22SP_PL302A-Existentialism

Eastern religions often focus on what is real and in front of them, and how to fully understand their existence. A main goal in Eastern thought is the acceptance of one’s mortality and the complete acknowledgment of life and death and the cycles within it. Nietzsche’s existentialism does the same. The influence of Eastern thought on Nietzche’s writings may stem from his times as a student, but it definitely followed him and his thoughts until his death. In this essay, I will argue that Friedrich Nietzsche and his writings, while opposing religion in the traditional sense, have developed from centuries of Eastern traditions, and in its own way is a religious dogma similar to that of Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Taoism. 

Annotated Bibliography

Brobjer, Thomas H. “Nietzsche's Reading about Eastern Philosophy.” The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 28, no. 1 (2004): 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1353/nie.2004.0009. 

This is a general overview of what has been found about Nietzsche’s connection with Eastern philosophy. I will use this article to begin my deep dive into this connection.

Davis, Bret W, et al. Japanese and Continental Philosophy : Conversations with the Kyoto School. Indiana University Press, 2011. Accessed 6 Apr. 2022.

This is a culmination of essays written about Japanese and other Eastern philosophies. I will use this to explain what exactly is meant by Eastern Philosophy and how it connects to Nietzsche’s writings.

Davis, Bret W. “Zen after Zarathustra: The Problem of the Will in the Confrontation between Nietzsche and Buddhism.” The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 28, no. 1 (2004): 89–138. https://doi.org/10.1353/nie.2004.0011. 

This article discusses the connections between Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Buddhism. I will use this to further analyze the connection between Nietzsche and Eastern Philosophy, in this case through Zarathustra’s connection with Buddhism.

Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism : From Dostoevsky to Sartre. Rev. and exp.ed. New York: Plume, 2004.

This book we have been reading in class and is a collection of Nietzsche’s works with introductions written by Walter Kaufmann. I will use this collection to deep dive into Nietzsche’s works for textual evidence supporting his connection with Eastern philosophy.

Magnus, Bernd, and Kathleen Marie Higgins. The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche. Edited by Bernd Magnus and Kathleen Marie Higgins, Cambridge University Press, 1996.

This book is a summary of Nietzsche’s famous works, as well as collections of essays regarding his philosophies. I will use this to find works to provide textual evidence, and will use the essays to further develop what Nietzsche’s philosophy was and how it is connected to the Eastern world.

Marks, Joel, et al. Emotions in Asian Thought : A Dialogue in Comparative Philosophy. State University of New York Press, 1995. Accessed 6 Apr. 2022.

This book focuses primarily on emotion and how emotion is viewed in Eastern thought. Using this, I will be able to compare and contrast how emotions are discussed in this book as well as in Nietzsche’s works.

Moller, Hans-Georg. “The ‘Exotic’ Nietzsche--East and West.” The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 28, no. 1 (2004): 57–69. https://doi.org/10.1353/nie.2004.0014. 

This article focuses on what makes Nietzsche popular in the East and the West, and how different his works are from others at the time. I will use this article to continue my deep dive into Nietzsche’s thoughts and attitudes through the lens of Eastern thought, while also being able to use this article to discuss how he is viewed in the Western world as well.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Kaufmann. The Portable Nietzsche. New York: Pinguin Classic, 2006.

This book is a culmination of Nietzsche’s works, put together by Walter Kaufmann. I will use this book for the majority of my primary textual evidence, using works such as Zarathustra to make my point.

Parkes, Graham. Nietzsche and Asian Thought. University of Chicago Press, 1991. Accessed 6 Apr. 2022.

This book studies precisely that which I am writing about. It will give me points that I can use to discuss Nietzsche’s Eastern philosophies, and it will provide me with great ways to start dissecting Nietzsche’s works.

What can we learn about religion from Nietzsche? Although he did reject God, we are still able to see many religious aspects of his writing. I will argue that we can investigate religion through Nietzsche since his work contains many references to religion. 

Nietzche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Gay Science

These books will let me get straight into Nietzsches thought. They will serve as main my source materials. I plan to pull most of my quotations for evidence from these two book.

https://epochemagazine.org/37/truth-belief-and-illusion-in-nietzsches-thus-spoke-zarathustra/

This source will help me to have a better understanding of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I am especially interested in learning about how the authors interpreted truth in Nietzsches work.

https://academyofideas.com/2017/09/nietzsche-thus-spoke-zarathustra-becoming-gods/

This source talks a lot about Christianity. I plan to incorporate it into my paper.

https://www.history.com/topics/religion/zoroastrianism

I thought that this source would serve as good background information. It explains the Zoroastrian religion, which I know very little about.

https://existential-therapy.com/review-of-thus-spoke-zarathustra-by-nietzsche/

I am hoping that this book review will give me a new perspective on Thus Spoke

Lampert- Philosophy and True Relgion

I am really excited to dig into this source. I hope to learn a lot more about how philosophy relates to religion, as well as religion that was in Nietzsches books.

Thesis Paragraph

The history of the West, at least since the reign of Constantine, has been the history of Christianity. To distinguish the two would be impossible. Christianity has ingrained itself so deeply into Western culture and mind that all that has been produced in the West has been of Christian origin, regardless of the product or producer's support or distaste for the Christian faith. The creations of the West reek of Christianity, whether it be in its science, literature, law, art, or philosophy. Even the Antichristian is Christian in origin. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is well known to be the philosopher who declared the death of God and his blatant and vehement attacks on Christianity. However, to think of Nietzsche as being purely antichristian would be a surface-level understanding. In this essay, I will argue that Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy is Christian in origin and goal (and debatably in content) despite Nietzsche's attacks on Christian metaphysics and morality.

 Annotated Bibliography

Benson, Bruce Ellis. Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith. Indiana University Press, 2008.

Benson's book explores the idea of Nietzsche being a deeply religious thinker rather than a godless nihilist. Within the text, Benson discusses the development of Nietzsche's religious ideas over the course of his life and how this development came to be reflected within Nietzsche's philosophy. 

Brobjer, Thomas H. “Nietzsche's Changing Relation with Christianity: Nietzsche as a Christian, Atheist, and Antichrist.” SUNY Press, 2001.

Brobjer's article is an in-depth dive into Nietzsche's relationship with Christianity. Brobjer recounts Nietzsche's development from his early pious upbringing to his abandonment of the Christian faith and ultimately as an avid "detractor" of Christian metaphysics and morality.

Madelon-Wienand, Isabelle. “Remarks about the Nietzschean Dancing God.” South African Journal of Philosophy, Aug. 1998.

Dance and music are consistent and important themes in Nietzsche's works. This article relates the importance of these two themes in Nietzsche's philosophy to the "Dancing God" as an embodiment of these themes and as a symbol for Nietzschean philosophy as a whole.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Antichrist. Translated by Walter Kaufman, Penguin Books, 1976.

This is Nietzsche's predominant work on Christianity. Namely, it is his largest and most concentrated critique of Christian metaphysics and morality. This provides an abundance of evidence for discussing why Nietzsche abandons and disagrees with the Christian doctrine. 

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book For All And None. Translated by Walter Kaufmann, Penguin Books, 1976.

Not yet read Bibliography

Azzam, Abed. “Nietzsche versus Paul.” De Gruyter, Columbia University Press, 31 Mar. 2015, https://doi.org/10.7312/azza16930.

Deleuze, Gilles. “Nietzsche and Saint Paul, Lawrence and John of Patmos.” De Gruyter, Fordham University Press, 30 Apr. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823292325-021.

Salaquarda, J. “Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition.” Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, 1996.

For humans to reach their full potential, they must stray from the capitalistic empire that looms over the marketplace and society. More importantly, there is a negative association with invention, information, and technology. The modern consumer’s consumption of products– in particular, technology and its advancement–  has proved to be detrimental to their own development. I will argue that there is fault in consumer’s obligations associated with the marketplace and economy based on the evidence provided by Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger. 

Annotated Bibliography 

John F. Sherry, Jr., Place, Technology, and Representation, Journal of Consumer Research, 

Volume 27, Issue 2, September 2000, pp. 273–278, https://doi.org/10.1086/314325

Sherry gives his personal experience in research related to the social sciences and philosophical aspect of the marketplace and retail atmospherics. He gives direct information to establish a sense of place for the human condition and experience. Most importantly he reveals his opinions of invention, information, and technology. This source can be used to show that consumption and lack of cultivation are detrimental practices of the natural world. 

Kaufmann, Walter Arnold. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. World Pub. Co., 1967. 

Kauffmann reveals a revision of the idea of self and the need for focus on dread, decisions and possibilities. With an ever changing marketplace, the self must be equipped to tackle it’s moral and ethical responsibilities This source can be used to show the importance of the self in relation to technological advancements. 

Lu, LC., Lu, CJ. Moral Philosophy, Materialism, and Consumer Ethics: An Exploratory Study in 

Indonesia. J Bus Ethics 94, pp.193–210 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551- 009-0256-0

Based on empirical evidence and research, this article reveals consumer attitudes in Asia and a need for considerable attention due to an increase in unethical behavior. Moral philosophies in culture have hit a decline. This source can be used to show the rise in materialism and lack of idealism in today's society. 

Roderick M. Stewart, Heidegger and the Intentionality of Language, American Philosophical 

Quarterly. Vol. 25, No. 2, Apr. 1988, pp. 153-162 

This book showcases Heidegger’s work with his phenomena about intentionality.  Heidegger says there are intentional roles

with the distributor and consumer. This technical intentionality is pervading the advancement of the human experience.  

White, Daniel and Gert Hellerick. “Nietzsche at the Mall: Deconstructing the Consumer.”

 Ctheory(2015): n. Pag.

This essay describes the capitalistic constraints society places on modern consumers. The consumer is completely deconstructed through various interpretations of Nietzsche's work. Due to the constraint of self, Nietzsche’s ideas push for an escape from predetermined decisions and codes that are taught from society. There is a need for radical self transformation and escape from capitalistic ideals. 

(I will include Hiedegger’s Basic Writings. I plan to read this weekend to grasp his concepts more. I am, sadly, very confused at the moment.)

Thesis Paragraph:

This first word of the title, “aphorisms,” is admittedly problematic and worthy of attention: there are a number of ways to advance “toward a philosophy of futility.” And so I beg the questions: Why aphorisms? Why not essays? Or better yet, a more professional-academic philosophical style? I will argue that aphorism is the most suitable writing style for my philosophy because of its combination of anti-foundationalist philosophical presuppositions and philosophical pessimism: because there is no ultimately closed philosophical system, no foolproof epistemological or metaphysical principle holding together any philosophy, when coupled with philosophical pessimism’s healthy dose of melancholy, we birth a somber, fragmented style of philosophical exposition and inoperable Hippocratic diagnoses.

Annotated Bibliography:

Babich, Babette. “The Genealogy of Morals and Right Reading: On the Nietzschean Aphorism and the Art of the Polemic.” In Christa Acampora (ed.), Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals: Critical Essays, 2006, (177-190), https://philpapers.org/rec/BABTGO.

In this article, Babich addresses the relationship of Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) aphorism to his essays and "exegeses," the latter of which is related to speculation about which aphorism Nietzsche offered an exegesis of in the third essay of On the Genealogy of Morals (1887). For my research, this article was valuable because it stresses the hermeneutic, and by extension anti-foundationalist, nature of Nietzsche's philosophy, which, in justifying my own aphoristic project, I am following in the footsteps of.

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph. The Waste Books. Trans. Ed. by R.J. Hollingdale, The New York Review of Books, 2000.

Is the creation of art anything more than just a lifestyle of rejecting faith?  As Nietzsche writes, faith is “not wanting to know what is true”. I will argue that to believe in being saved in some distant future in the form of faith would block an artist from discovering unknown paths which would eliminate the "artist lifestyle" therefore one must accept the burdens that cause one to need faith.