Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel : intellectual biography and critical balance-sheet / Domenico Losurdo ; with an introduction by Harrison Fluss ; translated by Gregor Benton.
"Originally published in Italian by Bollati Boringhieri Editore as Domenico Losurdo, Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico: Biografia intellettuale e bilancio critico, Turin, 2002." Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
The crisis of culture from Socrates to the Paris commune -- Tradition, myth and the critique of revolution -- Socratism and 'present-day Judaism' -- The founding of the second Reich, and conflicting myths of origin -- From the 'Judaism' of Socrates to the 'Judaism' of Strauss -- The 'solitary rebel' breaks with tradition and the 'popular community' -- The 'solitary rebel' becomes an 'enlightener' -- From anti-revolutionary 'enlightenment' to the encounter with the great moralists -- Between German national liberalism and European liberalism -- The poet of the 'people's community', the 'solitary rebel', the antirevolutionary 'enlightener' and the theorist of 'aristocratic radicalism' -- 'Aristocratic radicalism' and the 'new party of life' -- Slavery in the United States and in the colonies and the struggle between abolitionists and anti-abolitionists -- 'Hierarchy', great chain of being and great chain of pain -- The 'uneducated masses', the 'freethinker' and the 'free spirit': critique and meta-critique of ideology -- From the critique of the french revolution to the critique of the Jewish-Christian revolution -- The long cycle of revolution and the curse of nihilism -- The late Nietzsche and the longed-for coup against the 'social monarchy' of Wilhelm II and stoÌ⁸cker -- 'Anti-anti-semitism' and the extension to Christians and 'anti-semites' of the anti-socialist laws -- 'New party of life', eugenics and 'annihilation of millions of deformed' -- 'Metaphor', 'anticipation' and 'translatability of languages' -- Politics and epistemology between liberalism and 'aristocratic radicalism' -- Otium et bellum: aristocratic distinction and the struggle against democracy -- Social Darwinism, eugenics and colonial massacres -- Philosophers, historians and sociologists: the conflict of interpretations -- Aristocratic radicalism, pan-European elite and anti-semitism -- Culture in search of its slaves: from the late nineteenth century anti-democratic reaction to nazism -- Transformations of Aryan mythology, condemnation of the revolutionary conspiracy and the formation of anti-semitism -- A philosopher totus politicus -- How to challenge two millennia of history -- anti-dogmatism, and dogmatism of aristocratic radicalism -- From suprahistorical myth to the opening of new perspectives for historical research -- The radical aristocrat and the great moralist -- Crisis of the western myth of origin and of imperial universalism -- Individualism and holism, inclusion and exclusion: the liberal tradition, Nietzsche and the history of the West.
Summary:
"Perhaps no philosopher is more of a conundrum than Nietzsche, the solitary rebel, poet, wayfarer, anti-revolutionary Aufklärer and theorist of aristocratic radicalism. His accusers identify in his 'superman' the origins of Nazism, and thus issue an irrevocable condemnation; his defenders pursue a hermeneutics of innocence founded ultimately in allegory. In a work that constitutes the most important contribution to Nietzschean studies in recent decades, Domenico Losurdo instead pursues a less reductive strategy. Taking literally the ruthless implications of Nietzsche's anti-democratic thinking - his celebration of slavery, of war and colonial expansion, and eugenics - he nevertheless refuses to treat these from the perspective of the mid-twentieth century. In doing so, he restores Nietzsche's works to their complex nineteenth-century context, and presents a more compelling account of the importance of Nietzsche as philosopher than can be expected from his many contemporary apologists"-- Back cover.
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