Contesting Nietzsche - Hardcover

Acampora, Christa Davis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226923908 ISBN 13: 9780226923901

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2013

Synopsis

In this groundbreaking work, Christa Davis Acampora offers a profound rethinking of Friedrich Nietzsche’s crucial notion of the agon. Analyzing an impressive array of primary and secondary sources and synthesizing decades of Nietzsche scholarship, she shows how the agon, or contest, organized core areas of Nietzsche’s philosophy, providing a new appreciation of the subtleties of his notorious views about power. By focusing so intensely on this particular guiding interest, she offers an exciting, original vantage from which to view this iconic thinker: Contesting Nietzsche. Though existence—viewed through the lens of Nietzsche’s agon—is fraught with struggle, Acampora illuminates what Nietzsche recognized as the agon’s generative benefits. It imbues the human experience with significance, meaning, and value. Analyzing Nietzsche’s elaborations of agonism—his remarks on types of contests, qualities of contestants, and the conditions in which either may thrive or deteriorate—she demonstrates how much the agon shaped his philosophical projects and critical assessments of others. The agon led him from one set of concerns to the next, from aesthetics to metaphysics to ethics to psychology, via Homer, Socrates, Saint Paul, and Wagner. In showing how one obsession catalyzed so many diverse interests, Contesting Nietzsche sheds fundamentally new light on some of this philosopher’s most difficult and paradoxical ideas.

About this title

About the Author

Christa Davis Acampora is associate professor of philosophy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at City University of New York. 

Review

“An outstanding work of Nietzsche scholarship.” (Antoine Panaļoti Mind)

"Contesting Nietzsche is a helpful book in many ways, and it covers a wide range of topics central to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Readers interested in understanding more about how Nietzsche’s early philosophical career and view of the ancient Greeks affect his philosophical project as a whole must grapple with Acampora’s views on this topic." (Joel A. Van Fossen The Journal of Nietzsche Studies)

"Acampora examines the importance of the agon, or contest, in Nietzsche’s writings . . . . Acampora’s treatment of the agon is the first concentrated and comprehensive analysis, with extensive detail that demonstrates the centrality of contestation throughout Nietzsche’s work. For those readers who may not have grasped the importance of the agon in Nietzsche’s philosophy, Acampora’s study does indeed provide a key to unlock his texts. . . . This is an important book that makes a major contribution to Nietzsche research." (Lawrence J. Hatab Political Theory)

“Contesting Nietzsche is one of the finest pieces of Nietzsche scholarship to appear in many years. It offers both a comprehensive interpretation of the key texts in Nietzsche’s oeuvre and contributes significant insights to some of the key topics in Nietzsche scholarship, including his naturalism, account of agency, approach to science, and possible contribution to thinking about democracy.”

(Alan D. Schrift, Grinnell College 2012-03-09)

“Contesting Nietzsche offers a compelling interpretation of Nietzsche’s overall philosophical project. By focusing on the concept and practice of contestation, Christa Davis Acampora is able to demonstrate that Nietzsche’s various polemics, seemingly free-swinging and indiscriminate, actually express the deeper unity that informs his philosophy. This is a timely and welcome contribution to the secondary literature on Nietzsche’s philosophy.”

(Daniel Conway, Texas A&M University 2012-04-26)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0226923908
• ISBN 13: 9780226923901
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 259