Either Kierkegaard/Or Nietzsche: Moral Philosophy in a New Key

by Angier,Tom P.S.

• ISBN13: 9780754654742
• ISBN10: 0754654745
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2017-03-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Arguably Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are the two most significant moral philosophers of the nineteenth century, their works showing a remarkably trenchant and penetrating awareness of key ethical issues, while demonstrating a stylistic flair that is rare in philosophical writing.Angier argues that, despite the perceived stylistic opacity of these thinkers, their work does admit of comparison and rigorous analytic scrutiny which in turn yields new and significant insights into their philosophy.In this book Angier expounds the view that Kierkegaard both anticipated, and subjected to detailed critique, Nietzsche's central arguments in moral philosophy, exposing the weaknesses of what were to become the core Nietzschean positions and realizing the powerful attraction for people that these ideas would have. Angier brings this critique to our modern attention and defends the prefigured Kierkegaardian critique of Nietzsche.

Author Biography

Tom P.S. Angier is Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Canada.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgements	x
List of Abbreviations	xi
Introduction	1	(1)
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche vis-à-vis the analytic tradition	1	(8)
Part 1 Kierkegaard contra Nietzsche
Foreword	9	(2)
1 Kierkegaard's Challenge	11	(24)
1.1 Sovereign individuality: the hyper-existentialist interpretation	11	(3)
1.2 Sovereign individuality: the biologistic interpretation	14	(3)
1.3 Sovereign individuality: the Valadier/May interpretation	17	(3)
1.4 Anti-Climacus' critique of sovereign individuality	20	(15)
2 From Aestheticism to Ethics	35	(16)
2.1 Kierkegaardian choice and its critics	36	(1)
2.2 The choice between the ethical and aesthetic lives examined	37	(4)
2.3 The Nietzschean self unmasked as an aesthetic self	41	(4)
2.4 The aesthetic self and the value of moral constraints	45	(6)
3 From Ethics to Religion	51	(22)
3.1 Kierkegaardian religion put to the question	51	(3)
3.2 Kierkegaardian religion upheld	54	(6)
3.3 Nietzsche's critique and inversion of the religious ideal	60	(4)
3.4 Sovereign individuality finally overcome	64	(9)
Part 2 Truth and Communication
Foreword	73	(2)
4 Truth	75	(28)
4.1 Nietzsche on truth: stage one	76	(1)
4.2 Nietzsche on truth: stage two	77	(2)
4.3 Nietzsche on truth: stage three	79	(3)
4.4 Nietzsche on truth: stage four	82	(3)
4.5 Kierkegaard rejects Hegelian 'Objectivity'	85	(2)
4.6 'Subjectivity is Truth': a hyper-existentialist doctrine?	87	(3)
4.7 'Subjectivity is Truth' upheld	90	(3)
4.8 Nietzsche's theory of truth finally defeated	93	(10)
5 Communication	103	(32)
5.1 Abraham's communicative failure explored	103	(6)
5.2 Narrative theory explored	109	(3)
5.3 Narrative theory explains Abraham's communicative failure	112	(3)
5.4 Kierkegaard anticipates and endorses narrative theory	115	(6)
5.5 Nietzsche on the need for silence	121	(1)
5.6 Nietzsche rejects both 'system' and narrative	122	(4)
5.7 Nietzsche moves towards ahistorical ipsedixitism	126	(1)
5.8 Sovereign individuality rendered incommunicable?	126	(9)
Conclusion: Equality and Power	135	(12)
Nietzsche on equality	135	(2)
Nietzsche on power	137	(2)
Kierkegaard on power	139	(2)
Kierkegaard on equality	141	(3)
Settling accounts between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche	144	(3)
Recommended Reading	147	(2)
Bibliography	149	(8)
Index	157