Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Roaring Lion Of Berlin: The Life, Thought, And Influence Of Eugen Dühring, Arden Roy

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The life and influence of 19th-century German polymath Eugen Dühring remain but a mere footnote in the history of ideas, being primarily relegated to the status of little more than a theoretical rival to Marxism in the German socialist movement and the occasional object of Freidrich Nietzsche's rhetorical flogging. Despite the current consensus on the subject, Eugen Dühring was a scholar of vast, remarkable learnedness, contributing greatly to philosophy, economics, and the natural sciences. The aim of this talk will be to clear the fog surrounding the life and work of the controversial blind scholar and give an account of …

Analyzing Nietzsche And Darwin In Search Of Origin Of Morality: The Evolving Perspective, Anirban Ghosh, Malabika Chakrabarti

Comparative Philosophy

It is generally believed that the greatest asset of human being is the moral values and according to theist such values have been infused in human by the creator. By accepting such view we simply get rid of any effort of searching the origin of morality or ethics and also transfer the responsibility of being ethical on the almighty. But when atheist denied God, the liability of being moral comes to human and also the significant question arose why we should be moral. Probably more important is the hunt for the origin of our morality. In this article we have …

A Cultural Approach To Environmental Ethics: Milton, Nietzsche, And Indian Philosophy, Kenneth Lee Koenemann

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this M.A. thesis is to explore the way in which cultural factors have influenced humankind's relationship with the natural world, including plant life, animal life, and the ecology of planet Earth as a whole. While quantitative, scientific analysis provides objective evidence of global climate change that is being propelled by human activity, I argue that the religious and philosophical beliefs of individuals and societies has played, continues to play, and will continue to play an indelible role in the way in which humans consider other humans and the natural world at large. I focus primarily on Western …

Auf Die Schiffe!, Koben Morgenthaler

Senior Projects Fall 2023

I argue that metaphors of water and fluidity are essential to both the content and form of Nietzsche’s work. In regards to the content, many important ideas such as a healthy response to the death of God and a philosophy of the future are, at their core, characterized by embracing fluidity. As for the form, just as Zarathustra tells us his teachings have become a river, Nietzsche’s work uses metaphor, aphorism, and poetic language to embody the qualities of dancing water. Consequently, it defies rigid interpretations that would turn it into a system and avoids falling prey to its own …

Cultivating The Human Narrative: On Nietzsche, Science Fiction, And The Aesthetics Of Life., Derek Carpenter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I will argue that there is a specific model of morality which can account for the intuition about moral features that we take to be intrinsic to the human type. This model of morality is that of Virtue Ethics, but not a conventional kind of Virtue Ethics. Instead, I will argue that the moral philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche presents a model of cultivating narrative types that we take to be grounded in the kinds of beings we are, without resorting to any problematic metaphysical systems. This will require that I defend a novel interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics …

La Mutación Del Pensamiento: Las Repercusiones Filosóficas Y Literarias De Friedrich Nietzsche En La Obra De Miguel De Unamuno., Raúl E. Garriga

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The first two chapters of the thesis contain a detailed study about the appropriations of two 19th century philosophical concepts that Miguel de Unamuno took from Nietzsche. The first chapter covers the idea of expulsion interna that the Basque philosopher attributes to Nietzsche and how that indication is systematized in a literary theory about writing that eventually will end up altering both of Unamuno’s essays and novels during this period. The second chapter also starts in the final years of the 19th century but is focused entirely on the dynamic concept of the “sobre-hombre” that Unamuno has used since 1896. …

Nietzsche’S Will To Power As That Which Eternally Recurs, Joshua Aaron Ackerman

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Commonly believed to be a thought experiment to help us with life affirmation, a cosmological or metaphysical interpretation of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence seems to be gaining ground. I argue for a metaphysical reading of the eternal recurrence. In arguing for this position, I hold that Nietzsche’s view of the eternal recurrence can be traced back to his admiration for the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus. Specifically, I think Nietzsche draws on a few of Heraclitus’ cosmological doctrines which include continuous flux, a unity of opposites, and eternal strife. In Nietzsche adopting Heraclitus’ cosmological standpoints, my view is that Nietzsche’s Will to Power …

Egyptian Etiquette: A Historical Rebuttal To The Genealogy Of Morals, Noah C. Evans

Honors College Theses

In his book Genealogy of Morals, German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche posits an understanding of the origin and development of morality that stood in stark contrast to the common understanding of his day. Rather than presuming the existence of some metaphysical, objective reality to morality, Nietzsche outlines a natural development and evolution to the concepts of "Good," "Bad," and "Evil" throughout a nebulously defined period of history, focusing primarily on the psychological conditions surrounding the advent of morality. Following this, he wrote The Antichrist, in which he provided a far more specific historical framework within which the …

An Exploration Of Secular And Christian Political Thought, Elizabeth Bradley

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Through the evaluation and comparison of Machiavellian, Nietzschean, and Christian political thought, this thesis argues that Christian thinkers effectively meet the challenges posed to them by Modern philosophers. Modern philosophers reject the teaching that ethical principles have a transcendent origin in God and instead believe that morality is merely a matter of human convention. Christian philosophy was once dominant in influencing political thought. Modern thinkers such as Machiavelli and Nietzsche wrote with the express purpose of challenging and replacing Christian thought. The Christian political tradition promotes more noble qualities in leaders than the modern philosophies which proposed to challenge it. …

Decentralized Perfectionism: A Critique Of Contractarianism And Bureaucracy Through The Inspiration Of Nietzsche, Felix George Newton Johnson

Senior Projects Spring 2022

The goal of this project is to articulate a critique of contractarianism and it links to the modern system of bureaucracy through a commitment to individual valuation and pluralism. This work illustrates the core of both contractarianism and bureaucracy as security and through this identification demonstrates the inability to consider social, political, and economic alternatives. This critique is based on the contractarianism of Thomas Hobbes and John Rawls, both demonstrating the deep contractarian need for security. This is extended further into a modern critique of bureaucracy as an extension of the contractarian framework, a system dependent on limiting conceptions of …

A Wordless Wild Cadence, Isaac Alexander Zaslow King

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Authenticity, Individuality, And Morality: An Existentialist Investigation Into The Possibility Of A Meaningful Existence, Ella Boyd

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper addresses the tension between individuality and morality with the goal of maximizing meaning in one’s own life. Drawing from Nietzschean ideas of authenticity and flourishing as they relate to the individual, the Categorical Imperative is then introduced as a way to ensure one’s own moral goodness within society. After accepting Sartre’s theory of existentialism, and, with it, the idea that existence precedes essence, one can begin an investigation into this creation of meaning in their own life. First drawing from Either/Or, Kierkegaard’s three life models are presented and, ultimately, dismissed in favor of Nietzsche’s idea that the key …

Nietzsche: Dionysian-Apollonian Lord Of The Dance, Michael S. Mendoza

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

Friedrich Nietzsche introduced his philological study of the Ancient Greek's Apollonian and Dionysian duality in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music, in 1872. His interpretation of the two Greek gods underpinned his philosophy of the will to power, the Übermensch, and eternal recurrence throughout his career.

I contend that Nietzsche's philosophy would have a modicum of merit as a metaphor for Greek culture and the German society in which he lived if his underlying assumption about atheism was correct. However, his explicit rejection of Christianity led to a fatal flaw in his …

From The Corner Of One's Soul: The Methods Of Negotiating Tension In Cormac Mccarthy's Blood Meridian Or The Evening Redness In The West, Julian Pena

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a practical and meaningful reading of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West, one that is rooted in the claim that both Judge Holden and the Kid reflect two different methods for negotiating a tension impinged upon them by their external circumstances. Using a theoretical framework that is inspired by the social psychological Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, this thesis provides an extensive analysis of the novel’s fictional universe, Judge Holden, and the Kid. Such an analysis elucidates the violent nature of Blood Meridian’s universe and further reveals the character of Judge Holden …

Nietzsche, Foucault, Power: A Study Of Paradox And Ontology In Nietzsche, Nicholas R. Ray

Honors Thesis

This thesis investigates a paradox at the heart of Nietzsche and utilizes Foucault as an instrument to understand this dilemma. The paradox is the synthesis of Nietzsche's doctrine of perspectivism and his ontological doctrine of the will to power. Put simply his doctrine of perspectivism says there can be no ontological facts yet Nietzsche articulates the will to power as an ontological matter of fact. This thesis explores the "First Essay" of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals to demonstrate the existence of this paradox. Further, I will conduct a Foucauldian cross-examination to further flesh out this paradox, where and why it …

Reflection And Emotional Well-Being In Nietzsche And Zhuang Zi, Danesh K. Singh

Comparative Philosophy

Nietzsche and Zhuang Zi both believe that the supposed value of certain emotions they deem harmful should be questioned and that reflection can be utilized to change the emotions. They intend to disabuse those of their respective times of conventional morality, with the aim of achieving a state in which negative moral emotions are eliminated and a more natural way of life is embraced. Specifically, Nietzsche examines guilt, a remnant of an ascetic morality endorsed by the religious elite; Zhuang Zi, similarly, considers grief, a moral emotion tied to traditional culture and endorsed by Confucian morality. Living naturally involves the …

Nietzsche: Metaphysician, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Perhaps the most fundamental disagreement concerning Nietzsche’s view of metaphysics is that some commentators believe Nietzsche has a positive, systematic metaphysical project, and others deny this. Those who deny it hold that Nietzsche believes metaphysics has a special problem, that is, a distinctively problematic feature which distinguishes metaphysics from other areas of philosophy. In this paper, I investigate important features of Nietzsche’s metametaphysics in order to argue that Nietzsche does not, in fact, think metaphysics has a special problem. The result is that, against a longstanding view held in the literature, we should be reading Nietzsche as a metaphysician.

Eroticism, Intersubjectivity, And Dreaming: A Critique Of Liberal Consent, Niko Mbaye

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Undressing Evil: On The Language, Function, And Eradication Of Evil, Nelson Hilario

Senior Projects Spring 2021

How does one begin a discussion about evil? The question of evil is approached by different thinkers via fundamentally different routes, leaning on disparate methods, and asking distinct questions—the basis and intention of each inquiry differ. Nietzsche’s On The Genealogy of Morality shows us that the region of violence is language, that violence begins with language. This is Nietzsche’s categorical contribution to the study of evil: that “evil” belongs to the domain of language (in defining “evil,” contrasting “evil,” and developing a dialect to talk about “evil”). Furthermore, Nietzsche’s understanding of the role of guilt, and what one does to …

Nietzschean Problematics, Jacob Vangeest

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is a commentary and exegesis on François Laruelle’s 1977 text Nietzsche contre Heidegger with a focus on the concept of the ‘Nietzschean problematic.’ It explores Laruelle’s use of Nietzsche by comparing his reading with that of Gilles Deleuze. This relation is explored in Deleuze and Laruelle’s reading of the Nietzschean problematic through the distinction between complementarity and supplementarity to enable a reading of Laruelle’s text as an extension of Deleuze’s project. This extension is one that simultaneously overturns what it extends. Laruelle’s aim is presented as a ‘machinic materialism’ infused with Derridean différance. Over the course of the …

Language After God: Nietzsche, Lacan, And The Sinthome Of Tragic Wisdom, Dylan J. Hughes

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the “sinthome” and Friedrich Nietzsche’s tragic philosophy of self-overcoming are deeply complementary theories of linguistic subjectivity, each describing the transformative potential of a kind of art at the centre of the inherently symptomatic experience of language. Lacan’s final seminars reimagine the psychoanalytic symptom as the potential site where each subject might forge a sinthome: a singular structure of creative agency in the experience of desire and truth. Nietzsche’s tragic philosophy works to uncover the problematically aesthetic and creative character of reality, suggesting that one must affirm and cultivate such creativity in order …

07. Richard Richards Is A Gay Scientist, David Monroe

Praxis, Poems, and Punchlines: Essays in Honor of Richard C. Richards

A little recognized and under-appreciated fact about the august Richard Richards is that he is a gay scientist. I know what you may be thinking—Richard’s never shagged dudes, and if he has, it’s shitty to out him in an essay that’s meant to honor him. That’s strictly his business. Or you may be thinking that that Richard identifies as a philosopher, not a physicist, biologist, or even (egads!) a psychologist. As far as I know, you would be right in both cases—and it would be terrible to call him out--despite the fact that this will hardly rise to the level …

Orders Of Normativity: Nietzsche, Science And Agency, Shane C. Callahan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I set out to address the “scope problem” in Nietzsche scholarship. In the secondary literature, the scope problem is characterized as a problem for Nietzsche, who seems deeply skeptical about nearly every item of his inherited western metaphysical toolkit. If his skepticism about western metaphysics penetrates all dimensions of his thought, how can he motivate a reader to also reject western metaphysics without himself committing to some of it? I stipulate that answering the scope problem means explicating what Nietzsche views as the general source of normativity—it is there that we can understand the resources Nietzsche is …

Pessimism, Hope, And The Tragic-Art Of The Greeks (Nietzsche And The Pandora Myth), James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

This essay is focused on Nietzsche’s unique reading of the Pandora myth as it appears in Human, All Too Human and develops an interpretation of Hope, the most profound evil of the many evils released by Pandora infecting the human condition, as it might be understood in relation to Nietzsche’s analysis of the ancient Greeks in The Birth of Tragedy. In reading this early work of Nietzsche, modes of comportment that fall under two specific categories are considered: Passive Nihilism-Pessimism of Decline and Active Nihilism-Pessimism of Strength as understood by Nietzsche in the late compilation of his notes …

Symposium On Justin Remhof's Nietzsche's Constructivism: A Metaphysics Of Material Objects (Routledge, 2018), Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Like Kant, the German Idealists, and many neo-Kantian philosophers before him, Nietzsche was persistently concerned with metaphysical questions about the nature of objects. His texts often address questions concerning the existence and non-existence of objects, the relation of objects to human minds, and how different views of objects impact commitments in many areas of philosophy―not just metaphysics, but also language, epistemology, science, logic and mathematics, and even ethics. In this book, Remhof presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of Nietzsche’s material object metaphysics. He argues that Nietzsche embraces the controversial constructivist view that all concrete objects are socially constructed. Reading …

Art And Self-Creation: An Encounter Of Nietzsche And John Cage, Guang Yang

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Why is Nietzsche holds such a unique view of art? Why does he thinks that art is closely related to the development and transformation of our selves? This project provided an attempted explanation of the relations of art to ourselves in the context Nietzsche's works. By inviting John Cage into the conversation with Nietzsche, we might be able to get some new insights of what is the best way to actualize the power of art that Nietzsche envisions in The Gay Science and other works.

Times Of The Multitude And The Antichrist, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In Nietzsche’s Europeanism Gary Shapiro discerns key resonances of his “great politics of the Earth” out of which those capable of “re-thinking the direction of the earth” may ultimately deploy a “philosophy of the Antichrist” to realize their vision of the future. In considering how philosophers of the future may create the opportune moment in which to revalue all values in such a new direction, Shapiro accounts for Nietzsche’s rejection of the priestly philosophers’ teleological conception of time. He also explicates Nietzsche’s notion of the multitude (Menge), whose diversity contrasts with the homogenous masses and mitigates against the reactionary state.

Aletheia: The Orphic Ouroboros, Glen Mcknight

Theses : Honours

This thesis shows how The Orphic Hymns function as a katábasis, a descent to the underworld, representing a process of becoming and psychological rebirth. I begin with the Greek concept of sparagmόs, a dismemberment or deconstruction, as a necessary precursor in that it emphasises at once both primordial unity and yet also the incipient tensions within the Orphic initiates on this path to katabasis. The argument herein extends beyond literary explication to consider how the Orphics sought to enact this process in Greek society itself.

The thesis then establishes the connections between the Hymns and the thinking of …

The Efficacy Of Comedy, Mark Anthony Castricone

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Efficacy of Comedy: Focusing on the efficacy of comedy as a genre, utilizing Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Heidegger’s philosophy. It begins with a historical analysis of the efficacy of comedy in Ancient 4th and 5th century Athens focusing on Aristotle’s conceptions of comedy. It analyses what Aristotle wrote about comedy and attempts a reconstruction of what his book on comedy from the poetics may have said. It then examines the shift to aesthetics rather than the Philosophy of Art with a focus on Kant and the Critique of Judgment. Comedy here is used as an interpretive tool in order to …

Phantoms In Science: Nietzsche's Nonobjectivity On Planck's Quanta, Donald Richard Dickerson Iii

Undergraduate Theses

What does Maxwell Planck's concept of phantomness suggest about the epistemological basis of science and how might a Nietzschean critique reveal solution to the weaknesses revealed? With his solution to Kirchoff's equation, Maxwell Planck launched the paradigm of quantum physics. This same solution undermined much of current understandings of science versus pseudoscience. Using Nietzsche's perspectivism and other philosophical critiques, Planck's answer to blackbody radiation is used to highlight the troubles with phantom problems in science and how to try to direct science towards a more holistic and complete scientific approach.