Paul Van Tongeren

Attempts to elucidate the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche through the experience of his writings. After a chapter devoted to Nietzsche's style and the proper way to read the philosopher, chapters focus separately on his thoughts on knowledge and reality, morality and politics, and religion. Each chapter presents fairly lengthy selections from Nietzsche's works (in both German and English) and then proceeds to comment on the texts with the help of additional brief selections. Paper edition available (1-55753-157-9), $24.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

There seems to be a pervasive trend towards public apologies, forms of national introspection, and appeals to grant forgiveness. Does 'forgiveness' enable a public or political use of the term? Is it possible to forgive on behalf of others, and if so, under what conditions? These conceptual questions are related to reflections on the cultural and religious contexts of expressing forgiveness. Do forgiving words promote a willingness to look ahead and prevent a relapse into conflicting views on the poisonous past? Or do they bring along aversion? Maybe the 'push' towards forgiveness is experienced as highly unfair. Archbishop Tutu's motto that "there is no future without forgiveness" is well known. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has become an important model and source of inspiration for many other countries that want to deal with their past grievances and internal conflicts. This book discusses the role of forgiveness within processes of peace building and transitional justice.

When Nietzsche is called a radical philosopher, it is (among other reasons) because he claims to call into question what other thinkers take for granted. In the article I concentrate on the way in which Nietzsche asks his questions, and how his questions (and the vocabulary which he uses to express his questions) develop through his writings. The article points out how Nietzsche gradually discovers his guiding question and how this search reaches its climax around 1886. This guiding question turns out to be a practical or existential one: ‘To what extent can truth endure incorporation?’ (FW/GC 110 KSA 3.471). Key-words: Question, task, Nietzsche’s development

Nietzsches Philosophie ist ein hermeneutische. H.-G. Gadamer kennzeichnet die hermeneutik als ein parktische Philosophie. In diesem Aufsatz wird versucht Nietzsches Bedeutung für ein Hermeneutik als parktische Philosophie zu skizzieren an Hand einer Behandlung des Themas 'Scham' in seinen Schriften. Im ersten Teil wird die Entwicklung von Nietzsches Gebrauch des Begriffs 'Scham' verfolgt. im zweiten Teil werden die Ergbnisse gesammelt in einer Beschreibung von Nietzsches 'Hermenuetik der Scham'. Scham ist ein Form des praktischen Vorveständnis der Welt. Der Philosoph muss, Nietzsche zufolge, einerseits 'schamlos unerschocken' sein, wird andererseits aber gekennzeichnet durch, 'Ehfurcht, Scham und Teif'. Zum Schluss wird den Underschied zwischen dieser und die gadamersche Hermeneutik angedeuter.Nietzsche's philosophy is hermeneutical. Hermeneutics is according to H.-G. Gadamer: practical philosophy. The article tries to explain Nietzsche's contribution to a hermeneutics as practical philosophy, by way of a discussion of the meaning of "shame" in his writings. In the first part the development of the concept of shame in Nietzsche's writings is outlined in four stages. In the second part the results of this overview are collected in a description of Nietzsche's hermenuetics of shame: shame is part of our practical preunderstanding of the world. The philosopher has, according to Nietzsche, to be 'fearlessly shameless' on the one hand, but is characterised by 'modesty [Scham] and delicate reverence' on the other. Hermeneutical consciousness can be characterised in terms of shame

Aan het eind van Zur Genealogie der Moral kondigt Nietzsche aan dat hij later een boek zal schrijven over ‘de geschiedenis van het Europese nihilisme’ . Dat boek is er nooit gekomen, althans niet van Nietzsches hand. Het enige wat we hebben zijn de aantekeningen daarvoor in zijn nalatenschap. Een van die notities is het beroemde ‘Lenzer Heide Ontwerp’ , een tekst waaraan Nietzsche zelf de titel Het Europese nihilisme gaf.Nadat Nietzsche de winter van 1886/87 in Nice had doorgebracht, trok hij in het voorjaar weer richting Zwitserland om zich voor de zomer in Sils Maria te vestigen. In Nice had hij juist Dostojevski ontdekt, van wie hij onder andere de Aantekeningen uit het ondergrondse las, een boek dat een zeer kritische psychologie van de nihilist bevat. Op zijn reis naar het Engadin bleef Nietzsche steken omdat het in het hooggebergte nog te koud was en de Julier-pas nog niet sneeuwvrij. Tijdens zijn gedwongen oponthoud in Lenzer Heide noteerde hij deze tekst, aan de hand waarvan we nu een paar elementen van Nietzsches analyse van het Europese nihilisme belichten

A amizade ainda é possível em condições niilistas? Kant e Nietzsche são fases importantes na história da idealização de amizade, o que inevitavelmente conduz ao problema do niilismo. O próprio Nietzsche afirma que, por um lado, apenas algo como a amizade pode nos salvar em nossa condição niilista mas que, por outro, precisamente a amizade foi desmascarada e se tornou impossível baseada nas mesmas condições. Parece que estamos presos no paradoxo niilista de não nos ser permitido acreditar na possibilidade do que não podemos prescindir. A imaginação literária, desde o século XIX, parece nos tornar ainda mais céticos. Talvez Beckett forneça uma ilustração de uma maneira que se adapta bem à afirmação de Nietzsche de que apenas "os mais moderados, aqueles que não necessitam de quaisquer artigos extremos de fé", serão capazes de lidar com o niilismo. Is friendship still possible under nihilistic conditions? Kant and Nietzsche are important stages in the history of the idealization of friendship, which leads inevitably to the problem of nihilism. Nietzsche himself claims on the one hand that only something like friendship can save us in our nihilistic condition, but on the other hand that precisely friendship has been unmasked and become impossible by these very conditions. It seems we are struck in the nihilistic paradox of not being allowed to believe in the possibility of what we cannot do without. Literary imagination since the 19th century seems to make us even more skeptical. Maybe Beckett provides an illustration of a way out that fits well to Nietzsche's claim that only "the most moderate, those who do not require any extreme articles of faith" will be able to cope with nihilism

Insofar as the notion of forgiveness stems from the Jewish and Christian traditions, it seems to point at something very extraordinary. Although Christianity recommends or even commissions forgiveness to everybody, it nevertheless seems to consist of something which is not humanly possible: how could one remember the evil committed , and at the same time not blame the one who committed it? By ultimately reserving the entitlement and ability to forgive to God, by describing human forgiveness as a theological virtue, and by emphasizing the gratuitous or gracious character of forgiveness, this tradition seems most of all to show that forgiveness is generally speaking impossible. In this paper, this conception of forgiveness is presented with the help of Jacques Derrida. The question how this apparently impossibility nevertheless sometimes happens is first answered with the help of Thomas Aquinas. Against this background, the paper claims that a ‘secular’ interpretation of forgiveness is also possible, which does justice to its being humanly impossible. Such interpretation describes forgiveness as an intersubjective act