SALT LAKE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
17th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL STUDENT & FACULTY PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE:
THE MORAL CHALLENGE OF NIETZSCHE'S NIHILISM
ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Paul van Tongeren
Radboud-Universitat Nijmegen, Netherlands
Chair of Moral Philosophy Department.
http://www.paulvantongeren.nl/
"Question or answer. Kant, Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the practical commitment of philosophy."
Dr. Werner Stegmaier
University of Greifswald
Director of International Nietzsche research group.
Dr. Elijah Millgram
University of Utah
"Who is the Author of Nietzsche's Zarathustra?"
Why would Nietzsche have written a text that presents itself as the
holy scripture of a nonexistent religion? Because Nietzsche could
presume familiarity with the Higher Criticism -- the secular Bible
scholarship of his time -- he would expect Thus Spoke Zarathustra to
be read as making a point about the sort of person who composes a
religion's canonical texts. Nietzsche used his parody of a book of
prophesy to pose a problem for his own very ambitious agenda: the task
of 'philosophers of the future' is to invent values, but
institutionalizing those values is bound to have perverse
consequences.
Dr. Alex Izrailevsky
Salt Lake Community College
"Friendship in the Time of Nihilism: F. Nietzsche and E. Levinas."
Dr. Charlie Huenemann
Utah State University
"Reflections on a trip from Röcken to Weimar"
Abstract - I will provide some informal reflections on Nietzsche's life and thought, with pictures of both Röcken, the village where he was born, and Weimar, where he died.
Charlie Huenemann is Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University. He has published mainly on the philosophical thought of Spinoza and Nietzsche, though he is interested in a wide assortment of things. He is currently fascinated by the lived realities of philosophers - how historical developments and settings shape their thinking.
Dr. Richard Greene
Weber State University
"Nucky Thompson, Superman?"
Richard Greene is a Professor of Philosophy at Weber State University. He serves as Executive Board Chair of the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. He has published on pop culture and epistemology. I am the Executive Director of the Society for Skeptical Studies, a philosophical society formed to promote discussion and research on topics related to skepticism.
website: http://departments.weber.edu/sss/
Abstract: I examine Nietzsche's notion of the uber mensch by considering the enigmatic Nucky Thompson from Boardwalk Empire.
Helmut Heit
Technische Universität Berlin
Institute for Philosophy
"A Word of Greeting from the Berliner Nietzsche - Colloquium"
Meeting of the Berliner Nietzsche-Colloquium. Including Helmut Heit, Manos Perrakis, and Nicola Nicodemo
Dr. Nicola Nicodemo
Humbolt University, Berlin
"The Task of the Good European, the war of Spirits, and the Will to Power."
The aim of my essay (the task of the good Europeans, the war of spirits and the will to power) is to show that the concept of the will to power becomes philosophically and politically relevant when it is analyzed in relation with Nietzsche’s self-imposed philosophical task of a revaluation of all values and with regard to the question of the meaning of life. By means of this task, which he also ascribes to the “good Europeans”, Nietzsche aims to provide humanity with an escape from nihilism. Hence, Nietzsche pleads in Beyond Good and Evil for “new philosophers”. They are those “commanders and legislators”, which should create the new tables of goods announced in the Gay Science and in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
However, the revaluation of values can be realized only by means of a “war of spirits” (EH, Why I am a destiny 1). In fact, the new philosophers must carry on the struggle against Plato, or “the struggle against the Christian-ecclesiastical pressure of millennia – since Christianity is Platonism for the “people”” (BGE, Preface). The revaluation of values thus determines the history of humanity. It should bring about a change of values, which, according to Nietzsche, will be carried out through a “war of spirits” that the “good Europeans” as well as the great minds of the next century, i.e. the “new Europeans” have to fight. Within this context, it is crucial to fight not merely for power, but rather for values. The war of spirits is, therefore, at the same time precondition and consequence of the revaluation of values. Under these conditions, Nietzsche’s concept of “great politics” includes that of “war”. This war is, however, a war of spirits by means of which a revaluation of values, namely an interpretation (Sinngebung) of life, is brought about.
"A Song of Nihilism: Nietzsche on absolute music."
Manos Perrakis was born in Athens, Greece, and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Humboldt University, Berlin. His main area of interest lies in the interface between Philosophy of Music and Philosophical Anthropology. He has published extensively on Nietzsche and Aesthetics. In parallel to his academic research, he is active in the field of Philosophical Practice. He regularly gives seminars for counselling professionals and holds philosophical cafés for the wide public. He also works as a lecturer and advisor for educational and scientific organizations.
Dr. Manos Perrakis
Humbolt University, Berlin
Dr. Eike Brock
Institute for Philosophical Research Hannover, Germany.
"Nihilism and Devastation - some Thoughts following Nietzsche, Günther Anders and Cornel West."
Currently I am a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophical Research Hannover (www.fiph.de) in Germany. Here I run a project which I call: Narrative Philosophy - an Approach (It's about the
Relationship between Philosophy and Literature and in Hannover I hope to finalize a chapter about Philosophy and Tragedy (with Cavell and Nussbaum) But the whole Project is still in its infancy) . I am also a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bonn (the place where I studied Philosophy, Theology and German Literature). In 2012 I received my doctor's degree at the University of Würzburg. In november 2014 the dissertation will come: Eike Brock, Nietzsche und der Nihilismus (Click here to see). I aslo published some articles especially concerning Nietzsche, Nihilism, Kierkegaard and Günther Anders.
Hedwig Gaasterland
Leiden University, The Netherlands
"The Fatality of Nihilism."
In Hedwig’s presentation she will show that there are two ways in which nihilism and fatality are connected: 1. Nietzsche seems to regard the nihilistic suffering of meaninglessness as an unavoidable fate; 2. he connects a certain type of nihilism to amor fati, the love of fate. Hedwig’s aim is to develop a better understanding of this second connection. I point out what kinds of nihilism Nietzsche distinguishes, showing how the strong and healthy type is bound to the affirmation of fate. Next, she will discuss several possible interpretations of this fatality, taken from Nietzsche's own texts, finally suggesting that he was inspired by a Heraclitean-Stoic understanding of fatalism.
Hedwig Gaasterland (1983) is a PhD student at the Institute for Philosophy in Leiden. Her project ‘Stoic Reception in Nietzsche’s Concept of Amor fati’ is funded by the Dutch Research School for Classical Studies, OIKOS, of which she is also a PhD member. Hedwig obtained her Research Master’s Degree of Philosophy in 2011 cum laude, after having gained two Bachelor’s Degrees, of Philosophy and Classics. Currently, she is teaching an MA-course called ‘Nietzsche and Antiquity’, dealing with Nietzsche’s peculiar reception of ancient culture. In 2013, she taught an MA-course on Stoicism. Having explored Nietzsche’s approach of antiquity in general and of Stoicism in particular, she aspires to develop for her thesis a solid account of the Stoic background within Nietzsche’s concept of the loving of fate: Amor fati.
Michiel Meijer
University of Antwerp, Belgium
"How To Go Beyond Nihilism?
Nietzsche and Contemporary Cultural Culture."
Michiel’s presentation consists of three parts. First, Nietzsche’s analysis of nihilism is reconstructed by focusing on parts of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft and a key text of the posthumous works. However, Nietzsche does not want his account to have merely diagnostic validity. He also raises the problem of nihilism in order to overcome it. In a second part, Michiel will explore the question of what it would mean to actually go beyond nihilism. How to understand this ‘moral challenge’? Third, given the radical nature of Nietzsche’s thought, it is argued that our (post-modern, Western) society cannot but be in an intermediate stage of nihilism in Nietzsche’s sense.
Michiel Meijer (1984) is a PhD fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. He won two thesis awards for his MA thesis on the relationship between meaning and truth in the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Taylor. His research focuses on the nature of morality through constructing a dialogue between Taylor and Nietzsche on the post-modern moral context. More specifically, his work examines the relationship between moral phenomenology and moral ontology in Taylor’s oeuvre, and the potential of Nietzsche’s diagnosis of nihilism for enhancing Taylor’s moral philosophy.