Of dangerous games and dastardly deeds: A typology of Nietzsche's contests

International Studies in Philosophy

Volumn 34, Issue 3, 2002, Pages

  Acampora, Christa Davis ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60950431628     PISSN: 02705664     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. See, for examples: Jean-François Lyotard, Just Gaming, trans. Wlad Godzich with an essay by Samuel Weber (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1985)
2. William E. Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991) and The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1995)
3. Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1993)
4. Lawrence Hatab, A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1995)
5. David Owen, Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1995)
6. Janet Lungstrum and Elizabeth Sauer, eds. , Agonistics: Arenas of Creative Contest (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1997)
7. Herman Siemens, "Nietzsche's Hammer: Philosophy, Destruction, or the Art of Limited Warfare," in Tijdschrift vor Filosofie 2 (June 1998): 321-47
8. Fredrick Appel, Nietzsche Contra Democracy (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1999)
9. numerous articles in Alan D. Schrift, ed. , Why Nietzsche Still? (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000)
10. and the collection of articles on Nietzsche and sport in International Studies in Philosophy XXX:3 (1998).
11. A problem addressed neither by Foucault nor the editors of Agonistics: Arenas of Creative Contest.
12. A challenge unmet by Lyotard, Honig, Hatab, and Appel, and discussed in limited ways by Siemens and Villa (in Schrift).
13. A need recognized by Connolly and discussed by Owen, which would benefit from further analysis.
14. See BGE 41 and 205. I utilize the Kaufmann translations of BGE, TI, the Hollingdale translation of WS, the Kaufmann-Hollingdale translation of GM, and the translation of WPh that appears as "We Classicists," trans. Werner Dannhauser in Unmodern Observations, ed. William Arrowsmith (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1990).
15. See Jacob Burckhardt, The History of Greek Culture, trans. Sheila Stern, ed. , with an introduction by Oswyn Murray (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), especially "The Agonal Age. " I briefly discuss the connection between Burckhardt and Nietzsche in the introduction to my translation of "Homer's Contest," "Re/Introducing 'Homer's Contest': A new translation with notes and commentary," Nietzscheana, Fall 1996.
16. For a somewhat different account of Socrates as a philosophical agonist, see Richard Patterson, " 'Philosophos Agonistes': Imagery and Moral Psychology in Plato's 'Republic'," Journal of the History of Philosophy 35, No. 3 (1997): 327-54.
17. This paragraph and the two that follow are slightly revised versions of what appear in my "Nietzsche's Problem of Homer" in Nietzscheforschung 5/6 (Spring 2000): 553-74.
18. A French sociologist, Roger Caillois, provides an analysis of these games in Man, Play, and Games, trans. Meyer Barash (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc. , 1961).
19. For a historical survey of the development of the agonistic theme in early Christian philosophy and literature, see Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1967).
20. For a brief but insightful discussion of the virtues of agonistic engagement that can be derived from Nietzsche's conception, see David Owen, Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity, pp. 139-46.
21. In my "Thus Spoke Zarathustra as Postmodern Bildungsroman," in Nietzsche, Postmodernismus und was nach ihnen kommt, ed. Endre Kiss and Uschi Nussbaumer-Benz (Cuxhaven and Dartford: Junghans, 2000), I discuss the connection between Zarathustra's love of his disciples and his desire to make them his enemies.
22. BGE 44 should be read in this light
23. See also Connolly on "agonistic respect" in The Ethos of Pluralism and Identity/Difference.
24. For more on "dangerous games" and how Nietzsche himself played them, see Daniel W. Conway's illuminating book Nietzsche's Dangerous Games: Philosophy in the Twilight of the Idols (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998).
25. See "Homer's Contest" in KSA 1, pp. 788f.
26. For an interesting discussion of the possibility of creating an agonistic tension between theory and politics as it relates to democracy, see Wendy Brown, "Nietzsche for Politics," in Schrift, Why Nietzsche Still? pp. 205-23.
27. Villa identifies these as Sheldon Wolin, William E. Connolly, Chantai Mouffe, and Bonnie Honig, among others. See Dana R. Villa, "Democratizing the Agon: Nietzsche, Arendt, and the Agonistic Tendency in Recent Political Theory" in Schrift, Why Nietzsche Still? pp. 224-46.
28. See Valerie Miner, "Rumors from the Cauldron: Competition among Feminist Writers," in Competition: A Feminist Taboo? ed. Valerie Miner and Helen Longino (New York: The Feminist Press of the City University of New York, 1987), and the, Oxford English Dictionary. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, agon originally meant a gathering or assembly, and later indicated the gathering for the public games. Eventually the word came to be used for contests of a variety of sorts, and it was adopted by the Hellenistic and Jewish philosophers in their discussions of trials and challenges that enhanced and facilitated moral development.
29. No one has taught me more about how real-life competition is enhanced by cooperation than Mariah Burton Nelson. See her Embracing Victory: Life Lessons in Competition and Compassion (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. , 1998).