This paper challenges a near universal assumption regarding the third treatise of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality : that its main concern is to explain the attraction or power of the ascetic ideal. I argue that GM III’s main concern is normative rather than descriptive-explanatory. An earlier paper argues that GM III’s leading question – What is the meaning of the ascetic ideal? – is equivalent to the question: What is the value of the ascetic ideal? In the present (...) paper, I interpret an aspect of GM III ignored in the earlier paper: the will to power principle of GM III 7, which seems to claim that all human behavior is to be explained in terms of the will to power. I argue that the principle’s true function is normative rather than explanatory: to indicate how philosophers are best or ideally or healthily constituted, in particular, regarding sexuality. I also offer a normative account of what Nietzsche means by ‘interpretation’ in GM III and an argument against the surprisingly well-accepted view that a Nietzschean philosopher would either have little interest in sexual activity or would resist whatever interest he or she had in it. I end with brief suggestions as to the positive contribution Nietzsche thinks sexuality makes to philosophy. (shrink)

Although the literature on Nietzsche is now voluminous one area where there has surprisingly been very little research concerns Nietzsche on the passions. This essay aims to correct this neglect. My focus is on illuminating Nietzsche on the passions in relation to his primary teaching on self-cultivation. To illuminate his position, I focus attention on examining his relation to Stoic teaching on the passions. If for Nietzsche the Christian mind-set involves a disturbing pathological excess of feeling, the Stoic way of (...) living results for him in a petrified of life devoid of movement and growth. After a consideration of his relation to Stoic teaching I then examine his relation to Spinoza on the emotions or affects. Whilst I acknowledge the affinities between the two thinkers and their criticisms of Stoic teaching, I maintain that it is an error to seek to construe Nietzsche and Spinoza as having an identical teaching on the passions. In the final section of the essay, I provide an appreciation of Nietzsche’s recommendation that instead of demonising the passions in the manner of the Christian psyche and its legacy, or extirpating our passions as recommended by the Stoics, we need to learn how to transform them into joys or delights. (shrink)

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s “drive theory”, as it is referred to in the secondary literature, is a rich, unique and fascinating articulation of the human condition. In broad brushstrokes, Nietzsche appears to contend that all human psychology is either directly reducible to animal drives (e.g. sex, aggression) or indirectly explicable to the historical transformations thereof (e.g. ressentiment). Moreover, Nietzsche’s initial elucidation of drive theory in On the Genealogy of Morals (and elsewhere) is well-complemented with a fecund, profound, and clear elucidation of the concept (...) in the secondary literature. -/- Yet, there remains a glaring lacuna for all the discussion of drive theory in the scholarship. The secondary literature is delinquent in explaining how animal drives became incorporated to form the human psyche. Nietzsche’s account to elucidate how drives became “digested” or in his words “inpsychated” is called the Internalization Hypothesis. However, as it appears in GM: II, 16, the hypothesis is grossly inchoate. The result of this undertheorization is manifold; its deleterious effects resonate along many axes of Nietzsche’s philosophy. -/- The present book, Internalized Valuation: A Genealogical Analysis of Nietzschean Drive Theory, offers an original and fruitful interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology. First, it clarifies what drives are. Second, it provides a new way of thinking about Nietzsche’s genealogical methods and then applies these insights to The Genealogy itself. What follows is a work that not only sheds much-needed light on Nietzsche’s philosophy of mind in general and his theory of emotions in particular, but also informs and illuminates problematic passages of Nietzsche’s Genealogy. (shrink)

Resumo Florescimento e excelência são dois ideais que ocupam um lugar central no perfeccionismo de Nietzsche. Este artigo procura oferecer uma interpretação original acerca do que está envolvido nestes termos, de como eles se diferenciam e se conectam, desenvolvendo assim um quadro axiológico que confira sentido a esse conjunto. Uma sugestão adicional é de que o modelo subjacente de valor que emerge a partir desta interpretação - com efeito, um modelo de uma vida boa - seja interessante e atrativo por (...) si só, e que, portanto, possa ter um apelo filosófico mais amplo.Central to Nietzsche's perfectionism are two ideals: flourishing and excellence. This article offers an original account of what they each involve, including how they differ and connect, plus an axiological picture that makes sense of that. It also suggests that the underlying model of value which emerges--in effect, a model of a good life is interesting and attractive in its own right, and that it may therefore have wider philosophical appeal. (shrink)

The primary explanatory items of Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology are the drives. Such drives, he holds, are arranged hierarchically in virtue of their entering dominance-obedience relations analogous to those obtaining in human societies. This view is puzzling for two reasons. First, Nietzsche’s idea of a hierarchical order among the drives is far from clear. Second, as it postulates relations among subpersonal items that mimic those among persons, Nietzsche’s view seems to trade on the homunculus fallacy. In this paper, I argue that (...) a Hume-inspired dispositional reading of the drives’ order successfully addresses these two problematic issues. Moreover, I argue that my reading is superior to the two main competing interpretations, which I call the vitalistic reading and the normative reading, for these ascribe to Nietzsche a view committed to the homunculus fallacy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to Nietzsche, both modern individuals and societies are pathologically fragmented. In this paper, I examine how he proposes we combat this affliction in his Untimely Meditations. I argue that he advocates a dual struggle involving both instrumental domination and eradication. On these grounds, I claim the following: 1. pace a growing number of commentators, we cannot categorise the species of conflict he endorses in the Untimely Meditations as agonistic; and 2. this conflict is better understood as analogous to the (...) species of struggle that Schopenhauer describes in his account of purposive organisation. (shrink)

It has become orthodox to read Nietzsche as proposing the ‘sublimation’ of troublesome behavioural impulses. On this interpretation, he is said to denigrate the elimination of our impulses, preferring that we master them by pressing them into the service of our higher goals. My thesis is that this reading of Nietzsche’s conception of self-cultivation does not bear scrutiny. Closer examination of his later thought reveals numerous texts that show him explicitly recommending an eliminatory approach to self-cultivation. I invoke his theory (...) of the will to power in order to explain why he persistently valorises both elimination and sublimation as preconditions of healthy subjective unity. I conclude that which of these two approaches he recommends in a given situation depends on whether or not the impulse in question can be put to use within the overall economy of our drives. (shrink)

Despite drives’ importance for Nietzsche’s explanation of individuals’ values, controversies persist over how to interpret Nietzsche’s attribution of normative capacities to the drives themselves. On one reading, drives evaluate their aims and recognize the normative authority of other drives’ aims. On another, drives’ normative properties reduce to nonnormative, causal properties. Neither approach is satisfying. The former commits Nietzsche to the homuncular fallacy by granting drives complex cognitive capacities. The latter reading either commits Nietzsche to the naturalistic fallacy, having him derive (...) normative conclusions from descriptive premises, or eliminates normativity from his thought altogether. In response to this impasse, this article advances a Leibniz-informed interpretation of Nietzsche’s drive psychology. By construing the normative and efficient causal orders as parallel modes of explanation distinguished by one’s perspective, a Leibniz-informed reading captures the benefits of extant interpretations while avoiding their drawbacks. (shrink)

Abstract Struck by essentialist and anti-essentialist elements in his writings, Nietzsche's readers have wondered whether his conception of the self is incoherent or paradoxical. This paper demonstrates that his conception of the self, while complex, is not paradoxical or incoherent, but contains four distinct levels. Section I shows Schopenhauer as Educator to contain an early description of the four levels: (1) a person's deepest self, embracing all that cannot be educated or molded; (2) a person's ego; (3) a person's ?ideal? (...) or ?higher self?; (4) a person's ?true self? or ?true nature?. In the remaining three sections, I show that Nietzsche develops and enriches this conception, without ever abandoning it. Section II treats the fourfold conception as it appears in Human, All Too Human. Section III interrogates relevant passages in the Gay Science, showing that while Nietzsche speaks of artful self-fashioning (as Alexander Nehamas emphasizes), he also pays due regard to the sense in which we are not our own creations. Section IV turns to the ?deepest? level of the self, consisting of motives and drives. Drawing primarily upon Daybreak and Beyond Good and Evil, I show that Nietzsche regards neither the drives nor their hierarchical ordering as things that we construct. (shrink)

Many commentators have claimed that Nietzsche views the “sublimation” (Sublimierung) of drives as a positive achievement. Against this tradition, I argue that, on the dominant if not universal Nietzschean use of Sublimierung and its cognates, sublimation is just a broad psychological analogue of the traditional (al)chemical process: the “vaporization” of drives into a finer or lighter state, figuratively if not literally. This can yield ennobling elevation, or purity in a positive sense—the intensified “sublimate” of an unrefined original sample. But it (...) can also yield drives that are attenuated or otherworldly, in a pejorative sense. One (but only one) kind of Nietzschean sublimation is the “translation” of drives to “imaginative and spiritual” (Imaginative und Seelische) modes of expression. I con­clude that, despite certain appearances to the contrary, Nietzsche ultimately values basic drives’ powerful expression, without preferring either that this occur specifically as “higher culture” or as “savage” natural impulse. (shrink)

Health is a central concept in Nietzsche’s work. Yet in the most philosophically sophisticated secondary literature on Nietzsche, there has been fairly little sustained treatment of just what Nietzschean health consists in. In this paper, I aim to provide an account of some of the central marks of this health: resilience, discipline, vitality, a certain positive condition of the will to power, a certain tendency toward integration, and so on. This exposition and discussion will be the main task of the (...) paper. Then in the concluding section of the paper, I consider a line taken in some related secondary literature, which would suggest that health might ultimately be understood in formal or dynamic terms, relating to one’s will to power and/or the unity of one’s drives. I will present the beginnings of an argument against such an account of health. In focusing on the formal and dynamic side exclusively, it cannot get the full story. In particular, it seems to me to miss the substantive dimension that is essential if we are to understand health properly. As I shall suggest, the core concept of Nietzschean health is not fully explicable except by reference to normative terms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I call into question the commonplace assumption in Anglophone Nietzsche scholarship that ideal psychological self-cultivation comes about solely by means of the sublimation of all of one's drives. While the psychological incorporation of one’s drives and instincts plays a crucial role in promoting what Nietzsche considers a higher self, I argue that some degree of removal and elimination of particular drives and instincts could be, perhaps necessarily is, involved in ideal cases. Yet I will suggest that we (...) should not think of these cases as constituting ‘repressions’. I will seek to offer a better characterization of the discussions of productive removal and elimination in Nietzsche’s texts, and consider how they fit in his model of self-cultivation. Nietzsche’s texts demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which certain kinds of removal and elimination can lead to greater integration for the would-be exemplary individual. My reading, I argue, helps to better understand the instances in the texts where Nietzsche valorizes the removal of particular drives and instincts. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s conception of eros and its role in the development of philosophers is similar to the conception of those same topics espoused by Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. Nietzsche and Diotima agree that eros is an insatiable desire to possess the beautiful, that eros aims at immortality through reproduction, and that philosophy requires an ascent beyond sexual desire to “higher” forms of eros, which nevertheless are still modeled on heterosexual reproduction. Understanding these facets of Nietzsche’s view leads to an apparent contradiction (...) in that Nietzsche thinks of philosophy on the model of reproduction and ascribes to the philosopher both the female and the male roles in heterosexual reproduction. I argue that this ambivalence reflects Nietzsche’s view that practicing philosophy requires balancing two conflicting philosophical tendencies: on the one hand, pursuit of truth, which involves dissatisfaction with oneself; on the other hand, creation, which involves acknowledgment of one’s own capacity and value. (shrink)