Transvaluation Of Values Research Articles

La contingenza della norma: il monstrum.


 
 
 What does it really mean to contemplate the “anomalous”, the “malformed”, the “anatomical- monster”? Why and how is it so disturbing? And what is the proper norm and status of the monster? The monster is what shocks, the weird, the eerie. The monster is the uncanny, the “unhomely”, das Unheimliche, to borrow from Freud’s famous expression. It’s the irruption of the improper that threatens the stability of life, as it indicates how the commonness of life itself is a precarious yet contingent state. The monster upsets us because it shows us the contingency of the norm. Based upon this assumption, we shall also touch upon other concepts. These might be: the transvaluation of values, the Einverleibung, the Great Health and the theory of the hopeful monster. It is, in the end, a new form of the same: the individual subtracts itself, therefore, from the individuality of the species, but it does so as to affirm a different same that is absolutely contingent. To borrow again from Deleuze, we might say: a “prodigious”, unexpected turn of the becoming.
 
 

Laments, Remedies, Rights: Nietzsche’sGenealogy of Moralitythrough the Prism of Roman Law

AbstractThis article draws on the analysis of Roman law and on the Jewish tradition of lamentation to offer an original reinterpretation of Nietzsche’sOn the Genealogy of Morality. According to Nietzsche, an archetype of a successful revolt against injustice is to be attributed to the Jews—as the ones who were able to carry out “the most spiritual revenge” against the Roman “masters” by transvaluing their values. The analysis of ancient Roman law helps to illuminate Nietzsche’s enigmatic account of the “law of the masters” against which the transvaluation of values takes place. Certain structural elements of the language of lament are then envisioned as a resource for leaving the Roman legal order behind and, surprisingly, for bringing out the very meaning of the modern conception of “rights.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: America’s Prophet of Expressive Individualism

This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson is America’s prophet of expressive individualism—foreseeing, and calling into being, a new understanding of the individual. Far from being a defender of the intellectual status quo, Emerson was a moral revolutionary—and his Self-Reliance is not a restatement of the Protestant ethic before him, but a repudiation of it. Emerson sought to replace the older, more-constrained forms of individualism with a new, “expressive” form of individualism, premised on the innate goodness of the individual (rather than on an individual’s sinful nature). Whereas his forebears thought the human person was elevated through participation in institutions and through submission to social and moral rules, Emerson believed such attachments nothing more than chains upon human individuality. Moreover, Emerson’s thought had a distinctly Nietzschean side to it, and his moral philosophy entailed something like Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values. Nothing—not religion, society, or tradition—could dictate how one ought to live. One should, Emerson believed, live wholly from within and not according to pre-established social or religious paradigms. This essay concludes with a reflection on the paradoxical relationship between Emerson’s individualism and his pantheism and ponders whether expressive individualism can truly serve as the cornerstone of society.

A noção nietzschiana de transvaloração dos valores (uma análise a partir das seções § 7 e § 8 da primeira dissertação de Genealogia da moral)

Our article has two objectives. The first of them consists in trying to carry out a conceptual and terminological explanation about the two specific meanings that the expression "revaluation of values" presents in the Nietzschean corpus. Our second goal, which will take as its starting point the fulfillment of the first objective, constitutes an attempt to examine the historical admissibility of the "thesis of the revaluation of values" presented by Nietzsche in sections § 7 and § 8 of the first dissertation of Genealogy of Morals. For this purpose, we intend to determine, approximately, at what historical moment, in the eyes of Nietzsche, the transvaluation of values could have happened.

NIETZSCHE E A EDUCAÇÃO COMO AUTOSSUPERAÇÃO DO NIILISMO...

O presente trabalho visa refletir sobre os valores promovidos pela nossa educação a partir das concepções nietzschianas de Educação e Niilismo, promovendo um diálogo solidário com a obra “Os demônios” de Dostoievski. Em Nietzsche busco uma concepção de educação que responda a ideia de niilismo, para isto utilizo a obra de Dostoievski com o intuito de ilustrar o niilismo retratado por Nietzsche. A educação pode ser observada no corpus nietzschiano como interligada com a formação visando construir/alimentar uma cultura nobre, a partir da tresvaloração dos valores. Na obra de Dostoievski o maior exemplo de Niilismo é o “Chigaliovismo” que apregoa a igualdade acima de qualquer valor e singularidade. Partindo deste cenário, onde a igualdade se apresenta como um valor niilista proponho a reflexão: poderia a educação promover os valores superiores necessários à superação do niilismo?
 Palavras chave: Educação. Valores. Niilismo. Nietzsche e Dostoievski.

Outlines for a Phenomenology of Freedom

The article deals with the question of phenomenological ethics, comparing Husserl’s and Fink’s ways of understanding the phenomenological reduction and thereby the pedagogical tasks of phenomenology, whose existential meaning lies in the “doctrine of freedom” (“Lehre von der Freiheit”), which is in turn closely linked with the problem of the beginning of philosophizing, since the phenomenological reduction presupposes itself. A comparison between Fink’s and Patocka’s views of freedom as transcendence (expressed by the concepts of hermitry and sacrifice), as well as a phenomenological reading of Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values in relation to the educational theme of the Idealbildung, will let us see how Fink’s cosmological philosophy, having its hermeneutic keystone in the phenomenon of play, still has phenomenological features and pedagogical implications, being describable as a phenomenology of freedom, whose idea of freedom as “experiment” or as man’s “self-production” presents interesting analogies with Arendt’s view of action.

Nietzschego oblicza nihilizmu

This article presents the main issues relating to the Nietzschean interpretation of nihilism in its diverse and ambiguous manifestations. Furthermore, it attempts to show the relationship between the rejection of strictly metaphysical discourse and aestheticization of thinking, accomplished in the work of the German philosopher. With such a perspective the article attempts to defend the validity of the „transvaluation of values” thesis.

A Philosophical Reinterpretation of Philippine History in the Perspective of Friedrich Nietzsche

The study explained and interpreted Philippine history using the main themes of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy such as, Will to Power, the Uebermensch/superman, the Transvaluation of values, Master and Slave morality, Eternal recurrence, and tragedy. Further, this study employed qualitative interpretive analysis as method. Nietzsche’s philosophy emphasizes the role of the Will over reason as the most fundamental principle of human existence. The Will which he refers to as Will to Power is the impetus behind the struggle for power, conquest, war, revolt, revolution and freedom. Similarly, the will to power gives the Filipinos the hope and courage to go through pain, suffering and despair. The assertion of Will to Power has produced the great men and women behind events of Philippine history. These supermen are responsible for the creation or the introduction of new values system, of reform and even of revolution (trans-valuation of values). The event of Philippine history follows a pattern of recurrence, the recurrence of colonization, war, independence, pain, and corruption. The study also found out that Philippine history in general is a tragedy; it is a struggle against suffering and despair.

(Re)cognizing Postmodernity: Helps for Historians – of Science Especially

Postmodernity, a historical era demarcated from modernity by a broad reversal in cultural presuppositions, is distinguished from postmodernism, an intellectual posture adopted by self-identified postmodernists early in postmodernity. Two principal features of postmodernity are addressed: first, the downgrading of science and the upgrading of technology in cultural rank--on which postmodernity and postmodernism are in accord; second, the displacement of the methodical, disinterested scientist, modernity's beau ideal, not by a fragmented subject as postmodernism claims, but by the single-minded entrepreneur, resourcefully pursuing his self-interest in disregard of all rules. The reversal in rank and role as between science and technology, setting in circa 1980, is a marker of the transition from modernity to postmodernity. That reversal is to be cognized primarily as rejection of rule-following, of proceeding methodically--'methodism' being the cultural perspective that uniquely distinguished modernity--but also as rejection of disinterestedness, the quality of mind especially highly esteemed in modernity. Postmodernity is constituted by this transvaluation of values, whose well-spring is the egocentric, transgressive (hence 'risk taking'), postmodern personality and its anti-social presumptions regarding personhood. Within the history of science itself there has been since circa 1980 a corresponding turn of scholarly attention away from science to technology, and a growing distaste for social perspectives, reflected, i.a., in the rejection of causalist 'influence' explanations in favor of voluntarist 'resource' explanations.

Nietzsche’s Madman Parable

Focusing on Nietzsche's madman parable from The Gay Science, this essay shows how the language/imagery of aphorism 125 draws on a Cynical critique of morality that has far-reaching consequences for understanding Nietzsche's notions of nihilism, transvaluation of values, and amor fati. My claim is that the work of Diogenes of Sinope will shape both the rhetorical structure and the philosophical thematics of The Gay Science. As the Socrates gone mad, Diogenes/the madman brings his lantern to the marketplace to seek a God who has fled, the deus absconditus. Countering Christian-Platonic metaphysics with Diogenean satire, Nietzsche advocates the embrace of physis as the sphere of human creation and valuation. Against this Cynical background we can see how the madman parable's announcement of God's death has less to do with atheism or the argument about the existence of God than it does with the existential concerns of the human being.

The Machiavellian Challenge to Business Ethics

No political philosopher is better known in the business world than Niccolo Machiavelli, whose fame there rests entirely on his authoring of The Prince. Over the last two decades, no less than ten books have been published in the popular business press on the Renaissance Italian thinker, most of them attempting to show the relevance of his realpolitik world-view to the sorts of issues that a contemporary manager is apt to face. The popular view, though, of Machiavelli as a hard-headed thinker has been challenged by scholars pointing to his advocacy of republics in the Discourses on Livy, his other great work. Interpreted along these lines, Machiavelli can be invoked to support participatory structures in business along with the cultivation of publicly spirited virtues. We argue that the common perceptions of Machiavelli are on the right track. His analysis of republics uncovers weaknesses germane to business that render The Prince more suitable to commercial life. As such, Machiavelli's overriding point is that in a competitive arena, like that of modern-day business, individuals holding leadership positions, or aspiring to them, must be prepared to go beyond conventional morality and live by a different and, indeed, icy set of rules. Being good in business, Machiavelli warns, will only lead to personal ruin. Machiavelli goes further than this, calling for a trans-valuation of values, wherein the praiseworthy qualities of leaders are redefined so as to take into account the competitive realities of business. In this new ethic, virtue is connected to acquisitiveness, moral flexibility, image management, reaching its culmination in the entrepreneurial task of founding a great company.

"The will to power" and "The uber-mensch": A critique of Friedrich Nietzsche's Transvaluation of values

"The will to power" and "The uber-mensch": A critique of Friedrich Nietzsche's Transvaluation of values

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a Case Study in Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Values

There is a tradition of theory—virtually as old as written literature itself—that views the artist as a maker of new worlds.1 Reacting against philosophers like Plato, who sees literature as merely the imitation of an imitation, many theorists have ascribed to writers a dynamic and creative power to bring into being that which did not exist before. This article examines two such would-be creators: Friedrich Nietzsche and Chinua Achebe.

From philosophy to religion

Abstract When we examine the theory of the social order set forth by the successive documents of the canonical writings of Judaism, we find an account of the way of life, world view, and definition of the social entity. But by ‘way of life’ or ‘world view’ one system need not mean exactly the same category of data that another system adopts for itself, and, it goes without saying, we cannot claim functional equivalency, for obvious reasons as irrelevant as the judgment of relativism. A system selects its data to expose its systemic categories; defines its categories in accord with the systemic statement that it wishes to set forth; identifies the urgent question to which the systemic message compellingly responds. In the study of the three stages in the history of the formation of Judaism—philosophical, religious and, finally, theological—we find that the successor-system held up a mirror to the received categories and so redefined matters that everything was reversed, left becoming right, down becoming up, power turned into weakness, things of real value transformed into intangibles. What the successor-thinkers did was not continue and expand the categorical repertoire but set forth a categorically-fresh vision of the social order—a way of life, world view and definition of the social entity—within appropriate counterpart-categories. The formation of Judaism that took place through the transformation of Judaism from an account of the social order that was essentially philosophical to one that was fundamentally religious was accomplished by reversing the flow of language, specifically taking the predicate of a sentence and moving it to the position of the subject, that is, commencing not from subject but from predicate. This transvaluation of values, through not merely the re-formation but the utter transformation of categories, set forth an essentially fresh answer to a fundamentally new urgent question.

Some Concluding Remarks on the Progress and Setbacks of the Chinese Renaissance Movement

In the last few recordings, I have tried to tell a part of the story of my work in writing prefaces or introductions to new editions of these popular Chinese novels which were written in the living language, pai-hua, and which had been neglected and despised by Chinese men of letters for centuries. I told of my commitment to what I call the "transvaluation of values"; that is the elevation of what was despised for centuries to the position of legitimate subject matter for scholarly study and research and investigation with all the tools of classical scholarship, the application of all the methods of evidential investigation to this study of the popular novels.

The Good, the Beautiful, and the Useful: Montaigne's Transvaluation of Values

Historians of political thought have failed to appreciate the importance of Montaigne's Essays as a major work of modern political philosophy. The neglect of the Essays as a political book is traceable to a widespread belief that Montaigne's thought is too fluctuating and unsystematic to embody a coherent and profound political teaching.This study challenges the prevailing interpretation of Montaigne's thought by analyzing his critique of the classical understanding of supreme or “heroic” moral virtue, concentrating especially on the chapter entitled “Of Cruelty.” A careful reading of this chapter reveals that underlying the seeming disunity or inconsistency of its argument is a carefully worked out political intention. The essence of Montaigne's political project involves the replacement of a traditional morality based on “beauty” (i.e., one in which humanity aspires to share in the divine) by one embodying “utility” (one in which we understand our needs in the light of what we share with the beasts). The analysis of this “transvaluation of values” helps one to comprehend the foundations of the “bourgeois” morality that characterizes modern liberal regimes.

T'ien-hsia and Kuo, and the "Transvaluation of Values"

CONFUCIAN reformers found a great deal wrong with China in seventeenth century. The trouble was this, they felt: men had strayed from fixed ideals of Chinese civilization. In early twentieth century, antiConfucian reformers found a great deal wrong in China of their day; they traced disaster, however, not to flouting of fixed ideals but to blind and slavish respect for them, to fixity itself. A seventeenth-century world, a t'ien-hsia Ad:, in which traditional values claimed authority, had become a twentieth-century nation, a kuo KI, in which traditional valueswere impugned as tyranny. This changing fortune of a civilization, this vast and perplexing history, was caught in miniature in changing relation between concept t'ienhsia and concept kuo. T'ien-hsia signifies the (Chinese) Empirealternatively, the world; as t'ien-hsia, China is world. And kuo is a local political unit, a part of the Empire in classical times, and in modern world, the nation. But respective meanings of t'ien-hsia and kuo are not really revealed in these simple, self-sufficient English equivalents; for at either end of this history, definition of either term implies a reference to other, a comparison with other. In earlier time it was its contrast with kuo, regime of power, which defined t'ien-bsia as regime of value. But claims of value are absolute, and if their justice comes to be doubted, respect for these claims will seem mark of servility, not civilization. It was its contrast, then, with t'ien-hsia-preconception, dictation-which defined kuo, at later date, as an area of untraditional free inquiry. Just as China persists but changes, link between t'ienhsia and kuo persists while something changes their connotations and degree of esteem accorded to each. What works these changes is something unchanging itself: Chinese need of a China which no defeat may compromise. In seventeenth century, Manchus had conquered Chinese political power, so China as t'ien-hsia, unimpeachable, civilization in abstract, was China which van-