SLCC Philosophical
Conference Project
Michiel’s presentation consists of three parts. First, Nietzsche’s analysis of nihilism is reconstructed by focusing on parts of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft and a key text of the posthumous works. However, Nietzsche does not want his account to have merely diagnostic validity. He also raises the problem of nihilism in order to overcome it. In a second part, Michiel will explore the question of what it would mean to actually go beyond nihilism. How to understand this ‘moral challenge’? Third, given the radical nature of Nietzsche’s thought, it is argued that our (post-modern, Western) society cannot but be in an intermediate stage of nihilism in Nietzsche’s sense.
Michiel Meijer (1984) is a PhD fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. He won two thesis awards for his MA thesis on the relationship between meaning and truth in the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Taylor. His research focuses on the nature of morality through constructing a dialogue between Taylor and Nietzsche on the post-modern moral context. More specifically, his work examines the relationship between moral phenomenology and moral ontology in Taylor’s oeuvre, and the potential of Nietzsche’s diagnosis of nihilism for enhancing Taylor’s moral philosophy.
Radicalesians was a radical feminist group in the second wave of the women’s liberation movement. In the article, “The Woman-Identified Woman,” Radicalesbians assert women need to define themselves from their own perspective. They assert ‘woman’ has traditionally been defined in relation to ‘man.’ Friedrich Nietzsche’s slave morality is an inauthentic value inversion whereby one defines oneself in relation to another. Nietzsche offers the Übermensch, a superhuman who authentically and continuously defines and re-defines themselves, as a solution. In this paper, I argue Nietzsche’s concepts are not only compatible with and applicable to Radicalesbians position, but offer women a way to authentically define themselves thereby becoming Überfrau.
Betty Stoneman is a Philosophy major and a Peace and Justice Studies minor at Utah Valley University. She is interested in social and political philosophy, which also encompasses philosophy of religion, philosophy of law, ethics and feminism. Specifically, she is interested in how ideology shapes individuals and societies, and the political ramifications of such; how the distribution of resources, rights and privileges is justified based on the influence of ideology. Her goal is to pursue an MA and a PhD, focusing on the politics of ideology.
In Hedwig’s presentation she will show that there are two ways in which nihilism and fatality are connected: 1. Nietzsche seems to regard the nihilistic suffering of meaninglessness as an unavoidable fate; 2. he connects a certain type of nihilism to amor fati, the love of fate. Hedwig’s aim is to develop a better understanding of this second connection. I point out what kinds of nihilism Nietzsche distinguishes, showing how the strong and healthy type is bound to the affirmation of fate. Next, she will discuss several possible interpretations of this fatality, taken from Nietzsche's own texts, finally suggesting that he was inspired by a Heraclitean-Stoic understanding of fatalism.
Hedwig Gaasterland (1983) is a PhD student at the Institute for Philosophy in Leiden. Her project ‘Stoic Reception in Nietzsche’s Concept of Amor fati’ is funded by the Dutch Research School for Classical Studies, OIKOS, of which she is also a PhD member. Hedwig obtained her Research Master’s Degree of Philosophy in 2011 cum laude, after having gained two Bachelor’s Degrees, of Philosophy and Classics. Currently, she is teaching an MA-course called ‘Nietzsche and Antiquity’, dealing with Nietzsche’s peculiar reception of ancient culture. In 2013, she taught an MA-course on Stoicism. Having explored Nietzsche’s approach of antiquity in general and of Stoicism in particular, she aspires to develop for her thesis a solid account of the Stoic background within Nietzsche’s concept of the loving of fate: Amor fati.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
International Forum: The Moral Challanges of Nietzsche's Nihilism Salt Lake Community College South City Campus; Multi-purpose room 6-9 PM
The international forum on the Moral Challanges of Nietzsche's Nihilism will feature three presentations by students from around the world followed by an extensive Q & A with the audience. The purpose of the forum is to explore ideas and engage in dialouge that will expand thinking and challange perspectives.
FEATURED PRESENTERS: