Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts

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.

• First collection of essays to address Nietzsche’s understanding of the relationships of art to philosophy and politics • Interdisciplinary, international cast of contributors • Accessibly written

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.