Nietzsche's strengths as a critic are widely acknowledged but his peculiar style of critique
is usually ignored as rhetoric or dismissed as violent or simply incoherent. In this book
Nietzsche's concept of the agon or Wettkampf a measured and productive form of conflict
inspired by ancient Greek culture is advanced as the dynamic and organising principle of his
philosophical practice enabling us to make sense of his critical confrontations and the much
disputed concept of transvaluation or Umwertung. Agonal perspectives are cast on number of key
problems in his thought across a broad range of texts. Topics and problems treated include:
critical history and the need for a limit in the negation of the past Nietzsche contra
Socrates and the problem of closure Nietzsche contra humanism and the problem of humanity
Nietzsche contra Kant on genius and legislation the problem of self-legislation in relation to
life and temporality Nietzsche's sense of community in its articulation with law and the
normativity of taste ressentiment and the question of therapy in Nietzsche and Freud and the
problem of total affirmation in relation to critique. These studies have a broad appeal from
MA level to advanced Nietzsche research.
