Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Beyond Dualism And Monism: Bergson’S Slanted Being, Messay Kebede

Messay Kebede

There is an old but still unresolved debate pertaining to the question of Bergsonian monism or dualism. Scholars who think that Bergson is ultimately monist clash with those who claim that he has consistently maintained a dualist position. Others speak of contradiction and point out his failure to reconcile dualism with monism. What feeds on the debate is Bergson’s undeniable change of direction: while his first book is flagrantly dualist, his second book takes a sharp turn toward monism. Without denying the intricacy generated by the change of direction, this paper argues that the originality of his position is overlooked …

Nietzsche And Emancipatory Politics: Queer Theory As Anti-Morality, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

Ought We To Forget What We Cannot Forget? A Reply To Sybille Schmidt, Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

This is a short response to Sybille Schmidt's paper (in the same volume) "Is There an Ethics of Forgetting?". The response starts out by admitting that forgetting is an essential function of human existence, that it serves, as it were, an important evolutionary function: that it is good, since it contributes to our well-being, to have the ability to forget. But this does not give us as answer, affirmative or not, to Schmidt’s title question: “Is There an Ethics of Forgetting?” The main impediment to answering this question, certainly to answering it in the affirmative, seems to be a problem …

Nietzschean Narratives Of Hero And Herd In Walt Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

A critical reading of the Nietzschean politics of the Walt Disney/Pixar film The Incredibles.

Nietzsche And Eros Between The Devil And God’S Deep Blue Sea: The Problem Of The Artist As Actor–Jew–Woman, Babette Babich

Babette Babich

In just one aphorism in The Gay Science, Nietzsche arrays “The Problem of the Artist” in a complex, highly reticulated constellation. Addressing every member of the excluded grouping of disenfranchised “others,” Nietzsche turns to the destitution of a god of love keyed to the self- or inward-turning absorption of the human heart. His ultimate and irrecusably tragic project to restore the innocence of becoming requires the affirmation of the problem of suffering as the task of learning how to love. Nietzsche sees the eros of art as what can teach us how to make things beautiful, desirable, lovable in the …

Greek Bronze: Holding A Mirror To Life, Expanded Reprint From The Irish Philosophical Yearbook 2006: In Memoriam John J. Cleary 1949-2009, Babette Babich

Babette Babich

To explore the ethical and political role of life-sized bronzes in ancient Greece, as Pliny and others report between 3,000 and 73,000 such statues in a city like Rhodes, this article asks what these bronzes looked like. Using the resources of hermeneutic phenomenological reflection, as well as a review of the nature of bronze and casting techniques, it is argued that the ancient Greeks encountered such statues as images of themselves in agonistic tension in dynamic and political fashion. The Greek saw, and at the same time felt himself regarded by, the statue not as he believed the statue divine …

On The Order Of The Real: Nietzsche And Lacan, Babette Babich

Babette Babich

No abstract provided.

Reading Nietzsche In The Wake Of The 2008-09 War On Gaza, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

A psychological reading and political application of Nietzsche's categories of master and slave morality to Israel's 2008-09 war on Gaza.

Art Of Life: Gauguin’S Language Of Color And Shape, Eva Maria Raepple

Eva Maria Raepple

Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century philosopher (1844 -1900), whose works speak of his unyielding search for an art of life, warns of the serpent’s promise, a promise that according to Genesis 3 foreshadows tribulations. On the stage of life the promise to know, to know as a subject that actively grasps the world, is an alluring, call, one that permits free spirits to explore and design life as a work of art beyond the confines of the herd. A changing role of the knowing and imagining subject in the nineteenth century enticed philosophers and inspired artists, unleashing their creativeness to …

Truth, Art, And The "New Sensuousness": Understanding Heidegger's Metaphysical Reading Of Nietzsche, James Magrini

James M Magrini

This article takes a critical look into Heidegger’s reading of Nietzschean metaphysics in the context of art and finds certain discrepancies in Heidegger’s texts. Heidegger’s claim is that Nietzsche has had some difficulty in discussing the problem of truth, being, and becoming in terms of how the Western tradition of philosophy has understood it. In the context of art, Magrini traces the path that Heidegger took in understanding Nietzsche’s notion of nihilism and finds that Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche is actually an attempt to elevate the latter as a timely philosophical force whose thought moves away from the rote and …

Aligning Nietzsche's "Genealogical" Philosophy With Democratic Educational Reform, James Magrini

James M Magrini

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche/Pentheus: The Last Disciple Of Dionysus And Queer Fear Of The Feminine, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

No abstract provided.

Saying Yes To Being: Sartre's Amor Fati, Ann Taylor

Ann Connolly

In The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche introduces the idea of amor fati, or “love of fate,” an idea that he further explores in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Ecce Homo. This idea of amor fati seems in some ways another formulation of eternal recurrence: how can one will that which already is, that over which we have no control, that which is necessary? On one level, it addresses the literal possibility of eternal recurrence, as well as commonly held ideas about fate and destiny. On another level, however, it addresses the bare fact of being human- that being …

Albert Camus And Friedrich Nietzsche: At The Crossroads Of Philosophy And Literature, Ann Taylor

Ann Connolly

Western philosophy essentially began as a dramatic form in the dialogues of Plato, but quickly was converted to a subject for study, something analyzed, systematized, and to a large extent removed from everyday experience. Indeed, most think of philosophy as a subject that has no relevance to common existence, even though it undoubtedly always begins there. Attempt at dialogue, or dramatic form of any kind, in philosophy since Plato has generally been either ignored or ineffective. However, with Friedrich Nietzsche, literary forms other than the treatise were re-introduced to Western philosophy in such a way that they no longer could …

(Im)Material Devils: The Question Of Responsibility In The Holocaust In Thomas Mann’S Doctor Faustus, Ann Taylor

Ann Connolly