Nietzsche was a philosopher, not a biologist, Nevertheless his philosophical thought was deeply influenced by ideas emerging from the evolutionary biology of the nineteenth century. His relationship to the Darwinism of his time is difficult to disentangle. It is argued that he was in a sense an unwitting Darwinist. It follows that his philosophical thought is of considerable interest to those concerned to develop an evolutionary biology of mankind. His approach can be likened to that of an extraterrestrial sociobiologist studying (...) clever beasts... in some out of the way corner of the universe ... It is shown how be uses this viewpoint to account for the origin of the central psychobiology of humankind: for dualistic philosophies, such as that of Descartes (which Ryle famously called the official doctrine), for human notions of truth and falsehood, being and becoming, and for other fundamental concepts of Western philosophy and science. All these, he argues, are no more and no less than the necessary adaptations of a zoological species, Homo sapiens, in its struggle for life in a Darwinian world. It is concluded that Nietzsche was the first philosopher to accept and use in their full depth the philosophical implications of nineteeth-century evolutionism, implications which are still resisted to this day. It is also argued that this interpretation of Nietzsche's aphoristic writings provides them with an organic consistency. (shrink)

It is commonly agreed that Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence is hard to understand. The difficulty lies not so much in any great complexity or highly technical character as in uncertainty over what kind of doctrine it is intended to be. Without knowing this we are in no position to agree upon the guidelines for assessing its validity or invalidity. In this discussion I intend to suggest an approach to the problem which will help us to answer these questions—and to (...) avoid some of the difficulties encountered by previous interpretations. (shrink)

Through a reading of Nietzsche's texts, primarily of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this article develops a phenomenological description of the variety of intoxication exemplified in conditions of drunkenness, or in states of emotional excess. It treats Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a literary expression of such intoxication, arguing against attempts to find a coherent narrative structure and clear authorial voice behind this text's apparent disorder. Having isolated the intoxicated characteristics of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - its hyperbolic rhetoric and emotions, its lack of (...) balance, its injustice, its shifting and conflicting moods, and its self-contradictions - I then offer an interpretation of the work, and by extension of intoxication itself, in terms of Nietzsche's model of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of forces. At the same time, I argue for a multiple and dynamic conception of personality in general. (shrink)

The notion of modernism, originally a classificatory term in art and literary criticism, now a common term of art in many philosophic (and anti?philosophic) programs, has remained an elusive, often vague point of view. For a discussion of the notion's historical accuracy and philosophic legitimacy this article selects an author greatly responsible for setting out the problem (called by him ?nihilism') and philosophically sensitive to the issues involved in claiming that something essential to a tradition has ?ended? and something new (...) ?begun?: Nietzsche. Such issues are: what needs to be shown in order to demonstrate that indeed a complete ?break? in a tradition has occurred, especially if part of that claim is that this break ought to have occurred? And: what consequences follow, particularly with respect to the possibility of ?post?modern? ?justification'? Nietzsche's answers to these questions are more subtle than has been appreciated, and can, when pursued properly, help reveal the strengths and weaknesses of such post?Nietzscheans as Heidegger, Deleuze, Foucault, and Derrida. (shrink)

FOR NIETZSCHE, THERE IS NO TRUTH. WHAT THEN ARE WE TO SAY OF HIS DOCTRINES OF WILL TO POWER AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE WHICH SEEM TO BE HELD AS TRUTHS? THEY TOO ARE ILLUSIONS. BUT, IF SO, HOW CAN ONE HOLD THAT THESE ILLUSIONS ARE TO BE PREFERRED TO OTHER ILLUSIONS? BECAUSE THE HIGHEST STATE IS TO BE THE SOURCE OF ALL VALUE AND MEANING ONESELF WITHOUT RELYING ON AN INDEPENDENT STANDARD OF TRUTH.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence is an essential part of his mature philosophy, but the theory’s metaphysical commitments and practical implications are both obscure. In this essay I consider only the metaphysical elements of the theory, with the aim of determining whether it is possible that we live our lives infinitely many times, as the theory maintains. I argue that the possibility of eternal recurrence turns on issues in personal identity and the metaphysics of time. As I proceed, I (...) also consider the relation between Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence and theories of recurrence found in the work of Heraclitus, the Pythagoreans, and the Stoics. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s favourable comments about science and the senses have recently been taken as evidence of naturalism. Others focus on his falsification thesis: our beliefs are falsifying interpretations of reality. Clark argues that Nietzsche eventually rejects this thesis. This article utilizes the multiple ways of being science friendly in Nietzsche’s context by focussing on Mach’s neutral monism. Mach’s positivism is a natural development of neo-Kantian positions Nietzsche was reacting to. Section 15 of Beyond Good and Evil is crucial to Clark’s interpretation. (...) The presented interpretation makes better sense of this passage and shows that Nietzsche can accept both falsification and empiricism. (shrink)

Nietzsche's views on knowledge have been interpreted in at least three incompatible ways - as transcendental, naturalistic or proto-deconstructionist. While the first two share a commitment to the possibility of objective truth, the third reading denies this by highlighting Nietzsche's claims about the necessarily falsifying character of human knowledge (his so-called error theory). This paper examines the ways in which his work can be construed as seeking ways of overcoming the strict opposition between naturalism and transcendental philosophy whilst fully taking (...) into account the error theory (interpreted non-literally, as a hyperbolic warning against uncritical forms of realism). In doing so, it clarifies the nature of Nietzsche's ontological commitments, both in the early and the later work, and shows that his relation to transcendental idealism is more subtle than is allowed by naturalistic interpreters while conversely accounting for the impossibility of conceiving the conditions of the possibility of knowledge as genuinely a priori. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper identifies two central paradoxes threatening the notion of amor fati [love of fate]: it requires us to love a potentially repellent object (as fate entails significant negativity for us) and this, in the knowledge that our love will not modify our fate. Thus such love may seem impossible or pointless. I analyse the distinction between two different sorts of love (eros and agape) and the type of valuation they involve (in the first case, the object is loved (...) because we value it; in the second, we value the object because we love it). I use this as a lens to interpret Nietzsche's cryptic pronouncements on amor fati and show that while an erotic reading is, up to a point, plausible, an agapic interpretation is preferable both for its own sake and because it allows for a resolution of the paradoxes initially identified. In doing so, I clarify the relation of amor fati to the eternal return on the one hand, and to Nietzsche's autobiographical remarks about suffering on the other. Finally, I examine a set of objections pertaining both to the sustainability and limits of amor fati, and to its status as an ideal. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta as possibilidades de uma nova perspectiva ética a partir do pensamento de Nietzsche, quer mostrar que há uma impossibilidade de ligar a ação moral a qualquer fundamento ou justificação racional, haja vista que ela é apresentada como resultante de condições profundas enquanto determinantes do ser e do atuar. Partimos da enunciação da problemática concernente ao fundamento das normas morais nas abordagens de Hume e Moore e, depois, apresentaremos três pontos axiais da filosofia nietzschiana que nos permitem, ao (...) mesmo tempo, rejeitar o fundamento e propor uma ética sem culpa, quais sejam, 1) recusa de uma identidade representativa; 2) proveniência dos juízos de valor bom e mau/ bom e ruim; 4) amor fati como ética. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta as possibilidades de uma nova perspectiva ética a partir do pensamento de Nietzsche.Essa nova ética tem como especifi cidade o fato de considerar as determinações profundas não conscientescomo prioritárias na defi nição do agir e por entender as éticas como construções explicativas e imposiçõesde uma dada interpretação que remetem a impulsos, forças e vontades de potência.This paper shows the possibilities of a new ethical perspective having as a point of departure the thought of Nietzsche. The new Ethics (...) considers deep non-conscious determinations as prior in the defi nition of acting and understands other Ethics as explanatory constructions and impositions of a certain interpretation which point to impulses, strength and will of power. (shrink)

“Think of our world,” writes Robert Nozick, “as a novel in which you yourself are a character.” As we shall see, this is easier said than done. In that case, would the project be worth the effort? Yes, says Alexander Nehamas. In Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Nehamas suggests that we would have a better grasp of some hard doctrines of Nietzsche's, if we accepted literary texts as providing a model for the world, and literary characters as yielding models of ourselves. (...) The idea is intriguing, in part because Nietzsche presents difficulties, and in part because it has some of the alluring obscurity of Nozick's playful charge. In what follows, however, I shall argue that Nehamas's proposals about Nietzsche and literature are not particularly helpful, that Nietzsche's doctrines remain hard to grasp even after we have considered the nature of literary texts, and that Nehamas himself is misled by ambiguities connected with literary characters and the fictional worlds they inhabit. (shrink)

(Version 2.4) I have argued elsewhere for ascribing an error theory about all normative and evaluative judgements to Nietzsche. Such a nihilism brings with it a puzzle: how could we—or at least the select few of us being addressed by Nietzsche—continue in the face of this nihilism? This is a philosophical puzzle and so, defeasibly, an interpretive puzzle. If there is no theory it would make sense for Nietzsche to have about how the select few could go on, then this (...) is some evidence against the proposed interpretation of him as a nihilist. I defended the interpretation by arguing that Nietzsche’s declarations about creating values point to a practice of generating honest evaluative illusions. Such honest evaluative illusions are tricky things, though, and, precisely because they are honest, one might worry that they lack the motivational power of genuine evaluative belief. Can they truly play the role that evaluative beliefs play in our psychological economies? I suspect that Nietzsche does not want the honest illusions to play exactly the role that evaluative beliefs played. The cheerfulness, the playfulness, the lightness that Nietzsche hopes for are, I have suggested, a function of the shift from belief to pretence, from illusion to honest illusion. The question, nonetheless, is whether the resulting picture is too light. Can I go through life merely acting, as a critic might put it? My suggestion in this essay will be that the thought of eternal recurrence is meant to add weight to the lightness of acting—“acting”, obviously, in both the here relevant senses of the word. (shrink)