Aaron Ridley

In these essays, two-thirds of them appearing here for the first time, the author addresses the full range of Nietzsche’s aesthetics, from his discussions of tragedy, music, and language to his conceptions of taste, beauty, and the sublime. Some of the essays are exegetical; some are critical (hence the ‘quarrels’ referred to in the title); some bring his thought into contact with other thoughts and thinkers; while others bring him into contact with specific artists and their art. Intended equally for specialists and students, this collection contributes to the study of an aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy that remains surprisingly under-explored.

Within the context of his wider existential concern with questions pertaining to our evaluative stance towards human life and experience, Nietzsche clearly assigns music a privileged and internal role. ‘Without music’, he famously writes, ‘life would be a mistake’ (_TI_, Maxims, 33). In this chapter, the author attempts to explicate the character of music’s significance for Nietzsche, and to suggest ways in which an understanding of Nietzsche’s engagement with music is essential for an understanding of his wider project. The author suggests that what makes Nietzsche’s thought about music distinctive is his connection of music with the task of the affirmation of life. The author argues that to this task Nietzsche regards music as having an especially important contribution to make.

This chapter argues that there are two distinctive features to the sovereign individual's promise-making. First, that he refuses to hedge his promises about with get-out clauses. Second, that the most characteristic content of his promises are intentions whose success-conditions cannot be specified independently, that cannot, that is, be codified as a set of instructions for successfully executing those intentions. The first feature explains the sovereign individual's ‘mastery’ over ‘circumstances’, ‘nature’, and ‘fate’. The second feature explains why the sovereign individual's kind of ‘autonomy’ makes him ‘supramoral’, that is, ‘autonomy’ and ‘morality’ are said by Nietzsche to be ‘mutually exclusive’.

It seems natural to think that there are aesthetic reasons for action and that an artist must be guided by such reasons as he or she begins work on the canvas or poem or symphony or marble. This latter supposition seems at odds, however, not only with classical inspiration theory but also with the views of one of the last century’s most important philosophers of art, R. G. Collingwood. We propose an account of acting for an aesthetic reason inspired by G. E. M. Anscombe’s Intention, specifically by her concept of ‘practical knowledge’, which we believe can accommodate Collingwood’s reservations about the sort of knowledge of their ends, and of the means to those ends, which artists have as they engage in their creative activity.

A number of recent writers have expressed scepticism about the viability of a specifically moral concept of obligation, and some of the considerations offered have been interesting and persuasive. This is a scepticism that has its roots in Nietzsche, even if he is mentioned only rather rarely in the debate. More proximately, the scepticism in question receives seminal expression in Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 essay, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, a piece that is often paid lip-service to, but—like Nietzsche's work—has only rarely been taken seriously by those wishing to defend the conception of obligation under attack. This is regrettable. Anscombe's essay is powerful and direct, and it makes a forthright case for the claim that, in the absence of a divine law conception of ethics, any specifically moral concept of obligation must be redundant, and that the best that can be hoped for in a secular age is some sort of neo-Aristotelianism. Anscombe is right about this, we think. And, among those who disagree, one of the very few to have taken her on at all explicitly is Christine Korsgaard, whose Kantianism of course commits her to the view that the concept of moral obligation is central, with or without God. Here, we try to show that Korsgaard loses the argument.

This acclaimed and accessible anthology is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy. Neill and Ridley introduce a wide range of discussions including sentimentality, feminism and aesthetics, appreciation, understanding and nature. Each chapter is accompanied by a clear introduction and suggestions for further reading. This new edition has been fully revised and updated. It includes five new sections on the art of food, rock music and culture, enjoying horror, art and morality and public art. _Arguing about Art_ will appeal to students of art history, literature, and cultural studies as well as philosophy.

This chapter argues that there are two distinctive features to the sovereign individual's promise-making. First, that he refuses to hedge his promises about with get-out clauses. Second, that the most characteristic content of his promises are intentions whose success-conditions cannot be specified independently, that cannot, that is, be codified as a set of instructions for successfully executing those intentions. The first feature explains the sovereign individual's ‘mastery’ over ‘circumstances’, ‘nature’, and ‘fate’. The second feature explains why the sovereign individual's kind of ‘autonomy’ makes him ‘supramoral’, that is, ‘autonomy’ and ‘morality’ are said by Nietzsche to be ‘mutually exclusive’.

Offering a unique 'debate' format, the third edition of_ _the bestselling_ Arguing About Art_ is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy of art. This lively collection presents an extensive range of short, clear introductions to each of the discussions which include: sentimentality appreciation interpretation understanding objectivity nature food horror. With revised introductions, updated suggestions for further reading and new sections on pornography and societies without art, _Arguing About Art _provides_ _a stimulating and accessible anthology suitable for those coming to aesthetics for the first time. The book will also appeal to students of art history, literature, and cultural studies.

Offering a unique 'debate' format, the third edition of_ _the bestselling_ Arguing About Art_ is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy of art. This lively collection presents an extensive range of short, clear introductions to each of the discussions which include: sentimentality appreciation interpretation understanding objectivity nature food horror. With revised introductions, updated suggestions for further reading and new sections on pornography and societies without art, _Arguing About Art _provides_ _a stimulating and accessible anthology suitable for those coming to aesthetics for the first time. The book will also appeal to students of art history, literature, and cultural studies.

Nietzsche makes a number of remarks that suggest that he thinks that art and truth are antithetical – indeed that he thinks that the value of art lies in its falsification of aspects of the world that would otherwise prove unbearable. ‘Truth is ugly,’ he says: ‘We possess art lest we perish of the truth.’ But the argument of the present paper is that the falsification reading is unsustainable, and that if we attend to the notion of ‘appearance’ rather more attentively than Nietzsche himself always did, we can (a) read him as defending a plausible account of the relation between art and truth, rather than an unsustainable one, (b) recast the passages that have encouraged the falsification reading so that they lend support to the reading suggested here, and (c) show how the resultant account squares with, and indeed reinforces, Nietzsche's perspectivism.

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research

Nietzsche is often said to have started out as a Schopenhauerian metaphysician of some kind before leaving Schopenhauer behind him, and, by the end of his sane life, metaphysics too. His first and last thoughts about tragedy, however, sit uneasily with this narrative. The late thoughts are simply too close to the early ones for the story to accommodate them—not for their Schopenhauerianism, but for the strongly metaphysical flavour that they appear to share. The argument of the present paper is that the appearance is veridical, and that attempts to explain away the metaphysical flavour of the later remarks cannot succeed. The paper concludes with a brief diagnosis of why Nietzsche's final thoughts about tragedy, in Twilight of the Idols, so unignorably recall the ones expressed in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy.