•  93
    Nietzsche, Naturalism & Normativity (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2012.
    This volume comprises ten original essays on Nietzsche, one of the western canon's most controversial ethical thinkers. An international team of experts clarify Nietzsche's own views, both critical and positive, ethical and meta-ethical, and connect his philosophical concerns to contemporary debates in and about ethics, normativity, and value.
  •  2
    Plato and the Arts
    In Hugh H. Benson (ed.), A Companion to Plato, Blackwell. 2006.
    This chapter contains sections titled: The Arts and Education in Republic II and III The Case against Mimetic Poetry in Republic X Inspiration and Beauty Note.
  • Better Consciousness (edited book)
    with Robert Stern and Alex Neill
    Wiley‐Blackwell. 2010-02-19.
  •  1
    Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Value
    In Robert Stern, Alex Neill & Christopher Janaway (eds.), Better Consciousness, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: References.
  •  8
    Review of: Nicholas Martin, Nietzsche and Schiller: Untimely Aesthetics (review)
    British Journal of Aesthetics 37 (1): 92-94. 1997.
    Book review.
  •  1
    Schopenhauer
    Oxford University Press. 1994.
    This book offers a succinct introduction to Schopenhauer's metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of thought which inspired many artists and thinkers such as Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Christopher Janaway confronts Schopenhauer's uncompromising, pessimistic view that for the human individual non-existence would be preferable, and his claim that only aesthetic experience and saintly self-denial - escape from the will - can give life value.
  •  42
    German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche
    with Roger Scruton, Peter Singer, and Michael Tanner
    Oxford University Press. 1997.
    German Philosophers contains studies of four of the most important German theorists: Kant, arguably the most influential modern philosopher; Hegel, whose philosophy inspired an enduring vision of a communist society; Schopenhauer, renowned for his pessimistic preference for non-existence; and Nietzsche, who has been appropriated as an icon by an astonishingly diverse spectrum of people.
  • Nietzsche on morality, drives, and human greatness
    In Simon Robertson & Christopher Janaway (eds.), Nietzsche, Naturalism & Normativity, Oxford University Press. 2012.
  • Introduction : Nietzsche on naturalism and normativity
    In Simon Robertson & Christopher Janaway (eds.), Nietzsche, Naturalism & Normativity, Oxford University Press. 2012.
  •  10
    This book brings together fourteen of the author’s essays on the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, all but one previously published in journals or scholarly collections. They illuminate central philosophical issues in Nietzsche and Schopenhauer—the death of God, the meaning of existence, suffering, compassion, the will, Christian values, the affirmation or negation of life. Some of the essays concern Schopenhauer in his own right, focusing on his concept of will to life, an underlying dr…Read more
  • Beyond Selflessness in Ethics and Inquiry
    Journal of Nietzsche Studies 36 (1): 124-140. 2008.
  •  55
    No‐self and compassion: Nietzsche and Buddhism
    European Journal of Philosophy 31 (4): 950-966. 2023.
    The article examines two claims made by Antoine Panaïoti: (1) That both Nietzsche and Buddhists denounce the self as a misleading fiction. (2) That Buddhist compassion is close to a “compassion of strength” that Nietzsche approves. This article agrees with (1) and disagrees with (2). The descriptive metaphysical commitments of Nietzsche and Buddhism are subordinate to their divergent normative projects. Both reject a single, enduring, and independent self; but where Mahāyāna Buddhism advocates c…Read more
  •  43
    Self and Style: Life as Literature Revisited
    Journal of Nietzsche Studies 45 (2): 103-117. 2014.
    ABSTRACT This article reappraises some aspects of Alexander Nehamas's Nietzsche: Life as Literature. It recognizes as strengths of the book Nehamas's emphasis on Nietzsche's mode of writing and his idea that unified selfhood is an exceptional state that is achieved rather than given. However, it takes issue with the claim that Nietzsche holds a superessentialist view of the self. That view is not clearly supported by textual evidence, does not follow from Nietzsche's regarding the self as simply…Read more
  •  24
    Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners, Second Edition, provides a unique approach to reading philosophy, requiring students to engage with material as they read. It contains carefully selected texts, commentaries on those texts, and questions for the reader to think about as she reads. It serves as starting points for both classroom discussion and independent study. The texts cover a wide range of topics drawn from diverse areas of philosophical investigation, ranging ov…Read more
  •  60
    Worse than the best possible pessimism? Olga Plümacher's critique of Schopenhauer
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 30 (2): 211-230. 2021.
    Olga Plümacher (1839–1895) published a book entitled Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in 1884. It was an influential book: Nietzsche owned a copy, and there are clear cases where he borrowed phraseology from Plümacher. Plümacher specifies philosophical pessimism as comprising two propositions: ‘The sum of displeasure outweighs the sum of pleasure’ and ‘Consequently the non-being of the world would be better than its being’. Plümacher cites Schopenhauer as the first proponent of thi…Read more
  •  8
    Craft and Fineness in Plato's Ion
    In Julia Annas (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Volume X: 1992, Clarendon Press. pp. 1-23. 1992.
    The article argues for the following interpretation of Plato's dialogue Ion. (1) the dialogue is designed primarily to refute Ion's claims to knowledge in his discourse about Homer—i.e. in his role as critic or eulogist of Homer; (2) as regards the rhapsode as performer and as regards the poet, it is especially the fineness of their output that cannot be explained by way of techne; and (3) Plato genuinely assumes the existence of poetic and rhapsodic technai. Points (2) and (3) are compatible. I…Read more
  •  49
    First published in 1818, The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion, in an attempt to account for the world in all its significant aspects. It gives a unique and influential account of what is and is not of value in existence, the striving and pain of the human condition and the possibility o…Read more
  •  24
    More Modesty, Less Charity
    Journal of Nietzsche Studies 49 (2): 240-245. 2018.
    This essay is one of ten contributions to a special editorial feature in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 49.2, in which authors were invited to address the following questions: What is the future of Nietzsche studies? What are the most pressing questions its scholars should address? What texts and issues demand our urgent attention? And as we turn to these issues, what methodological and interpretive principles should guide us? The editorship hopes this collection will provide a starting point …Read more
  •  45
    Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation: Volume 2 (edited book)
    with Arthur Schopenhauer, Alistair Welchman, and Judith Norman
    Cambridge University Press. 2018.
    The purpose of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer is to offer translations of the best modern German editions of Schopenhauer's work in a uniform format for Schopenhauer scholars, together with philosophical introductions and full editorial apparatus. The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philo…Read more
  •  22
    The editors of Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity claim with some justification that few philosophers, and even fewer classicists, have "taken the time to understand [Nietzsche] on his own terms as a scholar of antiquity". "Our primary aim," Jensen and Heit say, "is to show not how Nietzsche's earlier works on antiquity help us to understand Nietzsche, but how they may improve our understanding of antiquity." The contributions vary quite widely in style and quality, and I shall suggest that not…Read more
  •  122
    Schopenhauer on the aimlessness of the will
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (2): 331-347. 2018.
    Schopenhauer asserts that ‘the will, which is objectified in human life as it is in every appearance, is a striving without aim and without end’. The article rejects some recent readings of this claim, and offers the following positive interpretation: however many specific aims of my specific desires I manage to attain, none is a final aim, in the sense that none terminates my ‘willing as a whole’, none turns me into a non-willing being. To understand Schopenhauer’s claim we must recognize his c…Read more
  •  60
    On the Very Idea of "Justifying Suffering"
    Journal of Nietzsche Studies 48 (2): 152-170. 2017.
    Many commentators have said that Nietzsche is concerned, either in all or in some parts of his career, with providing a kind of ‘theodicy,’ or with justifying or finding meaning in suffering. In this article, I examine these notions, questioning whether terms such as ‘theodicy’ or ‘justifying suffering’ are helpful in getting Nietzsche’s views into focus, and exploring some unclarities concerning the way in which such terms themselves are understood. I conclude that, while Nietzsche’s later posi…Read more
  • with Simon Robertson
    . 2012.
  •  10
    Responses to Commentators
    European Journal of Philosophy 17 (1): 132-151. 2009.
    This article has its origin in a symposium on Christopher Janaway's 2007 book, Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy. It comprises responses by the author to articles by the commentators Daniel Came, Ken Gemes, P.J.E. Kail, and Stephen Mulhall.
  •  6
    Nietzsche’s Illustration of the Art of Exegesis
    European Journal of Philosophy 5 (3): 251-268. 2002.
    The paper argues on the basis of internal textual evidence that Nietzsche's statement that Essay 3 of On the Genealogy of Morality illustrates an aphorism has hitherto been misinterpreted. The aphorism in question is Section 1 of Essay 3 (which was in fact inserted a late stage of publication); the remainder of Essay 3 is the commentary on it. Those interpreters who have taken the short epigram concerning 'wisdom as a woman' to be the aphorism on which Essay 3 is the commentary have invented t…Read more
  •  8
    With the publication of the Parerga and Paralipomena in 1851, there finally came some measure of the fame that Schopenhauer thought was his due. Described by Schopenhauer himself as 'incomparably more popular than everything up till now', the Parerga is a miscellany of essays addressing themes that complement his work The World as Will and Representation, along with more divergent, speculative pieces. It includes his 'Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life', reflections on fate and clairvoyance, trench…Read more
  •  30
    Affect and cognition in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche
    In Alix Cohen & Robert Stern (eds.), Thinking about the Emotions: A Philosophical History, Oxford University Press. pp. 206-222. 2017.
    Schopenhauer defends the view that emotions impair cognition, while Nietzsche apparently replies that they are ineliminable from cognition, and that they enhance it. Schopenhauer argues that human individuals are naturally disposed to comprehend their environment in affective terms. At the same time, his evaluative position concerning this relation is negative: cognition is spoiled, warped, or tainted by its inability to shake off the emotions, desires, or drives that belong to human nature. Hum…Read more
  •  154
    This paper gives an account of the argument of Schopenhauer's essay On the Freedom of the Human Will, drawing also on his other works. Schopenhauer argues that all human actions are causally necessitated, as are all other events in empirical nature, hence there is no freedom in the sense of liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. However, our sense of responsibility or agency (being the ) is nonetheless unshakeable. To account for this Schopenhauer invokes the Kantian distinction between empirical and…Read more