Nietzsche is one of the most important modern philosophers and his writings on the nature of art are amongst the most influential of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This GuideBook introduces and assesses:

• Nietzsche's life and the background to his writings on art
• the ideas and texts of his works which contribute to art, including The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too Human and Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• Nietzsche's continuing importance to philosophy and contemporary thought.

This GuideBook will be essential reading for all students coming to Nietzsche for the first time.

Ryan Harvey and Aaron Ridley put Wagner centre-stage to show why he mattered so much to Nietzsche. Looking at both The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, they identify and define the trajectory of a number of overarching themes modernity, decadence and Wagner as the sign of decline within Nietzsche's work as a whole and then demonstrate how they crystallise into Nietzsche's final and most substantial discussion of Wagner in The Case of Wagner.Assuming no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the texts, they offer a chapter-by-chapter interpretation of The Case of Wagner addressing especially why Wagner is a 'case' for Nietzsche.

Offering a unique 'debate' format, the third edition of the bestselling Arguing About Art is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy of art.

This lively collection presents an extensive range of short, clear introductions to each of the discussions which include:

• sentimentality
• appreciation
• interpretation
• understanding
• objectivity
• nature
• food
• horror.

With revised introductions, updated suggestions for further reading and new sections on pornography and societies without art, Arguing About Art provides a stimulating and accessible anthology suitable for those coming to aesthetics for the first time. The book will also appeal to students of art history, literature, and cultural studies.

Nietzsche's late works are brilliant and uncompromising, and stand as monuments to his lucidity, rigour, and style. This volume combines, for the first time in English, five of these works: The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and The Case of Wagner. Here, Nietzsche takes on some of his greatest adversaries: traditional religion, contemporary culture, and above all his one-time hero, the composer Richard Wagner. His writing is simultaneously critical and creative, putting into practice his alternative philosophical vision, which, after more than a hundred years, still retains its startling novelty and audacity. These new translations aim to capture something of the style and rhythm of the original German, so that the reader can get a sense of Nietzsche as not just a philosopher but also a consummate artist, capable of 'dancing with his pen', and as untimely as he claims to be.

Offering a unique 'debate' format, the third edition of the bestselling Arguing About Art is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy of art.

This lively collection presents an extensive range of short, clear introductions to each of the discussions which include:

• sentimentality
• appreciation
• interpretation
• understanding
• objectivity
• nature
• food
• horror.

With revised introductions, updated suggestions for further reading and new sections on pornography and societies without art, Arguing About Art provides a stimulating and accessible anthology suitable for those coming to aesthetics for the first time. The book will also appeal to students of art history, literature, and cultural studies.

Nietzsche's late works are brilliant and uncompromising, and stand as monuments to his lucidity, rigour, and style. This volume combines, for the first time in English, five of these works: The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and The Case of Wagner. Here, Nietzsche takes on some of his greatest adversaries: traditional religion, contemporary culture, and above all his one-time hero, the composer Richard Wagner. His writing is simultaneously critical and creative, putting into practice his alternative philosophical vision, which, after more than a hundred years, still retains its startling novelty and audacity. These new translations aim to capture something of the style and rhythm of the original German, so that the reader can get a sense of Nietzsche as not just a philosopher but also a consummate artist, capable of 'dancing with his pen', and as untimely as he claims to be.

Ryan Harvey and Aaron Ridley put Wagner centre-stage to show why he mattered so much to Nietzsche. Looking at both The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, they identify and define the trajectory of a number of overarching themes modernity, decadence and Wagner as the sign of decline within Nietzsche's work as a whole and then demonstrate how they crystallise into Nietzsche's final and most substantial discussion of Wagner in The Case of Wagner.Assuming no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the texts, they offer a chapter-by-chapter interpretation of The Case of Wagner addressing especially why Wagner is a 'case' for Nietzsche.

Ridley's book is both an introduction to philosophy of music generally and an introduction to an individual, pungently flavoured philosophy of music. His arguments are lively and provocative, and to boot, he writes like a dream. This is the kind of book that reminds one why philosophy matters, especially as applied to the things we love most.-Jerrold Levinson, professor of philosophy, University of Maryland

This outstanding book provides new and distinctive approaches to the five central topics of musical aesthetics: understanding, representation, expression, performance and profundity. The central theme is the failure of the orthodox view-that pieces of music are more or less self-contained structures of sound-accounts for important features of our musical experience, and explains why music should matter to us.

Each chapter is built around a single musical work. Readers are introduced to the main positions in the philosophy of music. Ridley exposes and corrects the failure of the orthodox view and proposes fresh solutions. Additionally, Ridley offers innovative approaches to the philosophy of song, musical ontology, and to questions about the value of music. P>Features

* Broad, accessible introductory overview to philosophy of music

* Original and stimulating insights

Nietzsche is often held to be an extreme sceptic about human agency, keen to debunk it along every dimension. He dismisses the ideas of freedom, autonomy and morality, we are told, and even the very existence of agents or selves. This book sets out the opposite view. Ridley argues that Nietzsche is committed to an 'expressivist' conception of agency, a conception that allows him to develop highly distinctive accounts not only of freedom, autonomy and morality, but also of selfhood. In the course of the argument, the text revisits a variety of central Nietzschean themes including self-creation, the sovereign individual, will to power, Kantian and Christian morality, and amor fati often to unexpected effect. The Nietzsche who emerges from this book has a clear, if demanding, conception of human agency and a robust commitment to the value of human excellence in all of its forms. This comprehensive study of Nietzsche and the expressivist conception of agency is important reading for all Nietzsche scholars and philosophers of action, but is also of more general interest to academics and students in philosophy.

"Beginning Bioethics: A Text with Integrated Readings" gives students an introduction to the language of philosophical ethics before leading them through six major issues in bioethics. The bioethics section not only includes Ridley’s clear explanations of all sides of a given issue, but also his analysis of a major, previously published article on that issue. It was written to accompany the third edition of "Cases in Bioethics."

Aaron Ridley explores Nietzsche's mature ethical thought as expressed in his masterpiece On the Genealogy of Morals. Taking seriously the use that Nietzsche makes of human types, Ridley arranges his book thematically around the six characters who loom largest in that work the slave, the priest, the philosopher, the artist, the scientist, and the noble. By elucidating what the Genealogy says about these figures, he achieves a persuasive new assessment of Nietzsche's ethics.

Ridley's intellectually supple interpretation reveals Nietzsche's ethical position to be deeper and more interesting than is often supposed: the relation, for instance, between Nietzsche's ideal of the noble and the ascetic or priestly conscience does not emerge as a stark opposition but as a rich interplay between the tensions inherent in each. Equally, he shows that certain under-appreciated confusions in Nietzsche's thought reveal much about the positive aspects of the philosopher's moral vision.

The only book devoted entirely to the Genealogy, Nietzsche's Conscience offers a sympathetic but tough-minded critical reading of the philosopher's most important work. Delivered in clear and vigorous language and employing a broadly analytical approach, Ridley's commentary makes Nietzsche's reflections on morality more accessible than they have been hitherto."

Aaron Ridley explores Nietzsche's mature ethical thought as expressed in his masterpiece On the Genealogy of Morals. Taking seriously the use that Nietzsche makes of human types, Ridley arranges his book thematically around the six characters who loom largest in that work the slave, the priest, the philosopher, the artist, the scientist, and the noble. By elucidating what the Genealogy says about these figures, he achieves a persuasive new assessment of Nietzsche's ethics.

Ridley's intellectually supple interpretation reveals Nietzsche's ethical position to be deeper and more interesting than is often supposed: the relation, for instance, between Nietzsche's ideal of the noble and the ascetic or priestly conscience does not emerge as a stark opposition but as a rich interplay between the tensions inherent in each. Equally, he shows that certain under-appreciated confusions in Nietzsche's thought reveal much about the positive aspects of the philosopher's moral vision.

The only book devoted entirely to the Genealogy, Nietzsche's Conscience offers a sympathetic but tough-minded critical reading of the philosopher's most important work. Delivered in clear and vigorous language and employing a broadly analytical approach, Ridley's commentary makes Nietzsche's reflections on morality more accessible than they have been hitherto."