Individuality and Beyond

Though few might think to connect the two figures Ralph Waldo Emerson was an important influence on Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically Emerson played a fundamental role in shaping Nietzsche's philosophical ideas on individualism perfectionism and the pursuit of virtue as well as his<br>critiques of social conditioning religious dogmatism and anti-natural morality. With <em>Individuality and Beyond</em> Benedetta Zavatta offers the first philosophical interpretation of Emerson's influence on Nietzsche based on a sound philological analysis of previously unpublished materials from<br>Nietzsche's private library. Nietzsche's collection reveals numerous copies of Emerson's essays covered with annotations and marginalia as Nietzsche revisited these works throughout his life. <p/>Through close-reading Zavatta casts a new light on the ways in which Emerson's work informed Nietzsche's defining ideas of self-creation the relation between fate and free will overcoming morality of customs and achieving moral autonomy and the transvaluation of such values as compassion and<br>altruism. Zavatta organizes these concepts into two main lines of thought: the first concerns the development of the individual personality or the achievement of intellectual and moral autonomy and original self-expression. The second on the contrary concerns the overcoming of individuality and<br>the need to transcend a limited view of the world by continually questioning one's own values and engaging with opposing perspectives. <p/>Ultimately Zavatta clarifies the surprising contributions that Emerson made to 20th century European philosophy. She provides a fresh portrait of Emerson as an American thinker long stereotyped as a naïve idealist disinterested in the social issues of his day. Seen through the eyes of Nietzsche <br>his acute interpreter Emerson becomes an incisive cultural critic whose contributions underpin contemporary philosophy.<br>