This book offers a lively and unorthodox analysis of Nietzsche by examining a neglected aspect of his scholarly personality--his sense of humor. While often thought of as ponderous and melancholy, the Nietzsche of Higgins's study is a surprisingly subtle and light-hearted writer. She presents a close reading of The Gay Science to show how the numerous literary risks that Nietzsche takes reveal humor to be central to his project. Higgins argues that his use of humor is intended to dislodge readers from their usual, somber detachment and to incite imaginative thinking.

In this extensively revised and updated edition, 168 alphabetically arranged articles provide comprehensive treatment of the main topics and writers in this area of aesthetics.

• Written by prominent scholars covering a wide-range of key topics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art
• Features revised and expanded entries from the first edition, as well as new chapters on recent developments in aesthetics and a larger number of essays on non-Western thought about art
• Unique to this edition are six overview essays on the history of aesthetics in the West from...

Kathleen Higgins argues that the arguments that Plato used to defend the ethical value of music are still applicable today. Music encourages ethically valuable attitudes and behavior, provides practice in skills that are valuable in ethical life, and symbolizes ethical ideals.

Nietzsche's Zarathustra is a guide through the convoluted territory of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It shows the philosophical significance of the fictional format as a means to simultaneously propose alternatives to traditional dogmas within the Western tradition and reveal the danger of mistaking doctrinal formulations for living philosophical insight.

From our first social bonding as infants to the funeral rites that mark our passing, music plays an important role in our lives, bringing us closer to one another. In"The Music between Us," philosopher Kathleen Marie Higgins investigates this role, examining the features of human perception that enable music s uncanny ability to provoke, despite its myriad forms across continents and throughout centuries, the sense of a shared human experience. Drawing on disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, musicology, linguistics, and anthropology, Higgins s richly researched study showcases the ways...

From our first social bonding as infants to the funeral rites that mark our passing, music plays an important role in our lives, bringing us closer to one another. In"The Music between Us," philosopher Kathleen Marie Higgins investigates this role, examining the features of human perception that enable music s uncanny ability to provoke, despite its myriad forms across continents and throughout centuries, the sense of a shared human experience. Drawing on disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, musicology, linguistics, and anthropology, Higgins s richly researched study showcases the ways...

This volume brings together philosophical essays on emotions by eleven leading thinkers in the field. The essays cover a variety of topics that relate emotions to humor, opera, theater, justice, war, death, our intellectual life, authenticity, personal identity, self-knowledge, and science. Several break new ground in the field. Others extend and deepen work for which their authors are well-known. All but two of the essays are new. Contributors include Noel Carroll, Martha Nussbaum, Paul Woodruff, Laurence Thomas, Kathleen Higgins, Michael Stocker, Nancy Sherman, Jerome Neu, Charles Nussbaum,...