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REGINSTER, Bernard. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006. xii + 336 pp. Cloth, $35.00-The Affirmation of Life is a well written and thoughtful book which aims at bringing out the affirmative and systematic facet of Nietzsche's philosophy that runs against the disorderliness of his writings and the frequent nihilistic interpretations of his views. Reginster finds a "coherent and compelling philosophical project" in the philosopher's writings and aims at supplying a "fruitful framework for the interpretation of the often peculiar views Nietzsche develops" (p. 7). The systematic character of his philosophy "is determined not by a central philosophical doctrine, but by the requirements of his response to a particular crisis in late modern European culture, namely, the crisis of nihilism" (p. 4). According to Reginster, nihilism is "the central problem in Nietzsche's philosophy" (p. 21), and Nietzsche's philosophical project "consists in determining whether there is a way to overcome nihilism" (p. 8).
The above concept is the focus of Chapter 1 of the book. Nihilism results from the acknowledgment that certain value commitments cannot be realized. Reginster maintains that Nietzsche does not view nihilism as a direct or necessary consequence of his concept of the "death of God," but as a consequence of the "life-negating values" advocated under the name of God. The Nietzschean devaluation of values appears, thus, to be a metaethical enterprise which aims at questioning these lifenegating values and at examining the possibility of ones that affirm life.
According to the author, Nietzsche's "analyses of the concept of nihilism support an interpretation of it in terms of despair" (p. 28). This concept exhibits an active attitude against the nonrealization of values rather than the passive acknowledgment of their delegitimation. The latter would indeed create disorientation and pessimism, and this is something which Nietzsche must first overcome if he is to find a way to defeat nihilism. Chapter 2 is thus devoted to the...