Continental Philosophy Commons^™

Requiem, Babette Babich

Working Papers

No abstract provided.

The Philosopher And The Volcano, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Nietzsche's Zarathustra echoes Empedocles' as orator or speaker especially if reviewed in terms of Empedocles' esoteric Katharmoi or Purifications. This essay reads Zarathustra teaching of the eternal return of the same as the teaching of going to ground, that is: death and rebirth, arguing that death is present at the start and already at work in the section entitled The Adder's Bite. Indeed it is the explicit subtext of the overman.

Like Empedocles, Nietzsche's Zarathustra tells us that the human being is something that should be overcome. and thus it makes a difference that we hear Zarathustra proclaim this teaching …

Le Zarathoustra De Nietzsche Et Le Style Parodique. A Propos De L’Hyperanthropos De Lucien Et Du Surhomme De Nietzsche, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Abstract

Nietzsche’s Übermensch is derived from Lucian of Samosata’s term hyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman acquires new resonances in the context of that terminological origination in Lucian’s Kataplous — literally: sailing into port — referring to the journey of the soul into the afterlife, as escorted by Hermes and ferried by Charon along with myriads of others facing the same fate. The Kataplous he tyrannos, a title usually rendered as the Downward Journey (or The Tyrant), is a Menippean satire telling the tale of the “overman” supposed superior to others of “lesser” station in …

"An Impoverishment Of Philosophy", Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Interview on philosophy journals and editing, academic publishing, digital content, the analytic continental divide in philosophy, its persistence along with the reasons for its denial, philosophy curricula.

The Birth Of Kd Lang’S Hallelujah Out Of The ‘Spirit Of Music’: Performing Desire And ‘Recording Consciousness’ On Facebook And Youtube, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Schrödinger And Nietzsche On Life: The Eternal Recurrence Of The Same, Babette Babich

Working Papers

Schrödinger and Nietzsche on Life: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same

This essay explores Schrödinger’s reflections on measurement, consciousness, and personal identity. Schrödinger’s, What Is Life? is read together with Nietzsche’s own reflections on the same question, in his aphorism What is Life? together with Nietzsche’s teaching of the eternal return of the selfsame. Schrödinger’s own thinking is influenced as is Nietzsche’s by Schopenhauer but Schrödinger also has the Vedic tradition as this influenced Schopenhauer himself in view.

Zu Nietzsches Statuen: Skulptur Und Das Erhabene, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Metaphern aus dem Feld der Bildhauerein kommen überraschend oft bei Nietzsche vor: von der Statue als einem Ideal von Unweglichkeit ebenso wie von der Skulptur als einer Metapher der Selbst-Darstellung, bis hin zu Nietzsches ikonoklastischer Klärung: wie mit dem Hammer zu philosophieren sei.

In Bezug auf die griechische Platik sowie Nietzsche’s Texte argumentiert die Autorin mit Nietzsche gegen eine damals und noch heute weit verbreitete Auffassung, wonach wir solche Statuen fast unvermeidlich aus einem jüdisch-christlichen Gesichtspunkt betrachten. Außerdem geht sie besonders ein auf Nietzsches Beschwörung der Skulptur in dem Zarathustra-Abschnitt Von den Erhabenen.

Adorno On Science And Nihilism, Animals, And Jews, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No less than Heidegger or Nietzsche, Adorno had his own critical notions of truth/untruth. But Adorno’s readers are unsettled by the barest hint of anything that might be taken to be anti-science. Thus it is argued that Adorno opposes not science but scientism. But, and here not unlike Arendt, Adorno argued that so-called “scientistic” tendencies are the very conditions of society and of scientific thought.” I ask how we are to read Adorno by exploring his thought on animals and nihilism.

Nietzsche And Lou, Eros And Art : On Lou’S Triangles And The « Exquisite Dream » Of Sacro Monte, Babette Babich

Research Resources

No abstract provided.

The Ister: Between The Documentary And Heidegger’S Lecture Course Politics, Geographies, And Rivers, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

The Ister, the 2004 documentary by the Australian scholars and videographers, David Barison, a political theorist, and Daniel Ross, a philosopher, appeals to Martin Heidegger’s 1942 lecture course, Hölderlins Hymne «Der Ister»and the video takes us «backward» as the river flows: beginning from the Danube’s delta where it ends in the sea and «journeying» with it to its source in the Alps.

the value of the Barison/Ross documentary for both political theory and philosophy is its illustration of the technological incursions or assaults on the river itself, that is to say: its representation of the ‘uses’ and hence …

The Philosopher And The Volcano, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Towards A Critical Philosophy Of Science: Continental Beginnings And Bugbears, Whigs, And Waterbears, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Continental philosophy of science has developed alongside mainstream analytic philosophy of science. But where continental approaches are inclusive, analytic philosophies of science are not – excluding not merely Nietzsche’s philosophy of science but Gödel’s philosophy of physics. As a radicalization of Kant, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy of science puts science in question and Nietzsche’s critique of the methodological foundations of classical philology bears on science, particularly evolution as well as style (in art and science). In addition to the critical (in Mach, Nietzsche, Heidegger but also Husserl just to the extent that continental philosophy of science tends to depart from a …

Early Continental Philosophy Of Science, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Great Men, Little Black Dresses, & The Virtues Of Keeping One’S Feet On The Ground, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

One can use phenomenology, along with the usual tools of scholarship and analysis, to make the point that the promises of the 1960’s and 1970’s especially those of the women’s movement, have yet to bear significant fruit in the academy. Hence, for everybody’s non-thingly phenomenology of non-practice, a handy-dandy wiki-check on the net yields the claim that “U.S. Department of Education reports indicate that philosophy is one of the least proportionate, and possibly the least proportionate, fields in the humanities with respect to gender,” with a rather dismal addendum reporting that in “2004, the percentage of Ph.D.s in philosophy going …

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Or Nietzsche And Hermeneutics In Gadamer, Lyotard, And Vattimo, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Apart from reading Nietzsche's words on his characterization as an educator in suspicion with some suspicion, what does Nietzsche offer hermeneutics? This essay takes up this question by talking about the politics of interpretation, hermeneutics, and genealogy. In the process, we can address Lyotard's enthusiastic fealty to technology and offer yet once more requiem for the postmodern, understood here through (and hence contra) Lyotard as the simulacrum of communication that is the internet.

Das ‚Problem Der Wissenschaft‘ Oder Nietzsches Philosophische Kritik Wissenschaftlicher Vernunft, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Ex Aliquo Nihil: Nietzsche On Science And Modern Nihilism. Acpq, 84-2 (Spring 2010): 231-256., Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

This essay explores the nihilistic coincidence of the ascetic ideal and Nietzsche’s localization of science in the conceptual world of anarchic socialism as Nietzsche indicts the uncritical convictions of modern science by way of a critique of the causa sui, questioning both religion and the enlightenment as well as both free and unfree will and condemning the “poor philology” enshrined in the language of the “laws” of nature. Reviewing the history of philosophical nihilism in the context of Nietzsche’s “tragic knowledge” along with political readings of nihilism, willing nothing rather than not willing at all, today’s this-worldly and very planetary …

Towards An Ontology Of Bob Dylan, William J. Richardson

Research Resources

No abstract provided.

Le Sort Du Nachlass : Le Problème De L’Œuvre Posthume, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Discussion of Heidegger's Nachlass as composed in the wake of his editorial experience working on the edition of Nietzsche's works. Issues explored include the role of the editor (or editors) in the work of an author (reception, legitimation, etc.) Features a discussion of the distinctive aspects of the different language versions of Nietzsche's Will to Power first in German, then in French, then in English. Text is in French.

Please use this citation:

Babette Babich, «Le sort du Nachlass : le problème de l’œuvre posthume», in : Pascale Catherine Hummel, ed., Mélivres / Misbooks. Études sur l’envers et les travers …

Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward A Postmodern Christian Faith, Merold Westphal

Philosophy & Theory

Overcoming Onto-theology is a stunning collection of essays by Merold Westphal, one of America’s leading continental philosophers of religion, in which Westphal carefully explores the nature and the structure of a postmodern Christian philosophy. Written with characteristic clarity and charm, Westphal offers masterful studies of Heidegger’s early lectures on Paul and Augustine, the idea of hermeneutics, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Derrida, and Nietzsche, all in the service of building his argument that postmodern thinking offers an indispensable tool for rethinking Christian faith. A must read for every student and professor of continental philosophy and the philosophy of religion, Overcoming Onto-theology is an …

Zu Nietzsches Stil, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Das Thema von Nietzsches Stil ist hier sowohl von Bedeutung als Frage nach dem Wesen jenes Stils wie auch als Frage danach, was er in philosophischer, nicht einfach in asthetischer oder literarischer Hinsicht erreicht hat. Hier wird nachgelegt, dass die Kunst des Lesens, die technische Kunst des hörens als eine Art des Hörens in einer philosophischen Seinsweise zu verstehen sei. Damit setzt sie nicht allein eine diskursive Kunst musikalischen Gespürs seitens des schreibenden, sondern eigentlich auch seitens des Lesenden voraus. Untersucht wird vor allem, Nietzsches Aphorismos im Rahmen des Antisemitismus. Diese außerordentlich komplexe innere Ausrichtung von Nietzsches Stil ist die …

Politik Und Die Analytisch-Kontinentale Streit Der Fakultaeten In Die Philosophie, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Bekanntnermaßen machen die unterschiedlichen Antworten, die auf die Frage ‚Was ist Philosophie?’ gegeben werden können, die Differenz und damit die Trennung zwischen analytischen und kontinentalen Denkstilen aus. Wenn man bedenkt, was hier auf dem Spiele steht, so geht es dabei nicht um einen terminologischen Streit um Begriffe, sondern um die Definition einer Disziplin als solcher und dies schließt nicht nur das Problem ein, wie Philosophie betrieben – und bewertet – wird, sondern wer überhaupt in die Lage kommt, sie auszuüben (und zu evaluieren), gerade wo solches Tun – und solche Evaluation – sich als eine bedeutsame Voraussetzung für Einladungen erweist. …

Ad Jacob Taubes, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Greek Bronze And 'The Statue Of Humanity'. Heidegger's Aesthetic Phenomenology And Nietzsche's Agonistic Politics, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

"Heidegger’S Will To Power," Journal Of The British Society For Phenomenology, Vol. 38, No. 1 (January 2007): 37-60, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

I argue that Heidegger deliberately composed the Beiträge zur Philosophie in order to keep it as an unpublished work throughout his life. In 1935, Heidegger was named to the board of directors for the National Socialist edition of Nietzsche’s collected works. This experience brought Heidegger into contact with the editorial forces that control an author’s legacy, even an author of Nietzsche’s formidable stylistic powers. And as is typical enough, the parallel Heidegger drew was a personal one. In response, Heidegger composed what might stand as his own “Nachlaß” material. The Beiträge would then work to limit Heidegger’s vulnerability to editorial …

“The Problem Of Science” In Nietzsche And Heidegger, Babette Babich

Research Resources

Nietzsche and Heidegger pose important philosophical questions to science and its technological projects. The resultant contributes to what may be called a continental philosophy of science and I argue that only such a rigorously critical approach to the question of science permits a genuinely philosophical reflection on science. The resultant contributes to what may be called a continental philosophy of science and I argue that only such a rigorously critical approach to the question of science permits a genuinely philosophical reflection on science. More than a thoughtful reflection on science, however, the heart of philosophy is also at stake in …

Who Is Zarathustra’S Nietzsche?, David B. Allison

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

With the appearance of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the work immediately following that — particularly, in Book Five of The Gay Science and in the 1886 Prefaces to the Second Edition of his works, there emerges a remarkably transformed sense of Nietzsche’s own self-awareness, a turn, based on his own autocritique, that basically works as a form of self-therapy — enabling him to grasp the really binding purchase the social symbolic has on the individual. In submitting himself to this autocritique, he first raises the question as to its possiblity, and then proceeds to effectuate it in a rather …

Words In Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy And Poetry, Music And Eros In Hölderlin, Nietzsche, And Heidegger, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche’S “Gay” Science, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Offers a reading of the allusion to the 'Provencal' in Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, including the troubadour’s art (or 'technic') of poetic song, an art at once secret, anonymous and thus nonsubjective, but also including logical disputation, for which it is the model, and comprising, perhaps above all, the important ideal of action (and pathos) at a distance: l’amour lointain. But beyond the Provençal character and atmosphere of the troubadour, Nietzsche’s conception of a joyful science, Nietzsche's 'gay' science also adumbrates a critique of science understood as the collective ideal of scholarship, and including classical philology as much as logic, …

Heideggers "Beiträge Zur Philosophie" Als Ethik. Phronesis Und Die Frage Nach Der Technik Im Naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalter., Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.