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67Against Nietzsche’s Theory of AffirmationIn Daniel Came (ed.), Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life, Oxford University Press. 2022.This paper presents affirmation as the central normative category of Nietzsche’s positive ethics. The paper argues in particular for two interpretive claims: first, that from Beyond Good and Evil onwards, we find a new variety of Nietzschean affirmation (‘natural affirmation’), which is crucial to the strategy of his later works; and second, for reasons internal to his own philosophical aims, Nietzsche’s new variety of affirmation is seriously flawed. The author argues for the second claim on th…Read more
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242Proustian HabitIn Anna Elsner & Thomas Stern (eds.), The Proustian Mind, Routledge. pp. 161-175. 2022.The reader of RTP is granted just a few paragraphs before habit is introduced: Habit! That able but slow-moving arranger who begins by letting our minds sufer for weeks on end in temporary quarters, but whom our mind is nonetheless only too happy to fnd, for without it, reduced to its own devices, it would be powerless to make any room habitable. (SW, 9, translation altered; I 8) Implied is a view of mind: powerless to interfere with habit’s course, but equally powerless to reconcile us even to …Read more
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11Forum on Martin Puchner, "The drama of ideas"Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience 3 110-153. 2013.
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28Lubaina Himid exhibition at Tate ModernBritish Journal of Aesthetics 63 (3): 435-438. 2023.In 1819, a ship called Le Rôdeur was carrying enslaved Africans from Bonny Island in modern Nigeria to Guadeloupe. The ship’s crew and its enslaved cargo were s.
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615Nietzsche, the mask, and the problem of the actorIn The Philosophy of Theatre, Drama and Acting, Rowman & Littlefield International. 2017.Readers of Nietzsche are not unfamiliar with the thought that his philosophical writings contain numerous at least apparent contradictions. We begin with one of them. On the one hand, Nietzsche takes pride of place in the canonical parade of theatre-haters. Indeed, he himself demands inclusion: ‘I am essentially anti-theatrical’. This antipathy appears to extend to the actor’s ‘inner longing for a role and mask’. On the other hand, Nietzsche is known as an advocate and admirer of the mask: ‘ever…Read more
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29The Proustian Mind (edited book)Routledge. 2022.When Marcel Proust started to work on In Search of Lost Time in 1908, he wrote this question in his notebook: 'Should I make it a novel, a philosophical study, am I a novelist?' Throughout his famous multi-volume work Proust directly engages several philosophers, and few novels are as thoroughly statured with philosophical themes and concepts as In Search of Lost Time. The Proustian Mind is an outstanding reference source to the rich philosophical range of Proust's work and the first major volum…Read more
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519Moral Psychology with Nietzsche, by Brian Leiter (review)Mind 130 (518): 661-671. 2021.Moral Psychology with Nietzsche, by Brian Leiter. Oxford: OUP, 2019. Pp. x + 198.
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280Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture by Andrew Huddleston (review)Journal of Nietzsche Studies 51 (1): 125-133. 2020.Andrew Huddleston’s book sets out a vision of Nietzsche as a philosopher of culture. His approach sheds light on some familiar problems and opens up a new way of thinking about cultural criticism. Nietzsche’s concern, he argues, lies with both the instrumental and final value of both individuals and whole cultures. In terms of the Anglophone secondary literature, this places Huddleston between Leiter, who tends to suggest that individuals are all that matters, and Young, who tends to suggest tha…Read more
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441“Some Third Thing”: Nietzsche's Words and the Principle of CharityJournal of Nietzsche Studies 47 (2): 287-302. 2016.The aim of this paper is to begin a conversation about how we read and write about Nietzsche and, related to this, other figures in the history of philosophy. The principle of charity can appear to be a way to bridge two dif-ferent interpretative goals: getting the meaning of the text right and offering the best philosophy. I argue that the principle of charity is multiply ambiguous along three different dimensions, which I call “unit,” “mode,” and “strength”: consequently, it is not…Read more
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379Introduction: Nietzsche's Life and WorksIn The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, Cambridge University Press. pp. 1-21. 2019.An introduction to Nietzsche's life and works.
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309Hedda Gabler and the Uses of BeautyIn Kristin Gjesdal (ed.), Ibsen's Hedda Gabler: Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press. pp. 71-91. 2018.
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1196Nietzsche's EthicsCambridge University Press. 2019.This Element explains Nietzsche's ethics in his late works, from 1886 onwards. The first three sections explain the basics of his ethical theory – its context and presuppositions, its scope and its central tension. The next three sections explore Nietzsche's goals in writing a history of Christian morality, the content of that history, and whether he achieves his goals. The last two sections take a broader look, respectively, at Nietzsche's wider philosophy in light of his ethics and at the pros…Read more
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1567Nietzsche's Ethics of AffirmationIn The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, Cambridge University Press. pp. 351-373. 2019.This chapter looks at Nietzsche's notion of the affirmation of life. It begins with the origins of the concept in Schopenhauer and in the Schopenhauerian philosophy known to Nietzsche. It then examines affirmation in three phases of Nietzsche's writing: early, middle and late. It relates affirmation to other key Nietzschean concepts like the Apollonian and the Dionysian, eternal recurrence, amor fati and will to power.
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519History, Nature, and the 'Genetic Fallacy' in The Antichrist's Revaluation of ValuesIn Daniel Conway (ed.), Nietzsche and the Antichrist: Religion, Politics, and Culture in Late Modernity, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 21-42. 2019.The central question in this paper is the following: how does Nietzsche use history in his critique of morality? The answer, in sum: interestingly, not how you (i.e. most Nietzsche scholars) think, and not well enough. My focus is on The Antichrist, not his Genealogy of Morality, which is more commonly used to answer this question. And I look, in particular, at Nietzsche’s use of good, contemporary scholarship on the origins of Judaism. The chapter also examines the so-called 'genetic fallacy', …Read more
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435Must We Choose between Real Nietzsche and Good Philosophy? A StreitschriftJournal of Nietzsche Studies 49 (2): 277-283. 2018.A critical comment on methods in Nietzsche scholarship, and some suggestions about how to improve things.
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28How should we interpret dead philosophers?Forum for European Philosophy BlogTom Stern on the problem with the principle of charity as a way to interpret figures in the history of philosophy.
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760VIII—Nietzsche, Amor Fati and The Gay ScienceProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (2pt2): 145-162. 2013.ABSTRACTAmor fati—the love of fate—is one of many Nietzschean terms which seem to point towards a positive ethics, but which appear infrequently and are seldom defined. On a traditional understanding, Nietzsche is asking us to love whatever it is that happens to have happened to us—including all sorts of horrible things. My paper analyses amor fati by looking closely at Nietzsche's most sustained discussion of the concept—in book four of The Gay Science—and at closely related passages in that bo…Read more
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35Review Article: Theatre and Philosophy (review)European Journal of Philosophy 21 (1): 158-167. 2013.
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43The Philosophy of Theatre, Drama and Acting (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield International. 2017.A collection of new essays on the philosophy of theatre and the philosophy of drama, combining historical perspectives and new directions.
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24Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, The Three Stigmata of Friedrich Nietzsche: Political Physiology in the Age of Nihilism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 157pp., $85.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780230282551 (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1. 2011.
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24The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2019.Friedrich Nietzsche remains one of the most challenging, influential and controversial figures in the history of philosophy. The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to his most difficult ideas, including the will to power and the affirmation of life, as well as his treatment of truth, science, art and history. An accessible introduction sets out the nineteenth-century background of Nietzsche's life and work. Individual chapters are devoted to signif…Read more
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1249Nietzsche on Context and the IndividualNietzscheforschung 15 (JG): 299-315. 2008.This paper offers a reading of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, arguing that there is a conflict between Zarathustra's hope for something greater (in the form of the Übermensch) and his conception of the eternal recurrence.
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44Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy, by Paul RaimondDaniels. Durham, UK: Acumen, 2013, xvi + 240 pp. ISBN 978‐1‐84465‐243‐3 pb £16.99; ISBN 978‐1‐84465‐242‐6 hb £50 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 23 (S2): 17-21. 2015.
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82The Soul of Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil', by Maudemarie Clark and David DudrickMind 123 (489): 198-203. 2014.This book review looks closely at the authors' method of interpretation.
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888Against Nietzsche’s '''Theory''' of the DrivesJournal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1): 121--140. 2015.ABSTRACT ABSTRACT: Nietzsche, we are often told, had an account of 'self' or 'mind' or a 'philosophical psychology', in which what he calls our 'drives' play a highly significant role. This underpins not merely his understanding of mind, in particular, of consciousness and action. but also his positive ethics, be they understood as authenticity, freedom, knowledge, autonomy, self-creation, or power. But Nietzsche did not have anything like a coherent account of 'the drives' according to which th…Read more
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46Philosophy and Theatre: An IntroductionRoutledge. 2013.The relationship between philosophy and theatre is a central theme in the writings of Plato and Aristotle and of dramatists from Aristophanes to Stoppard. Where Plato argued that playwrights and actors should be banished from the ideal city for their suspect imitations of reality, Aristotle argued that theatre, particularly tragedy, was vital for stimulating our emotions and helping us to understanding ourselves. Despite this rich history the study of philosophy and theatre has been largely over…Read more
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17VIII-Nietzsche,Amor FatiandThe Gay ScienceProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (2pt2): 145-162. 2013.
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15Back to the Future: Eternal Recurrence and the Death of SocratesJournal of Nietzsche Studies 41 (1): 73-82. 2011.
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Areas of Specialization
19th Century German Philosophy |
Friedrich Nietzsche |
Arthur Schopenhauer |
Aesthetics |
Philosophy of Literature |