Nietzsche Pursued: Toward a Philosophy for the Future

by Richard Schacht

Overview

An ambitious venture into Nietzsche’s envisioned philosophy for the future.
 
Nietzsche advocated for a post-theistic “philosophy of the future”—a new approach to human reality that would bend Western thought away from nihilism in a life-affirming, value-creative direction. His early demise left this endeavor only just begun. In Nietzsche Pursued, Richard Schacht examines Nietzsche’s revisionist approach to familiar philosophical topics, exploring how some may be further pursued in Nietzschean ways.

Each chapter focuses on one topic that is central to Nietzsche's vision of what philosophy can and should be and do. Among them: his kind of naturalism, humanity, perspectivism, morality, and music. Building on his analysis in Nietzsche’s Kind of Philosophy, Schacht invites readers to see with new appreciation the ongoing significance of Nietzsche’s thought for philosophy’s future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226834665
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	10/02/2024
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	376
Sales rank:	1,143,558
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Richard Schacht is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His many books on European philosophy after Kant include, most recently, Nietzsche’s Kind of Philosophy: Finding His Way, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Reference Key

Introduction
1. Toward a Post-Scientistic Naturalism: Naturalizing without Dehumanizing
2. Toward a Post-Essentialist Philosophical Anthropology: Nietzsche’s Way with the Human
3. Toward a Post-Subjectivist Perspectivism: Nietzsche and the Perspectival
4. Toward a Post-Moralist Moral Philosophy: A Nietzschean Naturalizing of the Moral
5. Toward a Post-Political Political Philosophy: Reconceiving the Political
6. Toward a Post-Metaphysical Metaphysics? On “Will to Power”—and More
7. Toward a Post-Romantic Reckoning with Music: Music as Muse

Addenda
8. Nietzsche and Science: A Cautionary Tale
9. Renderings and Takings: From “Wissenschaft” to “Übermensch”

Backstory and Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography of Related Nietzsche Studies
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Schacht teases out how Nietzsche's glimmering, widely strewn hints about a philosophy of the future might actually implicate a more subtle 'middle way' than the blinkered, mutually exclusive options fashionable today. Drawing on a long career spent studying Nietzsche's manifold writings, Schacht announces the arrival of a Nietzschean philosopher who would be post-moralistic, post-metaphysical, and post-political, yet still have much to say to post-modernists and post-structuralists, who persists in seeing him as one of their own (despite the differences on display here). A stimulating read, this book would make an ideal text for an upper-level seminar. Sure to become a critical touchstone."

Choice

The future of humanity is Nietzsche’s central concern. Nietzsche Pursued addresses current debates in innovative and inspiring ways, proposing nuanced solutions beyond established dichotomies such as moralism versus nihilism, essentialism versus perspectivism, and naturalism versus humanism. Schacht’s artful way of making sense of Nietzsche draws on a life’s work of exceptional scholarship and walks a virtuous tightrope between false alternatives.

Helmut Heit

Schacht’s long-standing and important thesis concerning Nietzsche’s naturalism is brought to fruition in this book. Nietzsche Pursued offers an invaluable, enriching, and superbly argued sequence of engagements with this extremely important thinker. This is an outstanding and original contribution to the field of Nietzsche studies by one of its most notable scholars.

Peter R. Sedgwick