Nietzsche and the Becoming of Life (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

"Throughout his writing career Nietzsche advocated the affirmation of earthly life as a way to counteract nihilism and asceticism. This volume takes stock of the complexities and wide-ranging perspectives that Nietzsche brings to bear on the problem of life’s becoming on Earth by engaging various interpretative paradigms reaching from existentialist to Darwinist readings of Nietzsche.;In an age in which the biological sciences claim to have unlocked the deepest secrets and codes of life, the essays in this volume propose a more skeptical view. Life is both what is closest and what is furthest from us, because life experiments through us as much as we experiment with it, because life keeps our thinking and our habits always moving, in a state of recurring nomadism. Nietzsche’s philosophy is perhaps the clearest expression of the antinomy contained in the idea of “studying” life and in the Socratic ideal of an “examined” life and remains a deep source of wisdom about living."--pub. desc. Machine generated contents note: pt. I Contesting Nietzsche's Naturalism -- 1. The Optics of Science, Art, and Life: How Tragedy Begins / Tracy B. Strong -- 2. Nietzsche, Nature, and Life Affirmation / Lawrence J. Hatab -- pt. II Evolution, Teleology, and the Laws of Nature -- 3. Is Evolution Blind? On Nietzsche's Reception of Darwin / Virginia Cano -- 4. Nietzsche and the Nineteenth-Century Debate on Teleology / Mariana A. Cruz -- 5. Nietzsche's Conception of "Necessity" and Its Relation to "Laws of Nature" / Herman W. Siemens -- pt. III Justice and the Law of Life -- 6. Life and Justice in Nietzsche's Conception of History / Vanessa Lemm -- 7. Life, Injustice, and Recurrence / Scott Jenkins -- 8. Heeding the Law of Life: Receptivity, Submission, Hospitality / Daniel Conway -- pt. IV The Becoming of a New Body and Sensibility -- 9. Toward the Body of the Overman / Debra Bergoffen -- 10. Nietzsche's Synaesthetic Epistemology and the Restitution of the Holistic Human / Rainer J. Hanshe -- 11. Nietzsche's Naturalist Morality of Breeding: A Critique of Eugenics as Taming / Donovan Miyasaki -- 12. An "Other Way of Being." The Nietzschean "Animal": Contributions to the Question of Biopolitics / Monica B. Cragnolini -- pt. V Purification and the Freedom of Death -- 13. Nietzsche and the Transformation of Death / Eduardo Nasser -- 14. Becoming and Purification: Empedocles, Zarathustra's Ubermensch, and Lucian's Tyrant / Babette Babich -- pt. VI The Becoming of the Soul: Nomadism and Self-Experiment -- 15. "Falling in Love with Becoming": Remarks on Nietzsche and Emerson / Dieter Thoma -- 16. "We Are Experiments": Nietzsche on Morality and Authenticity / Keith Ansell-Pearson -- 17. States and Nomads: Hegel's World and Nietzsche's Earth / Gary Shapiro. Throughout his writing career Nietzsche advocated the affirmation of earthly life as a way to counteract nihilism and asceticism. This volume takes stock of the complexities and wide-ranging perspectives that Nietzsche brings to bear on the problem of lifes becoming on Earth by engaging various interpretative paradigms reaching from existentialist to Darwinist readings of Nietzsche. In an age in which the biological sciences claim to have unlocked the deepest secrets and codes of life, the essays in this volume propose a more skeptical view. Life is both what is closest and what is furthest from us, because life experiments through us as much as we experiment with it, because life keeps our thinking and our habits always moving, in a state of recurring nomadism. Nietzsches philosophy is perhaps the clearest expression of the antinomy contained in the idea of studying life and in the Socratic ideal of an examined life and remains a deep source of wisdom about living. Throughout his writing career Nietzsche advocates the affirmation of earthly life as a way to counteract nihilism and asceticism. But what does Nietzsche mean by 'life' on earth? and what does the affirmation of such a life entail? This volume takes stock of the complexities and wide-ranging perspectives that Nietzsche brings to bear on the problem of life's becoming on earth by engaging various interpretative paradigms reaching from existentialist to Darwinist readings of Nietzsche and measuring their continued importance against the standards of the latest advances of scholarship on Nietzsche