Nietzsche is not known for his theory of empathy. A quick skimming of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on empathy demonstrates this. Arthur Schopenhauer, Robert Vischer, and Theodor Lipps are among those whose views are considered representative, but Nietzsche has been simply forgotten in discussion of empathy. Nietzsche’s theory of empathy has not yet aroused sufficient interest among commentators. I believe that his views on this subject merit careful consideration. Nietzsche scholars have been interested in his naturalistic accounts of (...) other phenomena, but there seems to be relatively limited interest in his naturalistic account of a phenomenon that is so central to his disagreement with Schopenhauer, namely, empathic concern for others. This is surprising because Nietzsche makes a valuable contribution; he has views more in keeping with contemporary theories of empathy than others of his time. My goal here is to fill in this gap in the scholarship and provide the first thorough analysis of Nietzsche’s theory of empathy, which appears most clearly in Dawn. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has shown Nietzsche to offer an original and insightful moral psychology centering on a motivational feature he calls ‘will to power.’ In many places, though, Nietzsche presents will to power differently, as the ‘essence of life,’ an account of ‘organic function,’ even offering it as a correction to physiologists. This paper clarifies the scope and purpose of will to power by identifying the historical physiological view at which Nietzsche directs his criticisms and by identifying his purpose in doing (...) so. Nietzsche’s criticism, it is argued, is a widespread and pre-Darwinian description of the basic dispositions of organisms and their internal processes. The purpose of this criticism is to undermine the efforts of Herbert Spencer and Arthur Schopenhauer to derive moral-psychological insights from that description. The paper concludes that Nietzsche’s proposal to conceive of ‘organic function’ in terms of will to power is of little import for his moral psychology besides clearing away competing views. (shrink)

Interpreting Nietzsche’s writings on agency and responsibility through the lens of non-sovereignty generates interpretive and political-theoretical contributions. More specifically, I advance three arguments. First, Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of moral responsibility denaturalizes modernity’s conception of individual sovereignty and responsibility, by providing a naturalistic account of agency. Agency and responsibility are neither Kantian presuppositions of practical reason nor pieces of folk psychology to be abolished, but are normative, social, and historical achievements, and thus non-sovereign. Second, this implies a theory of responsibility that (...) is simultaneously more and less demanding than moralistic accounts: while, because agents are not autonomous, they do not bear sole responsibility for their lives, they are called upon to be responsible to and for the world, by maintaining the conditions of possible agency and flourishing. Third, Nietzsche provides both generative resources and cautionary tales for political theories of non-sovereign agency. While non-sovereign responsibility holds emancipatory and potentially democratic implications, Nietzsche’s explicit political writings demonstrate the risk that, rather than tempering existential resentment, this account could generate and intensify a resentful anti-political authoritarianism. Just as non-sovereignty provides a useful framework for making sense of tensions within Nietzsche’s thought, Nietzsche’s post-moral theory of agency and responsibility brings forward tensions, provocations, and paradoxes that must be engaged by theorists of non-sovereignty. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay examines a particular rhetorical strategy Nietzsche uses to supply prima facie epistemic justification: appeals to intuition. I first investigate what Nietzsche thinks intuitions are, given that he never uses the term ‘intuition’ as we do in contemporary philosophy. I then examine how Nietzsche can simultaneously endorse naturalism and intuitive appeals. I finish by looking at why and how Nietzsche uses appeals to intuition to further his philosophical agenda. Answering these questions should provide a new and deeper understanding (...) of how Nietzsche does philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues there are crucial points in Nietzsche’s texts where he offers a priori epistemic justification for views he believes are correct. My reading contrasts with the dominant view that Nietzsche’s philosophical naturalism is incompatible with a priori justification. My aim is to develop Nietzsche’s brand of a priori justification, show that he employs this account of justification in the texts, and suggest how it might be compatible with naturalism.

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)

Several scholars align Nietzsche’s philosophy with Stoicism because of their naturalist approaches to ethics and doctrines of eternal re- currence. Yet this alignment is difficult to reconcile with Nietzsche’s criticisms of Stoicism’s ethical ideal of living according to nature by dispassionately accepting fate—so much so that some conclude that Nietzsche’s rebuke of Stoicism undermines his own philosophical project. I argue that affinities between Nietzsche and Stoicism belie deeper disagreement about teleology, which, in turn, yields different understandings of nature and human (...) flourishing, so that Nietzsche’s objections to Stoicism support his commitments to ethical naturalism and to affirming life’s eternal recurrence. (shrink)

The problem of history in Nietzsche’s second Unfashionable Observation is best approached through that which it is supposed to serve: life, more specifically human life. I argue that Nietzsche presents an oblique but nevertheless complete articulation of the nature of the human soul as consisting of two basic parts, of desiring (the unhistorical) and memory (the historical): of a multiplicity of desires that struggle for domination over the others, and which express themselves in more complex ways through memory-based structures such (...) as conscience. I then discuss some implications of this conception. First, I interpret the significance of the useful kinds of history: rather than being different modes of historical science, they are much more basic modes of practical relating to the matters of our world (especially to other humans and their ways of life) that are external to us both temporally and spatially. Second, I discuss the particular kinds of desires which underpin the three useful kinds of history. Third, I interpret the problem of scientific history as arising from a turning of the normal human structures of meaningfulness against themselves, and as resulting in two specific kinds of psychic damage: to our capacity for growth and self-cultivation, and to our will to do so at all. Finally, I show the importance of the erotic-historic soul for the questions of right and wrong methods of self-knowledge and for the meaning of the imperative “sei du selbst!” that we find in Schopenhauer as Educator. (shrink)

In this thesis, I focus on two undervalued aspects of Nietzsche’s admiration of the ancient Greeks: the healthy psychology of the Greeks, and the origins of this health in Homeric poetry. I argue that Homer was a cultural physician for the ancient Greeks and is responsible for creating a new, healthy set of values through his epic poetry. In turn, these Homeric values brought Greece into its “tragic age”—a time during which Greek culture was “the highest authority for what we (...) may term cultural health”. Moreover, Homer’s success as a cultural physician comes from his ability to lie poetically lie. So, I also give an account of how Nietzsche thinks this kind of lying is psychologically possible through what I call Nietzschean dissimulation. (shrink)