There are similarities between Bernard Williams and Cora Diamond as moral philosophers: both their moral philosophies are marked by an engagement with the question of what it is like to be a human ...being, and both are engaged with experience more than theory. Still, such similarities rest on very different philosophical grounds. In this article, I consider whether a Nietzschean (Williams) and a Wittgensteinian (Diamond) could ever converge on a characterization of the ‘moral point of view’ as this involves views on life, thought, and language. I argue that divergences between Williams and Diamond persist, a very important one concerning relativism: whereas Diamond adumbrates a Wittgensteinian way out of relativism, it remains a last word for Williams.
The two most important processes influencing new cultural trends in today’s Russia are the state’s annexation of transgression and the transformation of social norms. In Russia’s public space, ...speakers representing different official or semi-official institutions make aggressive statements and defy accepted norms of public communication. They behave as if they perform the roles of “official holy fools”. Thus, the state “annexes” the right of mediatized public transgression characteristic of contemporary art. State actors are described in the article as “active conformists” embodying the expectations and desires of TV-watching “passive conformists”. Accordingly, strategies of heroic resistance in art and literature cease to be relevant for shaping the new wave of Russia’s aesthetic nonconformism. The article discusses alternative scenarios and discourses emerging in contemporary art and literature as formative for the new type of nonconformity.
Jewish religious life in the Soviet Union is typically the subject of dichotomous depictions that offer only a superficial rendering of this rich and complex environment. This paper aims to ...complicate this image by pointing out several religious thinkers who engaged with Communist and Marxist ideas and incorporated them into their religious thought, while upholding rabbinic culture. Among the figures and themes examined are Alter Hilewitz’s (1906–1994) Hasido-Marxism, Rabbi Avraham Yosef Guttman’s (1870–1940) crisis of faith, and Shmuel Alexandrov’s (1865–1941) use of Russian Nietzscheanism. Alexandrov was also the narrator who revealed these fascinating ideas to us in a rare collection of his letters, which possesses both a philosophical and a theological nature. These letters, which have received very little attention in previous studies, provide a small window into the conflictual world of rabbis and yeshiva students in the first decade of the Soviet Union. Reviewing the ideas generated in a struggle to make sense of one of the great crises of modern Judaism, and pondering questions of historical perspective and how empathy may distort it, this article wishes to go beyond the image of a defensive preservation of religious life and to re-envision this unique and innovative period of Jewish thought.
Este artículo presenta una interpretación de la corriente neonietzscheana española que floreció entre los últimos años sesenta y comienzos de los ochenta. Utilizando los instrumentos conceptuales de ...la sociología de la filosofía, trata de demostrar que el neonietzcheanismo español de izquierdas no fue un fenómeno pasajero, sino que tuvo consecuencias intelectuales duraderas sobre movimientos como el feminismo, el movimiento GLTB, la antipsiquiatría o el pacifismo. Asimismo, mostramos que la existencia de un nietzscheanismo de izquierdas no constituye un problema lógico o teórico, sino sociológico, por tanto debemos indagar las condiciones culturales, políticas, institucionales e intelectuales de este acontecimiento filosófico. This article presents a new interpretation of the Spanish Neonietzschean philosophical trend who flourished from the late Sixties to the early Eightees. Using the conceptual tools of the sociology of philosophy, we try to demonstrate that the Spanish leftist Neonietzscheanism was not a passing event but had lasting intellectual consequences on movements such as feminism, GLTB, antipsychiatry, pacifism and so on. At the same time, we show that the existence of a leftist Nietzschean thought in Postfrancoist Spain is not a logical or theoretical problem, but a sociological one. So, we must look for the cultural, political, institutional and intellectual conditions of this philosophical event.
This paper discusses the importance and frequency of Magris’ explorations of Musil and his major work as a novelist, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. It investigates the reasons why Musil’s novel is so ...important, and not only so for the Germanist. Indeed, Musil’s work and its interpretation can also be considered as a kind of ‘model’ for the writer that Magris would become later on in his career. The paper focuses on different features of Musil’s masterpiece, which better meet Magris’ ideal of diegesis, and somehow subvert the classic and rational paradigm of the Bildungsroman, pointing to the magic realism of a writer like Borges.
This paper critically examines what may be described as 'the consumerist interpretation of National Socialism.' In the last two decades or so, proponents of this approach have mounted a strong ...challenge to older assumptions about material scarcity under the Nazi regime. They have claimed that Nazism had brought about significant material benefits to the masses, and that, at the very least, the wish to ameliorate the material lot of the common folk was one of its main impulses. These revisionist arguments, however, downplay the reservations and often outright enmity of the Nazis towards mass consumption. The consumerist approach neglects the fundamental, elitist and quasi-libidinal investment of the Nazi worldview in war, and its no-less visceral opposition to peace as a way of life, despised not least on account of its association with consumerism, the cowardly and hedonistic fixation, precisely, on welfare and higher standard of life. Nazi social policies, including the final plunge into war, it will be argued, were less the deeds of homo economicus, and more acts conducted in accordance with Nietzsche's dictum: 'I know of no better aim of life than that of perishing, animae magnae prodigus, in pursuit of the great and the impossible.'
En 1906 apareció en La Línea (Cádiz) un periódico anarquista de filosofía e inspiración nietzscheana titulado El Anticristo, del que solo conservamos dos números, que se anuncia con una periodicidad ...quincenal. Para su contextualización,
expondremos la filosofía de Nietzsche en relación al anarquismo, la opinión de este autor respecto a los anarquistas, y cómo el movimiento libertario asume partes del pensamiento y personalidad del filósofo alemán. Como referencia del anarquismo nietzscheano
español, analizaremos el contenido de este periódico, la gran influencia que tuvo, los temas de sus artículos. Finalmente, se señalará la ascendencia de esta publicación y en general del nietzscheanismo anarquista español en posteriores y distintos
pensadores del movimiento libertario ibérico.
Aquest article té l'objectiu d’aprofundir en el caràcter dels modernistes catalans, així com el d’analitzar de quina manera la doctrina de Friedrich Nietzsche influí en les actuacions i produccions ...artístiques d’alguns creadors d’aquesta tendència. A través de la rellevància de la premsa periòdica com a principal difusora de l’ideari del filòsof alemany al context català del tombant del segle XIX, i a partir de casos concrets com, entre d'altres, el de Joan Maragall i Santiago Rusiñol, s’insisteix en la importància del perfil nietzscheà dels modernistes. La riquesa dels discursos estètics vers l’art, la política i la concepció de la imatge-símbol perfilaren aquest particular i combatiu visage, lligat a conceptes com el superhome, la voluntat de poder, l’etern retorn i l’absoluta llibertat creativa en oposició a les lleis establertes.
PDF
