Reading Of Nietzsche Research Articles

Blood on the Leaves / Blood on the Roots

This paper sets out to investigate the Nietzschean connection between Sylvia Wynter and Reiner Schürmann through a reading of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche’s account of ‘bad conscience’ is read through the Wynterian and Fanonian concept of ‘sociogeny’ to demonstrate its necessity to Nietzsche’s project of the Great Redeemer. This paper, then, demonstrates a previously undiagnosed influence of Nietzsche on Wynter and the role that anarchy plays in her construction of the ‘human being as praxis’. The essay concludes with an amelioration of Schürmann’s epochal genealogy to account for a racialized lacunae present in his Western genealogy of thought. It is by bringing all three together that we understand anarchy as being firmly committed to anti-racist and anti-anti-Black enactments. It concludes by highlighting the possibility of metaphysics after the withering of epochal archē in what this paper calls ‘the multitude of metaphysics’.

The Importance of Being Honest: Free Spirits and Idiosyncrasy in Nietzsche

The main argument of this paper is that the debate on whether Nietzsche is communitarian or individualist is wrongheaded, failing to distinguish the conception of community and individual Nietzsche critiques, the 'mob' and the 'Higher Man', from the conceptions Nietzsche envisions and hopes for, his 'free spirits' and – what I call, based on the critique of indivisible subjects in the Genealogy of Morality – the idiosyncrasy. I propose a reading of Nietzsche which elaborates his novel conception of a non-ascetic will to truth, based in courageous honesty and self-overcoming, rather than self-preservation, in order to conceive these individuals and communities. The coupling of Dionysus and Apollo has to be replaced with Dionysus and Ariadne because, using key terms from Deleuze's Nietzsche, the sense and value of critique is generated from a labyrinthine, Dionysian meaning as will to power and Ariadne's thread as evaluation based on the eternal recurrence, constituting the idiosyncrasy and the free spirits, respectively.

Experience in common: Bataille’s Nietzsche and Shestov’s

ABSTRACT Georges Bataille made no secret of the importance Friedrich Nietzsche’s life and work held for him. But Bataille’s encounter with Nietzsche remained paradoxical: he rejected or ignored most of Nietzsche’s major concepts while nevertheless insisting on the value of Nietzsche’s thought and experience as a necessary counterpoint to the political, religious, and social currents of modernity. This paper demonstrates the extent to which Bataille owes the content and to some degree also the form of his idiosyncratic reading of Nietzsche to the influence and example of the Russian emigré philosopher Lev Shestov (1866–1938). In 1925, Georges Bataille published a translation of Shestov’s The Idea of the Good in Tolstoy and Nietzsche: Philosophy and Preaching, co-signed with Shestov’s daughter Tatiana Beresovski-Chestov. The translation was the product of a period during which Bataille also spent time with the older man and benefited from his tutelage. It was Shestov’s interpretation of the meaning of the death of God in Nietzsche’s life and thought that would have the most decisive influence on Bataille’s own life and work and make him, in his turn, a philosopher of tragedy.

Nietzsche’s Genealogical Perfectionism

ABSTRACT I argue that Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality can be productively read as perfectionist in Emerson’s sense. After reconstructing the debate on Nietzsche’s perfectionism, I problematize the literature’s almost exclusive focus on Schopenhauer as Educator at the expense of the Genealogy, which has caused scholars to construe Nietzsche’s perfectionism in merely individualistic terms. By contrast, I show that the Genealogy can be interpreted as a perfectionist endeavor, at the heart of which lies the first-person plural: the “we.” I thereby emphasize the relevance of “we-making” for a novel reading of Nietzsche’s perfectionism—what I call his genealogical perfectionism. I conclude that the analysis of the genealogical dimension of Nietzsche’s perfectionism provides us with much-needed resources to construe it in nonindividualistic terms.

On anger, or what Heidegger’s philosophy of affectivity offers

The article presented here thematizes Heidegger’s view of affectivity, experience and passions in the context of his reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Following the basic plan of Heidegger’s analysis of moods (especially fear and anxiety) in Being and Time, the author attempts to show us what Heidegger’s phenomenology of affectivity would have enabled us to see in the phenomenon of anger if Heidegger had elaborated it. The author analyzes anger as a social and moral emotion through the prism of what “angry” phenomena have in common; what we perceive when we are angry; and what it is for us that anger is even about. In conclusion, anger is presented as something existential that not only uncovers existence itself, but above all the relationship of our will to phenomena that are not acceptable to us.

Heidegger and Foucault on modern technology: does Gestell ‘correspond perfectly’ to dispositif?

ABSTRACT This article compares Heidegger and Foucault on modern technology, taking its clue from Agamben’s claim that Gestell and dispositif are ‘perfectly corresponding’ concepts. So far, however, the task of a detailed comparison of Gestell and dispositif remains unresolved. At first glance, the two terms appear compatible, designating how we moderns began objectifying nature as well as ourselves as manipulatable raw material. Significant for the discussion is Heidegger’s and Foucault’s contrasting readings of Nietzsche, i.e. as the ‘last metaphysician’ versus ‘the first genealogist’. Schematically, for Heidegger, modern technology figures as humanity’s nearly inescapable condition, whereas Foucault sees it is ‘functionally indeterminant’, evolving in multiple, intersecting, and unexpected ways.

Empedokles in Nietzsches Dramenentwürfen

Abstract Empedocles in the Face of Mythological Deities. A Reading of Nietzsche’s Dramatic Drafts. This article examines Nietzsche’s interest in Empedocles. Less prominent in Nietzsche’s thought than other pre-Socratic philosophers, Empedocles is difficult to classify. He is characterized by his tensions and ambivalence. By examining Nietzsche’s various drafts for a drama about the death of the philosopher from Agrigento, I will show how philological studies combine with Nietzsche’s philosophical thinking to question Empedocles’ ambivalence toward mythological divinities. Art of staging, excessive desire for knowledge, expression of disgust with existence, recognition of the true measure of the living: the death of Empedocles is as ambiguous for Nietzsche as his conception of nature, torn between wonder, demystification and poetic fervor.

The autobiographical constitution

ABSTRACT The idea that the modern constitution can be understood as the autobiography of a people is becoming a frequently invoked metaphor. Autobiography is commonly understood as a narrative of an individual of their own lives, including their origins, the challenges they experienced, significant events that influenced their identity, as well as their values and dreams. A constitution, somewhat similarly, often in its preamble, refers to the history and challenges of a nation, as well as its values and aspirations. This essay looks at what the implications would be of such a reading of the modern constitution, specifically when taking account of Derrida’s analysis of autobiography, inter alia through his reading of Nietzsche. What would, in other words, be the consequences for the modern constitution if one takes seriously Nietzsche’s notions of the eternal return and the will to power, as well as his challenge to the traditional opposition between life and death, and to the notion of self-identity? The essay concludes that those who authoritatively interpret the modern constitution must have an ear for life and death, that is, interpretation should be understood as not only involving a return of the economy of the same, but also of the excess of the an-economic, the wholly other, death. This opening poses both a threat to the (law of the) self and a chance for justice.

The Meaning of the Earth: Reading Nietzsche in the Anthropocene

Abstract In this article, the author argues against a dominant trend in the literature on Nietzsche and the environment that is mostly concerned with assessing Nietzsche’s relevance to environmental ethics. The author departs from this trend by showing that Nietzsche can hardly provide the kind of intrinsic value theory typically needed to ground an environmental ethic. The author then suggests that an environmentalist reading of Nietzsche has much to gain from closer attention to his concept of “earth” and briefly outlines the evolution of this concept throughout the Nietzschean corpus. The author concludes by coming back to Zarathustra’s mysterious claim that “the overhuman shall be the meaning of the earth” and clarifying how, though it should not be thought of as a new foundation for an environmental ethic, it might still be significant in the context of the Anthropocene.

Gnosticism, political theory and apocalypse: Jacob Taubes and Günther Anders, Tracy Strong and Carl Schmitt

Beginning with Jacob Taubes and Günther Anders on eschatology, apocalypse and political theology, including Saint Paul and Frankfurt School critical theory along with bombs and power plants (energy/climate), this essay parallels a re-reading of Tracy B. Strong’s political reading of Nietzsche on Jesus (and love) with Taubes, Anders and Carl Schmitt on politics (and technology). Highlighted throughout is the politically charged (and inherently esoteric) context of Gnosticism for philosophy and theory for Taubes but also for Anders.

Hegel and Nietzsche on Self-Judgment, Self-Mastery, and the Right to One’s Life

Abstract Nietzsche’s views regarding suicide are usually interpreted as a response to Christian, Kantian, and Schopenhauerian ethics. Here, they are defended on the basis of his notion of life as an aesthetic phenomenon in order to provide extramoral responses to such challenges as the following: a) whether the self can deliver the right kind of judgment regarding her life, b) how suicide can be considered an empowerment of the will, and c) whether suicide can be considered an exercise of freedom by the subject who thereby cancels the very grounds and means for will and action. Reconstructed as a response to Hegel’s argument against suicide on the grounds that one is not the master of oneself and that one therefore lacks the proper means to judge one’s life, Nietzsche’s position provides the epistemic footing to ground an alternate notion of self-mastery as well as the necessary insight regarding one’s life. It is shown that this reading of Nietzsche’s argument is in alignment with his non-dualism and expressivist views regarding agency. Finally, a response is formulated to the socially-grounded arguments prohibiting suicide on the basis of this reading of Nietzsche’s position.

“A Great Soul Reincarnated among Gentiles:” The Attitude of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook and Rav Tsvi Yehudah Hakohen Kook to Nietzsche

Abstract This essay describes the attitude of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865–1935) as well as that of his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Hakohen Kook (1891–1982), to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) and his philosophy. It shows that the father read Nietzsche differently from the son. The father criticizes Nietzsche profusely, while the son often mentions him appreciatively and even said that he was a great soul that reincarnated among the gentiles. The essays suggests that their dissimilar approaches resulted from the different intellectual challenges each faced due to the different cultural periods in which they lived.

A Tale of Two Returns

Just how eternal is the Eternal Return? This article examines how Foucault's readings of Nietzsche and of Deleuze critically revise the Return so as to arrive at a concept of contingency that is itself contingent. I argue that this archaeological/genealogical rereading problematises the Return as presented in Difference and Repetition; when the Return is presented as ‘the form of change [that] does not change’, it risks returning eternally to the Same – for all its avowed affirmation of difference. By returning the Return to its own historically contingent epistemic conditions of possibility, Foucault repeats Deleuze's philosophy with maximum difference.

How to Recover the World? Agency as Experimentation in Nietzsche and Deleuze

In Out of This World, Peter Hallward argues that Deleuze's philosophy is, in spite of its proclaimed Nietzscheanism, intrinsically nihilistic. This article defends Deleuze against this accusation by reassessing his relationship to Nietzsche. I argue that both thinkers pose a similar problem, that of agency, and that the modus operandi of both for solving it relies on viewing agency as experimentation. The paper highlights the strong pragmatic dimension at play in Deleuze's philosophy: Deleuze aims to penetrate increasingly deeply into this very world and to provide us with tools for intensifying our sensitivity to and engagement with it. To bring this into view, I offer a parallel reading of Nietzsche's and Deleuze's account of the production of our empirical experience, their critical stance towards such experience, and their means of overcoming it by engaging fully with problematic aspects of reality.

Nietzsche Contra Manu: Ambedkar’s Nietzsche Moment and the Politics of Dalit Rage

AbstractEchoing bell hooks’s discussions on “black rage,” this article explores the politics of “Dalit rage” by juxtaposing some instances of projections of Dalits as an “angry,” “illiberal,” and “intolerant” constituency with examples of anger from Dalit literature. While these projections in “mainstream” media and caste Hindu–dominated civil society narratives often represent them as engulfed in the emotive states marked by anger, intolerance, and impatience, the instances from Dalit literature archive a “Dalit rage” that demands to be dissociated from the Nietzschean category of ressentiment. Through B. R. Ambedkar’s readings of Nietzsche in Philosophy of Hinduism and Nietzsche’s readings of Manu’s Manavadharmashastra in Twilight of the Idols, this article draws a fine line of differentiation between Nietzsche’s contempt for ressentiment and Manu’s disdain for anger. “Dalit rage” occupies a distinctly different thymotic space and articulates a Dalit predicament that exploits rage as a marker of protest, resistance, and caste-ridden social conflicts. This article shows why we cannot bracket Nietzsche’s contempt for ressentiment with Manu’s demands of the sudras (and, in extension, other “lower castes”/Dalits) to be “meek” by exploring Manu’s perpetuation and legitimization of the varna order through a “morality of breeding” and Nietzsche’s more wholesale rejection of morality as he deems it a pia fraus (moral fraud). Thus this “Dalit rage” offers us a repository of the limits of a liberal democracy and enables an Ambedkarite reading of Nietzsche whose project of constructing ubermensch is markedly different from Manu’s “morality of taming” through a “morality of breeding.”

Nietzsche, Ontology, and Foucault’s Critical Project: To Perish from Absolute Knowledge

The phrase ‘To perish from absolute knowledge’ from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil runs like a red thread throughout Foucault’s reading of Nietzsche, spanning a period of 20 years in which Foucault continuously turned to Nietzsche as his main philosophical and methodological role model. Beginning with his first lectures on Nietzsche in the early 1950s, Foucault repeatedly alluded to this phrase as the key to Nietzsche’s philosophical critique which anticipated the philosophical shift to ontology in the 20th century. Drawing on a host of unpublished essays from Foucault’s archive, it will be shown that this phrase holds the key to Foucault’s Nietzsche interpretation and explains his reliance on historicity as the transcendental basis for his critical project. The article will rely on Foucault’s dynamic analysis of this phrase to narrate the development of his historical methodology between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, and will argue for the continuity and coherence of Foucault’s critical project.

Vrednosti helenske kulture kao temelj Ničeove filozofije

The paper is examining Nietzsche's attempt to fuse his studies of antiquity with his critique of modernity. For Nietzsche, modernity is in a state of crisis. If we look at the intellectual relationship early Nietzsche develops with the Greek philosophers, it can be discovered the guiding problems motivating a good deal of Nietzsche's later work, but also and problem-solving strategies that marks the development of his whole philosophical journey. The aim of the work is to prove that the foundation of Nietzsche's philosophy is found in the value system of the ancient Greeks, while the central problem is culture, which he interprets through the prism of Greek cultural values that reconcile thinking, desire and the will to live with the will to power. Nietzsche claims that the Greeks have offered humanity exemplary models of cultural and individual developments. 'Heterogeneous' prePlatonic philosopher is essential to the homogeneity of Greek culture. Nietzsche's classicism amounts is criticism of his own times, but in the time is the base of his whole philosophical opuses. Nietzsche insists, modern Europe could not simply 'imitate the Greeks'. As individuals, the Greeks were psychologically healthier than the moderns were; they were emotionally stronger, in Nietzsche's view, more self-assured, less alienated from their own natures and from nature as such. They enjoyed these advantages because the common culture uniting the Greek world was stronger and more clearly defined, and this strength helped the Greeks find reliable answers to questions concerning the purpose of their being in the world. They knew, instinctually, why they existed, and in their various philosophies and tragic festivals, each of them affirmed to himself the meaning of his own particular existence, and by confirming the basic assumptions and worth of the culture's institutions, each of them affirmed the meaning of existence as such. The most significant problems and concepts arising in Nietzsche's philosophy developed through his engagement with Greek culture and thought and that for these reason studies of Nietzsche failing to take into account these problems and concepts from their origins run the risk of misconceiving Nietzsche's ideas by a considerable margin. Nietzsche does not reject not the tradition or modernity's inheritance of it. In Nietzsche's reading, Greek culture, like all flourishing types, understood the need for meaning, purpose, direction and goals, and responded to this need by 'toppling boundary stones', but also by constructing 'new religions and moralities'. Both responses are the function of such artistic, philosophical visions affected as they were in the age of Greek tragedy. Will to power serves him as a tool for understanding the conventional paths of modern scepticism and pessimism. Nietzsche's notion of self-overcoming contains the meaning of maturity and spiritual growth, based on ancient will to life. The key to the meaning of the will to power is Nietzsche's notion of self-overcoming after achieving maturity and power. The optimal will to power is realized in the ideal Übermensch based on ancient hero.

Nietzsche's Concept of Health

Nietzsche assesses values, moralities, religions, cultures, and persons in terms of health. He argues that we should reject those that are unhealthy and develop healthier alternatives. But what is Nietzsche’s conception of health, and why should it carry such normative force? In this paper I argue for reading Nietzsche’s concept of health as the overall ability to meet the demands of one’s motivational landscape. I show that, unlike other interpretations, this reading accounts for his rejection of particular features of a prevailing, then as now, model of health; for his association of health with strength and with psychic unity; and for his claim that health is compatible with, and can even be enhanced by, functional impairments such as those from which he personally suffered. Throughout I draw connections to recent literature on health and disability.

Heraclitus in Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Origins of the Discussion (1890s – 1930s)

The paper examines the early discussion on the role of Heraclitus in Nietzsche’s philosophy, including some relatively little-known contributions by R. Oehler, E. Bertram and A. Baeumler, as well as more wide­ly mentioned interpretations of K. Jaspers, M. Heidegger and K. Löwith. I show that in the 1890s–1930s the significant influence of Heraclitus on Nietzsche’s thought was considered indisputable. However, inter­pretations of the period can be divided into the ‘authentic’ ones (e.g., Oehler, Löwith), each of which view Nietzsche’s use of Heraclitus thought as significant for Nietzsche’s own philosophy, and ‘idiosyncratic’ ones (e.g. Heidegger, Jaspers), which, by interpreting Nietzsche from their own idiosyncratic perspectives, nat­urally put less philosophical weight on reading Nietzsche from the standpoint of Heraclitus. This review leads to the conclusion that a study of Nietzsche’s Heraclitus can contribute to two contemporary debates in Nietzsche studies: the discussion on Nietzsche’s ontological position and to the discussion around the so-called continuity thesis.

Nietzsche’s Protestant Fathers: A Study in Prodigal Christianity

Nietzsche’s Protestant Fathers: A Study in Prodigal Christianity