Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts

This collection of essays examines Nietzsche's aesthetic account of the origins and ends of philosophy.

Salim Kemal (Edited by), Ivan Gaskell (Edited by), Daniel W. Conway (Edited by)

9780521522724, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 August 2002

368 pages, 6 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.5 x 2.4 cm, 0.54 kg

"Emphasizing the various senses of experiment, temptation, and seduction wrapped up in this German word, Conway sees Nietzche as a thinker of eros, concerned to articulate the possibility of exceptional figures--philosophers, artists,, or saints--who are strong enough to squander their strength and resources in legislating (literally or metaphorically) for the rest of us...Conway's reading should actually help in giving a fresh analysis of these themes that shows how they can be made intelligible without implicating them in such disasters." - Gary Shapiro, University of Richmond

Nietzsche's writings have shaped much contemporary reflection on the relation between philosophy and art. This book brings together a number of distinguished contributors to examine his aesthetic account of the origins and ends of philosophy. They discuss the transformative power which Nietzsche ascribes to aesthetic activity, including his aesthetic justification of existence and its fusion of social and personal existence, and they investigate his experiments with an 'aesthetic politics' and a politicisation of aesthetics. Together their essays set out the ground for future debate about the inter-relation between art, philosophy, and value.

Introduction: Nietzsche and art Salim Kemal, Ivan Gaskell and Daniel W. Conway
1. Nietzsche's conception of irony Ernst Behler
2. The transfiguration of intoxication: Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dionysus Martha Nussbaum
3. Nietzschean self-transformation and the transformation of the Dionysian Adrian Del Caro
4. Socratism and the question of aesthetic justification Randall Havas
5. What is the meaning of Aesthetic ideals? Aaron Ridley
6. The splitting of historical consciousness Stephen Bann
7. Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, truth, and The Birth of Tragedy Timothy W. Hiles
8. Improvisations, on Nietzsche/on jazz John Carvalho
9. Unstable identities: Nietzsche on the force of art and language Fiona Jenkins
10. Dionysus lost and found: literary genres in Nietzsche and Lukács Henry Staten
11. Nietzsche's politics of aesthetic genius Salim Kemal
12. Love's labour's lost: the philosopher's Versucherkunst Daniel W. Conway
13. Nietzsche's Dionysian arts: dance, song, and silence Claudia Crawford.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN]