Description
Book SynopsisBeginning amidst the tombs of the ''dead'' God, and the crematoria at Auschwitz, this book confronts Nietzsche''s legacy through the lens of Plato. The key question is how authors can protect against the possible ''deviant readings'' of future readers and assess ''the risk of writing''. Burke recommends an ethic of ''discursive containment''.The ethical question is the question of our times. Within critical theory, it has focused on the act of reading. This study reverses the terms of inquiry to analyse the ethical composition of the act of writing. What responsibility does an author bear for his legacy? Do ''catastrophic'' misreadings of authors (e.g. Plato, Nietzsche) testify to authorial recklessness? These and other questions are the starting-point for a theory of authorial ethics.
Trade ReviewBurke argues compellingly that no author is completely beyond ethical recall on the ground of artistic immunity or aesthetic irrelevancy... Highly recommended. Choice Burke argues compellingly that no author is completely beyond ethical recall on the ground of artistic immunity or aesthetic irrelevancy... Highly recommended.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Key to References and Abbreviations Prologue: Friedrich Nietzsche in Auschwitz, Or the Posthumous Return of the Author Introduction: The Responsibilities of the Writer Chapter One: The Ethical Opening Speech and Writing: the Aporia The Birth of Philosophy Out of the Spirit of Writing Dionysian Orality versus Socratic 'Inscription' The Internal Scribe and the Athenian Legislator Chapter Two: The Ethics of Legacy The Ethics of Question and Answer Suitable and Unsuitable Readers Chapter Three: Signature and Authorship in the Phaedrus Oral versus Graphic Signatures Science and Signature Dialectic and Mathematics: Iterability and the Ethics of Writing Dialectic and the (Anxious) Origins of Authorship: Tribunal and Signature in the Phaedrus Chapter Four: The Textual Estate: Nietzsche and Authorial Responsibility Counter-philosophy Mixed Genres The Will to Power as Art Signature and the Ethical Future The Estate Settled? Conclusion: Creativity versus Containment: The Aesthetic Defence FOOTNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
