225 - Alexander Nehamas: Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, and the Will to Power

Listen to this episode from Robinson's Podcast on Spotify. Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7 Alexander Nehamas is the Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities, both of philosophy and comparative literature, at Princeton University. He is best known for his work on ancient philosophy, literary theory, the philosophy of art, and his scholarship on Friedrich Nietzsche. In this episode, Robinson and Alexander primarily discuss the latter, though they also delve into some of his other work. More particularly, they discuss Nietzsche’s writings on eternal recurrence, the will to power, and morality, among other topics, as well as the perils of doing history as a philosopher, the infamous Elgin marbles, great works of literature, and personal style. Alexander’s most well-known work on Nietzsche is Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Harvard, 1987). Nietzsche: Life as Literature: https://a.co/d/7V3MYk0 OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 3:07 The Essentials of Nietzsche 11:42  Nietzsche and Eternal Recurrence  14:46  Nietzsche on Free Will 19:06  Nietzsche on Art and the Ideal Life 20:41  Nietzsche on Herd Morality and Mediocrity 23:20  Nietzsche on the Will to Power 27:02 Nietzsche on Our Dominance Over Animals   30:41 Was Nietzsche an Anti-Semite?  33:02 Nietzsche’s Relationship to Animals 36:53 Was Nietzsche an Enemy of Morality?   39:54 Nietzsche and the Worship of Greatness  41:06 Favorite Literature  48:39 Nietzsche and the Perils of the History of Philosophy   1:05:43 The Elgin Marbles 1:13:50 On Plato and Ancient Philosophy   1:22:34 Nietzsche on Animal Agriculture 1:29:10 Nietzsche on Seeing Life as a Literary Work 1:34:10 Nietzsche on the Weak and the Great 1:39:32 Philosophy and Life   1:46:11 On Philosophy and Fashion Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, historians, economists, and everyone in-between.