Nietzsche and Emerson

Content

The influence of the Presocratics, particularly of Heracleitus, as well as that of Schopenhauer and Wagner, on the work Nietzsche, is well known and much written about.

The course is based on George J Stack’s text Nietzsche and Emerson: An Elective Affinity (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1992). In it Stack argues that those ideas and theories regarded by many Nietzsche’s original contribution to Western philosophy can actually be traced back to the ideas and theories of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who Stack regards as “surprisingly radical”. These, according to him, influenced the development of Nietzsche’s central ideas; they entered into the existential dimension of Nietzsche’s thought and into the stream of what has been considered a distinctly European intellectual movement.

The series of twelve lectures/seminars over three weeks, then, is an exploration of the theories and ideas shared by Nietzsche and Emerson, as well as an investigation into how they might differ, contrary to the claims of Stack.

Course work and forms of study

• Course + examination = 3 credits
• Course + essay (7-8 pages) = 5 credits