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Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche Series
Series editors: Keith Ansell-Pearson and Daniel Conway
This series offers a comprehensive guide to the key texts and philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche for students and scholars alike. Each of his texts will be clearly explained in its historical context. The books also feature new research and demonstrate why Nietzsche remains such a relevant figure today.
Each book includes:
. A chronology of life and work
. A glossary of key terms
. An index of names and subjects and an index of passages cited
. A guide to further reading
Discover the whole series at edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/egn
A guide to the whole of Nietzsche's understudied early masterpiece
Unfashionable Observations remains a puzzle. Comprised of four independent essays it is hard to see what structure, principles and arguments unify the text.
Jeffrey Church offers the first full treatment of all the essays, tracing the common themes of freedom, culture and genius which unify the book as a whole.
Requiring no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the text, Church sets the essays in historical and philosophical context, takes you through the text section-by-section and offers a structural overview of each essay. You will find the main debates in the scholarship and deepen your understanding of the overall logic and development of these often opaque essays.
Jeffrey Church is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston.
List of contents
Chronology
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Philosophical Background
Nietzsche, neo-Kantian
Schopenhauer and the fundamental problem
Kant, exemplarity and the value of freedom
Schiller and the artistic life
Culture in Kant and Schiller
2. David Strauss the Confessor and the Writer
Structural overview
1. The political corruption of German culture
2. The democratic corruption of German culture
3. David Strauss as the 'anti-genius'
4-5. The 'heaven' of the new faith
6-7. The 'courage' of the new faith
7-8. The 'world' of the new faith
8-12. Strauss as a bad writer
3. On the Utility and Liability of History for Life
Structural overview
Foreword: the philosopher in the historical age
1. Life
2. Monumental history
3. Antiquarian and critical history
4. The transition from ancient to modern history
5. The decline of the active life in modernity
6. Justice and the new history
7. Arrested growth and development in modernity
8. Modernity's philosophy of history
9. The redemption of humanity
10. Fixing modern culture
4. Schopenhauer as Educator
Structural overview
1. Freedom
2. The exemplar's education of affect
3. The exemplar's education of character
4. The exemplar's education of culture
5. Elevating the individual to culture
6. Culture and the value of existence
7. Modern conditions for fostering genius
8. The independence of culture from politics
5. Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
Structural overview
1. The tasks of the unfashionable audience
2. Wagner's two drives
3. Wagner's struggle with modern culture
4. Art and the tragic justification of existence
5-6. Wagner's redemption of modern culture
7. The freedom of the audience
8. Wagner's life
9. Wagner the artist
10. Wagner's influence
11. The call to the audience
6. The Observations' Influence on Nietzsche's Mature Thought
Unity in 'David Strauss'
The value of history in 'Utility and Liability'
Exemplarity in 'Schopenhauer as Educator'
Self-tyranny in 'Richard Wagner'
Glossary of Key Terms
Guide to Further Reading on the
Observations
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jeffrey Church is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. He is the author of Nietzsche's Culture of Humanity: Beyond Aristocracy and Democracy in the Early Period (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche (Penn State University Press, 2012) which was awarded Best First Book by the Foundations of Political Theory section of APSA.
Summary
A guide to the whole of Nietzsche's understudied early masterpiece
