Brill's Companion to Camus: Camus Among the Philosophers. G, Heffernan, M, Kaluza, P, Francev & M, Sharpe (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 2020
This paper shows how Camus takes aim at the heart of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals. To defend h... more This paper shows how Camus takes aim at the heart of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals. To defend his own philosophy of revolt Camus argues against Nietzsche's claim that all rebellion is symptomatic of ressentiment. Specifically, I argue, Camus aims to show that the slave revolt in morality is not necessarily motivated by the malicious envy that Nietzsche and following him Max Scheler call ressentiment. Contra Nietzsche and Scheler, Camus seeks to justify a sharp dichotomy between "rebellion" and "resentment," or in the French between révolte and ressentiment. To establish this dichotomy, however, Camus makes a paradoxical move: he assimilates his 'slave' rebels to Nietzsche's ideal of self-sufficient 'nobility'. I argue that in doing so Camus fails to cleave rebellion from ressentiment. Instead of showing how rebels can negotiate the tension between their demand for justice and the reactive emotions that fuel such demands, Camus tries to claim that they are insulated from ressentiment. Yet, as this paper shows, since claims for justice always spring from and incite reactive emotions, Camus' bid to cleave rebellion from ressentiment collapses. This is not to argue that we must accept Nietzsche's aristocratic claim that the ideal of universal human equality is merely a symptom of envious ressentiment. Rather, it is to suggest that Nietzsche and Scheler's genealogy of morals compels us to acknowledge that rebellion against injustice requires working through envy instead of imagining an impossible transcendence. They challenge Camus' liberal politics with a fundamental question: how can democracies pursue the ideal of equal dignity without exacerbating malicious envy?
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Books by Michael Ure
– David Konstan, Professor of Classics, New York University, USA.
“Sharpe and Ure have undertaken a hugely ambitious task and they have completed it admirably. They have produced a rich and fascinating study of both the concept and the history of philosophy understood as a way of life. It must surely become a standard point of reference in any future discussions of this topic but it also deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in the history of philosophy and in the very concept of philosophy itself.”
– John Sellars, Reader in Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
“I highly recommend this book. It offers an extraordinarily rich and insightful dive into what it means for philosophy to be a way of life--not simply an object of abstract study. Along the way, it showcases not only many giants of philosophy, but also neglected and underappreciated figures and traditions, all with skill, subtle attention to detail, and clarity. A very impressive and important work.”
– Stephen Grimm, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA.
“Philosophy as a Way of Life is a milestone in the contemporary re-appraisal of this ancient concept. For anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the topic of metaphilosophy, this surely fills an important gap in the literature. It will provide an invaluable foundation for future research in this area.”
– Donald Robertson, Author of "Stoicism And The Art Of Happiness" and "How To Think Like A Roman Emperor"
The idea of philosophy as a 'way of life' is not a new one. From the first recorded philosophy by Plato, there has been a tradition of thinking about philosophy as pointing us towards the good life, happiness and an ethical existence. But where does this notion that philosophy has anything to offer in terms of guiding us in how to live and live well come from?
In this first ever introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure take us us through the history of the idea from Socrates to Nietzsche and Foucault. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended and practiced to transform their philosophy into manners of living and acting.
Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resurgence of thinking about philosophy as a practical, lived reality and why this ancient tradition still has so much relevance and power in the contemporary world.
Covering sociology, political theory and psychology, and with contributions from Martha Nussbaum and Andrew Linklater amongst others, the book gives a succinct overview of the main theories of political compassion and the emotions in politics. It covers key concepts such as humanitarianism, political emotion and agency in relation to compassion as a political virtue.
The Politics of Compassion will provide students and scholars scholars in political theory, international relations, political sociology and psychology with a comprehensive exposition and assessment of the politics of compassion."
Papers by Michael Ure
This paper aims to clarify the relationship and differences between different forms of resentment, and to analyse the political implications of these forms. It begins by setting out the difference between resentment, as conceived by philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment in particular Adam Smith and Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment. Drawing on this brief intellectual history it suggests that we can distinguish three different concepts in contemporary uses of the term resentment. For the sake of convenience I label these concepts moral resentment, socio-political resentment and ontological ressentiment. It suggests first that contemporary defenders of moral resentment plausibly demonstrate that this emotion is one of the pillars of justice. Second, it argues that if we accept a broader notion of collective responsibility then we can also defend socio-political resentment as an important emotion for identifying and addressing collective and systematic injustices. However, the paper also maintains that socio-political resentment has the potential to trigger or galvanize ontological ressentiment. By carefully analyzing Nietzsche’s criticism of ‘slave’ ressentiment and his own alternative political ideals, it shows that ontological ressentiment gives rise to different kinds of totalitarian or perfectionist politics. While Nietzsche himself miscast legitimate socio-political resentment as a sign of physiological degeneracy, his analysis also illuminates how these legitimate grievances can transform into a radical envy and a ‘deep hatred of existence’ that identifies virtue with victimhood. Nietzsche’s analysis alerts us to an important political problem for democracies: viz., the slide from socio-political to ontological ressentiment. The paper concludes by suggesting that democratic political theory needs to investigate how to prevent socio-political resentment from sliding into ontological ressentiment to avoid the spread of dystopian political ideals and movements.
"
Nevertheless, as we show in the final section, there remains a significant difference between Nietzsche’s ethical experimentalism and Foucault’s ethics of errancy. While Nietzsche formulates a principle for distinguishing between health and sickness, Foucault’s skeptical genealogy of the present leaves him without the conceptual resources to discharge the role of the philosophical physician. Foucault takes up Nietzschean genealogy but omits the philosophical quest for eternity to which Nietzsche was committed. For Nietzsche self-transformation is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition of ‘the great health’. (GS 382) Nietzsche’s ‘great health’ requires not just ethical experimentation, not just an art of going astray from oneself, but experimentation that tests and enhances one’s capacity to be affected by and incorporate the widest possible range of experiences or stimuli. Nietzsche endorses tragic pessimism as a sign and symptom of great health precisely because, as he conceives its, this type of pessimism actively seeks out “the fearful and questionable that characterises all existence.” (HH 2, P7) Nietzsche’s ethical experimentation aims at the realising the greatest possible margin of tolerance for all that threatens or endangers the self, or the luxury, as he puts its, of tragic insight into the eternal repetition of same. Nietzsche’s great health is an affirmation of tragic fate. Nietzsche therefore frames his philosophical askēsis in terms of the classical problem of fate. Foucault reclaims the ancient philosophies, but not as therapeutic responses to the tragic character of existence, but simply as technologies of open-ended self-transformation. Nietzsche’s philosophical physician sets free spirits the Dionysian task of affirming the tragic character of existence to the extent of affirming its eternal repetition. Foucault’s philosophical physician sets modern subjects the task of perpetually going beyond the limits of the present to the extent of pursuing the Sisyphean task of always starting anew on the same task.
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche develops his account of the role philosophy should play in the making of a human life. Nietzsche adopts the common Hellenistic position that the goal of philosophy is eudaimonia or human flourishing. Whereas he endorses the therapeutic orientation of Classical and Hellenistic philosophy, Nietzsche characterises Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism as failed therapies: they reinforce the philosophical sicknesses they purport to cure. He objects to both the form and content of Hellenistic therapies: because they adopt a single, universal ideal of human flourishing, they fail to account for the full scope of human diversity; and, by adopting ataraxia or tranquillity as the goal of philosophical practice, they contract, deaden, and impoverish the lives of their practitioners. Nietzsche’s alternative post-Classical therapy seeks to redress the failures of previous eudaimonistic philosophies. To achieve this end Nietzsche suggests we need to experiment with different beliefs and practices to test the bounds of what we can successfully ‘incorporate’ into a flourishing life. In this essay we chart a third way between (i) naturalistic interpretations of Nietzsche as a philosopher who prescribes moral laws on the basis of stable natural facts and (ii) artistic and postmodern interpretations that see him as an advocate of the ex nihilo creation of values. In contrast to both, we argue that Nietzsche works to discover the natural limits of value creation through experimentation. For Nietzsche value experimentation holds the key to human flourishing.
In recent years scholars have begun to investigate the manner in which Nietzsche reinvents the classical and Hellenistic model of philosophical therapy. This new research promises to yield fresh insight into his meta-philosophical assumptions about the nature of philosophy and the role of the philosopher. Here I extend this research by examining how Nietzsche harnesses the Hellenistic therapies to serve his own aristocratic political program. I show how beginning in his middle works Nietzsche develops a neo-Stoic political therapy. The chapter illuminates his political therapy by contrasting it with Adam Smith's neo-Stoicism. It shows how these two modern philosophers utilise Stoic therapies for very different political ends. Smith deploys Stoic therapies for the purposes of social harmony and co-ordination rather than ethical perfectionism. In his so-called middle works Nietzsche, by contrast, initially draws on Hellenistic therapies as an integral aspect of his reinvention of ancient ethical perfectionism. He identifies Stoic therapies as cures for the emotional distress that prevents individuals from responding with equanimity to all the turns of fortune's wheel. The chapter then argues that in the 1880s Nietzsche radically transforms the scope and purpose of his philosophical therapy as he integrates evolutionary theories into his moral analysis and political theory. In his late works, I argue, Nietzsche folds his neo-Stoic therapy into a ‘bio-political’ program. Here he deploys a neo-Stoic political therapy to cure higher types of the moral corruption that prevents them from fully exercising their aristocratic ‘rights’ and in doing so enhancing the species' capacities. Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals embodies this political therapy.
"
Keywords: Nietzsche, Darwin, Gay Science, ‘View from Above’, Philosophical Passions.
"
Contemporary scholarship has begun to explore the way Nietzsche took up the classical and Hellenistic notion that ‘ethics’ should be based on ‘physics’. At the same time recent scholarship also shows that in the late 1870s and early 1880s Nietzsche drew on contemporary naturalism, especially various strands of evolutionary biology, to formulate his moral and political project. In this chapter I claim that Nietzsche did not simply draw on and apply contemporary naturalistic theories. Rather I argue that he attempted to refract the ancient model of philosophy and its ‘spiritual exercises’ through the new evolutionary paradigm. In particular, this chapter argues that in the middle period Nietzsche tried to hinge one particular ancient spiritual exercise - the ‘view from above’ - to the new naturalistic perspective. In broad terms, it suggests that Nietzsche’s repudiation of ordinary emotions of pity, fear, and grief is symptomatic of his recycling of classical and Hellenistic philosophy’s ambition of rising above mortal, affective life. This chapter suggests that Nietzsche reprises two variations of classical philosophy’s spiritual exercises: the Olympian and Stoic views from above.
– David Konstan, Professor of Classics, New York University, USA.
“Sharpe and Ure have undertaken a hugely ambitious task and they have completed it admirably. They have produced a rich and fascinating study of both the concept and the history of philosophy understood as a way of life. It must surely become a standard point of reference in any future discussions of this topic but it also deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in the history of philosophy and in the very concept of philosophy itself.”
– John Sellars, Reader in Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
“I highly recommend this book. It offers an extraordinarily rich and insightful dive into what it means for philosophy to be a way of life--not simply an object of abstract study. Along the way, it showcases not only many giants of philosophy, but also neglected and underappreciated figures and traditions, all with skill, subtle attention to detail, and clarity. A very impressive and important work.”
– Stephen Grimm, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA.
“Philosophy as a Way of Life is a milestone in the contemporary re-appraisal of this ancient concept. For anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the topic of metaphilosophy, this surely fills an important gap in the literature. It will provide an invaluable foundation for future research in this area.”
– Donald Robertson, Author of "Stoicism And The Art Of Happiness" and "How To Think Like A Roman Emperor"
The idea of philosophy as a 'way of life' is not a new one. From the first recorded philosophy by Plato, there has been a tradition of thinking about philosophy as pointing us towards the good life, happiness and an ethical existence. But where does this notion that philosophy has anything to offer in terms of guiding us in how to live and live well come from?
In this first ever introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure take us us through the history of the idea from Socrates to Nietzsche and Foucault. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended and practiced to transform their philosophy into manners of living and acting.
Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resurgence of thinking about philosophy as a practical, lived reality and why this ancient tradition still has so much relevance and power in the contemporary world.
Covering sociology, political theory and psychology, and with contributions from Martha Nussbaum and Andrew Linklater amongst others, the book gives a succinct overview of the main theories of political compassion and the emotions in politics. It covers key concepts such as humanitarianism, political emotion and agency in relation to compassion as a political virtue.
The Politics of Compassion will provide students and scholars scholars in political theory, international relations, political sociology and psychology with a comprehensive exposition and assessment of the politics of compassion."
This paper aims to clarify the relationship and differences between different forms of resentment, and to analyse the political implications of these forms. It begins by setting out the difference between resentment, as conceived by philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment in particular Adam Smith and Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment. Drawing on this brief intellectual history it suggests that we can distinguish three different concepts in contemporary uses of the term resentment. For the sake of convenience I label these concepts moral resentment, socio-political resentment and ontological ressentiment. It suggests first that contemporary defenders of moral resentment plausibly demonstrate that this emotion is one of the pillars of justice. Second, it argues that if we accept a broader notion of collective responsibility then we can also defend socio-political resentment as an important emotion for identifying and addressing collective and systematic injustices. However, the paper also maintains that socio-political resentment has the potential to trigger or galvanize ontological ressentiment. By carefully analyzing Nietzsche’s criticism of ‘slave’ ressentiment and his own alternative political ideals, it shows that ontological ressentiment gives rise to different kinds of totalitarian or perfectionist politics. While Nietzsche himself miscast legitimate socio-political resentment as a sign of physiological degeneracy, his analysis also illuminates how these legitimate grievances can transform into a radical envy and a ‘deep hatred of existence’ that identifies virtue with victimhood. Nietzsche’s analysis alerts us to an important political problem for democracies: viz., the slide from socio-political to ontological ressentiment. The paper concludes by suggesting that democratic political theory needs to investigate how to prevent socio-political resentment from sliding into ontological ressentiment to avoid the spread of dystopian political ideals and movements.
"
Nevertheless, as we show in the final section, there remains a significant difference between Nietzsche’s ethical experimentalism and Foucault’s ethics of errancy. While Nietzsche formulates a principle for distinguishing between health and sickness, Foucault’s skeptical genealogy of the present leaves him without the conceptual resources to discharge the role of the philosophical physician. Foucault takes up Nietzschean genealogy but omits the philosophical quest for eternity to which Nietzsche was committed. For Nietzsche self-transformation is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition of ‘the great health’. (GS 382) Nietzsche’s ‘great health’ requires not just ethical experimentation, not just an art of going astray from oneself, but experimentation that tests and enhances one’s capacity to be affected by and incorporate the widest possible range of experiences or stimuli. Nietzsche endorses tragic pessimism as a sign and symptom of great health precisely because, as he conceives its, this type of pessimism actively seeks out “the fearful and questionable that characterises all existence.” (HH 2, P7) Nietzsche’s ethical experimentation aims at the realising the greatest possible margin of tolerance for all that threatens or endangers the self, or the luxury, as he puts its, of tragic insight into the eternal repetition of same. Nietzsche’s great health is an affirmation of tragic fate. Nietzsche therefore frames his philosophical askēsis in terms of the classical problem of fate. Foucault reclaims the ancient philosophies, but not as therapeutic responses to the tragic character of existence, but simply as technologies of open-ended self-transformation. Nietzsche’s philosophical physician sets free spirits the Dionysian task of affirming the tragic character of existence to the extent of affirming its eternal repetition. Foucault’s philosophical physician sets modern subjects the task of perpetually going beyond the limits of the present to the extent of pursuing the Sisyphean task of always starting anew on the same task.
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche develops his account of the role philosophy should play in the making of a human life. Nietzsche adopts the common Hellenistic position that the goal of philosophy is eudaimonia or human flourishing. Whereas he endorses the therapeutic orientation of Classical and Hellenistic philosophy, Nietzsche characterises Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism as failed therapies: they reinforce the philosophical sicknesses they purport to cure. He objects to both the form and content of Hellenistic therapies: because they adopt a single, universal ideal of human flourishing, they fail to account for the full scope of human diversity; and, by adopting ataraxia or tranquillity as the goal of philosophical practice, they contract, deaden, and impoverish the lives of their practitioners. Nietzsche’s alternative post-Classical therapy seeks to redress the failures of previous eudaimonistic philosophies. To achieve this end Nietzsche suggests we need to experiment with different beliefs and practices to test the bounds of what we can successfully ‘incorporate’ into a flourishing life. In this essay we chart a third way between (i) naturalistic interpretations of Nietzsche as a philosopher who prescribes moral laws on the basis of stable natural facts and (ii) artistic and postmodern interpretations that see him as an advocate of the ex nihilo creation of values. In contrast to both, we argue that Nietzsche works to discover the natural limits of value creation through experimentation. For Nietzsche value experimentation holds the key to human flourishing.
In recent years scholars have begun to investigate the manner in which Nietzsche reinvents the classical and Hellenistic model of philosophical therapy. This new research promises to yield fresh insight into his meta-philosophical assumptions about the nature of philosophy and the role of the philosopher. Here I extend this research by examining how Nietzsche harnesses the Hellenistic therapies to serve his own aristocratic political program. I show how beginning in his middle works Nietzsche develops a neo-Stoic political therapy. The chapter illuminates his political therapy by contrasting it with Adam Smith's neo-Stoicism. It shows how these two modern philosophers utilise Stoic therapies for very different political ends. Smith deploys Stoic therapies for the purposes of social harmony and co-ordination rather than ethical perfectionism. In his so-called middle works Nietzsche, by contrast, initially draws on Hellenistic therapies as an integral aspect of his reinvention of ancient ethical perfectionism. He identifies Stoic therapies as cures for the emotional distress that prevents individuals from responding with equanimity to all the turns of fortune's wheel. The chapter then argues that in the 1880s Nietzsche radically transforms the scope and purpose of his philosophical therapy as he integrates evolutionary theories into his moral analysis and political theory. In his late works, I argue, Nietzsche folds his neo-Stoic therapy into a ‘bio-political’ program. Here he deploys a neo-Stoic political therapy to cure higher types of the moral corruption that prevents them from fully exercising their aristocratic ‘rights’ and in doing so enhancing the species' capacities. Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals embodies this political therapy.
"
Keywords: Nietzsche, Darwin, Gay Science, ‘View from Above’, Philosophical Passions.
"
Contemporary scholarship has begun to explore the way Nietzsche took up the classical and Hellenistic notion that ‘ethics’ should be based on ‘physics’. At the same time recent scholarship also shows that in the late 1870s and early 1880s Nietzsche drew on contemporary naturalism, especially various strands of evolutionary biology, to formulate his moral and political project. In this chapter I claim that Nietzsche did not simply draw on and apply contemporary naturalistic theories. Rather I argue that he attempted to refract the ancient model of philosophy and its ‘spiritual exercises’ through the new evolutionary paradigm. In particular, this chapter argues that in the middle period Nietzsche tried to hinge one particular ancient spiritual exercise - the ‘view from above’ - to the new naturalistic perspective. In broad terms, it suggests that Nietzsche’s repudiation of ordinary emotions of pity, fear, and grief is symptomatic of his recycling of classical and Hellenistic philosophy’s ambition of rising above mortal, affective life. This chapter suggests that Nietzsche reprises two variations of classical philosophy’s spiritual exercises: the Olympian and Stoic views from above.
This paper demonstrates that all three philosophies consider the eternal recurrence from a therapeutic and ethical perspective. That is to say, we show how they frame, interpret and mobilise the idea of recurrence in ways that suit their particular therapeutic or transformative ends. Yet we argue that each formulates a very different conception of its transformative effects. Though they share a conception of recurrence as a ‘spiritual exercise,’ they attribute to it very different outcomes. We show that Lucretius uses it to derive pleasure from the prospect of eternal oblivion, Seneca to achieve tranquil contemplation of our fate, and Nietzsche to incite an unquenchable craving to cultivate ourselves as singular works of art worthy of eternity.