Description
Book SynopsisNietzsche and the Dionysian argues that the shuddering mania of the affect associated with Dionysus in Nietzsche’s early work runs as a thread through his thought and is linked to an originary interruption of self-consciousness articulated by the philosophical companion. In this capacity, the companion can be considered a ‘mask of Dionysus’, or one who assumes the singular role of the transmitter of the most valuable affirmative affect and initiates a compulsion to respond which incorporates the otherness of the companion. In the context of such engagements, Nietzsche envisages ‘Dionysian’ or divine ‘madness’ within an optics of life, through which an affirmative ethics can be thought. The ethical response to the philosophical companion requires an affirmation of the plurality of life, formulated in the imperatives to be ‘true to the earth’ and ‘become who you are’. Such an ethics, compelled by the Dionysian affect, grounds any future for humanity in the affirmation of the earth and life.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1 The Dionysian as an Ethical Sense 1 Shuddering and Ethics 2 The Dionysian Mania 3 Pessimism and Consolation 2 Creature and Creator 1 Satyr and Chorus 2 The Dionysian Companion as Compulsion 3 The Look of Eternity 4 The Dithyrambic Dramatist and Transmissibility 3 The Way of the Wanderers 1 Leaving Bayreuth, Finding Bayreuth 2 The Great Separation 3 Similes of Time and Becoming 4 The Dance with Life 5 The Shadow of Ambivalence 4 The Weight of Affirmation 1 The Twofold Will 2 The Thread of the Body 3 Soul, Self, Spirit 4 The Eternal Recurrence Test 5 Redeeming the Past 6 The Spiritualization of the Passions 7 The Spiritualization of Justice 5 The Possibility of Self-Overcoming 1 Practical Spiritualized Values 2 Evaluation and the Order of Rank 3 Will to Power and Passivity 4 Will to Power Engaging Resistance 5 The Value of Resistance 6 Irresistible Resistance 6 Towards a Practical Ethics of the Earth and Life 1 The Blessed Isles 2 The Gift-Giving Virtues 3 The New Laws 4 Learning to Laugh 5 Nightwandering 6 Advocates of the Future 7 Working for the Future 1 We Hyperboreans 2 An Allegory of Eternity 3 The Human Sublime 4 The Dionysian (Once More) 5 Conversations on Naxos 6 The Satyr Chorus of Humanity Epilogue Bibliography Name Index Subject Index
