In this paper I clarify a major affinity between Nietzsche and Spinoza that has been neglected in the literature—but that Nietzsche was aware of—namely a tendency to what I call etiology. Etiologies provide second- order explanations of some opponents’ first-order views, but not in order to decide first-order matters. The example I take up here is Nietzsche’s and Spinoza’s rejections of free will—and especially their etiologies concerning how we wrongly come to think that we may boast of such a capacity. (...) In working through the former (i.e., their rejections of free will) in order to make my central metaphilosophical point regarding the latter (i.e., their accounts of why we generally affirm that we have free will), I shed important new light on Nietzsche’s relation to Spinoza. I also further our understanding of what role such second-order accounts play within each of their larger projects on their own terms. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to explore the complex and multifarious condition of Nietzsche as a reader. Thus, in the first place the text clarifies the various character of informations about reading, not always reliable, expressed in his very work, in the notebooks, in the letters, by testimony of third parties, in his preserved library and in the not preserved library, in purchases and in borrowing from libraries. At a second moment, the article put forward reading phases since (...) the very young Nietzsche, reading strategies, his freeing process and his self-stilization as a reader. In the scope of reading spheres, the article adresses Nietzsche as a philology reader so much as a reader of scientific texts, and a reader of the world, of culture. Lastly, on questioning how Nietzsche became a reader of himself, the text nods to the question of how his attitude towards reading devolves into a way of thinking and reading his very work, in this manner asserting the initial claim, namely, to understand Nietzsche the philosopher we must bear in mind whom is he talking to. (shrink)

Nietzsche presents a challenging conception of aesthetics. One of the most well-known discussions on this issue is presented by Heidegger in Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst. In discussing Nietzsche’s aesthetic theory, Heidegger argues that Nietzsche’s reception of Kantian aesthetics is only ever indirect and necessarily mediated by Schopenhauer. His conclusion hinges on what he considers to be a widespread misinterpretation of Kant’s theory of the beautiful, a misinterpretation that begins with Schopenhauer but characterizes all of Kant’s followers, especially Nietzsche. (...) In this paper, I will consider Nietzsche’s position toward aesthetics from a different perspective, namely in the space between Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s position. The argumentation departs from Nietzsche’s early critique of teleology; his first approaches to aesthetics in Die Geburt der Tragödie ; and his position on the concept of causality and morality. As a careful interpretation of GM III 6 will make clear, Heidegger’s claim that Nietzsche misinterprets Kant is made questionable by the fact that Nietzsche here distinguishes Kant from Schopenhauer’s approach and proposes an artist-based aesthetics in which it is rather Stendhal’s idea of beauty as “une promesse de bonheur” which expresses the human need for illusions in Nietzsche’s conception of aesthetics. (shrink)

Resumo: Para além da triangulação Nietzsche-Kuno Fischer-Spinoza, a proposta do texto é perscrutar as peculiaridades da relação entre Nietzsche e Spinoza, partindo não de uma conexão biunívoca e restrita a Nietzsche e Spinoza, mas de menções compartilhadas, em que outros filósofos e pensadores são mencionados. A partir daí se pretende evidenciar traços de uma relação que é de admiração pelo “profundo ocultador”, mas também de crítica pelas instâncias que tal ocultador mascarou e que acabaram por consumi-lo.: Beyond the triangulation Nietzsche-Kuno (...) Fischer-Spinoza, the purpose of the article is to investigate the peculiarities of the relation between Nietzsche and Spinoza, stemming not from the biunivocal relationship restricted to Nietzsche and Spinoza, but from the references shared with other philosophers and thinkers mentioned by the German philosopher. Thenceforth, we intend to emphasize traits of a relationship based on admiration for the “deep hidden”, but also on critics related to spheres that this very hidden disguised and that after all consumed him. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper explores similarities between the sacrilegious revaluations Nietzsche and Spinoza undertook with regards to Christianity and Judaism respectively. In both cases, these revaluations involve a devaluation of an ancestral religious tradition, followed by the infusion of alternative values posited through forms of secular salvation linked to immanent conceptions of eternity. Given the importance of the structural and phenomenological similarities the paper analyses, it is argued that if Nietzsche thought of himself as the Anti-Christ, there is a convincing case to (...) think of Spinoza as the Anti-Moses. And because both the Anti-Christ and the Anti-Moses not only devaluated their respective religious traditions, but also suggested forms of beatitude based on a valorizing notion of eternity, their efforts are profoundly religious. Accordingly, Nietzsche and Spinoza are not only arguably the greatest Christian and Jewish heretics, but also the prophets of innovative forms of secular and immanent... (shrink)

Es muy defendible afirmar que el volumen dedicado a Spinoza de la obra Historia de la filosofía moderna de Kuno Fischer es la mediación más importante –si bien no la única– para comprender la relación Spinoza-Nietzsche. A partir de la lectura de esta obra en 1881, Nietzsche reconoce a Spinoza como precursor e identifica una tendencia en común entre ambos: «hacer del conocimiento el afecto más potente». Los principales objetivos de este trabajo son destacar la exposición que Fischer lleva a (...) cabo de algunos de los contenidos de la filosofía spinociana para poder valorar mejor su influencia en Nietzsche y resaltar la importancia que tiene tulo 22 de la edición de 1865, titulado «La voluntad humana», donde se interpreta la voluntad como deseo consciente, lo que tendrá sus consecuencias en la recepción de Nietzsche de la filosofía spinociana, además de permitir una discusión respecto del rol no siempre atendido de la voluntad en Spinoza. (shrink)

Zarathustra initially describes churches as the stale caves of world-denying priests. However, following his encounter with the eternal return of the same, Zarathustra overcomes this resentful atheism. The pure sky that Zarathustra desires above all else, a sky emptied of the gods, is not visible again through the holes in ruined church roofs, but really thanks to these holes. The pure sky is an image of the world liberated from the teleological time of theistic providence, indeed even from the divine (...) necessity that pantheism attributes to the world. Yet for all that it is god-less, the pure sky is acknowledged to be a gift of the same metaphysical-Christian history of God that it only seems to negate: the sky’s pure eye peers through holes in church roofs. Zarathustra, though an “old atheist,” can now love “even churches.” I call this Zarathustra’s affirmative atheism. I also link affirmative atheism to the conception of eternal recurrence as a self-abolishing anti-teaching. In the eternal return, Zarathustra’s atheism is finally indistinguishable from a history of churches and therefore negates itself. But although it is not a new teaching, affirmative atheism points to something novel. This is an atheism that can no longer be taught in doctrines but must be lived as fate. (shrink)