General Remarks
Papers should be at least five pages long and should be typed (or printed from a wordprocessor) double-spaced with adequate (but not excessive) margins for written comments. Please read my general discussion on writing philosophy papers.
Papers are intended to be critical discussions. Each paper topic "suggests" relevant portions of texts (including outside texts). Part of the assignment is explaining and clarifying Nietzsche's text; however, an equal part of the assignment is presentation of your own critical thinking about the same issues.
The due dates are all Thursdays but I will accept papers until 5:00 PM, Friday.
Paper #1
(Write on one of the topics suggested below or have me approve a topic of your own)
(A) In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche poses both Apollinian and Dionysian complexes as profound "energies." The brief period of Greek tragic art brought the two together in a unique offering of health. Euripides, Socrates, and Plato, however, spelled the end of this era and offered "theoretical man" in place. In the long term, frivolous 19th-Century music, Christianity, and modern science seem to be the result. Considering these suggestions in detail, what could make modern tragedy possible? How are the Dionysian energies available today? Are there likely ways in which Dionysus and "theoretical man" could come onto the same stage, today, as in Greek tragedy, then?
(B) While Nietzsche's immediate purpose in The Birth of Tragedy was to develop a theory of how Greek tragedy developed and what it achieved, his secondary purpose was to develop a general theory of art. Describe and explain this general theory of art as well as you can. Discuss the way(s) in which Nietzsche sees art "healing," "overcoming," or "justifying" human life.
(C) Nietzsche was profoundly involved with the composer Richard Wagner from 1869 through 1874. Discuss this relationship and make clear its impact on Nietzsche's theory of art and the purposes that art serves.
(D) According to Nietzsche, humans suffer from a perennial "existential" problem. Ignoring this problem by living in a variety of imagined, optimistic worlds, produces "naivete" in a number of forms --- e.g., the "naive" art of Homer. What is naive in our own age? How can we escape the naive? Should we escape from the naive world view?
Paper #2
(Write on one of the topics suggested below or have me approve a topic of your own)
(A) Walter Kaufmann, in footnote #20 to Nietzsche's aphorism #125, in The Gay Science, writes, "It has often been asked what Nietzsche means by saying that "God is dead." One might fairly answer: What he means is what he says in sections 108 through 125 --- and in the sections after that." Defend or criticize Kaufmann by demonstrating what Nietzsche did mean.
(B) Both The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra contain numerous references to "being warlike," "warriors," and "power." Readers have often taken Nietzsche to be advocating violence or, at the very least, force under the direction of passion. Discuss what Nietzsche's "will to power" means in the light of these references.
(C) If god is dead, who will tell us how to live? Is there any grounding for morality? Does the death-of-god mean that "anything goes?" Write an essay that interprets Zarathustra as Nietzsche's moral formula.
(D) Consider Nietzsche as a "psychologist." How does he develop a methodology in psychology and what does he do with it? What is its relevance to his philosophical position(s)?
(E) In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche suggests that both philosophers and scientists merely wind up affirming their traditional (or inherited) prejudices in rationalized (reified) forms. Does Nietzsche mean to say that philosophy and science are worthless? If not, what does he mean?
Term Paper
(This paper is to be somewhat longer (e.g., at least ten pages) and more comprehensive. It can either emphasize materials from the last section of reading or it can consider a question that covers the entire course. If the former design is elected, it should still make some effort to make connections with Nietzsche's work as a whole. This paper should demonstrate some reading beyond the assigned texts, containing a bibliography and using in-line references, footnotes, or endnotes.)
(Some topics are suggested below merely as examples of what you might do.)
(A) While Nietzsche experimented with a wide variety of writing forms and while he was not a "systematic philosopher," can we demonstrate that he developed a self-consistent path of thinking through his works?
(B) Thoroughly discuss Nietzsche's attitudes toward Christianity and Christ himself, concentrating on GM and AC but also considering the evolution of these ideas from earliest times.
(C) Using the whole range of Nietzsche's works, describe and critique Nietzsche's method of "anthropological" investigations. Contrast this method with standard forms of rationalism and idealism. If you can, consider how Nietzsche's use of this method compares to Marx's concept of the "material dialectic" or Freud's "archaeological" investigations of the unconscious.
(D) Nietzsche's works present us with a continual, heightening criticism of Christianity. In fact, Christian values are often illustrated as the values antithetical to "higher values" and they represent, in Nietzsche's mind, the values of the herd animal in contrast to the values of the overman. Christian values have brought European culture to nihilism and the death of god by a natural evolutionary process. But what are Nietzsche's actual arguments? What makes Christian values so bad? Why are the values proposed for the overman obviously superior?
(E) Contrast Nietzsche's references to Dionysus in his later works with those of his first works. To the degree that Dionysus became the god (icon) of the overman, how must Nietzsche have reconstructed the concept of Dionysus? To what degree does this new concept of Dionysus represent a hybridization of Apollo and Dionysus?
(F) Nietzsche uses the word "science" throughout his works but it is not at all clear that he always means the same thing. In particular, he probably sees theoretical natural science quite differently from what might be called the scientific spirit of honesty and truth-seeking (more of the European concept of science). Interestingly, science (of the former kind) and Christianity have a long history of conflict through the 19th and 20th Centuries. Is this because they are so similar in the ways they enclose human life in symbolic worlds? (G) What is eternal recurrence? How does Nietzsche use it? And why does he apparently look so highly on the idea?
