| Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body Contributor(s): Emden, Christian J. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0252029704 ISBN-13: 9780252029707 Publisher: University of Illinois Press OUR PRICE: $38.61 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 2005 Annotation: From the early 1870s through the 1880s, language, consciousness, and the body stood as cornerstones of the philosophical project that culminated in Nietzsche's "anthropology of knowledge." Asserting both the timeliness and lasting value of Nietzsche's writings during this period, Christian J. Emden argues that they were not based on a specific understanding of the philosophy of language or a specific conception of truth but were instead shaped by his interest in the theory of knowledge, philological scholarship, and contemporary life sciences. Leveraging a truly astounding command of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century scientific and philological texts, Emden is able to situate Nietzsche's writings on language and rhetoric within their wider historical context, allowing him to distill the content of Nietzsche's writing from the form of his radical presentation. In the process, Emden reveals Nietzsche as more timely and less outrageous than he is widely thought to be, appearing instead as a powerful thinker interested in understanding the philosophical import of the heady scientific developments of his day. Finally, drawing on much previously unpublished and undiscussed Nietzsche material, Emden examines the role of metaphor and interpretation, reasserting the relevance of rhetoric to philosophy, in consonance with Nietzsche's own statements and practices. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | History & Surveys - Modern - Philosophy | Criticism - Philosophy | Mind & Body |
| Dewey: 193 |
| LCCN: 2004020466 |
| Series: International Nietzsche Studies (Hardcover) |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.36" W x 9.34" (1.12 lbs) 240 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Nietzsche and the philosopy of language have been a well trafficked crossroads for a generation, but almost always as a checkpoint for post-modernism and its critics. This work takes a historical approach to Nietzsche's work on language, connecting it to his predecessors and contemporaries rather than his successors. Though Nietzsche invited identification with Zarathustra, the solitary wanderer ahead of his time, for most of his career he directly engaged the intellectual currents and scientific debates of his time. Emden situates Nietzsche's writings on language and rhetoric within their wider historical context. He demonstrates that Nietzsche is not as radical in his thinking as has been often supposed, and that a number of problems with Nietzsche disappear when Nietzsche's works are compared to works on the same subjects by writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Further, the relevance of rhetoric and the history of rhetoric to philosophy and the history of philosophy is reasserted, in consonance with Nietzsche's own statements and practices. Important in this regard are the role of fictions, descriptions, and metaphor. |