Nietzsche’s Entomology: Insect Sociality and the Concept of the Will

Nietzsche Studien 50 (1):275-299 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The article traces Nietzsche’s references to insects in his published and unpublished writings against the backdrop of his study of the entomological research of his time (esp. through his reading of Alfred Espinas’s Die thierischen Gesellschaften). The first part of the article explores how Nietzsche’s entomology allows us to add a posthumanist perspective to the more familiar poststructuralist readings of Nietzsche, as the entomological research he consulted offered him a model for understanding how rudimentary processes can lead to the formation of structures and higher organizations with emergent properties. The second part of the article revisits Nietzsche’s conceptions of the will and the will to power against the backdrop of his references to insect sociality and the influence of Wilhelm Wundt. It shows that Nietzsche’s deconstruction of the will as an umbrella concept and his will to power are attempts to model the emergence of complex edifices from simple operations under which physical, psychological, and social phenomena must be thought to arise. The article concludes with a reflection of the social and political relevance of what Nietzsche identifies as modernity’s “disgregation of the will.”

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,297

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Nietzsche's posthumanism.Edgar Landgraf - 2023 - Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Nietzsches Aristophanes.Luciano Canfora - 2018 - Nietzsche Studien 47 (1):314-325.
Wasting Oneself Away.Gustav Strandberg - 2023 - Philosophy Today 67 (3):659-675.
Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s “Great Teacher” and “Antipode”.Ivan Soll - 2013 - In Ken Gemes & John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nietzsche’s Philosophical Aestheticism.Sebastian Gardner - 2013 - In Ken Gemes & John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche. New York: Oxford University Press.
Humour in Nietzsche's style.Charles Boddicker - 2020 - European Journal of Philosophy 29 (2):447-458.
Will to Power.Jacob Golomb - 2013 - In Ken Gemes & John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche. New York: Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-08-22

Downloads
19 (#927,121)

6 months
8 (#819,333)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Nietzsche.John Richardson & Brian Leiter (eds.) - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Nietzsche and the machine.Jacques Derrida & Richard Beardsworth - 1994 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 7:7-66.

View all 20 references / Add more references