Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

"Nietzsche's Naturalism: Neither Liberal Nor Illiberal"

This is a penultimate version of my contribution to the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Liberal Naturalism, being edited by Mario Del Caro and David Macarthur.

"Bernard Williams's Debt to Nietzsche: Real or Illusory?"

This is a revised version of the paper I gave in Lund last month at the excellent conference on Williams organized by Paul Russell (British Columbia/Lund).  There were some predictably first-rate papers by Stephen Darwall (Yale), Miranda Fricker (CUNY), Gideon Rosen (Princeton), and Russell, among others, but readers interested in moral philosophy and Williams will want to keep an eye out for work by Geraldine Ng (Reading) and Matthieu Queloz (Oxford), who also gave excellent talks.  My paper is very much a work in progress, so feedback from philosophers interested in Nietzsche and Bernard Williams is welcome.

Thus spake Nietzsche

Wenn die Unterdrückten, Niedergetretenen, Vergewaltigten aus der rachsüchtigen List der Ohnmacht heraus sich zureden: „lasst uns anders sein als die Bösen, nämlich gut! Und gut ist Jeder, der nicht vergewaltigt, der Niemanden verletzt, der nicht angreift, der nicht vergilt, der die Rache Gott übergiebt, der sich wie wir im Verborgenen hält, der allem Bösen aus dem Wege geht und wenig überhaupt vom Leben verlangt, gleich uns den Geduldigen, Demüthigen, Gerechten“ — so heisst das, kalt und ohne Voreingenommenheit angehört, eigentlich nichts weiter als: „wir Schwachen sind nun einmal schwach; es ist gut, wenn wir nichts thun, wozu wir nicht stark genug sind“ — aber dieser herbe Thatbestand, diese Klugheit niedrigsten Ranges, welche selbst Insekten haben (die sich wohl todt stellen, um nicht „zu viel“ zu thun, bei grosser Gefahr), hat sich Dank jener Falschmünzerei und Selbstverlogenheit der Ohnmacht in den Prunk der entsagenden stillen abwartenden Tugend gekleidet, gleich als ob die Schwäche des Schwachen selbst — das heisst doch sein Wesen, sein Wirken, seine ganze einzige unvermeidliche, unablösbare Wirklichkeit — eine freiwillige Leistung, etwas Gewolltes, Gewähltes, eine That, ein Verdienst sei.

    --On the Genealogy of Morality, I:13

Thus spake Nietzsche

Was ist vornehm? Was bedeutet uns heute noch das Wort »vornehm«? Woran verräth sich, woran erkennt man, unter diesem schweren verhängten Himmel der beginnenden Pöbelherrschaft, durch den Alles undurchsichtig und bleiern wird, den vornehmen Menschen? – Es sind nicht die Handlungen, die ihn beweisen, – Handlungen sind immer vieldeutig, immer unergründlich –; es sind auch die »Werke« nicht. Man findet heute unter Künstlern und Gelehrten genug von Solchen, welche durch ihre Werke verrathen, wie eine tiefe Begierde nach dem Vornehmen hin sie treibt: aber gerade dies Bedürfniss nach dem Vornehmen ist von Grund aus verschieden von den Bedürfnissen der vornehmen Seele selbst, und geradezu das beredte und gefährliche Merkmal ihres Mangels. Es sind nicht die Werke, es ist der Glaube, der hier entscheidet, der hier die Rangordnung feststellt, um eine alte religiöse Formel in einem neuen und tieferen Verstande wieder aufzunehmen: irgend eine Grundgewissheit, welche eine vornehme Seele über sich selbst hat, Etwas, das sich nicht suchen, nicht finden und vielleicht auch nicht verlieren lässt. Die vornehme Seele hat Ehrfurcht vor sich.

    --Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 287.

"The Death of God and the Death of Morality"

The final version is now on-line at The Monist, for those who might be interested.  (This is part of a special issue of The Monist devoted to Nietzsche.)

Moral psychology with Nietzsche, at the LARB

Yesterday Plato's moral psychology, today it's my turn to talk to Andy Fitch at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Exhibit on Nietzsche's influence on art...

...at the National Gallery of Canada.

(Thanks to Andrew Sneddon for the pointer.)

Sue Prideaux's biography of Nietzsche

I review it in the current Times Literary Supplement, although most of it is behind their paywall.  Short version:  she's a good, lively and entertaining writer, but doesn't understand much about his philosophical work.  As I write at the end: 

I have studied Nietzsche for more than three decades, and I very much enjoyed this biography, but it is not for those wanting to learn something about the philosophy. Prideaux’s discussions of his ideas are, at best, superficial, at worst, wrong.  Readers who know a lot about Nietzsche, or simply enjoy the juicy soap opera of the lives of great thinkers, will find this book appealing. The former can draw sounder connections between the life and the ideas than Prideaux, while the latter can perhaps take solace in the “human, all-too-human” (as Nietzsche would say) character of genius.

Robert Holub on Nietzsche

Strictly for those interested in Nietzsche.

"The Death of God and the Death of Morality"

The final manuscript version is here, for those who are interested.  It will appear in a special issue of The Monist later this year devoted to Nietzsche and being edited by Ken Gemes and Andrew Huddleston.

Conference on the work of Bernard Williams at Lund this June

I'll be talking about Williams and Nietzsche, at what is shaping up to be a very interesting conference:  further program information is here (including about how to register, for free).

International Society for Nietzsche Studies at Brown May 31-June 1: less than a week to submit a paper!

Details on the CFP here.

"The Truth is Terrible," my on-line essay on Nietzsche, was the most-read article...

...at the TLS on-line for 2018.  A pleasant surprise--thanks to many here who no doubt were among those who read it.

(Thanks to Bill Edmundson for the pointer.)

Philosophy and cognitive science catch up with Nietzsche, part 242

Philosopher Peter Carruthers explains that "conscious thought is an illusion," as that German fellow knew.

"The Truth is Terrible" (Nietzsche on the aesthetic "justification" of existence)

This paper, which has been making the rounds for quite awhile is finally out in the fall issue of Journal of Nietzsche Studies, for those interested. 

BU's Paul Katsafanas interviewed...

...at 3AM.  An interesting interview; I agree with some things he says, disagree pretty strongly with some others.

'Moral Psychology with Nietzsche'

Coming this March!

Call for Papers for the 4th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Nietzsche Studies at Brown University in 2019

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 3

The CFP for the next meeting of ISNS is now on-line.  We will be able to cover travel and lodging for speakers whose papers are accepted for presentation (accepted papers will presumptively appear in the annual issue of Inquiry devoted to ISNS papers).  Please note the word limits!  (We'll review papers a bit longer, but they may need to be cut for publication purposes.)  The majority of papers selected during the CFP process have been written by PhD students.

The 4th annual meeting of ISNS will be hosted by Brown University on May 31 and June 1, 2019, thanks to the good efforts of Professor Bernard Reginster.  Confirmed invited speakers are  Taylor Carman (Barnard/Columbia), Beatrice Han-Pile (Essex), and Scott Jenkins (Kansas).  We expect to select two or three additional speakers based on the CFP.

Where to go to study Nietzsche, 2018 edition

Here.

Straussians are incapable of reading Nietzsche...

...and this review by philosopher and classical scholar Joel Mann (St. Norbert) of a recent Straussian book makes the point quite effectively.

'The Innocence of Becoming: Nietzsche Against Guilt' now published on-line...

...here, as part of the annual  ISNS issue of Inquiry.

'The Innocence of Becoming: Nietzsche Against Guilt'

The final version of this paper that has evolved over the last five years or so, for those who might be interested.  The abstract:

I offer an interpretation of Nietzsche’s striking idea of “the innocence of becoming” (die Unschuld des Werdens), and a partial defense of its import, namely, that no one is ever morally responsible or guilty for what they do and that many of the so-called “reactive attitudes” are misplaced. I focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the arguments as set out in Twilight of the Idols. First, there is Nietzsche’s hypothesis, partly psychological and partly historical or anthropological, that the ideas of “free” action or free will, and of responsibility for actions freely chosen or willed, were introduced primarily in order to justify punishment (“[m]en were considered ‘free’ so that they might be judged and punished”). Call this the Genetic Thesis about Free Will. Second, there is Nietzsche’s claim that the moral psychology, or “psychology of the will” as he calls it, that underlies this picture is, in fact, false — that, in fact, it is not true that every action is willed or that it reflects a purpose or that it originates in consciousness. Call these, in aggregate, the Descriptive Thesis about the Will. (Here I draw on earlier work.) Finally, there is articulation of a programmatic agenda, namely, to restore the “innocence of becoming” by getting rid of guilt and punishment based on guilt — not primarily because ascriptions of guilt and responsibility are false (though they are), but because a world understood as “innocent,” one understood in terms of “natural” cause and effect, is a better world in which to live. I focus in particular on a reactive attitude often ignored by philosophers, but of crucial importance for Nietzsche, namely, revenge. I aim to explain and defend Zarathustra’s recommendation: “Enemy’ you shall say, but not villain; sick you shall say, but not scoundrel; fool you shall say, but not sinner.” Nietzsche’s views are contrasted with those of important modern writers on these topics, especially P.F. Strawson and Derk Pereboom.

'Disagreement, Anti-Realism about Reasons, Inference to the Best Explanation'

A new draft paper on-line at SSRN; the abstract:

I revisit, refine and defend an inference to the best explanation (IBE) argument for anti-realism about reasons for acting based on the history of intractable disagreement in moral philosophy. The four key premises of the argument are: 1. If there were objective reasons for action, epistemically-well-situated observers would eventually converge upon them after two thousand years; 2. Contemporary philosophers, as the beneficiaries of two thousand years of philosophy, are epistemically well-situated observers; 3. Contemporary philosophers have not converged upon reasons for action; 4. Conclusion: there are no objective reasons for action (IBE from the first three premises). The key premises of the IBE are (1) sentimentalism; (2) non-cognitivism about basic affects; and (3) philosophical arguments for what our reasons for action are always involve a premise that depends on a basic intuitive moral judgment (that can be explained in terms of a basic non-cognitive affect). All these premises are explored in detail, and various objections addressed.

 Comments welcome from those who work on these issues; this version will be presented at a conference in Rome in September, and I won't undertake revisions until after that.

Self-help Nietzsche?

This is not a side of Nietzsche I typically discuss, but I had fun talking about it with British journalist Ben Wilson; it turned into a bit of a free-ranging discussion about Nietzsche beyond the traditional self-improvement genre.

"Nietzsche's Moral Psychology" for the Oxford Handbook

I've posted the penultimate draft of the essay for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology being edited by John Doris (Wash U/St. Louis) and Manuel Vargas (UC San Diego); it is a kind of precis of my forthcoming Moral Psychology with Nietzsche that OUP will publish in 2019 (that book both offers a reading of Nietzsche's moral psychology and a sustained philosophcial and empirical defense of it).

'Nietzsche: The Truth is Terrible'

Everything you need to know in just 2,500 words at the Times Literary Supplement.  (This is not behind a paywall.)

Social science catching up with Nietzsche, part 127: the case of aesthetic pleasure

This; and for an explanation of Nietzsche's view, see this.

"The Truth is Terrible," (super) penultimate version on-line

This is my attempt to make sense of Nietzsche's idea that it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence is "justified."   This is the final version, except perhaps for some minor style editing, and will appear in Journal of Nietzsche Studies this fall.  This version is citable.  It will still also appear in  volume of essays that Nietzsche Daniel Came (Lincoln) is editing, but it will be out this fall in JNS.

8th Annual Bonn Summer School in Classical German Philosophy now taking applications

The topic will be "The Issue of Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy."  The primary instructors are Michael Forster and Markus Gabriel.  I'll be giving one of the keynote addresses on Nietzsche's naturalism.  Other keynote lecturers will include Sebastian Gardner (UCL), Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins), and Andrea Kern (Leipzig), among others.

Warwick's Keith Ansell-Pearson interviewed...

...at 3AM.  I confess I'm not a big fan of Ansell-Pearson's Nietzsche work, but he says a couple of things in this interview that seem to me sensible (e.g., his quip about Heidegger's' reading of Nietzsche:  "I find his reading both bombastic and perverse, and it shows a flagrant disregard for Nietzsche’s published texts.")  The claim about Nietzsche being Epicurean is far-fetched, and he exaggerates wildly the neglect of Daybreak (or Dawn as he calls it, either translation is fine).

Jacobin ought to find contributors (or at least editors) who know something about Nietzsche...

...before hosting garbage like this.  Why anyone would bother to analyze Jordan Peterson's "ideas" is already beyond me, but Harrison Fluss, the author, apparently has as superficial a knowledge of Nietzsche as Peterson has of everything.  Fluss, alas, turns out to be a Stony Brook PhD.  I will assume, charitably, that he didn't really study Nietzsche there; if he did, Stony Brook should revoke the doctorate!

(Thanks to David Auerbach for the pointer.)

(Almost) 10 books and/or articles on Nietzsche you should have read in the last 10 years

At my Nietzsche blog.

Thus spoke Goethe

From a review of a recent biography:

He alarmed people as much as he charmed them, not only by his impatience, his sudden flare-ups, and his unpredictable antics, but by his foul language. In moments of exasperation he would denounce as a shithead any of the great men who had assembled at Weimar—Wieland, Herder, Schiller. The best-remembered line from his first play, Götz von Berlichingen, is the robber baron Götz shouting through the window to the emperor’s messenger: “Tell his Imperial Majesty that he can lick my arse”—otherwise known as the Swabian salute.

(Be forewarned, the author of the review clearly does not like Goethe, and it goes off the rails at the end, having the idiotic audacity to associate Goethe with the Holocaust.)

Thus spoke Nietzsche: "The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher"

In the twilight of his sanity, seething with frustration at being so widely ignored, Nietzsche wrote the rhetorically overwrought The Anti-Christ, the one work with the smell of madness about it at many places (he seems to have recovered a bit later that fall of 1888 when he wrote the more ingenious and ironic Ecce Homo).  The book concludes with Nietzsche's proclamation of the "Law Against Christianity," which includes six propositions, of which this is the second:

Any participation in church services is an attack on public morality.  One should be harsher with Protestants than with Catholics, harsher with liberal Protestants than with orthodox ones.  The criminality of being Christian increases with one's proxmity to science.  The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher.

"Science" is of course Wissenschaft, so no connotation of natural science, but it does mean a discipline that purports to produce knowledge.

 

 

 

2017 in review: articles posted on SSRN

Over the course of the year, I posted the following articles on SSRN:

"Legal Positivism about the Artifact Law:  A Retrospective Assessment"

"The Roles of Judges in Democracies:  A Realistic View"

"Justifying Academic Freedom:  Mill and Marcuse Revisited"

"Nietzsche and Aestheticism" (originally published in 1992, my first peer-refereed publication)

"Knowledge and Affect:  Perspectivism Revisited"

"Introduction:  Nietzsche's Naturalistic Moral Psychology"

"Why Academic Freedom?"

Better not to be born

Profile of a nihilist, less interesting than Schopenhauer.  He should also read some Nietzsche!

On guilt, shame, and bourgeois child-rearing..

...at The New York Times of course.  They all need to read more Nietzsche.

Psychology catches up with Nietzsche, part 242: consciousness is superficial to the mind's activities

Here; an excerpt:

Most experts think that consciousness can be divided into two parts: the experience of consciousness (or personal awareness), and the contents of consciousness, which include things such as thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, intentions, memories and emotions.

It’s easy to assume that these contents of consciousness are somehow chosen, caused or controlled by our personal awareness – after all, thoughts don’t exist until until we think them. But in a new research paper in Frontiers of Psychology, we argue that this is a mistake.

We suggest that our personal awareness does not create, cause or choose our beliefs, feelings or perceptions. Instead, the contents of consciousness are generated “behind the scenes” by fast, efficient, non-conscious systems in our brains. All this happens without any interference from our personal awareness, which sits passively in the passenger seat while these processes occur.

Put simply, we don’t consciously choose our thoughts or our feelings – we become aware of them.

(Thanks to Ivan Kelly for the pointer.)

"Nietzsche's Naturalistic Moral Psychology"

I've posted a draft of the introduction giving an overview of my book on Moral Psychology with Nietzsche, forthcoming from Oxford University Press later in 2018.  I hope it might be of interest to some readers.

3rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, March 16-17, 2018: Call for Papers

MOVING TO FRONT FOR LAST TIME--DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 1

Just a reminder about the call for papers for the third annual meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies which will take place in London next March.  Once again, we will be able to cover the airfare and lodging for those whose papers are accepted during the blind review process.  In each of the first two meetings, two graduate students had their papers selected for presentation and subsequent publication in Inquiry, so once again we encourage submissions from graduate students, as well as faculty.

Thus spake Heinrich Heine

As memorably quoted by Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents:

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before their death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies -- but not before they have been hanged.

"Knowledge and Affect: Perspectivism Revisited"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 30, 2017 FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT HAVE MISSED IT DURING THE SUMMER

I haven't written a serious paper on the (vexed) topic of Nietzsche's "perspectivism" since 1994, and this new paper has been reworked repeatedly over the last year under dialectical fire from Chris Janaway and especially Ken Gemes, and, originally, from those attending Martin Kusch's illuminating conference on relativism in Vienna almost a year ago.  I did something unusual in this paper, even relative to my own prior work, namely, I focused directly on the only two published passages in which "perspectivism" is discussed.  The results surprised me.  I welcome comments.  

"Nietzsche and Aestheticism," 1992

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JULY 28, FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT HAVE MISSED IT DURING THE SUMMER

This was my first peer-reviewed publication (back in 1992, in Journal of the History of Philosophy), which I thought I'd make more easily available.  Here's the abstract:

Alexander Nehamas’s 1985 book Nietzsche: Life as a Literature offers an elegant synthesis of themes from other (then au courant) readings of Nietzsche by Jacques Derrida, Sarah Kofman, Paul DeMan, and Richard Rorty. He effected this synthesis primarily through the introduction of a novel interpretive rubric: what Nehamas calls "aestheticism." According to aestheticism, "Nietzsche... looks at [the world] as if it were a literary text. And he arrives at many of his views of human beings by generalizing to them ideas and principles that apply almost intuitively to the literary situation, to the creation and interpretation of literary texts and characters". For Nehamas, then, the literary text is Nietzsche's "overarching metaphor" (164), the "model" he "always depended on" (194) in pursuing his philosophical inquiries, "the single thread running through" his work.

I show that aestheticism is, in fact, not Nietzsche’s view, and that Nehamas fails to adduce a single passage from Nietzsche in which he actually embraces aestheticism. I also show how aestheticism leads Nehamas to an idiosyncratic reading of Nietzsche’s "positive" ethical views. I conclude that this intelligent but sometimes idiosyncratic book is not really about Nietzsche.

Mediocre white person watch: Richard Spencer edition

He read some Nietzsche, didn't get much out of it.  (The linked essay makes a few good points, but for a more serious discussion of related issues, see this review essay of mine.)

(Thanks to David Zimmerman for the pointer.)

"Strangers to Ourselves": Themes from German Philosophy and Cognitive Science

I'll be occupied with this conference my Center is hosting here this weekend, so there won't be much new until Monday.  (For those interested, the program:  Download Strangers to Oursevles German Phil Cog Sci--I predict this will be the new growth field!)

3rd annual meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies at Birkbeck, University of London March 16-17, 2018: Call for Papers

I'm pleased to report that the call for papers is now open for the third annual meeting of the International Society for Nietzsche Studies that will take place in London next March.  Once again, we will be able to cover the airfare and lodging for those whose papers are accepted during the blind review process.  In each of the first two meetings, two graduate students had their papers selected for presentation and subsequent publication in Inquiry, so once again we encourage submissions from graduate students, as well as faculty.

London's Barry Smith on overestimating consciousness (as Nietzsche would say)...

...at IAI.

7th annual Bonn Summer School in German Philosophy

This summer's program focuses on "Freedom and Free Will in Classical German Philosophy."  The main teaching is done by Professors Michael Forster and Markus Gabriel; I will be giving one of the keynotes, on Nietzsche, and there will be several other keynote lectures.  Note that they provide financial support to admitted students and that the school is taught in English.

Blogging will be a bit light through the weekend...

...as I'm occupied with preparing for and hosting the annual conference of the International Society of Nietzsche Studies.

"The Innocence of Becoming: Nietzsche Against Guilt"

This is a pretty significant revision of a draft paper I first posted in 2013.  It gives a good bit of attention to the reactive attitude of "revenge" that polite philosophers usually ignore.  The abstract:

This is a substantial revision (especially in its second half) of a paper first posted in 2013. I offer an interpretation of Nietzsche’s striking idea of “the innocence of becoming” (die Unschuld des Werdens), and a partial defense of its import, namely, that no one is ever morally responsible or guilty for what they do and that many of the so-called “reactive attitudes” are misplaced. I focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the arguments as set out in Twilight of the Idols. First, there is Nietzsche’s hypothesis, partly psychological and partly historical or anthropological, that the ideas of “free” action or free will, and of responsibility for actions freely chosen or willed, were introduced primarily in order to justify punishment (“[m]en were considered ‘free’ so that they might be judged and punished”). Call this the Genetic Thesis about Free Will. Second, there is Nietzsche’s claim that the moral psychology, or “psychology of the will” as he calls it, that underlies this picture is, in fact, false — that, in fact, it is not true that every action is willed or that it reflects a purpose or that it originates in consciousness. Call these, in aggregate, the Descriptive Thesis about the Will. (Here I draw on earlier work.) Finally, there is articulation of a programmatic agenda, namely, to restore the “innocence of becoming” by getting rid of guilt and punishment based on guilt — not primarily because ascriptions of guilt and responsibility are false (though they are), but because a world understood as “innocent,” one understood in terms of “natural” cause and effect, is a better world in which to live. I focus in particular on a reactive attitude often ignored by philosophers, but of crucial importance for Nietzsche, namely, revenge. I aim to explain and defend Zarathustra’s recommendation: “Enemy’ you shall say, but not villain; sick you shall say, but not scoundrel; fool you shall say, but not sinner.” Nietzsche’s views are contrasted with those of important modern writers on these topics, especially P.F. Strawson and Derk Pereboom.