Nietzsche contra Rousseau : a study of Nietzsche's moral and political thought

Ansell-Pearson, Keith 1960- (author.).

Summary: Keith Ansell-Pearson's book is an important and very welcome contribution to a neglected area of research: Nietzsche's political thought. Nietzsche is widely regarded as a significant moral philosopher, but his political thinking has often been dismissed as either impossibly individualistic or dangerously totalitarian. Nietzsche contra Rousseau takes a serious look at Nietzsche as political thinker and relates his political ideas to the dominant traditions of modern political thought. In particular, the nature of Nietzsche's dialogue with the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is examined, in order to demonstrate Rousseau's crucial role in Nietzsche's understanding of modernity and its discontents.

Record details

ISBN: 9780521575690 (softcover)
Physical Description: print
xvii, 284 pages ; 23 cm
Publisher: Cambridge [England] : Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Copyright: ©1991

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

On the problem of history as a problem of time -- 1 Nietzsche contra Rousseau -- Rousseau as educator -- Rousseau and the French Revolution: a politics of 'Ressentiment' -- Nietzsche on the Machiavellianism of power -- The problem of civilization: Rousseau and European Nihilism -- 2 Civilization and its discontents: Rousseau on man's natural goodness -- Introduction to Rousseau's Political Thought -- The State of Nature: Rousseau contra Hobbes -- 'Amour-de-soi', 'Amour-propre', and 'Pitie' -- Morality -- 3 Squaring the circle: Rousseau on the General Will -- On the 'Social Contract' -- Sovereignty: the 'General Will' -- Law and the legislator -- 4 Nietzsche's Dionysian drama on the destiny of the soul: on the 'Genealogy of Morals' -- The self-overcoming of morality -- Introduction to the argument of the 'Genealogy of Morals' -- Genealogy and history: Nietzsche and Ursprung -- Master Morality and Slave Morality: On the origins of 'Good and Evil', 'Good and Bad' -- The Sovereign Individual -- Bad Conscience -- 5 Zarathustra's descent: on a teaching of redemption -- Prologue: The Overman -- The way of the creator -- Redemption -- The Vision and the Riddle -- The Return of the Overman -- How one becomes what one is -- 6 Bending the bow: great politics, or, the problem of the legislator.