Abstract

We are, as Nietzsche tells us in the Preface to GM, “strangers to ourselves” (GM P:1). The particular shape of this self-estrangement is not, as Nietzsche makes plain, the product of simple neglect; nor is it the result of some lack of ability or competence. Indeed, in Nietzsche’s view, the very disciplines of philosophy, history, and psychology, for example, show us that we are at once eager and capable when it comes to taking ourselves as objects of inquiry. Hence, the aspect of self-estrangement that worries Nietzsche is that the very conceptual and moral framework through which we orient ourselves practically, and through which we measure our praise and blame, remains, itself, stubbornly out of view. Until we... Read More.