Keith Ansell-Pearson's book is an important and very welcome contribution to a neglected area of research: Nietzsche's political thought. Nietzsche is widely regarded as a significant moral philosopher, but his political thinking has often been dismissed as either impossibly individualistic or dangerously totalitarian. Nietzsche contra Rousseau takes a serious look at Nietzsche as political thinker and relates his political ideas to the dominant traditions of modern political thought. In particular, the nature of Nietzsche's dialogue with the philosophy (...) of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is examined, in order to demonstrate Rousseau's crucial role in Nietzsche's understanding of modernity and its discontents. (shrink)

_Germinal Life_ is the sequel to the highly successful _Viroid Life_. Where _Viroid Life_ provided a compelling reading of Nietzsche's philosophy of the human, _Germinal Life_ is an original and groundbreaking analysis of little known and difficult theoretical aspects of the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In particular, Keith Ansell Pearson provides fresh and insightful readings of Deleuze's work on Bergson and Deleuze's most famous texts _Difference and Repetition_ and _A Thousand Plateaus_. _Germinal Life _also provides (...) new insights into Deleuze's relation to some of the most original thinkers of modernity, from Darwin to Freud and Nietzsche, and explores the connections between Deleuze and more recent thinkers such as Adorno and Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Nietzsche's vision of the 'overman' continues to haunt the postmodern imagination. His call that 'man is something that must be overcome' can no longer be seen as simple rhetoric. Our experiences of the hybrid realities of artificial life have made the 'transhuman' a figure that looks over us all. Inspired by this vision, Keith Ansell Pearson sets out to examine if evolution is 'out of control' and machines are taking over. In a series of six fascinating perspectives, (...) he links Nietzsche's thought with the issues at stake in contemporary conceptions of evolution from the biological to the technological. _Viroid Life; Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition_ considers the hybrid, 'inhuman' character of our future with the aid of Nietzsche's philosophy. Keith Ansell Pearson contrasts Nietzsche and Darwin before introducing the more recent figures such as Giles Deleuze and Guy Debord to sketch a new thinking of technics and machines and stress the ambiguous character of our 'machine enslavement'. (shrink)

This is a lively and engaging introduction to the contentious topic of Nietzsche's political thought. It traces the development of Nietzsche's thinking on politics from his earliest writings to the mature work in which he advocates aristocratic radicalism as opposed to 'petty' European nationalism. The key ideas of the will to power, eternal return and the overman are discussed and all Nietzsche's major works analysed in detail, such as Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals, within the context (...) of the concerns of modern political theory. The book concludes with an assessment of Nietzsche's enduring relevance and of the insights afforded by contemporary liberal and feminist readings. This textbook will be essential for all students of Nietzsche and of the history of political ideas. It includes a chronology of Nietzsche's life and works and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

Informed by the philosophy of the virtual, Keith Ansell Pearson offers up one of the most lucid and original works on the central philosophical questions. He asks that if our basic concepts on what it means to be human are wrong then, what is this to mean for our ideas of time, being, consciousness? A critical examination ensues, one informed by a multitude of responses to a large number of philosophers. Under discussion is the mathematical limits as (...) found in Russell, questions on Relativity, Kant's notion of judgement, Popper, Dennett, Dawkins and Proust. He brings into the rapport the concepts of Bergson and their explosive insights into the idea of time. (shrink)

This article analyses Nietzsche’s commitment to the sublime. Focusing on his early writings, it demonstrates how the sublime informs both Nietzsche’s conception of philosophy and his ideas for cultural revitalization. His appreciation of the sublime is embedded in four contexts and problems: his exploration of what philosophy is in its beginnings; his attack on D. F. Strauss and cultural philistinism; his conception of culture as transfigured physis; and the critique of the science of history. Nietzsche is committed to the sublime (...) because it captures how humans transcend certain limits. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the nature of Deleuze’s commitment to an affirmative naturalism that is based on certain Epicurean principles and insights. The essay is divided into two main parts. In the first part I bring to light some of the key features of Lucretius’s great poem on the nature of things, and I do so with the aid of Bergson and his reading of the teaching as fundamentally melancholic. In the second part I switch my attention to Deleuze (...) and show how he links together physics and ethics as a way of providing an emancipatory and affirmative philosophy of life and one that aims to defeat sadness. In the conclusion I return to the question of melancholy and indicate how the problem might be best negotiated. (shrink)

This volume covers the period between the 1890s and 1930s, a period that witnessed revolutions in the arts and society which set the agenda for the rest of the century. In philosophy, the period saw the birth of analytic philosophy, the development of new programmes and new modes of inquiry, the emergence of phenomenology as a new rigorous science, the birth of Freudian psychoanalysis, and the maturing of the discipline of sociology. This period saw the most influential work of a (...) remarkable series of thinkers who reviewed, evaluated and transformed 19th-century thought. A generation of thinkers - among them, Henri Bergson, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers, Max Scheler, and Ludwig Wittgenstein - completed the disenchantment of the world and sought a new re-enchantment. (shrink)

_A Companion to Nietzsche_ provides a comprehensive guide to all the main aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, profiling the most recent research and trends in scholarship. Brings together an international roster of both rising stars and established scholars, including many of the leading commentators and interpreters of Nietzsche. Showcases the latest trends in Nietzsche scholarship, such as the renewed focus on Nietzsche’s philosophy of time, of nature, and of life. Includes clearly organized sections on Art, Nature, and Individuation; Nietzsche's New Philosophy (...) of the Future; Eternal Recurrence, the Overhuman, and Nihilism; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy and Genealogy; Ethics; Politics; Aesthetics; Evolution and Life. Features fresh treatments of Nietzsche’s core and enigmatic doctrines. (shrink)

Nietzsche is no longer a marginal figure in the study of philosophy. This collection of specially commissioned essays reflects the emergence of a serious interest amongst philosophers, sociologists and political theorists. By considering Nietzsche's ideas in the context of the modern philosophical tradition from which it emerged, his importance in contemporary thought is refined and reaffirmed. Modern German thought begins with Kant and has rarely escaped his influence. It is with respect to this Kantian heritage that this volume examines Nietzsche. (...) These essays critically consider Nietzsche's relation to Kant and the post-Kantian tradition. In broad terms it is his relation to the domains of knowledge, ethics and aesthetics, that is through the three Kantian critiques, that Nietzsche's thought is illuminated. This allows a surprising variety of areas and questions, both about Nietzsche and about philosophy to be investigated. (shrink)

An incisive exploration of Nietzsche as a bold, visionary poet-philosopher. Today, Nietzsche is justly celebrated for his rich, philosophical naturalism, but Keith Ansell-Pearson warns that we must not overlook the visionary dimension of his thinking and his focus on the need to cultivate a new care of the self and care of life. In Nietzsche's Earthbound Wisdom, Ansell-Pearson recovers Nietzsche's love for a philosophy that guides us through our passions, one that opens us more fully (...) to the possibilities of life and the joy of knowledge. Ansell-Pearson offers close readings of Nietzsche's texts in conversation with philosophical and literary figures including Augustine, Baudelaire, Carlyle, Dostoevsky, Emerson, Flaubert, Stendhal, and more. Throughout, Ansell-Pearson examines Nietzsche's sophisticated critique of literary naturalism and his alternative conception of the poet as a seer who has a deep longing for a new earth. (shrink)

_Beyond Good and Evil_ is Nietzsche's first sustained philosophical treatment of issues important to him. Unlike the expository prose of the essayistic period, the stylized forays and jabs of the aphoristic period, and the lyrical-philosophical rhetoric of the Zarathustra-period, _Beyond Good and Evil_ inscribes itself boldly into the history of philosophy, challenging ancient and modern notions of philosophy's achievements and insisting on a new task for "new philosophers." This is a watershed book for Nietzsche and for philosophy in the modern (...) era. _On the Genealogy of Morality_ applies Nietzsche's celebrated genealogical method, honed in the earlier aphoristic writings, to the problem of morality's influence on the human species. In three treatises that strikingly anticipate insights appearing much later in Freud's _Civilization and Its Discontents_, Nietzsche provides an anthropological psychograph of our species, revealing the origins of the concepts of good and evil, the roles played by guilt and bad conscience, and the persistence of ascetic ideals. Manifesting a hopeful yet unsentimental assessment of the human condition, these books resonated throughout the 20th century and continue to exert broad appeal. (shrink)

An examination of Nietzsche on the passion of knowledge and that then looks at aspects of Foucault's work on this theme or motif.

An examination of key aspects of Nietzsche;'s middle writings, focused on his conceptions of philosopher and the tasks of the philosopher.

Nietzsche’s naturalism is a well-rehearsed theme. The latter has become somewhat of an orthodoxy in Anglo-American scholarship, and it is often connected to the rediscovery of Nietzsche’s ethical thought among analytic philosophers. Philosophical naturalism, of course, can mean many different things, and Nietzsche’s rhetoric, his polemical stance and tendency toward hyperbole, are not exactly hallmarks of a philosophical naturalism that situates itself in close proximity to the methods and methodologies of the natural sciences. On the other hand, it is difficult (...) to deny that much of Nietzsche’s work—perhaps even from the early essay on “Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense” onward—speaks to a tradition.. (shrink)

Although the literature on Nietzsche is now voluminous one area where there has surprisingly been very little research concerns Nietzsche on the passions. This essay aims to correct this neglect. My focus is on illuminating Nietzsche on the passions in relation to his primary teaching on self-cultivation. To illuminate his position, I focus attention on examining his relation to Stoic teaching on the passions. If for Nietzsche the Christian mind-set involves a disturbing pathological excess of feeling, the Stoic way of (...) living results for him in a petrified of life devoid of movement and growth. After a consideration of his relation to Stoic teaching I then examine his relation to Spinoza on the emotions or affects. Whilst I acknowledge the affinities between the two thinkers and their criticisms of Stoic teaching, I maintain that it is an error to seek to construe Nietzsche and Spinoza as having an identical teaching on the passions. In the final section of the essay, I provide an appreciation of Nietzsche’s recommendation that instead of demonising the passions in the manner of the Christian psyche and its legacy, or extirpating our passions as recommended by the Stoics, we need to learn how to transform them into joys or delights. (shrink)

This essay examines Deleuze’s relation to new materialism through an engagement with new materialist claims about the human and nonhuman relation and about agency. It first considers the work of Elisabeth Grosz and then moves on to a consideration of Deleuze’s own conception of a new materialism/new naturalism. I seek to show that Deleuze is an ethically motivated naturalist concerned with an ethical pedagogy of the human, which he derives from his reading of Spinoza. I seek to illuminate some of (...) the principal features of this ethically guided materialism/naturalism and show that even in his later work with Felix Guattari, which situates all life, human and nonhuman, on a plane of immanence, there remains a recognition that the human animal is ethically distinguished as the inventive species par excellence. My main claim, then, is that Deleuze’s project cannot be aligned with a new materialism that supposes a flat ontology and that does away with an ethical distinction between the human and the nonhuman. Although Deleuze bequeaths a complex legacy to post-modern thought in his thinking about the human, it should not be supposed that he has no affinities with aspects of a humanist position and pedagogy. (shrink)

The book seeks to illuminate Bergson's view that philosophy is the discipline of thinking that makes the effort to think beyond the human condition so as to extend our perception of the universe. In the book I explore Bergson on time and freedom, on memory, on his reformation of philosophy in Creative Evolution, on religion, on ethics, and on education and the art of life.

This unique book explores Nietzsche’s philosophy at the time of Dawn’s writing and discusses the modern relevance of themes such as fear, superstition, terror, and moral and religious fanaticism. The authors highlight Dawn’s links with key areas of philosophical inquiry, such as “the art of living well,” skepticism, and naturalism. The book begins by introducing Dawn and discussing how to read Nietzsche, his literary and philosophical influences, his relation to German philosophy, and his efforts to advance his ‘free spirit’ philosophy. (...) Subsequent discussions address a wide range of topics relevant to Dawn, including presumptions of customary morality, hatred of the self, free-minded thinking, and embracing science and the passion of knowledge. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers of the past 150 years and On the Genealogy of Morality is his most important work on ethics and politics. A polemical contribution to moral and political theory, it offers a critique of moral values and traces the historical evolution of concepts such as guilt, conscience, responsibility, law and justice. This is a revised and updated 2006 edition of one of the most successful volumes to appear in Cambridge Texts in the (...) History of Political Thought. Keith Ansell-Pearson modified his introduction to Nietzsche's classic text, and Carol Diethe incorporated a number of changes to the translation itself, reflecting the considerable advances in our understanding of Nietzsche. In this guise the Cambridge Texts edition of Nietzsche's Genealogy should continue to enjoy widespread adoption, at both undergraduate and graduate level. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Editions of Nietzsche's Writings Used with Abbreviations.

Many of Nietzsche's texts, particularly those that form part of his later writings, have received significant individual attention within English‐speaking Nietzsche studies. This chapter argues that Nietzsche's core critical innovations in Dawn are in identifying why customary morality is a significant problem for humanity, and in developing a sustained critique of this form of morality in order to motivate critical re‐engagement with the ethical. In Dawn, Nietzsche attacks the view that everything that exists has a connection with morality and thus (...) a moral significance can be projected onto the world. Nietzsche's project in Dawn focuses on addressing the presumptions and prejudices of customary morality. The challenge of understanding the philosophical contribution that Dawn makes is complicated by Nietzsche's writing styles: he combines innovative deployment of aphorism and punctuation with use of multiple voices or characters, and a range of rhetorical devices. (shrink)

This chapter examines the basis of Nietzsche's campaign against customary morality in Dawn. It consider what problems there are with mounting a successful campaign against morality, and to what extent Nietzsche's campaign against morality leaves room for a positive ethics. The chapter shows that Nietzsche's fundamental concern is that morality as it currently stands is bad for humans. The basic problem with the campaign against morality that Nietzsche pursues in the original aphorisms of Dawn can be developed in greater depth (...) by examining evidence from its 1886 Preface, which illustrates Nietzsche's awareness of the challenge that his campaign against morality faces. Aphorism supports Nietzsche's experimental disruption of the social and emotional systemic functioning of customary morality, and allows for exploration of alternatives to the mood of fear that Nietzsche shows to be pervasive to customary morality. (shrink)

This chapter examines Nietzsche's remarks on Epicurus in the earlier middle writings, to provide an interpretative framework through which to clarify Nietzsche's thinking on death in Dawn. It considers some points of continuity between Nietzsche's account of death in Dawn and in his later texts. Nietzsche champions Epicurus as a figure who has sought to show mankind how it can conquer its fears of death. The chapter contends that Nietzsche uses Epicurean thinking as a strategy to do his work in (...) Dawn, picking up the Epicurean doctrine on death and putting it to critical effect. Nietzsche's fundamental aim in writing about death, within the wider context of his project in Dawn, is to counter our socially conditioned yearning for immortality. A careful reading of Epicurus attests to the significance of Epicureanism as a strategy informing Nietzsche's thinking on death in Dawn. (shrink)

A consideration of Nietzsche on Epicurean teaching on self-cultivation and making a contrast with Kant on this teaching.

Suitable for those conducting research or teaching in philosophy, this title provides analyses of the continental tradition of philosophy from Kant. Placing continental philosophy within a historical context, it helps define what the continental tradition has been and where it is moving.

Evolution is seen to be entering a bio-technological phase. Nietzsche's affirmation that "man is something that must be overcome" no longer has a rhetorical ring given the means at our disposal at the end of the twentieth century. Viroid Life boldly challenges existing explanations of these changes inherited from modernity, arguing that they have exhausted their usefulness and new models are needed to guide us in mapping through the future. Exploring and critically examining the new realities of artificial life that (...) confront us, Viroid Life brings together the tradition of Nietszchean thought with new work in exploratory biology and machinic thinking. Offering insights from Darwin to Gilles Deleuze and Guy Debord and the Situationist movement, Pearson provides a brave starting point for any inquiry on the future of the "human". (shrink)

In this article I explore naturalism as a joyful science by focusing on how Nietzsche and Deleuze appropriate an Epicurean legacy. In the first section I introduce some salient features of Epicurean naturalism and highlight how the study of nature is to guide ethical reflection on the art of living. In the next section I focus on Nietzsche and show the nature and extent of his Epicurean commitments in his middle period writings. In the third and final main section my (...) attention shifts to Deleuze and to showing how he fruitfully demonstrates the intersection of physics and ethics in the Epicurean method of thinking. I am interested in Epicureanism since, as both Nietzsche and Deleuze show, it holds ethics to be central to philosophical inquiry and activity: we study nature not simply as an end in itself but as a way of better understanding how we can promote a flourishing life. Our being in the world is not to be guided by myths and illusions, especially of a supernatural kind, but rather by the affirmation of the positive power of an immanent and multiple nature and by the joy that results from recognizing the diversity of its elements. (shrink)

There is a tradition of modern French philosophy that contains valuable resources for thinking about the nature and limits of obligation and how a higher calling of life beyond obligation might be conceived. This is a tradition of an ethics of generosity whose best exemplar is perhaps Henri Bergson and that extends in our own time to the writing of Gilles Deleuze.