"This volume analyses the importance of cheerfulness, joy and laughter in Nietzsche's thought. A neglected topic in the secondary literature, the political implications of his thinking on joyfulness and its cultivation provide new insights into Nietzsche's key works and ideas. The 11 essays chart the importance of attending to his many references to festivity, cheerfulness, laughter, and joy, as well as his use of riddles, to reveal a version of Nietzsche who is far from the caricature of hopeless nihilism and instead is the unrealised champion of an alternative liberatory politics. Scholars from both philosophy and political science explore these emotions in Nietzsche's thought to situate their affirmative possibilities, illuminating their political character, as well as their broader significance to his philosophical aims. Contributors cover a wide range of topics; including, the attainment of joy in Human, All too Human, the possibility of cheerfulness after the death of God, Nietzsche's teachings on learning to laugh at oneself, the aesthetic of playfulness, and the role of riddles."--

Analyzing the importance of joy, laughter, and cheerfulness in Nietzsche's thought, this volume addresses an under-examined topic in the secondary literature. By exploring disparate aspects of these interrelated emotions it provides new insights into his key ideas. The contributors-among them philosophers and political scientists-illustrate the significance of these feelings to reveal political ramifications of their affirmative potential and their broader role in Nietzsche's philosophical aims. These include how the joyful disposition Nietzsche commends informs his free spirit's self-overcoming, attempts to revalue all values, and prospects of ultimately transfiguring humanity. Among other topics, scholars assess the Übermensch and shared joy, learning to laugh at oneself, Schopenhauer's jokes, Pascal's cheerfulness, and the Dada movement's subversively playful aesthetic. By contemplating Nietzsche's emphasis on joy and laughter, the volume reveals a thinker who, far from being a caricature of hopeless nihilism, is in fact the hitherto unrecognised champion of an alternative liberatory politics.

Analyzing the importance of joy, laughter, and cheerfulness in Nietzsche's thought, this volume addresses an under-examined topic in the secondary literature. By exploring disparate aspects of these interrelated emotions it provides new insights into his key ideas. The contributors-among them philosophers and political scientists-illustrate the significance of these feelings to reveal political ramifications of their affirmative potential and their broader role in Nietzsche's philosophical aims. These include how the joyful disposition Nietzsche commends informs his free spirit's self-overcoming, attempts to revalue all values, and prospects of ultimately transfiguring humanity. Among other topics, scholars assess the Übermensch and shared joy, learning to laugh at oneself, Schopenhauer's jokes, Pascal's cheerfulness, and the Dada movement's subversively playful aesthetic. By contemplating Nietzsche's emphasis on joy and laughter, the volume reveals a thinker who, far from being a caricature of hopeless nihilism, is in fact the hitherto unrecognised champion of an alternative liberatory politics.

This book investigates the role of humor in the good life, specifically as discussed by three prominent French intellectuals who were influenced by Nietzsche's thought: Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, and Clément Rosset. Lydia Amir begins by discussing Nietzsche’s reception in France, and she explains why and how he came to be considered a "philosopher of laughter" in the French academe. Each of the subsequent three chapters focuses on the significance of humor and laughter in the good life as advocated by Bataille, Deleuze, and Rosset. These chapters also explore the complex relationship between the comic and the tragic, and of humor and laughter to irony, satire, and ridicule. The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter makes an invaluable contribution to recent interpretive work done on Bataille and Deleuze, and offers further introduction to the relatively understudied Rosset. It illuminates the philosophies of these three thinkers, their connection to Nietzsche, and, overall, the significant role that humor plays in philosophy.

Examines Nietzsche's thinking on the virtues using a combination of close reading and digital analysis.

Nietzsche's Renewal of Ancient Ethics connects different strands in Nietzsche studies to progress a unique interpretation of friendship in his writings. Exploring this alternative approach to Nietzsche's ethics through the influence of ancient Greek ideals on his ideas, Neil Durrant highlights the importance of contest for developing strong friendships. Durrant traces the history of what Nietzsche termed a 'higher friendship' to the ancient Greek ideal of the Homeric hero. In this kind of friendship, neither person attempts to tyrannize or dominate the other but rather aims to promote the differences between them as a way of stimulating stronger and fiercer contests. Through this exchange, they discover new heights-new standards of excellence-both for themselves and for others. Durrant shows how the development of this approach to personal relationships relied on Nietzsche rejecting the Christian ideals of love and compassion to build an ethics which incorporated aspects of evolutionary biology into the ancient Homeric ideals he was himself wedded to. The resulting 'higher friendship' is strong enough to include not only love and compassion, but also enmity and opposition, expanding our notion of what is good and ethical in the process.

The Routledge Guidebook to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra is an engaging introduction to this rich and provocative philosophical text. Nietzsche is arguably one of the most influential and yet least understood philosophers of the nineteenth century. The same can be said of his self-proclaimed magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The work has influenced everything from poetry, literature, and music to philosophy, psychoanalysis, and soldiers on the battlefields of World War I. Its contents, however, are still far from being understood. On the one hand, the principal aims and even the genre of Zarathustra remain unclear. On the other hand, the work expresses, in poetic fashion, some of Nietzsche’s most important, controversial, and enigmatic doctrines: the Üebermensch, the eternal recurrence of the same, and the will to power. The Routledge Guidebook to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra is essential reading for students of nineteenth-century philosophy, German philosophy, and intellectual history and suitable for anyone studying Nietzsche’s most famous text for the first time.