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)

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)

Nietzsche offers us an account of how different drives interact with one another; it is rich but also appears to risk the homunculus fallacy. Competing attempts to deflect this charge on his behalf share an implicit consensus about the ‘epistemic ends’ of the account: they assume Nietzsche is trying to provide true explanations of psychological phenomena. I argue against this consensus. I claim that Nietzsche's characterisations of drive interaction are to be taken as fictive and are not intended to have (...) explanatory value. They nevertheless facilitate genuine epistemic achievement. Drawing on Catherine Elgin's account of the epistemic role of idealised models in science, I argue that Nietzsche's account of drive interaction is a ‘model of the mind’ that, despite relying on falsehoods, can exemplify features of our psychology that aid us in making novel predictions. We then see that Nietzsche neatly sidesteps the homunculus fallacy; we can further understand more fully what Nietzsche hopes his drive psychology will teach us. We can now resolve, for example, outstanding interpretative puzzles about the relationship between psychic integration and Nietzsche’s distinctive notion of spiritual health. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy introduces an intriguing combination of so-called ‘drives’, seemingly biologically inspired forces behind humanity’s cultural ways of relating to what is, and extensive distrust of science. Despite the Greek mythological context, the insight and the arguments provided by Nietzsche seem relevant to contemporary biologically inspired approaches to cognition found within biosemiotics, as well as the embodied cognition paradigm. Here, I discuss how Nietzsche’s biological conception of our relation to what is, incessantly emphasises a critical approach to (...) our predilections and mindless conventionalist beliefs. (shrink)

Taking as its starting-point the interest in archaeological metaphors evinced by Freud and by Jung, this paper considers the project of analytical psychology under the rubric of the recently discussed term, ‘philosophical archaeology’. Noting the shared methodological assumptions and procedures between these two areas, the paper goes on to examine the extent to which Jung’s project can legitimately be considered as an archaeological pursuit in respect of two key aspects: its humanism, and its hermeneutics. In this second case, the paper (...) concludes, we can learn much from Jung’s recently published Red Book, sections of which may be profitably read through the lens of his seminal paper, ‘The Aims of Psychotherapy’. What emerges from this discussion is a clearer appreciation of the role of the archaic in Jung’s thought, an insight into the analytic consulting-room (as a place of the archetypal) as a third instance of the site of philosophical archaeology in addition to the archive (as a place of statement or l’énoncé) and the museum (as a place of expression), and a confirmation of Heidegger’s assertion that ‘the authenticity and greatness of historical knowledge reside in an understanding of the mysterious character of the beginning’. (shrink)

Nietzsche kritikuoja religines gamtos (Natur) interpretacijas ir pasisako už „žmonijos natūralizaciją“. Sąvokos „gamta“ ar „prigimtis“ (Natur) Nietzschės darbuose neturi aiškaus, sisteminio apibrėžimo, todėl jų interpretacijos šio filosofo tyrimuose yra prieštaringos. Išryškėja dvi priešingos perspektyvos: Vanessa Lemm gamtą interpretuoja kaip dionisišką chaosą, skatinantį emancipacinį vyraujančių idėjų atmetimą, o Costinas Alamariu – kaip aristokratišką phusis, ugdančią aukštesnius žmogiškuosius tipus. Šiame straipsnyje teigiama, kad šie iš pirmo žvilgsnio prieštaringi požiūriai yra suderinami. Nietzsche pasitelkia gamtos kaip chaoso sampratą kritikuoti antropocentristines pažiūras, pristatydamas gamtos supratimo, (...) atsieto nuo žmogiškos perspektyvos, galimybę. Darbe analizuojama ir kritikuojama Lemm šios koncepcijos iliustracija pasitelkiant lyčių skirtumus. Galiausiai, teigiama, jog Alamariu interpretacija atitinka vėlesnius, Nietzschės tyrinėjimuose dažnai ignoruojamus, pozityvius šio filosofo etinius-politinius siekius, susijusius su aukštesnių žmogiškųjų tipų ugdymu. (shrink)