tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43735562390883887902012-02-03T10:10:23.943-06:00Thinking out loud about Nietzsche's philosophyBrian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.comBlogger1211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-87991217386938299052011-12-07T17:38:00.003-06:002012-01-11T10:23:53.264-06:00

Here. No idea who put it on-line, but there it is.UPDATE (JANUARY 11): Manuel Dries tells me videos of all the talks from the Oxford conference, including mine, are available via I-Tunes here.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-72413321356137019872011-09-19T07:12:00.001-06:002011-09-19T07:13:34.770-06:00

I'm on "The Browser" website recommending "five books," per their usual format. They wanted some primary, some secondary...and, of course, you can't recommend anything you've written yourself.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-78211693849003084342011-09-13T12:40:00.003-06:002012-01-28T09:35:50.246-06:00

I was pleased to see that Donald Rutherford's important paper on Spinoza, the Stoics, Nietzsche and the idea of freedom has now appeared in Inquiry.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-77468382118727368642011-07-27T08:14:00.004-06:002011-07-27T09:01:02.588-06:00

Himmelmann on Berry, Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical TraditionReginster on Gemes & May (eds.), Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy.ADDENDUM: We discussed Gardner's paper from the Gemes & May volume previously. Contra my analysis of the experience of willing, Reginster writes:One problem with this proposal is that it conflates willing with successfulwilling. But it seems as though I can have an

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-50976488324980823742011-07-15T17:50:00.000-06:002011-07-15T17:51:14.220-06:00

Carlos, a student at UC Berkeley, is devoting a new website to the discussion of Nietzsche's texts.The website will be conducted as a virtual reading group, where they will work through each of Nietzsche's books at a rate of approximately one aphorism per day (or four shorter maxims a day).Carlos has begun with the text of Twilight of the Idols and invites other interested readers to comment on

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-16484700072067978582011-06-20T14:01:00.008-06:002011-06-20T14:07:30.540-06:00

I haven't read this book, but I was just reading Ansell-Pearson's review, in which he writes:The fundamental claim of this book is that we will not properly understandNietzsche until we understand the main polemical target of his philosophizing.This target, the author wants to demonstrate, is the evolutionary naturalism ofDarwin: “Nietzsche’s philosophy in his final years was premised on a

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-28207093873141233092011-05-18T06:49:00.001-06:002011-05-18T06:49:53.097-06:00

Here.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-8421018055511269992011-05-11T13:43:00.001-06:002011-05-13T14:31:56.772-06:00

...from a fashion designer? Odd.(Thanks to Rob Sica for the pointer.)

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-40526983459289205622011-04-13T07:17:00.001-06:002011-04-13T07:18:21.855-06:00

Here's the 95% complete syllabus (which incorporates a couple of good suggestions from longtime reader Rob Sica).

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-19474049107428973082011-04-06T18:41:00.006-06:002011-04-06T18:44:45.726-06:00

European Journal of Philosophy has made available on-line articles they have published on Nietzsche over the last (not quite) 20 years. I especially recommend the debate between Hussain and Clark & Dudrick; also the papers by Anderson, Katsafanas (which we have discussed previously), Geuss's "Nietzsche and Genealogy" essay (which is in our OUP Reading volume on Nietzsche), the old Williams essay

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-59381745507346513972011-03-21T09:07:00.004-06:002011-03-21T09:14:27.748-06:00

The draft syllabus for the seminar Michael Forster and I are offering in Spring is on-line here. Our first session is Tuesday, March 29, and we will be discussing the first three chapters of the Prinz book; Jesse will visit the seminar the following week (and we'll also do Chapter 4 of his book), and after that we will begin with the Nietzsche readings proper. Please also read my paper "

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-38270812766429149372011-02-25T12:06:00.001-06:002011-02-25T12:07:24.477-06:00

I'll have an essay on the topic in the March 4, 2011 Times Literary Supplement. If they put it on-line, I'll post a link.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-71392524055829326612011-01-26T14:01:00.002-06:002011-01-26T14:05:47.911-06:00

I just got my latest OUP royalties statement, and thought readers might find this interesting (or instructive or maybe depressing). The co-edited Nietzsche and Morality book (2007) that I did with Neil Sinhababu has sold over 1200 copies, since publication (805 hardcover, 450 paper, and 1 e-book). The old OUP Readings volume on Nietzsche I did with John Richardsonn back in 2001 has lifetime

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-21814983745403703032011-01-22T15:08:00.001-06:002011-01-22T15:10:04.960-06:00

Many of you have probably seen my new personal homepage via my philosophy blog, but just in case not here it is. The 'video and audio' section includes links to some podcasts and radio programs I've done about Nietzsche that might be of interest to some readers.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-81555639147821685792011-01-05T12:10:00.001-06:002011-01-05T12:11:32.798-06:00

Here, courtesy of Babette Babich. Not sure why I look so unhappy, I always enjoy talking to Peter. He must have been saying something really serious!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-58067578214409938312010-12-04T09:04:00.002-06:002010-12-04T09:04:40.025-06:00

Could they have gotten more things wrong in so little space?

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-8886043747569162132010-11-28T15:02:00.002-06:002010-11-28T15:04:25.921-06:00

It's now out from OUP. Everyone working on Nietzsche will need to read it, though those primarily interested in ancient skepticism will also find it instructive. I'm far from persuaded, but the book lays down a robust, and often ingenious, interpretive challenge to any non-skeptical reading of Nietzsche.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-42752481707635047912010-09-17T09:29:00.000-06:002010-09-17T09:30:00.497-06:00

Here.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-71945373183698957452010-09-13T12:58:00.005-06:002010-09-13T13:03:47.102-06:00

...by Mark Jenkins in Journal of Nietzsche Studies. He makes a number of interesting points, including about Clark & Dudrick's critique of my reading of BGE 19, though he generally has a more generous appraisal of more of the papers in the volume than I do. It's also an entertainingly written review, of which the world can always use more!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-43209337702369749532010-08-01T00:01:00.001-06:002010-08-01T00:01:00.234-06:00

This paper by Sebastian Gardner (UCL) appears in Gemes & May (eds.), Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy (OUP, 2009). Gardner is best-known for important books on Freud and on Kant's 1st Critique, and is currently writing the volume on Fichte and Schelling for my Routledge Philosophers series. He is certainly one of the most learned and philosophically interesting scholars of Kant and post-Kantian

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-43743712288248925502010-07-30T18:57:00.003-06:002010-07-30T19:01:20.169-06:00

My thanks again to Paul for a helpful and lucid set of replies (scroll into the comments for Paul's replies), which usefully focus the issues in dispute. I’ll organize my sur-replies around Paul’s 3 questions. I’ll re-state them slightly, but I hope fairly, for purposes of my reply. (I will try to say something about the other comments, some of which are relevant to what I say below, subsequently

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-27293993664660798862010-07-19T09:27:00.001-06:002010-07-19T09:27:53.678-06:00

En Francais.(Thanks to Caleb Lee for the pointer.)

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-59959358235820666082010-07-13T10:11:00.002-06:002010-09-03T13:25:19.663-06:00

So our regular Nietzsche reading group here at U of C has been thinned out by summer, but those of us still around have decided to read some secondary literature, starting with the illuminating paper by Paul Katsafanas (BU) on "Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology" that will appear in The Oxford Handbook, which I guess will be out in 2011. The comments that follow are mine, and should not be

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-77851644943664944232010-07-08T12:44:00.001-06:002010-07-08T12:45:41.457-06:00

This information may be of interest. Contact me if you have questions.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-43995550585510280602010-07-05T04:00:00.001-06:002010-07-05T10:50:47.418-06:00

MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOV. 24, 2007, as I recently came across someone referencing this article without noticing the mistakes discussed here.==============================================The article by Aaron Ridley (Southampton) appeared in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (December 2005): 155-175 (all citations, unless otherwise noted, are to this article).The paper tackles the problem

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-62143254607210429972010-06-09T12:30:00.002-06:002010-06-09T12:30:44.081-06:00

Here. A judicious assessment, it seems to me.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-46587405371869597792010-05-08T15:19:00.006-06:002010-05-08T15:31:43.158-06:00

Several readers have sent along this review; as usual, the Times chooses someone without any relevant competence to review a book related to Nietzsche. But given what a trite intellectual lightweight Fukuyama is, this could have been worse! As a Straussian, Fukuyama hasn't much interest in the actual philosophical details of Nietzsche's moral psychology; he is much keener to talk about the

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-24202436418005776512010-04-27T14:57:00.001-06:002010-04-27T14:58:13.695-06:00

Here. Changes mainly in the section on Nietzsche's political philosophy, including mention of Shaw.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-22846249446060996922010-04-19T17:57:00.003-06:002010-04-19T18:04:12.232-06:00

Nietzsche holds the typical naturalist's view that the correct explanation of the purportedly binding force of norms--epistemic, ethical, even logical--is to be given in entirely psychological terms: it is just that creatures like us "feel" that it would be wrong to believe what is unwarranted, or violate a logical canon. He has a particularly striking comment in this vein psychologizing logic.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-2124016531059641102010-03-13T20:23:00.004-06:002010-03-13T20:34:38.182-06:00

CUP has just published a new "philosophical biography" of Nietzsche by Julian Young (Wake Forest). It doesn't go quite to the Curt Janz level of mind-numbing detail, but it is certainly a comprehensive biography, like Safranski. Unlike Safranski, Young knows some philosophy and so his interpretive comments are more interesting. Young is the author, of course, of the contrarian but extremely

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-34986629301741999632010-03-08T10:11:00.001-06:002010-03-08T18:28:21.804-06:00

Our earlier poll provides some ideas, but I want to supplement that with some narrative advice, of the kind I would give (and do give) to students.Among the very top PhD programs in the Anglophone world, there are three viable choices for a student wanting to work on Nietzsche: New York University (with John Richardson and Tamsin Shaw), Princeton University (with Alexander Nehamas) and Stanford

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-35366954593217320402010-01-13T08:30:00.001-06:002010-01-13T08:31:31.636-06:00

...are now available.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-9824316941565626482010-01-03T12:11:00.007-06:002010-01-03T12:24:34.285-06:00

This is from his famous summation by defense attorney Clarence Darrow, arguing against the death penalty for Nathaniel Leopold and Richard Loeb, two precocious teenagers who murdered another boy to show that they could do it. Leopold claimed inspiration from Nietzsche. Here is Darrow on Leopold:He became enamored of the philosophy of Nietzsche. Your Honor, I have read almost everything that

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-76587260629652583562009-12-17T15:58:00.002-06:002009-12-17T15:59:25.064-06:00

Readers can contribute their nominations here. Make sure to use a full name when you submit your comment. Let's make sure good articles/books related to Nietzsche and German philosophy more generally are represented. It was a pretty good decade in that regard, or so it seems to me.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-4765939210635312812009-11-30T13:10:00.003-06:002009-11-30T13:11:07.909-06:00

Here, a presentation recorded at the FNS meeting at Oxford this past September. (Thanks to Rob Sica for the link.) The keynote addresses were also recorded, and should be on-line before too long. I'll post a link when they are.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-16037396894072347712009-11-09T10:14:00.050-06:002009-11-14T10:36:33.448-06:00

A brave, anonymous soul posted the following nonsense on the thread about "Myths about Nietzsche," but it represents such a pernicious and widespread bit of self-deception that it warrants its own post. Our commenter begins:This was an interesting talk, but I was saddned to hear Leiter take a snipe at the Postmodernists.I did not take a "snipe" at postmodernism, I expressed a scholarly opinion,

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-48253260822708247322009-10-11T15:05:00.002-06:002009-10-11T15:06:02.729-06:00

Maybe some ambitious and web-savvy readers can clean up the Nietzsche entries, which are pretty bad!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-14963581584221677012009-10-05T08:08:00.004-06:002009-10-05T08:11:49.129-06:00

Here. It incorporates in the footnotes several references to the very illuminating, but so far unpublished, paper by Donald Rutherford (UC San Diego) on Nietzsche, Spinoza, and the Stoics and their conceptions of freedom, about which I'll write some more before too long.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-11181989199581452512009-10-01T08:30:00.005-06:002009-10-01T08:36:20.493-06:00

Rob Sica and another correspondent (whose name I'm now forgetting, sorry!) had asked about my reply to Clark and Dudrick's reading of BGE 19 in the Gemes & May volume, in which they critique my reading in "Nietzsche's Theory of the Will." I have added a long footnote to the penultimate version of the paper on "Who is the Sovereign Individual?" (which should be on-line in a day or two) about their

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-41074178845346109522009-09-27T16:34:00.007-06:002009-09-27T16:57:58.066-06:00

I wanted to write a few comments about the conference--or about the portion of it I managed to attend. For a variety of reasons, my stay in Oxford was a bit compressed, so I missed some of the keynotes that I would have liked to have heard (like Bernard Reginster's, Peter Poellner's and John Richardson's), and also some papers I would have liked to discuss, like Allison Merrick's on "historical

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-87720761955269311882009-09-25T15:55:00.002-06:002009-09-25T15:57:23.019-06:00

I discuss them on Philosophy Bites. They are: the overman is a central idea in his philosophy; will to power is central to his philosophy; Nietzsche is a proto-postmodernist; and Nietzsche is an anti-semite.I'm sure various Nietzsche scholars will disagree that these are all myths, but such is life in Nietzsche studies!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-36742439881562939692009-09-14T07:48:00.005-06:002009-09-14T07:52:54.876-06:00

Sorry not to have gotten the draft of my paper for the FNS meeting at Oxford on-line before I left, but here it is. One serious lacuna in the current version (as Peter Kail rightly pointed out to me) is the failure to discuss Spinoza. But other comments are welcome, and soon, as I have to submit the final version by the end of the month for the Cambridge Critical Guide to the Genealogy.In the

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-31000857477052405942009-09-07T09:16:00.001-06:002009-09-07T09:17:25.048-06:00

Here. I will post a draft of my own paper on SSRN before I depart for the conference. I also understand that the keynote sessions are likely to be filmed.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-84131278843492293732009-08-14T16:59:00.004-06:002009-08-14T17:03:32.718-06:00

Carlos Ruiz (who uses the pen name Narziss), a student at Berkeley, has put together "Nietzsche Grid", which is potentially a very useful resource, but it also needs input from other Nietzsche students. The idea is to collect references to sections of the corpus that address various themes in his work. Narziss is also maintaining a blog for discussion and suggestions. I corresponded with Narziss

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-4271034046626295232009-08-01T09:04:00.002-06:002009-08-01T09:05:55.759-06:00

This useful summary of a recent paper by Rosenthal makes clear why students of Nietzsche should want to study Rosenthal's work on consciousness.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-25949398219457243652009-07-22T12:52:00.004-06:002009-07-22T13:00:28.182-06:00

Dana Villa is a political theorist in the Political Science Department at the University of Notre Dame. In a review essay of some recent books on Nietzsche, he concludes with the following statement:Nietzsche’s critique [of Christian-bourgeois civilization], however, fails to fit the Kantian ethics/epistemology/metaphysics/aesthetics grid—the very grid thatguides the analytic re-constructor. The

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-4128137671682160182009-07-06T17:39:00.003-06:002009-07-06T17:44:01.776-06:00

This is the penultimate draft of an essay for The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Action being edited by Timothy O'Connor and Constantine Sandis, that should be out in 2010. I am still working on the issues here (and have worked on them previously, as some readers will recognize), and welcome comments--especially since there were significant space constraints in this piece, which will be

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-62821614988747074522009-06-29T15:36:00.003-06:002009-06-29T15:37:15.972-06:00

Here. A lot of interesting stuff, though I regret I am probably going to miss the Friday sessions. Abstracts are not available yet; I'll post a link when they are.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-11060653646832258402009-06-20T16:39:00.015-06:002009-06-20T17:09:07.242-06:00

The introductory volume is Charlie Huenemann's Nietzsche: Genius of the Heart, which he kindly sent me. I've been dipping in and out of different parts of it, and it is written in an inviting way for the novice but at the same time is clearly better-informed about recent scholarly literature than most introductions to Nietzsche. Signed comments from readers who have read more of the book are

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-27503564846726556522009-06-03T17:03:00.004-06:002009-06-03T18:18:47.631-06:00

Last Saturday's event was quite instructive and rewarding, at least for me, though I think others too. Maudemarie Clark offered a new, close reading of section 21 of Beyond Good and Evil, rejecting her earlier claim from Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy that the skepticism about causation in that passage manifests his continued acceptance of the NeoKantian view that "cause" is a concept we

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-76642471772059784642009-05-19T15:21:00.002-06:002009-05-19T15:25:50.376-06:00

I hope to see some readers there:The First Annual Lecture inThe Bernd Magnus Lecture SeriesSaturday, May 30thFeatured Speakers and Commentators:The inaugural lecture will be given by Maudemarie Clark (UC Riverside) with commentary from Brian Leiter (University of Chicago) and Lanier Anderson (Stanford University)University of California, Riverside——HMNSS 1500Conference Schedule· 1:00:

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-26267406195053475822009-05-13T14:29:00.004-06:002009-05-13T14:34:53.252-06:00

I got my actual copies today, though Amazon reports not having it in stock yet, but it should be enroute. The volume contains original essays by Simon Blackburn, Maudemarie Clark & David Dudrick, Thomas Hurka, Nadeem Hussain, Christopher Janaway, Joshua Knobe & Brian Leiter, Peter Poellner, Bernard Reginster, Mathias Risse, Neil Sinhababu, and R. Jay Wallace.From the reviews on the dustjacket:"

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-69825287830174758152009-05-11T07:25:00.002-06:002009-05-11T07:25:56.515-06:00

Here (in French--a grad student at the Jean Nicod Institute).

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-19219656037807284032009-05-09T12:14:00.002-06:002009-05-09T12:15:28.165-06:00

Our man is trailing--brace yourself--Augustine! Help him out. More substantive postings coming as the term is coming to an end here.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-91767218793248032072009-04-29T07:53:00.001-06:002009-04-29T07:53:52.583-06:00

Here. So far, Hegel is ahead of Nietzsche. Unbelievable!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-64279479858714980472009-04-19T15:01:00.002-06:002009-04-19T15:03:07.029-06:00

Here. Obviously the list omits books that some might have included; I've tried to give a decent sampling of English, German, and French literature, though I've no doubt over-represented recent Anglophone literature just because it tends to be better and I follow it more carefully. Worthy candidates not included should be noted in the comment section, but the comment must be signed or it will

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-19905641563930534242009-04-08T14:43:00.006-06:002009-04-08T14:45:04.772-06:00

Here, by a former student of mine, Neil Sinhababu. This was skillfully done, given that it obviously was a fairly uneven collection. But the review is informative and generous in finding merit or matters of interest in most of the pieces, and identifying those that are particularly worth reading.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-53279490589214765292009-03-29T16:20:00.003-06:002009-03-29T16:26:15.511-06:00

A question that always comes up for PhD students is where to go for summer programs to develop or improve their German reading, translation, and sometimes speaking skills. Years ago, I found the scholarly reading and translation classes at NYU's Deutsches Haus to be quite valuable, but this was nearly 20 years ago, and I've no idea whether they continue to offer suitable summer classes and

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-81129117268343017422009-03-21T18:32:00.018-06:002009-03-21T20:05:56.688-06:00

This is a belated follow-up to the earlier post addressing an excellent set of questions and challenges raised by Justin Clarke-Doane (NYU) (hereafter JCD) to my claim that Nietzsche argues for moral skepticism by appeal to the phenomenon of moral disagreement. JCD's first set of objections (discussed earlier, with replies by JCD in the comments) raised worries about the extent to which

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-33331233261173623392009-03-20T16:52:00.005-06:002009-03-20T17:08:08.743-06:00

I was surprised to discover that the Times Literary Supplement makes available on-line old book reviews, including several of mine. Readers might be amused by the scathing assessment of a comically bad book by Daniel Conway, that seems, not surprisingly, to have had no impact on the subsequent scholarly discussion. This review of three 'biographical' books may be useful for those looking for

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-14250387749213104242009-03-13T10:29:00.005-06:002009-03-16T15:54:04.376-06:00

I'm curious to see what readers think about this one.CORRECTION: The CUNY listing should also include N. Pappas, who works on Plato and on Nietzsche.UPDATE: So with a mere 22 votes cast, here are the "top seven," which are pretty tightly clustered. No surprises here, I think, though perhaps with more votes things will spread out a bit.1. University of Chicago (J. Conant, M. Forster, R.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-33618302033354204372009-03-12T08:14:00.002-06:002009-03-12T08:17:26.048-06:00

Here is a new poll, which may be especially helpful to younger scholars trying to figure out where to submit their Nietzsche work:Which journals, in your experience, publish the best quality philosophical scholarship on Nietzsche? (I list only journals that publish articles on Nietzsche with some regularity, so exclude those journals which, on occasion, publish something related to Nietzsche [e.g

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-45487586283360039932009-03-08T08:58:00.001-06:002009-03-08T08:59:29.127-06:00

By reader demand, here's a new poll with which to have some fun. This one I'm quite curious to see the results.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-54556821220815388412009-03-07T14:40:00.001-06:002009-03-07T14:40:38.515-06:00

The final round of this game.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-77063963826396151732009-03-04T11:15:00.001-06:002009-03-04T11:16:49.553-06:00

...as our man goes for the big prize! Seriously, I fear my many good friends in the Anglophone philosophical community are going to embarrass themselves by voting in ridiculously large numbers for Lewis and Rawls. Help save them the embarrassment!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-52736852919307174062009-03-03T15:03:00.002-06:002009-03-03T15:03:55.157-06:00

Feel free to vote, even if you're not going to vote for the correct choice!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-25668884736256108512009-02-27T18:32:00.002-06:002009-02-27T18:33:42.580-06:00

Despite best efforts, and helpful suggestions from readers, I've not been able to find a way to get recent comments to show up in the sidebar. My apologies. I appreciate the input from readers. One reason I'm going to continue this blog is because the feedback from readers has been genuinely informative and interesting. Thanks.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-10545713617465480852009-02-23T20:20:00.007-06:002009-02-23T21:31:08.123-06:00

So one nice thing about living in Chicago is that I'm now just a train (or taxi) ride away from the Central Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association. I was thus able to attend an unusually substantive session of the North American Nietzsche Society with presentations by Richard Schacht (emeritus, Illinois) and Maudemarie Clark (UC Riverside). Schacht argued forcefully that we

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-70326300648763686082009-02-13T18:13:00.001-06:002009-02-13T18:14:57.674-06:00

The deadline for abstracts for papers is now March 15. This promises to be one of the most philosophically substantial FNS events.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-32424364921678448002009-01-30T17:57:00.006-06:002009-01-30T18:05:50.924-06:00

in Mind. Lots of interesting, substantive discussion, including of Hussain's fictionalist reading of Nietzsche, which we have discussed before.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-5058759847315067372009-01-28T17:01:00.018-06:002009-01-28T18:50:13.841-06:00

These are some thoughts in response to the excellent set of comments by Justin Clarke-Doane (a PhD student at NYU doing fascinating work on disagreement in mathematics--he has a pertinent paper on his homepage for those interested) in the thread on my paper on "Moral Skepticism and Moral Disagreement in Nietzsche." Clarke-Doane raised so many interesting issues that they deserve their own posts,

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-26683392842934401112009-01-26T08:14:00.000-06:002009-01-26T08:15:21.085-06:00

It is now on-line here.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-36057917759832955912009-01-22T08:38:00.001-06:002009-01-22T08:39:59.342-06:00

If any readers have spotted typos or similar errors in the cloth version, I'd be grateful if you would let me know, so that we can ask OUP to correct them for the paperback version. Thanks.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-37041605251237950422009-01-21T14:53:00.004-06:002009-01-21T14:56:19.250-06:00

Here. I am grateful to those who commented on it last year at this blog. This will appear in The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche (edited by Ken Gemes and John Richardson), due out later this year. There may be a few stylistic or citation tweaks, but this version is final as to substance, and is available for citation and quotation. Additional comments are, of course, welcome, since these are topics

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-3491028386456068762009-01-16T08:18:00.002-06:002009-01-16T08:19:13.036-06:00

Reminder: the deadline for paper proposals is February 1!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-42726791635701999992009-01-02T17:54:00.001-06:002009-01-02T17:55:22.297-06:00

Let me know if you prefer this new look to the old one--some readers complained, fairly I think, that the old format was hard to read, and that the links were hard to find. Thanks. Happy New Year to all readers!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-9906510833273222462008-12-19T14:01:00.012-06:002008-12-19T14:13:15.068-06:00

I've posted my review essay of Tamsin Shaw's book Nietzsche's Political Skepticism (Princeton, 2007), which will appear in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews in January. Most of the review is given over to a detailed critique of Professor Shaw's argument. Those who have read my work for awhile know that I don't waste time doing detailed critiques of insignificant work, so even though I am skeptical

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-17143734446441711702008-12-15T18:18:00.002-06:002008-12-15T18:20:13.722-06:00

Some readers might find this of interest. The publisher was keen for me to talk about how I became interested in Nietzsche, and also to address what he described as the still widespread perception in Greece of Nietzsche as a figure of "the right."

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-35646475599058076922008-12-14T12:14:00.004-06:002008-12-14T12:17:19.053-06:00

I neglected to change my e-mail address from Texas to Chicago, and the Texas address had stopped forwarding, so there was a backlog. I've just now approved a whole bunch of comments, as well as changing my e-mail address to the current one for comment moderation. Thanks to all those who contributed, and my apologies for the mix up.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-21444186221826981542008-12-11T18:38:00.001-06:002008-12-11T18:40:07.248-06:00

I've posted a revised version of the paper I gave at the annual NYU "History of Modern Philosophy" conference in November (which generated an excellent and very helpful discussion). I hope the paper may interest moral philosophers generally, as well as Nietzsche scholars. Here is the abstract for the paper:This essay offers a new interpretation of Nietzsche's argument for moralskepticism (i.e.,

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-31572839147510327742008-12-10T18:36:00.002-06:002008-12-10T18:38:18.466-06:00

Michael Drake is a lawyer with a philosophy background who has been blogging quite a bit about aspects of Nietzsche's theory of value, touching on many issues and authors noted here in the past. There are also opportunities to comment on his postings at his site.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-58990790343620677722008-11-11T08:42:00.004-06:002008-11-11T08:47:35.071-06:00

Nietzsche on Mind and Nature11 – 13 September 2009St Peter’s College, University of OxfordThe Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford will host the 2009 InternationalConference of Friedrich Nietzsche Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 11-13September 2009, at St. Peter’s College, Oxford.Keynote speakers include:Prof. Günter Abel, Faculty of Philosophy, TU Berlin, Germany.Prof. Brian

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-48126730033355208832008-11-04T11:10:00.001-06:002008-11-06T15:27:29.979-06:00

But not at this small college in Texas. Pretty pathetic.UPDATE: Temple College, to its credit, reversed itself.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-15039042151631542212008-10-28T13:47:00.001-06:002008-10-28T13:48:22.258-06:00

...which, alas, will just encourage mispronunciations of "Nietzsche." (Thanks to John Turri for this amusing link.)

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-72693722501073406762008-10-15T12:16:00.001-06:002008-10-15T20:38:43.561-06:00

Really.(Thanks to Iain Thomson for the pointer.)

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-82516852549514492992008-10-10T08:20:00.003-06:002008-10-10T08:24:34.607-06:00

Details here. I'm not certain yet what I will be talking about, but it will probably concern agency and freedom, in a (no doubt futile!) effort to put a stop to the moralizing misreadings of Nietzsche on this topic emanating from certain corners of Southern England!

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-86054414089411871122008-10-09T09:06:00.002-06:002008-10-09T09:09:30.519-06:00

On the off chance this might be of interest to some reader(s), I thought I'd mention that I was pleasantly surprised to learn not long ago that a Greek translation of Nietzsche on Morality (Routledge, 2002) will be published in 2009. The book will be published by Okto (Athens). I have been very impressed by the conscientious work of the translator, Yorgos Lamprakos, who has been checking the

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-35114951684009316452008-09-07T08:38:00.001-06:002008-09-07T08:39:49.183-06:00

Here. Slightly amusing, though he, oddly, calls Nietzsche "a political philosopher."(Thanks to Victor Caston for the pointer.)

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-7809346381748467892008-08-24T16:46:00.003-06:002008-08-24T16:47:44.070-06:00

Paul Katsafanas (New Mexico) has put his Harvard dissertation on-line here.  Quite apart from its general philosophical interest to those working in ethics and action theory, about half the dissertation will be of particular interest to Nietzsche scholars.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-91202542630162900582008-08-15T17:59:00.005-06:002008-08-15T18:15:35.149-06:00

Among the interesting discussions in Nietzsche's Political Skepticism by Tamsin Shaw (Princeton, Politics) is her critique of Nadeem Hussain's thesis that Nietzsche is a fictionalist about value, a subject we have discussed before.   She does not emphasize the anachronism problem, but instead calls attention, correctly I think, to the philosophical implausibility of the view of value at issue.  

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-70958404708259022122008-07-23T08:07:00.004-06:002008-07-23T08:10:33.677-06:00

A draft of this paper is here. This is slated for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, which will be edited by Gemes and Richardson. Comments would be most welcome. Here is the abstract:According to one recent scholar, "Most commentators on Nietzsche would agree that he is in a broad sense a naturalist in his mature philosophy" (Janaway 2007: 34). This may come as a surprise to those

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-48769824750024708802008-07-16T09:59:00.001-06:002008-07-16T09:59:41.352-06:00

A couple of folks have asked, so here's what's on the agenda: I'll be doing the "Law and Philosophy Workshop" all year on the topic "Toleration and Religious Liberty." This is cross-listed between the Law School and Philosophy Department, and is open to students in either unit, as well as others at the university; all students will need to submit a statement of interest and other information to

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-52487484192367773592008-07-04T13:53:00.004-06:002008-07-04T14:10:25.733-06:00

Some time in the next year, I mean to update my SEP essay on this topic.I'd welcome suggestions from readers about topics/discussions that require revision or expansion, or additional topics that might be included. Thanks.By the way, I have finally added a response to the interesting comments of Scott Jenkins from the Janaway thread from May. I appreciate those and the other comments there,

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-11055263927584278752008-06-25T08:58:00.001-06:002008-06-25T08:59:34.965-06:00

...I hope to see some readers there.I may post a draft of my paper on SSRN if I get a chance before my departure.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-5522893946317252992008-06-03T09:41:00.000-06:002008-06-03T09:42:23.471-06:00

Here.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-56217618719989795112008-05-19T12:12:00.005-06:002008-05-19T12:21:36.178-06:00

I've posted on SSRN my review essay (forthcoming in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews) discussing Christopher Janaway's recent book Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy (OUP, 2007). Here is the abstract:Particular attention is given to the question of Nietzsche's style, and therelationship between his philosophical positions and his therapeutic objectives; to Janaway's critique of my

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-26005450643996122952008-05-15T09:11:00.005-06:002008-05-15T09:25:11.218-06:00

The fall 2005 Philosophical Topics (vol. 33, no. 2) devoted to Nietzsche (and edited by Randall Havas and Edward Minar) has finally appeared! My "Nietzsche's Theory of the Will" paper from Philosopher's Imprint is reprinted here, but all the other contributions are new. The other papers are:"Nietzsche on Language: Before and After Wittgenstein" by Maria Alvarez and Aaron Ridley (both University

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-25434383666166246592008-05-04T15:00:00.003-06:002008-05-04T15:06:54.806-06:00

The Daily Nietzsche BlogThe Mole: Official Blog of the Friedrich Nietzsche SocietyList others of note in the comments section.

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-92152395852780736492008-05-01T19:24:00.007-06:002008-05-01T19:40:11.504-06:00

References are to Paul Katsafanas, “Nietzsche’s Theory of Mind: Consciousness and Conceptualization,” European Journal of Philosophy 13 (2005): 1-31. Some other references are to David Rosenthal, “Consciousness and Its Function,” forthcoming in Neuropsychologia (I cite to the MS version). Katsafanas, as I’ve acknowledged in my “Nietzsche’s Theory of the Will,” Philosophers’ Imprint 7 (2007)

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4373556239088388790.post-88997413083996621362008-04-29T07:18:00.002-06:002008-04-29T07:08:12.249-06:00

Christa Davis Acampora at Hunter College has taken over as editor of The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, and is making an effort to turn it into a serious scholarly journal. To that end, I accepted her kind invitation to serve on the journal's new editorial board. (The gushing bios of the members of the editorial board are slightly ridiculous, I'm afraid.) Some readers will know that I am rather

Brian Leiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749548844483929392noreply@blogger.com11