Katharina Kaiser, Berkeley

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche Revisited: or the Aesthetic Ideal Versus the Ascetic Ideal Abstract:We have come to view much of Nietzsche¿s philosophy as explicit and implicit criticism of his former ¿educator¿ Schopenhauer, who unlike Nietzsche has become a marginal figure. In particular, Schopenhauer¿s metaphysics of the will has been stamped as the paradigm of pessimism and life-denial. And on the standard interpretation his ethics and aesthetics are unappealing or reactive ways of coming to terms with his stark analysis of the human predicament. Part III of Nietzsche¿s On the Genealogy of Morals is generally read as (among other things) an implicit attack on Schopenhauer, especially in his discussion of the ¿ascetic ideal¿, which Nietzsche characterizes as reason and cause of all life-denying trends, especially virulent in morality. The only counter-ideal strong enough to overcome the ascetic ideal is the aesthetic ideal, or art. The talk will challenge this common interpretation by identifying a more complex attitude in Schopenhauer¿s philosophy toward ascetic and aesthetic ideals.