Bernard Reginster

While most recent studies of Nietzsche's works have lost sight of the fundamental question of the meaning of a life characterized by inescapable suffering, Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life brings it sharply into focus. Reginster identifies overcoming nihilism as a central objective of Nietzsche's philosophical project, and shows how this concern systematically animates all of his main ideas.

Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism

The Affirmation of Life

On the Genealogy of Morality is Nietzsche's most influential book but it continues to puzzle, not least in its central claim: the invention of Christian morality is an act of revenge, and it is as such that it should arouse critical suspicion. In The Will to Nothingness, Bernard Reginster makes a fresh attempt at understanding this claim and its significance, inspired by Nietzsche's claim that moralities are 'signs' or 'symptoms' of the affective states of moral agents. The relation between morality and affects is envisioned as functional, rather than expressive: the genealogy of Christian morality aims to reveal how it is well suited to serve certain emotional needs. One particular emotional need, manifested in the affect of ressentiment, plays a prominent role in the analysis of Christian morality. This is the need to have the world reflect one's will, which is rooted in a special drive toward power, or toward bending the world to one's will. Revenge is plausibly understood as aiming to bolster or restore power, and the invention of new values is a particular way to do so: by altering the agent's will (her values), it alters what counts as power for her. By revealing how it is well suited to play such a functional role in the emotional economy of moral agents, the genealogical inquiries arouse critical suspicion toward Christian morality. The use of this moral outlook as an instrument of revenge is problematic not because it is immoral, but because it is functionally self-undermining.

An Essay on Nietzsche's on the Genealogy of Morality

The Will to Nothingness

Among all the great thinkers of the past two hundred years, Nietzsche continues to occupy a special place--not only for a broad range of academics but also for members of a wider public, who find some of their most pressing existential concerns addressed in his works. Central among these concerns is the question of the meaning of a life characterized by inescapable suffering, at a time when the traditional responses inspired by Christianity are increasingly losing their credibility. While most recent studies of Nietzsche's works have lost sight of this fundamental issue, Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life brings it sharply into focus. Reginster identifies overcoming nihilism as a central objective of Nietzsche's philosophical project, and shows how this concern systematically animates all of his main ideas. In particular, Reginster's work develops an original and elegant interpretation of the will to power, which convincingly explains how Nietzsche uses this doctrine to mount a critique of the dominant Christian values, to overcome the nihilistic despair they produce, and to determine the conditions of a new affirmation of life. Thus, Reginster attributes to Nietzsche a compelling substantive ethical outlook based on the notions of challenge and creativity--an outlook that involves a radical reevaluation of the role and significance of suffering in human existence. Replete with deeply original insights on many familiar--and frequently misunderstood--Nietzschean concepts, Reginster's book will be essential to anyone approaching this towering figure of Western intellectual history.

Bernard Reginster

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