Nietzsche and Buddhism: A Study in Nihilism and Ironic Affinities

by Robert G. Morrison

Overview

Morrison offers an illuminating study of two linked traditions that have figured prominently in twentieth-century thought: Buddhism and the philosophy of Nietzsche. Nietzsche admired Buddhism, but saw it as a dangerously nihilistic religion; he forged his own affirmative philosophy in reaction against the nihilism that he feared would overwhelm Europe. Morrison shows that Nietzsche's influential view of Buddhism was mistaken, and that far from being nihilistic, it has notable and perhaps surprising affinities with Nietzsche's own project of the transvaluation of all values.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198235569
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/10/1997
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

University College, Chester

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	ix
Part I.	Nietzsche's Buddhism	1
1.	Introduction	3
2.	Nietzsche on Buddhism	7
3.	Is Buddhism a Form of 'Passive Nihilism'?	30
4.	How Did Nietzsche Reach his Understanding of Buddhism?	52
Part II.	Ironic Affinities	61
5.	Introduction	63
6.	Nietzsche's View of Man	64
7.	The Buddha as a 'Profound Physiologist'	96
8.	Nietzsche's 'Little Things', the 'Body' and the Buddhist Khandhas	103
9.	'God's Shadow' and the Buddhist 'No-Self' Doctrine	114
10.	'The Will to Power' and 'Thirst'	132
11.	'Self-Overcoming' and 'Mind-Development'	155
12.	'Learning to See' and 'Seeing and Knowing Things as they Really Are'	197
13.	Epilogue	223
	Bibliography	227
	Glossary	243
	Index	249

Editorial Reviews

"This is an important book; a comparative study which explores convincingly and in detail the remarkable similarities and areas of philosophic agreement between Nietzsche and Buddhism .... engagingly written."—International Journal for Philosophy of Religion

From the Publisher