Nietzsche's Struggle against Pessimism

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-009-38029-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 290 Seiten

On what grounds could life be made worth living, given its abundant suffering? Friedrich Nietzsche was among many who attempted to answer this question. While always seeking to resist pessimism, Nietzsche's strategy for doing so, and the extent to which he was willing to concede conceptual grounds to pessimists, shifted dramatically over time. His reading of pessimists such as Eduard von Hartmann, Olga Plümacher, and Julius Bahnsen—as well as their critics, such as Eugen Dühring and James Sully—has been under-explored in the secondary literature, isolating him from his intellectual context. Patrick Hassan's book seeks to correct this. After closely mapping Nietzsche's philosophical development on to the relevant axiological and epistemological issues, it disentangles his various critiques of pessimism, elucidating how familiar Nietzschean themes (e.g. eternal recurrence, aesthetic justification, will to power, and his critique of Christianity) can and should be assessed against this philosophical backdrop.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hassan, Patrick

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part I. Nietzsche's Intellectual Context & Early Reception of Pessimism: 1. The varieties of pessimism; 2. Nietzsche's initial engagement with pessimism; Part II. The Beginnings of Change: Pessimism in Human All Too Human: 3. Nietzsche's new naturalism; 4. 'Bad news for priests': scientific progress and suffering; Part III. Nietzsche's mature rejection of the 'Pessimism of Sensibility': 5. A psychological critique; 6. An existential critique; 7. A perfectionist critique; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Hassan, Patrick
Dr. Patrick Hassan is a Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University. He is the author of Schopenhauer's Moral Philosophy (2021) and a number of articles on Nietzsche's and Schopenhauer's ethical thought.