PLEASE NOTE this is a sample reading list for the 2015-16 academic year
– precise seminar content may change from year to year.
SEMINAR QUESTIONS & READING
Week 2
The Essential Schopenhauer, 1, 3, & 6.
What is the character and status of Schopenhauer’s depiction of the world as ‘will’? Why is this world
characterized by suffering? Why does Schopenhauer argue that the character of human
existence is not that of a ‘gift’ but of a ‘contracted debt’?
Week 3
The Essential Schopenhauer 8, 9, 10; 17
What is the nature of artistic genius according to Schopenhauer? Why does he value tragedy so much?
What is the nature of the difference between the beautiful and the sublime? In what sense (s)
does compassion (Mitleid) constitute the ‘basis’ of morality?
Week 4
The Essential Schopenhauer 14, 18, 19, 20.
On what grounds does Schopenhauer argue against suicide? Is he right to do so? How is the saintly
existence possible? Is Schopenhauer’s depiction of this existence coherent? Why does he posit
‘empty nothingness’ as the goal of life?
Week 5
Nietzsche, ‘The Birth of Tragedy’, in The Nietzsche Reader
What are the Apollonian and Dionysian in Nietzsche’s account? Why does the Dionysian need to be
civilized? What does he mean when he declares that only as an ‘aesthetic phenomenon’ are the world
and existence justified to eternity? Is Nietzsche a Schopenhaurean in BT?
Week 7
‘On the Utility and Liability of History for Life’/Schopenhauer as Educator.
‘Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense’, both in The Nietzsche Reader.
What are the main uses and disadvantages of the three main modes of history? Is Nietzsche right to
argue that an excess of ‘history’ – of knowledge and of memory – can stifle life? What are the
conditions of a healthy existence? How does the early Nietzsche value Schopenhauer? How does
Nietzsche understand truth in the essay ‘On Truth and Lies’? Is his essay coherent?
Week 8
‘The Gay Science’, in The Nietzsche Reader: aphorisms 108-112, 125, 343; 276-77; 340-341.
Why does Nietzsche put the words of the ‘death of God’ in the mouth of a madman? What does it mean
to ‘de-deify’ nature and naturalise humanity? What does Nietzsche mean have in mind when
he writes of the ‘incorporation’ of ‘truth’? Is the eternal recurrence a test? Does it need to be
‘true’?
Week 9
On the Origin and Fate of the Bad Conscience
Reading: GM Preface & Essay Two, in The Nietzsche Reader
.
Mathias Risse, ‘Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience’, European Journal of
Philosophy, 9:1, 2001, pp. 55-81.
Questions: What is Nietzsche’s project of ‘genealogy’? What is the relation between genealogy and
history? What is the origin of bad conscience according to Nietzsche? What is the relation between
debt and guilt? What is the ‘fate’ of the bad conscience according to Nietzsche? What role is the will
to power playing in Nietzsche’s account of genealogy?
Week 10
‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’, in The Nietzsche Reader
What is the teaching of the overman/superhuman? How should we best understand the three
metamorphoses? What is the ‘Self’ in ‘On the Despisers of the Body’? What is the character of the
gift-giving or bestowing virtue? What does it mean to say of the past ‘thus I willed it!’?