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Department of Philosophy

Keith Ansell-Pearson

Professor of Philosophy, Warwick University, 1993-2021.Honorary President of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, 2021-

Recent Research

In recent years I have contributed to research in several areas of philosophical inquiry, including the philosophy of the emotions & passions and philosophy as a way of life. I have also carried out quite extensive research on the reception of Hellenistic philosophy in modern European thought, notably Epicurean teaching and Stoicism. This research has resulted in a number of published articles and book chapters, as well as the edition of Jean-Marie Guyau's The Ethics of Epicurus (1878), translated and co-edited by Federico Testa and published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2021.

In 2018 a study of Nietzsche's middle writings entitled Nietzsche's Search for Philosophy was published by Bloomsbury Academic. I wrote the Afterword to a new translation and edition of Dawn published by Stanford University Press in 2011 and co-authored a close reading of this text with Rebecca Bamford, which was published by Wiley Blackwell in 2021. In 2022 a specially commissioned volume of essays, co-edited with Paul S. Loeb, on Nietzsche's text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, was published by Cambridge University Press.

Bloomsbury also published a book on Bergson, Thinking Beyond the Human Condition in 2018. Recent published essays on Bergson include 'Bergson and Philosophy as a Way of Life' in Interpreting Bergson (Cambridge University Press), and 'Bergson on the Emotions' in The Bergsonian Mind (Routledge).

Current Research

I have recently completed a new book on Nietzsche that will be published by University of Chicago Press in the spring of 2025. The book, entitled Nietzsche's Earthbound Wisdom. The Philosopher, the Poet, and the Sage, offers fresh and novel insights into Nietzsche on the nature of philosophy, the wisdom of the sages, the passions, and the task of the poets. I put Nietzsche into dialogue with a range of philosophical and literary figures that were either important to him or that serve to enrich our understanding of his intellectual character and ideas. My hope is that readers will welcome a study that returns Nietzsche to the philosophical and literary traditions to which he belongs.

I am now researching a book entitled The Sanity of Philosophy: Reading Santayana. I bring Santayana's naturalism, with its exposure of 'terrified idealisms' and attack on mysticism, into rapport with a range of other thinkers and writers, including figures he wrote essays on such as Bergson, Emerson, William James, Nietzsche, Plotinus, Josiah Royce, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, and Walt Whitman.

Recently published essays and forthcoming essays include:

  • 'Sharing Secrets with the Sea. Nietzsche, Emerson, Santayana, and Feeling Sympathy with Nature,' Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal. Forthcoming 2024.
  • 'Taking Flight from Oneself. Nietzsche on the Poets, Baudelaire, and the Little Parisian Decadents,' in

    Vincent Le and Paris Lettau (eds.), 150 Years of Tragedy: Nietzsche, Art, Philosophy (Index Books, forthcoming).

  • 'Schopenhauer on Stoicism as a Way of Life and on the Wisdom of Life,' in David Woods & Timothy Stoll, The Schopenhaurian Mind (Routledge, 2023).
  • 'Nietzsche on the Task of the Poets in his Middle Writings,' in James I. Porter, Nietzsche between Philosophy and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
  • 'Philosophy as a Way of Life in Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (with Marta Faustino), in Ansell-Pearson & Paul S. Loeb, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
  • 'How to make sense of Nietzsche as a Sceptic,' in Nietzsche on Making Sense of Nietzsche, ed. M. Béland, C. Denat, C. Piazzesi et P. Wotling (Editions et presses de l’université de Reims, 2021).
  • 'Friedrich Nietzsche: Cheerful Thinker and Writer. A Contribution to the Debate on Nietzsche’s Cheerfulness' (with Lorenzo Serini), Nietzsche-Studien, 2022.
  • 'Nietzsche on the Passions and Self-Cultivation,' Continental Philosophy Review, 2022: CPR article
  • 'Nietzsche on Transforming the Passions into Joys: On the Middle Writings and Thus Spoke Zarathustra,' in Nietzsche, penseur de l'affirmation: Relecture d'« Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra », ed. CL. Bertot et. al (Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2019).
  • 'Bergson and Philosophy as a Way of Life,' in Alexandre Lefebvre and Nils Schott (eds.), Interpreting Bergson (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
  • 'Bergson on the Emotions,' in Mark Sinclair (ed.), The Bergsonian Mind (Routledge, 2022).
  • 'Jean-Marie Guyau on Epicurus and the Conduct of Life' (with Federico Testa), Introduction to Guyau, The Ethics of Epicurus (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).
  • 'Guyau on Life and Morality' (with Federico Testa), in Mark Sinclair & Daniel Whistler (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern French Philosophy (forthcoming).

Selected Book Publications

Authored

Edited

  • Nietzsche and Modern German Thought (Routledge, 1991).
  • The Nietzsche Reader (Blackwell, 2006), with Duncan Large.
  • Bergson: Key Writings (Bloomsbury Press, 2002, second edition 2014), with John O Maoilerca.
  • The New Century: Bergsonism, Phenomenology, and Responses to Modern Science (Acumen/University of Chicago Press, 2010). Read review 
  • Jean-Marie Guyau, The Ethics of Epicurus, ed. with Federico Testa, trans. F. Testa (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).
  • Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Critical Guide, co-edited with Paul S. Loeb (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Book Series

Co-editor of two book series: Critical Guides to Nietzsche (Edinburgh University Press) and Re-Inventing Philosophy as a Way of Life (Bloomsbury).

Critical Guides to NietzscheLink opens in a new window

Re-inventing Philosophy as a Way of LifeLink opens in a new window

     

     

    Thinking beyond

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    ethics