Paolo Stellino

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to claim Nietzsche’s place within the philosophical tradition of projectivism. Indeed, as will be shown, although Nietzsche is almost unanimously ignored by scholars working on projectivism, during the whole development of his philosophical thought, he holds a position which can be reasonably defined as “projectivist”. Resumo: Este artigo tem por objetivo reivindicar o lugar da filosofia nietzschiana na tradição filosófica do projetivismo. Com efeito, como mostrarei, mesmo se Nietzsche é quase unanimemente ignorado nas obras dos especialistas nessa tradição, ele mantém, ao longo de seu desenvolvimento filosófico, uma posição que se pode com razão definir como “projetivista”.

Nietzsche’s timeliness is patent in the renewed enthusiasm with which scholars in both the continental and analytic traditions have approached his works in recent years. Along with other topics, attention has been particularly directed towards two important issues: Nietzsche’s analysis, critique, and genealogy of culture, and his stance on subjectivity. In this introductory study we shall provide a brief outline of both these topics. As will be shown, they play a pivotal role in Nietzsche’s thought, and the link that connects them is stronger than one would imagine.

Contrary to what a superficial reading of Nietzsche might suggest, Nietzsche’s perspectivism is only apparently limited to the theoretical sphere. In fact, Nietzsche also relates perspectivism with his analysis of values and, more in general, with his critique of morality. The aim of the present paper is to present an overview of what might be called Nietzsche’s “moral perspectivism”. In order to answer the question about what kind of practical philosophy derives from Nietzsche’s perspectivism, we shall focus the attention on two views which are erroneously believed to follow from it: radical individualism and strong relativism.

The paper explores the issue of moral relativism in Nietzsche, and tries to argue that Nietzsche's attitude towards moral values does not support a radical relativism according to which since (i) every moral interpretation is relative to a judging perspective, and (ii) an absolute viewpoint is lacking, then (iii) every moral interpretation seems to be as true, valid or justified as the others. On the contrary, Nietzsche's perspectivism leaves space for a rank order among values, whose establishment is considered by Nietzsche as the future task of the philosopher.

Theories and ideas have consequences, like actions do. As a rule, we hold people responsible for their actions. In a similar way, we should reasonably hold intellectuals responsible for their theories and ideas. Among the aims of this paper is to consider whether the fact that Nietzsche’s thought was distorted and manipulated by Fascist and Nazi ideologues is a sufficient condition for releasing Nietzsche from all responsibility for the crimes that were partly justified through the appeal to his philosophy.

It is commonplace among Nietzsche scholars to think that Nietzsche maintains a sceptical attitude towards the possibility of self-knowledge. This attitude, which is patent in the late works, could be traced back at least to the period of Human, All Too Human, if not to the unpublished essay On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (1973). As much as this picture may be correct, it is incomplete. To see why this is so, one needs to distinguish between different notions of the self and different methodologies. These distinctions will prove to be helpful to examine Nietzsche’s stance towards self-knowledge in Human, All Too Human as well as the pivotal role that genealogy plays in achieving it.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo mostrar o contexto filosófico e literário no qual evolui o seguinte problema: quais são as consequências da morte de Deus para a moral? Para responder a esta questão, focarei minha atenção sobre um período específico do pensamento ocidental, a saber, o que vai de Feuerbach (ou, da publicação da Crítica da razão pura de Kant em 1781) a Sartre e Camus, passando particularmente por Dostoievski e Nietzsche. Mais especificamente, analisarei a relação existente entre a morte de Deus e a gratuidade.

Nietzsche’s view of suicide is a topic which in the last years has been the focus of works such as Julian Young’s and Paul S. Loeb’s. Within this context, this paper seeks to add new elements to the discussion. To this purpose, Nietzsche’s attitude to suicide will be explored from two different points of view. The first part of the paper focuses on the distinction between voluntary (free) and involuntary (natural) death. Nietzsche’s appraisal of both will be scrutinized. In particular, through the comparison with the Classical and, especially, Stoic philosophy and through the critique of the religious (particularly Christian) conception of death, it will be shown, among other things, that Nietzsche defends the rationality of suicide, presents a view of voluntary death as emptied of morality and fights against the Christian denaturalization of suicide. In the second part of the paper, suicide will be considered from a philosophical-existentialist viewpoint, that is, as a possible consequence of the meaninglessness of human existence. The problem is to judge whether life is or is not worth living in a world devoid of meaning and purpose. Nietzsche’s attitude to suicide will be analyzed in a chronological way (early, middle and late Nietzsche). Special attention will be given to the role played by art. The relevant conclusion is that, although in different ways, Nietzsche gives an affirmative answer to the question whether life is worth living in a world devoid of meaning and purpose.

The first time that Nietzsche crossed the path of Dostoevsky was in the winter of 1886–87. While in Nice, Nietzsche discovered in a bookshop the volume L’esprit souterrain. Two years later, he defined Dostoevsky as the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn. The second, metaphorical encounter between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky happened on the verge of nihilism. Nietzsche announced the death of God, whereas Dostoevsky warned against the danger of atheism. This book describes the double encounter between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Following the chronological thread offered by Nietzsche’s correspondence, the author provides a detailed analysis of Nietzsche’s engagement with Dostoevsky from the very beginning of his discovery to the last days before his mental breakdown. The second part of this book aims to dismiss the wide-spread and stereotypical reading according to which Dostoevsky foretold and criticized in his major novels some of Nietzsche’s most dangerous and nihilistic theories. In order to reject such reading, the author focuses on the following moral di-lemma: If God does not exist, is everything permitted?

This volume collects eight essays on Nietzsche and Dostoevsky written by scholars from different humanities fields. What unites them is the idea that, after more than a century, the writings of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky and the relations between them still represent a major challenge for contemporary readers. The range of subjects that the authors tackle is wide, from crime, truth, art, and nihilism to pessimism, tragedy, and the unconscious. The result is a stimulating collection of essays that explore some of the similarities, as well as the radical differences, between two of the greatest minds of the nineteenth century.The first essay is written in a literary style by Geoff Waite and Francesca Cernia Slovin, who...

This book aims to address in a novel way some of the fundamental philosophical questions concerning suicide. Focusing on four major authors of Western philosophy - Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein - their arguments in favour or against suicide are explained, contextualized, examined and critically assessed. Taken together, these four perspectives provide an illuminating overview of the philosophical arguments that can be used for or against one’s right to commit suicide. Intended both for specialists and those interested in understanding the many complexities underlying the philosophical debate on suicide, this book combines philosophical depth with exemplary clarity.

Nietzsche’s metaethics is a topic which, especially in the last decade, has gained ever increasing attention among Anglo-American Nietzsche-scholars. Conversely, this topic has been almost ignored by continental philosophers. This paper aims to give a general overview of the ongoing discussion, focusing on several problems originating from the attempt to give a coherent and non-contradictory picture of both Nietzsche’s negative and positive metaethical position. Attention will be first directed to Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism (1) and then to his alleged proto-error theory (2). Subsequently, the focus will be on Nietzsche’s moral projectivism and the question of whether this position necessarily requires a non-cognitivist view of moral discourse (3). Finally, the last section will be devoted to a discussion of how to reconcile Nietzsche’s negative metaethics with his positive metaethics (4).

Cet article a pour but de développer la critique qu’Amartya Sen adresse à la théorie du conflit de Samuel P. Huntington. Plus spécifiquement, je me propose d’appuyer l’idée de Sen, selon laquelle l’identité est toujours plurielle et dynamique, sur la conception de ‘généalogie’ élaborée par Friedrich Nietzsche et, postérieurement, développée par Michel Foucault. Dans un second temps, je reprendrai l’affirmation de Sen, selon laquelle une vision ‘solitariste’ de l’identité humaine s’avère potentiellement dangereuse. Cela permettra de montrer qu’une approche non monolithique à la question de l’identité favorise l’apaisement des tensions sociales et des conflits culturels déterminés, entre autres, par la crise migratoire récente.

Nihilism seems to be per definition linked to violence. Indeed, if the nihilist is a person who acknowledges no moral or religious authority, then what does stop him from committing any kind of crime? Dostoevsky precisely called attention to this danger: if there is no God and no immortality of the soul, then everything is permitted, even anthropophagy. Nietzsche, too, emphasised, although in different terms, the consequences deriving from the death of God and the collapse of Judeo-Christian morality. This context shaped the way in which philosophers, writers and artists thought about violence, in its different manifestations, during the 20th century. The goal of this interdisciplinary volume is to explore the various modern and contemporary configurations of the link between violence and nihilism as understood by philosophers and artists.

RESUMENEn las siguientes páginas se intentará recorrer los pasos a través de los cuales Nietzsche entró en contacto con la obra dostoievskiana y delinear las posiciones principales de la crítica acerca de la problemática, muy discutida, de qué obras de Dostoievski fueron leídas por Nietzsche. Para ello, nos basaremos en el análisis de las obras, de los fragmentos póstumos y de las cartas del último periodo de la vida consciente de Nietzsche.PALABRAS CLAVESNIETZSCHE, DOSTOIEVSKI, DESCUBRIMIENTOABSTRACTIn the following pages we attempt to reconstruct Nietzsche’s discovery of Dostoevsky’s work. Afterwards we will focus on critical studies in order to specify how the philosopher got to know the Russian author’s novels and specifically which books he may have read. We will base our investigation on Nietzsche’s work, notes and letters.KEYWORDSNIETZSCHE, DOSTOEVSKY, DISCOVERY

The aim of this introductory paper is twofold. First, we seek to illustrate which are the difficulties into which one runs when one attempts to give a precise definition of what bioart is. Our hypothesis is that every attempt at such definition runs into a paradox. Indeed, if on the one hand, every definition seems inevitably reductionist, unjustly omitting one or more elements, on the other hand, defining and constraining the study area is a necessary preliminary step to understand the artistic phenomenon known as bioart. In the second part of our paper, attention will be focused on the ethical issues that bioart confront us with. These issues are all the more relevant, given the fact that bioartists often make use of biotechnologies to manipulate living organisms for artistic purposes.

Pessoa scholars have given little attention to self-knowledge. The aim of this chapter is to remedy this lack by focusing on how self-knowledge is considered in Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. The thesis maintained is that Soares’ attitude bears striking similarities with that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Indeed, as will be shown, although prima facie sceptical towards the possibility of self-knowledge, both Nietzsche and Soares believe in the possibility to achieve knowledge of the self by following indirect paths.

This paper aims to discuss the coherence and consistency of the Stoic and the Nietzschean “art of dying at the right time”. Throughout this paper, we will use this expression to refer to the Stoics’ and Nietzsche’s treatment both of involuntary and voluntary death, inasmuch as both seem to be strongly connected to and grounded on the notion of timeliness. Taking this notion as a guiding thread, we will emphasize the several similarities that link their approach to suicide. Indeed, as will be shown, it is plausible to assume that Nietzsche’s understanding of voluntary death is particularly influenced by the Stoic tradition. At the same time, we will point out the relevant differences that make these two approaches differ. In dealing with the Stoic and the Nietzschean attitude towards suicide, the underlying question will be whether the legitimization and defense of voluntary death is compatible—and if so, to which extent—with their teachings, in particular, with their notions of happiness and affirmation of life, on the one hand, and their ideals of living in accordance with nature and amor fati, on the other.

Béla Tarr's last feature film The Turin Horse (2011) begins with a prologue that narrates Friedrich Nietzsche's mental breakdown in Turin in 1889, which was allegedly prompted by his witnessing a cab driver brutally whipping his horse. Nietzsche's name is not mentioned again in the film, and the viewer is left wondering what connection, if any, exists between the Nietzsche story and the film's narrative. Scholars often refer to one or another aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy when analysing Tarr's film. Yet, to date, no comprehensive study has been devoted to exploring the connection between The Turin Horse and Nietzsche's philosophy. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature. The first section examines the connection between the prologue and the film. In the second section, attention is given to the most evident connection between Tarr's film and Nietzsche's philosophy, namely the use of circularity and repetition in The Turin Horse and Nietzsche's idea of the eternal recurrence of the same. The third section interprets the neighbour's monologue in light of Nietzsche's death of God. Finally, the fourth section is devoted to nihilism.