Why We Are Not Nietzscheans

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Edited by Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut

University of Chicago Press

Due/Published April 1997, 256 pages, paper

ISBN 0226244814

Has the turn against Nietzsche gained momemtum? Is this the next bandwagon? With essays by Alain Boyer, AndrŽ Compte-Sponville, Vincent Descombes, Luc Ferry, Robert Legros, Phillipe Raynaud, Alain Renaut, and Pierre-AndrŽ Taguieff, this book seeks to soften what the editors call the destructive effects of Nietzsche's "philosophy with a hammer" on French philosophy since the 1960s. Chicago says the contributors seek to renew the Enlightenment quest for rationality. (Really?) Each essay argues that the "French" Nietzsche must be reexamined in light of the original context (oh yes) in which Nietzsche worked, and questions the viability of Nietzsche's thought in the modern world.