ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ

Professor of Philosophy, ÌÒÉ«ÊÓƵ University, 1993-2021.

, 2021-

Personal

Recent Research

In recent years I have contributed to research in several areas of philosophical inquiry, including philosophy as a way of life, the philosophy of time, and the philosophy of the emotions. I have 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 articles and book chapters - centred on my interest in the writings of Nietzsche, Bergson, and Deleuze - 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. I have also devoted research to illuminating and engaging with Nietzsche's middle writings in Nietzsche's Search for Philosophy (2018) and Nietzsche's Dawn (2021).

In (University of Chicago Press, 2025) I set out to recover Nietzsche’s love for a philosophy that guides us through our passions and opens us more fully to the possibilities of life and the joy of knowledge. I illuminate Nietzsche on philosophical cheerfulness; the intellectual virtue of honesty and the passion of knowledge; the philosopher as a wanderer or spiritual nomad; the passions; the poets; and on philosophy as intellectual vision and perception. I offer close readings of Nietzsche’s texts in conversation with philosophical and literary figures including Augustine, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Emerson, Flaubert, Stendhal, and more. I probe Nietzsche’s critique of literary naturalism and his alternative conception of the poet as seer who has a deep longing for a new earth. The book covers the full span of Nietzsche's extraordinary corpus with a focus on his mature middle and late writings.

Current Research

I am now researching a book on Nietzsche and philosophical heroism, which I am co-authoring with Paul S. Loeb. I am also researching a book with the working title Ways of Living, Ways of Seeing, and focused on Bergson, Nietzsche, Ortega y Gasset, and Santayana.

Selected Book Publications

Authored

• Nietzsche contra Rousseau (Cambridge University Press 1991). Read Review/ Read Review / Read Review
• Nietzsche's Search for Philosophy: On the Middle Writings (Bloomsbury Press 2018).  Read Review / Read Review / Read Review / Read Review / Read Review/ Read Review
• Nietzsche's Dawn: Philosophy, Ethics, and the Passion of Knowledge (co-authored with Rebecca Bamford) (Wiley Blackwell 2021). Read Review / Read Review / Read Review
• Philosophy and the Adventure of the Virtual. Bergson and the Time of Life (Routledge 2002). Read Review/ Read Review
• Bergson: Thinking Beyond the Human Condition (Bloomsbury Press 2018). Read Review/ / / Read Review
• Nietzsche's Earthbound Wisdom. The Philosopher, the Poet, and the Sage (University of Chicago Press 2025).

Edited

• Nietzsche and Modern German Thought (Routledge 1991). Read Review
• A Companion to Nietzsche (Blackwell 2006).
• The Nietzsche Reader (Blackwell 2006), with Duncan Large.
• Bergson: Key Writings (Bloomsbury Press 2002, second edition 2014), with John O Maoilerca. Read Review
• The New Century: Bergsonism, Phenomenology, and Responses to Modern Science (Acumen/University of Chicago Press 2010), with Alan D. Schrift.  
• 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).
• The Empathetic Emotions in the History of Philosophy, co-edited with David James (Oxford University Press 2025).

Book Series

Selected Essays

I have published more than a hundred essays in journals and edited volumes. A selection appears below and with links to several of those featured.

Nietzsche

'Sharing Secrets with the Sea. Nietzsche, Emerson, Santayana, and Feeling Sympathy with Nature,' Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 45: 2, 2025, pp. 305-325.

'Taking Flight from Oneself. Nietzsche on the Poets, Baudelaire, and the Little Parisian Decadents,' Vincent Le and Paris Lettau (eds.), 150 Years of Tragedy: Nietzsche, Art, Philosophy (Index Books, forthcoming).

'Nietzsche on the Task of the Poets in his Middle Writings,' in James I. Porter, Nietzsche and Literary Studies (Cambridge University Press 2023), pp. 91-121.

'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) pp. 41-62.

'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 (Éditions et presses de l’université de Reims 2021), pp. 71-93.

'Friedrich Nietzsche: Cheerful Thinker and Writer. A Contribution to the Debate on Nietzsche’s Cheerfulness' (with Lorenzo Serini), Nietzsche-Studien, 2022, pp. 1-33.

'Nietzsche on the Passions and Self-Cultivation,' Continental Philosophy Review (55), 2022, pp. 245-65.

'Nietzsche on the Knowledge of the Sufferer,'The Agonist 2020.

'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), pp. 73-90.

'Nietzsche on the Incorporation of Truth,' A Companion to Nietzsche (Blackwell, 2006), pp. 230-250.

'Une nouvelle approche du Surhumain,' Noesis, 10, 2006, pp. 141-65.

'Incorporation and Individuation: Nietzsche’s Use of Phenomenology for Life,' Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 38: 1, 2007, pp. 61-90.

'On the Sublime in Dawn,' The Agonist 2009.

'Sloterdijk and Nietzsche on Posthuman and Transhuman Futures,' Society and Space 2009, pp. 139-156.

'Nietzsches Materialismus und Nietzsches Idealismus,' in Marc Jongen, Koenraad Hemelsoet, & Sjoerd van Tuinen (eds.), Die Vermessung des Ungeheuren. Philosophie nach Peter Sloterdijk (Wilhelm Fink, 2009), pp. 467-84.

'Free Thinkers and Free Spirits: Nietzsche and Guyau on the Future of Morality,' in J. Metzger (ed.), Nietzsche, Nihilism and the Philosophy of the Future (Continuum 2009), pp. 102-24.

'Nietzsche on the Sublime and the Sublimities of Philosophy,' Nietzsche-Studien 2010, pp. 201-232.

'For Mortal Souls. Philosophy and Therapeia in Nietzsche's Dawn,' Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 2010, pp. 137-165.

'In Search of Authenticity and Personality: Nietzsche on the Purifications of Philosophy,' American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2010, 84: 2, pp. 283-313.

'Beyond Compassion. On Nietzsche's Moral Therapy in Dawn,' Continental Philosophy Review, 44: 2, 2011, pp. 179-204. 

'Nietzsche and Existentialism: Recent Developments in Scholarship,' in Jack Reynolds et. al (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Existentialism (Bloomsbury 2011), pp. 290-300.

'The Philosophy of the Morning: Philosophy & Phenomenology in Nietzsche's Dawn,' in Christine Daigle and Elodie Boublil (eds.), Nietzsche and Phenomenology (Indiana University Press 2012), pp. 217-236.

'Holding onto the Sublime. On Nietzsche's Unfashionable Observations,' The Oxford Handbook to Nietzsche (Oxford University Press 2013), pp. 226-252.

'Attachment to Life, Understanding Death: Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence,' Parrhesia 2013, pp. 22-35.

'True to the Earth: Nietzsche’s Epicurean Care of Self and World,' in Horst Hutter (ed.), Nietzsche’s Philosophical Therapy (Continuum 2013), pp. 97-116.

'Heroic-Idyllic Philosophizing. Nietzsche and the Epicurean Tradition,' Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 2014 (Cambridge University Press), pp. 237-265.

'Care of Self in Dawn: Nietzsche's Resistance to Bio-political Modernity,' in Manuel Knoll & Barry Stocker (eds.), Nietzsche as Political Philosopher (de Gruyter 2014), pp. 269-284.

'Questions of the Subject in Nietzsche and Foucault,' in Joao Constancio (ed.), Nietzsche and the Subject (de Gruyter 2015), pp. 411-435.

‘The Need for Small Doses. Nietzsche, Fanaticism, and Epicureanism,’ in C. Denat & P. Wotling (eds.), Aurore, tournant dans l’oeuvre de Nietzsche? (Éditions et presses universitiares de Reims 2015), pp. 193-227.

‘Heroic-Idyllic: Nietzsche on Philosophy and the Philosopher in Human, all too Human,' in C. Denat & P. Wotling (eds.), Humain, trop humain et les débats de la réforme de la philosophie. (Éditions et presses universitiares de Reims 2017), pp. 219-243.

'Contra Kant: Experimental Ethics in Nietzsche and Guyau', with Michael Ure, in Joao Constancio & Tom Bailey (eds.), Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), pp. 257-289.

‘When Wisdom Assumes Bodily Form (Marx and Nietzsche on Epicurus),’ in Manuel Dries (ed.), Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind (de Gruyter 2018), pp. 309-327.

'Nietzsche on Enlightenment and Fanaticism,' in Paul Katsafanas (ed.), The Nietzschean Mind (Routledge 2018), pp. 11-25.

Schopenhauer

'Schopenhauer on Stoicism as a Way of Life and on the Wisdom of Life,' in David Woods & Timothy Stoll (eds.), The Schopenhaurian Mind (Routledge 2023), pp. 376-390.

Henri Bergson

'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), pp. 133-146.

'Bergson's Reformation of Philosophy in Creative Evolution,' Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, XXIX: 2, 2016, pp. 84-105.

'Bergson on Education and the Art of Life,' in A. J. Bartlett & Justin Clemens (eds.), What is Education? (Edinburgh University Press 2016).

'Morality and the Philosophy of Life in Guyau and Bergson,' Continental Philosophy Review 2014, pp. 59-85.

'Bergson on Memory,' in Susannah Radstone & Bill Schwarz (eds), Memory. Histories, Theories, Debates (Fordham University Press 2010), pp. 61-77.

'Bergson,' in D. Moyar (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy, (Routledge 2010), pp. 403-431.

'Bergson's Encounter with Biology,' Angelaki, 10: 2, 2005, pp. 59-72.

Gilles Deleuze

'Deleuze on Memory,' in Susannah Radstone & Bill Schwarz (eds), Memory. Histories, Theories, Debates (Fordham University Press 2010), pp. 161-179.

'Beyond the Human Condition: An Introduction to Deleuze's lecture course,' SubStance 2007, pp. 57-71.

‘Beyond the Human Condition: Bergson and Deleuze,’ in Jon Roffe (ed.), Deleuze and the Non/Human (Palgrave Macmillan 2015), pp. 81-102.

'Affirmative Naturalism. Deleuze and Epicureanism,' Cosmos and History, 10: 2, 2014, pp. 121-137.

'Deleuze and New Materialism: Naturalism, Norms, and Ethics,' in Sarah Ellenzweig & John H. Zammito (eds.), The New Politics of Materialism (Routledge 2017), pp. 125-149.

‘El Tiempo, el Espacio, el Movimiento Forzado y la pulsion de muerte. Leer a Proust con Deleuze’, Revista Laguna, 15, 2004, pp. 57-89.

Jean-Marie Guyau

'Jean-Marie Guyau on Epicurus and the Art of Living' (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 (Oxford University Press 2024), pp. 138-150.

'Morality and the Philosophy of Life in Guyau and Bergson,' Continental Philosophy Review, 47: 1, 2014, pp. 59-85.

‘Contra Kant and Beyond Nietzsche: Naturalizing Ethics in the work of Jean-Marie Guyau’, Hegel Bulletin, 35/2, 2014, pp. 1-19.

'Beyond Obligation? Jean-Marie Guyau on Life and Ethics,' Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 2015, pp. 207-225.