'Science, Life, and Art in Nietzsche's Notes for "We Philologists."'
Neriojamil Palumbo; International Journal of The Classical Tradition, August 2024
FNS is pleased to announce the publication of an article by Neriojamil Palumbo. This study retraces Nietzsche’s 1875 notes for the planned but never published Unfashionable Observation, We Philologists, through a specific focus on the topics of science, life and art in their close and seldom discussed interrelation. The questions that the investigation addresses are: what is the significance of Nietzsche’s problematisation of science in We Philologists for our interpretation of the topic in his later works? How should we interpret these notebooks in relation to his previous writings, on the one hand, and to his later treatment of themes like the deconstruction of Christianity, the critique of eudemonism or the historical genesis of the genius on the other? Framing the notebooks as unwittingly experimental precursors of Nietzsche’s aphoristic books, the article interprets the unique nuance of the notes as an opportunity to start shedding a different light on the discussion of these questions in Nietzsche’s later works. Science, life and art become thus the focal points of a more specific and circumscribed analysis of his early thought – reconnecting these topics to their tangible origins, and tracking their early development in the context of Nietzsche’s acclaimed switch from philology to philosophy and cultural criticism.
'The Meaning of the Earth: Reading Nietzsche in the Anthropocene.'
Benoît Berthelier; Journal of Nietzsche Studies 4(2), Autumn 2023
FNS is pleased to announce the recent publication of an article by Benoît Berthelier, in which the author argues against a dominant trend in the literature on Nietzsche and the environment that is mostly concerned with assessing Nietzsche’s relevance to environmental ethics. The author departs from this trend by showing that Nietzsche can hardly provide the kind of intrinsic value theory typically needed to ground an environmental ethic. The author then suggests that an environmentalist reading of Nietzsche has much to gain from closer attention to his concept of “earth” and briefly outlines the evolution of this concept throughout the Nietzschean corpus. The author concludes by coming back to Zarathustra’s mysterious claim that “the overhuman shall be the meaning of the earth” and clarifying how, though it should not be thought of as a new foundation for an environmental ethic, it might still be significant in the context of the Anthropocene.