{"title":"Alexander Nehamas","description":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to the Alexander Nehamas collection at our bookstore, where you can delve into the thought-provoking and insightful works of this renowned philosopher. Nehamas is celebrated for his profound contributions to the fields of Philosophy and Psychology, with a particular focus on aesthetics, friendship, and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAmong his engaging works, \u003cem\u003eNietzsche: Life as Literature\u003c\/em\u003e explores the innovative idea that Nietzsche's philosophy is best understood as a form of literature, offering valuable insights into how we interpret his texts. In \u003cem\u003eOnly a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art\u003c\/em\u003e, Nehamas examines the enduring role of beauty in our lives and its impact on our understanding of art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault\u003c\/em\u003e invites readers on a journey through time, analysing how philosophies have evolved around the concept of living well, drawing from historical figures like Socrates and moving towards contemporary thinkers such as Foucault.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlexander Nehamas's works are essential for anyone interested in the intersection of philosophy, literature, and art. They offer a unique perspective that encourages deep reflection on the complexities of human experience. Dive into this collection to enrich your understanding of the philosophical landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"nietzsche-by-alexander-nehamas-9780674624269","title":"Nietzsche","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore than eighty years after his death, Nietzsche's writings and his career remain disquieting, disturbing, obscure. His most famous views— the will to power, the eternal recurrence, the \u003ci\u003eÜbermensch\u003c\/i\u003e, the master morality— often seem incomprehensible or, worse, repugnant. Yet he remains a thinker of singular importance, a great opponent of Hegel and Kant, and the source of much that is powerful in figures as diverse as Wittgenstein, Derrida, Heidegger, and many recent American philosophers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlexander Nehamas provides the best possible guide for the perplexed. He reveals the single thread running through Nietzsche's views: his thinking of the world on the model of a literary text, of people as if they were literary characters, and of knowledge and science as if they were literary interpretation. Beyond this, he advances the clarity of the concept of textuality, making explicit some of the forces that hold texts together and so hold us together. Nehamas finally allows us to see that Nietzsche is creating a literary character out of himself, that he is, in effect, playing the role of Plato to his own Socrates.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNehamas discusses a number of opposing views, both American and European, of Nietzsche's texts and general project, and reaches a climactic solving of the main problems of Nietzsche interpretation in a step-by-step argument. In the process, he takes up a set of very interesting questions in contemporary philosophy, such as moral relativism and scientific realism. This is a book of considerable breadth and elegance that will appeal to all curious readers of philosophy and literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNietzsche\u003c\/i\u003e by Alexander Nehamas is an essential read for those wanting to delve deeper into Nietzsche's complex and impactful ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000689574124,"sku":"9780674624269","price":99.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/4744573482428.jpg?v=1763297522"},{"product_id":"only-a-promise-of-happiness-by-alexander-nehamas-9780691177601","title":"Only a Promise of Happiness","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty to the margins, replacing them with the anemic and rarefied alternative, \"aesthetic pleasure.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eOnly a Promise of Happiness\u003c\/em\u003e, Alexander Nehamas reclaims beauty from its critics. He seeks to restore its place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life. Nehamas makes his case with characteristic grace, sensitivity, and philosophical depth, supporting his arguments with searching studies of art and literature, high and low, from Thomas Mann's \u003cem\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/em\u003e and Manet's \u003cem\u003eOlympia\u003c\/em\u003e to television.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout, the discussion of artworks is generously illustrated. Beauty, Nehamas concludes, may depend on appearance, but this does not make it superficial. The perception of beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it. This hope can shape and direct our lives for better or worse. We may discover misery in pursuit of beauty, or find that beauty offers no more than a tantalising promise of happiness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut if beauty is always dangerous, it is also a pressing human concern that we must seek to understand, and not suppress.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000693899500,"sku":"9780691177601","price":87.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1763153482434.jpg?v=1763297998"},{"product_id":"the-art-of-living-by-alexander-nehamas-9780520224902","title":"The Art of Living","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an \u003cem\u003e\"art of living.\"\u003c\/em\u003e This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Each of these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Alexander Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Why does each of these philosophers—each fundamentally concerned with his own originality—return to Socrates as a model? The answer lies in the irony that characterises the Socrates we know from the Platonic dialogues. Socratic irony creates a mask that prevents a view of what lies behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHow Socrates led the life he did, what enabled or inspired him, is never made evident. No tenets are proposed. Socrates remains a silent and ambiguous character, forcing readers to come to their own conclusions about the art of life. This, Nehamas shows, is what allowed Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault to return to Socrates as a model without thereby compelling them to imitate him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis highly readable, erudite study argues for the importance of the tradition within Western philosophy that is best described as \u003cem\u003e\"the art of living\"\u003c\/em\u003e and casts Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault as the three major modern representatives of this tradition. Full of original ideas and challenging associations, this work will offer new ways of thinking about the philosophers Nehamas discusses and about the discipline of philosophy itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000763760876,"sku":"9780520224902","price":60.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/61aMzKkI0GL._SL1360.jpg?v=1773002177"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/alexander-nehamas.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}