Nietzsche’s Artistic Transfiguration of the Soul: Overcoming the Decadence of Modernity

Abstract

This thesis investigates Nietzsche’s conception of the soul. Nietzsche’s conception of the soul has not received due attention in the secondary literature, particularly in regards to transfiguration. The thesis, then, explicitly attempts to outline what constitutes Nietzsche’s idea of the soul; in particular how the noble soul is constituted and how it ought to overcome the decadence of modernity. For Nietzsche modernity was a declining, decadent, and life-denying way of life. Greatness of soul and great Mensch cannot come about when such values dominate the soul. Nietzsche’s philosophy sought to generate and induce greatness of the soul once again. The soul is the home of self-overcoming (a key Nietzschean concept), and also central to how his philosophy is understood. By vivisecting the soul, it can be seen how Nietzsche saw that decadence had taken hold of Mensch, and how, more importantly, he saw that Mensch could possibly overcome this decadence. Modernity possessed the strong tendency to determine the direction of the soul. In modernity Mensch fixes itself by believing morals have an eternal character and then deeply internalise this “truth” in its soul. However, for Nietzsche, drives, instincts, and affects are not determined in any way, but open to interpretation, reinterpretation, alteration, removal, or sublimation. The noble Mensch imposes on itself aesthetic and ascetic practices that guide it in overcoming, subduing, shedding, sublimating, and nurturing drives that will lead the way out of decadence. Aesthetic and ascetic practices involve organising the drives into a rank where slavish drives are dominated by noble drives and aims. The drives of the noble Mensch become ranked where the creative form-giving forces of the soul dominate, and the passive, reactive drives become subordinate or non-existent. Achieving this ideal requires Mensch to invert the current domination of the values acquainted with the bad conscience. According to Nietzsche, passivity, equality, and meekness have the good conscience on their side in modernity. Conversely, the creative, form-giving, and expansive drives are associated with the bad conscience, hence their rareness. The noble Mensch must invert this order of rank. By giving the form-giving drives dominion, a potential rupturing of the prevailing values occurs and a path toward an ideal noble future becomes a possibility.