Rousseau and Nietzsche: Toward an Aesthetic Morality offers a vivid depiction of the problems and potential of modernity through the words of two of its most poignant voices. The book focuses upon the modern self's desire to individuate while facing the ethical responsibility to integrate into the world. Katrin Froese elegantly juxtaposes Nietzsche's drive for extraordinary individualism with Rousseau's call for the dependable citizen, demonstrating that where Nietzsche's aestheticism embraces the limitless and irreconcilable longings of a divided being, Rousseau's approach emphasizes the imposition of limits to ensure that harmony and contentment prevail. Going beyond conventional scholarship, the work emphasizes the similarities at the heart of Rousseau's notion of morality and Nietzsche's aestheticism: the moral vision that underlies Nietzsche's notion of art and the aesthetic understanding prevalent in Rousseau's moral system. This stunning new work of political philosophy will be of great use to scholars of political thought and readers seeking to understand what made Rousseau and Nietzsche's thought so decidedly modern.

Rousseau and Nietzsche: Toward an Aesthetic Morality offers a vivid depiction of the problems and potential of modernity through the words of two of its most poignant voices. The book focuses upon the modern self's desire to individuate while facing the ethical responsibility to integrate into the world. Katrin Froese elegantly juxtaposes Nietzsche's drive for extraordinary individualism with Rousseau's call for the dependable citizen, demonstrating that where Nietzsche's aestheticism embraces the limitless and irreconcilable longings of a divided being, Rousseau's approach emphasizes the imposition of limits to ensure that harmony and contentment prevail. Going beyond conventional scholarship, the work emphasizes the similarities at the heart of Rousseau's notion of morality and Nietzsche's aestheticism: the moral vision that underlies Nietzsche's notion of art and the aesthetic understanding prevalent in Rousseau's moral system. This stunning new work of political philosophy will be of great use to scholars of political thought and readers seeking to understand what made Rousseau and Nietzsche's thought so decidedly modern.

This book analyzes Western and Chinese philosophical texts to determine why laughter and the comic have not been a major part of philosophical discourse. Katrin Froese maintains that many philosophical accounts of laughter try to unearth laughter's purpose, thereby rendering it secondary to the intentional and purposive aspects of human nature that impel us to philosophize. Froese also considers texts that take laughter and the comic as starting points, attempting to philosophize out of laughter rather than merely trying to unearth reasons for laughter. The book proposes that continuously unraveling philosophical assumptions through the comic and laughter may be necessary to live well.

This book analyzes Western and Chinese philosophical texts to determine why laughter and the comic have not been a major part of philosophical discourse. Katrin Froese maintains that many philosophical accounts of laughter try to unearth laughter's purpose, thereby rendering it secondary to the intentional and purposive aspects of human nature that impel us to philosophize. Froese also considers texts that take laughter and the comic as starting points, attempting to philosophize out of laughter rather than merely trying to unearth reasons for laughter. The book proposes that continuously unraveling philosophical assumptions through the comic and laughter may be necessary to live well.

In this book, Katrin Froese juxtaposes the Daoist texts of Laozi and Zhuangzi with the thought at Nietzsche and Heidegger to argue that there is a need for rethinking the idea of a cosmological whole. By moving away from the quest for certainty, Froese suggests a way of philosophizing that does not seek to capture the whole, but rather becomes a means of affirming a connection to it, one that celebrates difference rather than eradicating it. Human beings have a vague awareness of the infinite, but they are nevertheless finite beings. Froese maintains that rather than bemoaning the murkiness of knowledge, the thinkers considered here celebrate the creativity and tendency to wander through that space of not knowing, or "in-between-ness." However, for Neitzsche and the early Heidegger, this in-between-ness can often produce a sense of meaninglessness that sends individuals on a frenetic quest to mark out space that is uniquely their own. Laozi and Zhuangzi, on the other hand, paint a portrait of the self that provides openings for others rather than deliberately forging an identity that it can claim as its own. In this way, human beings can become joyful wanderers that revel in the movements of the Dao and are comfortable with their own finitude. Froese also suggests that Nietzsche and Heidegger are philosophers at a crossroads, for they both exemplify the modern emphasis on self-creation and at the same time share the Daoist insight into the perils of excessive egoism that can lead to misguided attempts to master the world.