In ancient times, when persuasion played the role of public force, eloquence was necessary. Of what use would it be today, when public force has replaced persuasion. One needs neither art nor metaphor to say such is my pleasure. Jean Jacques Rousseau.

How might we think about relationships between philosophy as a way of life and the domain of the political? Or, since there are clearly, and importantly, multiple understandings of philosophy as a way of life and multiple aspects of the domain of the political, let me put my question somewhat more narrowly as: How might we think about relationships between the kind of ongoing work of self-cultivation and self-transformation which has been at least one continuing dimension of philosophy in the (...) West from its beginning and the existence, realities, and responsibilities of social life? (shrink)

This work will be of interest to, and should be studied by, a wider audience than its title may initially suggest. The bulk of the work is devoted to Nietzsche’s early philological writings, primarily his unpublished essays, notes, and sketches from the late 1860s to early 1870s and The Birth of Tragedy. Each of the five chapters following its substantial Introduction explores some single aspect of these writings, and they center respectively on Nietzsche’s “Homer and Classical Philology,” his never completed (...) study of Democritus, his studies on ancient rhythm and meter, his “Encyclopedia of Classical Philology,” and The Birth of Tragedy —although this final chapter ranges over a wider array of materials than do the others. Porter’s provocative readings of these texts convincingly demonstrate the need for more attention to this largely neglected area of Nietzsche’s writing. (shrink)

All students of Nietzsche know of his profound admiration for Emerson’s writing. However, as Stanley Cavell has observed, this knowledge has mostly been repressed or ineffective; which is to say that the extent, depth, and specificity of Emerson’s influence upon Nietzsche has remained largely unacknowledged and unassessed. In the course of the past decade or so, owing in large part to the influence of Cavell’s own work on Emerson (and Nietzsche), this situation has begun to change. Emerson’s work has increasingly (...) been taken up philosophically, and students of both Emerson and of Nietzsche have begun to explore systematically the relations between them. While the present study devotes considerably more attention to Nietzsche than to Emerson, it constitutes a provocative and important contribution to this work and enriches our understanding of each of these thinkers. (shrink)

Including the substantial Introduction by Richard Eldridge, this volume consists of nine previously unpublished essays each of which focuses upon a single region of Cavell’s work. While the scope of the issues considered in the volume can be only incompletely indicated by listing the regions addressed, they include: ethics, philosophy of action, the normativity of language, aesthetics and modernism, American philosophy, Shakespeare, film, television, and opera, and the relation of Cavell’s work to German philosophy and Romanticism. The volume also contains (...) a useful index, and a brief annotated bibliography of works by and about Cavell. (shrink)