Home

About Us

Help

Jobs

News

Site Index

OUP Worldwide

My Account

My Wish List

View Basket

Email this to a Friend

Printer-Friendly View

Basket: 0 items | £0.00

Beyond Selflessness Reading Nietzsche's <i>Genealogy</i>

View Larger

Resources

This book is available in Oxford Scholarship Online - view abstracts and keywords at book and chapter level.

Related Categories

History of Western Philosophy

History of Philosophy

Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Beyond Selflessness

Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy

Christopher Janaway

296 pages | 234x156mm

978-0-19-957085-0 | Paperback | 16 July 2009

Also available as: Hardback

Price: £18.99

Add to Wish List

Long-awaited study of Nietzsche's most important work, from a leading figure in the field
Essential reading for historians of moral philosophy
A landmark in Nietzsche studies
Highly illuminating for current debates in ethical theory
Ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on Nietzsche

Christopher Janaway presents a full commentary on Nietzsche's most studied work, On the Genealogy of Morality, and combines close reading of key passages with an overview of Nietzsche's wider aims. Arguing that Nietzsche's goal is to pursue psychological and historical truths concerning the origins of modern moral values, Beyond Selflessness differs from other books on Nietzsche in that it emphasizes the significance of his rhetorical methods as an instrument of persuasion. Nietzsche's outlook is broadly naturalist, but he is critical of typical scientific and philosophical methods for their advocacy of impersonality and suppression of the affects. In contrast to his opponents, Schopenhauer and Paul Rée, who both account for morality in terms of selflessness, Nietzsche believes that our allegiance to a post-Christian morality that centres around selflessness, compassion, guilt, and denial of the instincts is not primarily rational but affective: underlying feelings, often ambivalent and poorly grasped in conscious thought, explain our moral beliefs. The Genealogy is designed to detach the reader from his or her allegiance to morality and prepare for the possibility of new values. In addition to examining how Nietzsche's 'perspectivism' holds that one can best understand a topic such as morality through allowing as many of one's feelings as possible to speak about it, Janaway shows that Nietzsche seeks to enable us to 'feel differently': his provocation of the reader's affects helps us grasp the affective origins of our attitudes and prepare the way for healthier values such as the affirmation of life (as tested by the thought of eternal return) and the self-satisfaction to be attained by 'giving style to one's character'.

Readership: Advanced students and professional academics with an interest in Nietzsche's philosophy

Recently Viewed

Shunned

Discrimination against people with mental illness

Graham Thornicroft

£90.00

If Your Adolescent Has an Eating Disorder

An Essential Resource for Parents

B. Timothy Walsh, V. L. Cameron

£10.00

The Oxford Handbook of Business History

Geoffrey Jones, Jonathan Zeitlin

£32.50

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

| More

Beyond Selflessness

Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy

Share