 'only a perspectival "knowing"'. What has been less remarked is the extent to which he thereby stands in radical opposition to a common philosophical position concerning the relationship between knowledge and the affects. This article argues that in Genealogy III: 12 Nietzsche makes the following two claims: (1) That it is impossible for there to be any knowing that is free of all affects, and (2) That multiplying different affects always improves knowing. The article examines the plausibility of this reading of Nietzsche, and its links with the his treatment of drives, freedom and self.