Nietzsche and Friendship

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In Nietzsche and Friendship, Willow Verkerk provides a new and provocative account of Nietzsches philosophy which identifies him as an agonistic thinker concerned with the topics of love and friendship. She argues that Nietzsches challenges to the received principles of friendship from Aristotle to Kant offer resources for reinvigorating our thinking about friendship today. Through an examination of his free spirit texts, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak and The Gay Science together with Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, Verkerk unlocks key aspects of Nietzsches thinking on friendship, love, woman, the self, self-overcoming, virtue, and character. She questions Nietzsches misogyny, but also considers the emancipatory potential of his writing by brining him into dialogue with postmodern, feminist, and transgender thinkers. This book revives interest in the ethical, therapeutic, and political dimensions of Nietzsches philosophy.

Reviews

Nietzsche valued friendship, and this pioneering study shows how Nietzsches own discussion of friendship is absolutely crucial for understanding his philosophy. Through a very careful and perceptive reading of Nietzsches texts, Verkerk argues that Nietzsches ideas about friendship are empowering and in this way she makes a strong case for the relevance of Nietzsches thought in contemporary debates concerning friendship, gender relations, and love. * Richard White, Professor of Philosophy, Creighton University, USA *
We were friends and have become estranged. () We are two ships each of which has its goal and course. () Perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us!, says Nietzsche in The Gay Science. Attentive to all possible meanings of such a change, Verkerk explores with remarkable scrutiny the singular destiny of friendship, which reveals its metamorphic power only after it has died posthumous birth of new identities. -- Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University, UK

Author Bio

Willow Verkerk is a Lecturer in Continental Philosophy and Social Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Canada and a researcher with the Gendered Mimesis Project at KU Leuven, Belgium.