Shaping the Future

Shaping the Future maps out the ascetic practices of a Neitzschean way of life. Hutter argues that Nietzsche's doctrines are attempts and 'temptations' that aim to provoke his free-spirited readers into changing themselves by putting philosophy into practice in their lives.

Shaping the Future maps out the ascetic practices of a Neitzschean way of life. Hutter structures his argument around the belief that Nietzsche, despite his ostensive enmity to Platonism and Socratism, understood himself to be a Socratic and someone called upon by fate to renew the Platonic task of being a philosophical legislator of modern souls, culture, and political society. Hutter also considers the paths of reasoning opened up by Pierre Hadot in his studies of ancient philosophers as teachers of life and not just as providers of 'true' opinions and doctrines about the world.Shaping the Future applies the reasonings of Hadot to the work of Nietzsche, arguing that Nietzsche himself, throughout his philosophical career, conceived of doctrines as never identical to philosophy itself, but instead as a means of self-creation that had to be related to working on oneself. Hutter makes a great contribution to the study of Nietzsche and the growing movement that sees philosophy as a practical activity and way of life.

Chapter 1 Key to References
Chapter 2 Preface
Chapter 3 Introduction: A Summary of Arguments
Chapter 4 Philosophy as Therapy and the Therapy of Philosophy
Chapter 5 Einsamkeitmehre - The Practices of Solitude
Chapter 6 The Dialectics of Solitude and Friendship
Chapter 7 Writing the Future, Reading the Self
Chapter 8 Nutrition and the Casuistry of Selfishness
Chapter 9 Dance and the Return of Dionysus
Chapter 10 Epilogues: Actio in Distans
Chapter 11 Selected Bibliography
Chapter 12 Index
Chapter 13 About the Author