Christa Acampora

Throughout his writings Nietzsche suggests that battles waged with and for the benefit of readers and pupils are to take a form analogous to a Greek agon, a contest. The early Nietzsche anticipates a transfiguration of culture that will be brought about by means of agonistic institutions through which greatness will be cultivated in competition. Nietzsche identifies this mode of activity as healthy human striving, as an affirmative way of claiming human meaning, and as a creative process of individual and cultural development that he identifies as Bildung. The free spirit books that Nietzsche writes following The Birth of Tragedy critique the contemporary culture for its paucity of outlets for this kind of activity. ;Nietzsche believed that education, like philosophy, occurs in observing and participating in moments of extraordinary challenge and tension. For him, significant opposition yields strengthened character because it demands active resistance to what one is not and requires the definition of personal style. Encounters with great educators communicate not simply a set of doctrines and theories, they stimulate the activity of self-creation and discovery, of becoming who or, more properly for Nietzsche, what one is. Nietzsche's works reflect a continuous concern with identifying the form of this kind of education. As a philosopher-educator, Nietzsche both exemplifies his own growth through his spiritual and intellectual agones and strives to be a worthy opponent and teacher for his readers. It is this Nietzsche, the philosophos agonistes, the exemplar and educator, that this dissertation describes

Ecce Homo offers Nietzsche’s own interpretation of himself, his thoughts, and his works. This article analyzes how the text bears on his ideas about agency, fate, and freedom. It presents an account of “how one becomes what one is.” For Nietzsche, a person is a set of drives ordered or ranked a certain way; there is no will or subject separate from these that could carry out the work of becoming. What is most important is that one’s drives be coordinated in a single entity. Through these tactics some of us can become what we are.

ABSTRACT Nietzsche's texts invite perplexing questions about the justification and objectivity of his ethical views. According to the interpretation suggested here, Nietzsche does not advance a substantive normative ethics, but proposes, based on his ontological idea of will to power, an instrumentalist theory of value. He is not a realist about value—according to him, nothing is intrinsically valuable. However, things, actions, beliefs, and values can be evaluated with reference to their capacities in serving our fundamental quest for power. The central advantage of this interpretation against competing readings is that it attempts to make sense of how an “objective” evaluation fits together with antirealism or nihilism about value, including how the “ethics” of will to power is to be understood alongside the metaphysical and ethical doctrine of eternal recurrence.

This is an important, curious book that is worth the effort it takes to get through it. It makes a distinctive case for the centrality of Nietzsche's grappling with nihilism, giving content to his notoriously thin notion of "affirming life," and it offers a nuanced account of "will to power," specifically in relation to Schopenhauer's "will to live." Among its curiosities are its method of extensive reliance on the collection of notes published as The Will to Power and its characterization of a paradox at the core of Nietzsche's project: affirming life turns on embracing the idea that "will to power requires pain as one of the conditions of its satisfaction" . Only the second of these can be discussed here. And while the writing style tediously resembles a form of scholasticism that gets in the way of understanding what exactly Reginster is arguing, the book repays the reader's forbearance by offering some genuinely provocative ideas.Reginster's main project is to show how nihilism and its solution are central to Nietzsche's thinking about the "affirmation of life." This hinges on revaluing suffering as intrinsic to satisfying an ultimate desire to overcome resistance. In a nutshell, that is Nietzsche's "doctrine of the will to power," and it leads Reginster to claim that the

There is much in Robert Pippin’s Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy that merits consideration. During the panel discussion that provided the basis for this article, I marked several paths for further exploration, including Pippin’s treatment of Nietzsche’s naturalism and his characterization of what he calls Nietzsche’s “picture arguments.” Ultimately, I chose to focus on a concern that has drawn intense interest in the recent literature, namely Nietzsche’s conception of agency and freedom, which forms the subject of Pippin’s fourth chapter, “The Deed is Everything [Das Thun ist Alles].” 1 This chapter draws on and extends other work he has published in English during the past decade, specifically, his ..

Dear Readers, For nearly a decade, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of serving as the editor for the journal. During this time, with the support of a terrific team, the journal has matured to become the leading venue of English-language philosophical research in the area. Our authors benefit from expert critical feedback, and readers have enjoyed more content and an expanded perspective on international research. The journal’s readership continues to grow as we have enhanced electronic access and indexing. Serving as editor has given me terrific opportunities to meet new people, learn about important scholarship, and contribute to shaping the field—these are opportunities that should...

Dear Readers, For nearly a decade, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of serving as the editor for the journal. During this time, with the support of a terrific team, the journal has matured to become the leading venue of English-language philosophical research in the area. Our authors benefit from expert critical feedback, and readers have enjoyed more content and an expanded perspective on international research. The journal’s readership continues to grow as we have enhanced electronic access and indexing. Serving as editor has given me terrific opportunities to meet new people, learn about important scholarship, and contribute to shaping the field—these are opportunities that should...

Dear Readers, For nearly a decade, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of serving as the editor for the journal. During this time, with the support of a terrific team, the journal has matured to become the leading venue of English-language philosophical research in the area. Our authors benefit from expert critical feedback, and readers have enjoyed more content and an expanded perspective on international research. The journal’s readership continues to grow as we have enhanced electronic access and indexing. Serving as editor has given me terrific opportunities to meet new people, learn about important scholarship, and contribute to shaping the field—these are opportunities that should...

Dear Readers, For nearly a decade, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of serving as the editor for the journal. During this time, with the support of a terrific team, the journal has matured to become the leading venue of English-language philosophical research in the area. Our authors benefit from expert critical feedback, and readers have enjoyed more content and an expanded perspective on international research. The journal’s readership continues to grow as we have enhanced electronic access and indexing. Serving as editor has given me terrific opportunities to meet new people, learn about important scholarship, and contribute to shaping the field—these are opportunities that should...

Dear Readers, For nearly a decade, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of serving as the editor for the journal. During this time, with the support of a terrific team, the journal has matured to become the leading venue of English-language philosophical research in the area. Our authors benefit from expert critical feedback, and readers have enjoyed more content and an expanded perspective on international research. The journal’s readership continues to grow as we have enhanced electronic access and indexing. Serving as editor has given me terrific opportunities to meet new people, learn about important scholarship, and contribute to shaping the field—these are opportunities that should...

Dear Readers, For nearly a decade, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of serving as the editor for the journal. During this time, with the support of a terrific team, the journal has matured to become the leading venue of English-language philosophical research in the area. Our authors benefit from expert critical feedback, and readers have enjoyed more content and an expanded perspective on international research. The journal’s readership continues to grow as we have enhanced electronic access and indexing. Serving as editor has given me terrific opportunities to meet new people, learn about important scholarship, and contribute to shaping the field—these are opportunities that should...