Stephen Mulhall traces the development of an ideal of asceticism through Western culture. He shows how influential this self-denying attitude to life has been not just in religion and morality but in aesthetics, science, and philosophy. And he illuminates the role of the ascetic ideal in the thought of Nietzsche, who introduced the concept.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this article, I explore Nietzsche’s account of the origins of the ascetic ideal in his Genealogy of Morality. I offer a reading of his claim that this ideal springs from an instinctive response to the sicknesses he describes as “physiological inhibition and exhaustion”, arguing that these sicknesses are primarily nervous conditions found among the priestly class who come up with the ascetic ideal, and periodically among “large masses of people”. The historical frequency of the (...) latter outbreaks accounts for the popularity of the ideal. But the origin story is very much about the ascetic priest, and it is a story Nietzsche tells in bits and pieces over the course of the Genealogy. This article integrates these bits and pieces into one cohesive account. Finally, I consider how the priest’s more innocent ascetic lifestyle suggestions respond to the twin conditions of inhibition and exhaustion. (shrink)

This paper challenges a near universal assumption regarding the third treatise of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality : that its main concern is to explain the attraction or power of the ascetic ideal. I argue that GM III’s main concern is normative rather than descriptive-explanatory. An earlier paper argues that GM III’s leading question – What is the meaning of the ascetic ideal? – is equivalent to the question: What is the value of the (...) class='Hi'>ascetic ideal? In the present paper, I interpret an aspect of GM III ignored in the earlier paper: the will to power principle of GM III 7, which seems to claim that all human behavior is to be explained in terms of the will to power. I argue that the principle’s true function is normative rather than explanatory: to indicate how philosophers are best or ideally or healthily constituted, in particular, regarding sexuality. I also offer a normative account of what Nietzsche means by ‘interpretation’ in GM III and an argument against the surprisingly well-accepted view that a Nietzschean philosopher would either have little interest in sexual activity or would resist whatever interest he or she had in it. I end with brief suggestions as to the positive contribution Nietzsche thinks sexuality makes to philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I show how to integrate nietzsche's apparently conflicting views on the relationship of philosophers to the ascetic ideal of the ascetic priest. in sections 7 and 8 of GM iii, Nietzsche makes philosophers seem fundamentally different from priests; but in sections 9 and 10, he argues that philosophers early on succumb to the ascetic ideal of the priest. the key to understanding how these two aspects of GM iii fit together lies (...) in nietzsche's ideas about the origins of contemplative life. priests and their ascetic ideal come first; philosophers come later. Though the ambitions of philosophers are radically unlike those of priests, the two types of contemplative nature share a common predicament in their earliest days, against the background of which it becomes understandable how philosophers as a class could have become more mixed up in the ascetic ideal than is good for them. (shrink)

The "sovereign individual" (hereafter, the SI) is almost universally held to be part of Nietzsche's positive ethical ideal.1 Focus on this isolated description at the start of the second essay of On the Genealogy of Morality results in a reconstruction of Nietzschean personhood and ethics based on the capacity to make and keep promises. For example, the SI has been used to understand us as "self-conscious beings capable of standing in autonomous ethical relations to ourselves" with a "fundamental duty" (...) to do so and with a duty to act ethically with regard to each other.2 Attempts to reconstruct a Nietzschean ethic based on the SI passage have resulted in uncharacteristically Kantian results, because of the .. (shrink)

The Catastrophe of the Ascetic Ideals from an Intercultural Perspective. Science, Asceticism and Nihilism in GM III 27. This article aims to clarify the meaning and strategic position of the parentheses on the development of philosophy in India in GM III 27. Nietzsche’s reference to the philosophical development in India reveals his intercultural considerations and helps clarify the relations between science and ascetic ideal as a moment of the historical-genealogical reconstitution of European nihilism. I argue that honest (...) forms of atheism and science contain the core of the ascetic ideal and that the critique of nihilism is therefore inevitably self-referential. Nietzsche’s intercultural view sheds new light on important current philosophical questions such as the scope of Giorgio Agamben’s homo-sacer-project and on the prospects of non-European philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

This paper outlines an interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remark in the _Big Typescript_ in which he compares the philosopher bewitched by the workings of language to “the suffering of an ascetic”. The interpretation takes as its starting point Friedrich Nietzsche’s terse account of the philosopher, the history of philosophy, and his diagnosis of ascetic self-misunderstanding, from the Third Essay, “What do ascetic ideals mean?”, in _On the Genealogy of Morality_. In its assumption of an affinity between Wittgenstein’s (...) remark and Nietzsche’s descriptions, and in its analysis, this paper introduces a “method of voice borrowing” to approach the question: “Wittgenstein and Nietzsche?” The juxtaposition of Wittgenstein’s conception of the philosopher’s linguistic self-misunderstanding with Nietzsche’s notion of the ascetic self-misunderstanding leads finally to the question of what is gained by introducing this method, and hence by reading Wittgenstein’s remark on the suffering of an ascetic with the help of Nietzsche’s voice. (shrink)

This article explores, in the first place, Jerome’s creation of pro-virginal propaganda in a selection of his treatises and letters, through the employment of scriptural justification by means of ascetic exegesis and rhetorical strategies. The study focuses, in particular, on his Epistulae 22 and 130, both addressed to virgins, and his treatise Adversus Iovinianum. Jerome interpreted and deployed carefully selected biblical texts and employed classical rhetorical conventions to construct his ascetic ideal mainly based on sexual renunciation. The (...) article argues that by extolling the virginal body through metaphorical figurations and careful textualisation, this ‘apostle of virginity’ aimed to create, in the first instance, for ascetically minded virgins, a means of achieving perfection and union with God, and receiving the awards of heaven. The analysis of the selected works and of Jerome’s ascetic exegesis, however, also reveals some significant markers, indicating his own carefully disguised quest for personal redemption and regaining paradise. (shrink)

In this essay I examine Nietzsche’s shifting understanding of the saintly ideal with an aim to bringing out its philosophical importance, particularly with respect to what I call the problem of ‘cosmodicy’, i.e., the problem of justifying life in the world as worthwhile in light of the prevalent reality of suffering. In his early account Nietzsche understood the saint as embodying the supreme achievement of a self-transcending ‘feeling of oneness and identity with all living things’, while in his later (...) account he viewed the saint as a representative of an unhealthy, life-denying ‘ascetic ideal’. This shift, I contend, is due in large part to Nietzsche’s development of an ‘ethic of power’ as part of his turn against Schopenhauer’s ethic of compassion, which needs to be seen in light of his ongoing effort to articulate and defend an adequate cosmodicy. My ultimate aim in this essay is to read the earlier Nietzsche against the later Nietzsche – with the help of Dostoevsky’s novelistic depiction of the saintly ideal – and to suggest that when properly articulated the saintly ideal is able to provide a more adequate cosmodicy than that which is offered in Nietzsche’s ethic of power. (shrink)

This paper interprets the relation between sovereignty and guilt in Nietzsche's Genealogy. I argue that, contrary to received opinion, Nietzsche was not opposed to the moral concept of guilt. I analyse Nietzsche's account of the emergence of the guilty conscience out of a pre-moral bad conscience. Drawing attention to Nietzsche's references to many different forms of conscience and analogizing to his account of punishment, I propose that we distinguish between the enduring and the fluid elements of a ‘conscience’, defining the (...) enduring element as the practice of forming self-conceptions. I show that for Nietzsche, the moralization of the bad conscience results from mixing it with the material concepts of guilt and duty, a process effected by prehistoric religious institutions by way of the concept of god. This moralization furnishes a new conception of oneself as a responsible agent and holds the promise of sovereignty by giving us a freedom unknown to other creatures, but at the price of our becoming subject to moral guilt. According to Nietzsche, however, the very forces that made it possible have spoiled this promise and, under the pressures of the ascetic ideal, a harmful notion of responsibility understood in terms of sin now dominates our lives. Thus, to fully realize our sovereignty, we must liberate ourselves from this sinful conscience. (shrink)

This chapter elaborates the psychology of Nietzsche's motif of escape from self with the help of the views of Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, and Karen Horney. It summarizes the root cause of failure of self‐love on this Nietzschean psychology. The chapter also focuses on four major types of distortion, which provide the main themes of the Genealogy of Morals. These are the perversion of cruelty, the neurosis of cruel punitivism, the neurosis of resentment, and the resignatory neurosis of the (...) class='Hi'>ascetic ideal. In all four areas, virtue can be understood as having at its core self‐affirmation or self‐love, and vice self‐hate and escape from self. That is, at a depth psychological level, virtue can be seen as expressive of a self‐loving attitude and vice the reverse. The existentialist motif of escape from self has in Nietzsche's hands been transformed into a characterological psychology at home in virtue ethics. (shrink)

Franz Overbeck associates the eternal return with Nietzsche's passion for the ideal of the extreme (Ideals des ‘Extremen’), a drive for the ultimate that is related to the notion of the Nietzschean overhuman. The aim of this paper is to bring to light and analyze the Nietzschean understanding of the ultimate, starting from Overbeck and bringing to light the conception of Christian eschatology presupposed in Nietzsche’s analysis of ressentiment and the ascetic ideal. Explaining the eschatology from which (...) Nietzsche starts will help to have a better understanding of the doctrine of the eternal return, exploring how the Christian heritage from which Nietzsche drank weighs on it. (shrink)

Nietzsche scholars have remarked on the similarities between his conception of the ideal soul and that of Plato. This article provides a systematic examination of this issue. The first part of the article demonstrates that there is in fact a substantive convergence between their views. However, this result is puzzling given that Nietzsche accuses Plato’s moral psychology of being deeply ascetic. Thus, the second part of the article focuses on this charge. Though the textual evidence provided by Plato’s (...) dialogues remains ambiguous, the article concludes that it tends to support Nietzsche’s case. However, Nietzsche not only recognizes—at least occasionally—that Platonic ascetism is less rabid than Christian ascetism but even concedes that it can prove healthy for certain people. (shrink)

Nietzsche's aims and targets -- Reading Nietzsche's preface -- Naturalism and genealogy -- Selflessness : the struggle with Schopenhauer -- Nietzsche and Paul Rée on the origins of moral feelings -- Good and evil : affect, artistry, and revaluation -- Free will, autonomy, and the sovereign individual -- Guilt, bad conscience, and self-punishment -- Will to power in the Genealogy -- Nietzsche's illustration of the art of exegesis -- Disinterestedness and objectivity -- Perspectival knowing and the affects -- The (...) class='Hi'>ascetic ideal, meaning, and truth -- Beyond selflessness. (shrink)

This paper is divided into six parts. The first presents a rudimentary definition of ethics based on Western philosophical theories, particularly their concern for articulating universal moral principles. The second examines the assumptions anchoring Western moral philosophies, and raises the question: are the philosophical presuppositions of modern Western philosophy consistent with the presuppositions of Hinduism? It concludes that the two are not entirely in agreement, particularly on the issue of personal and social identity. The third section locates areas in Hinduism (...) that discursively concur with the concerns of Western ethicists, and explores the limits of the semblance. The fourth identifies problematic areas, and raises the question: should the idea of universal ethics be abandoned for Hinduism? The fifth section concludes that such abandonment would be hasty, and initiates a searching look into the Hindu epics for concepts that, while not identical with may still be parallel to some Western notions of ethics. The sixth looks at the content of normative Hindu morality, and generalizes on the basis of this content about the nature of "Hindu ethics". (shrink)

Thomas Hurka has argued that Nietzsche’s positive ethical views can be formulated as a version of perfectionism that posits an objective conception of the good as the maximization of power and assigns to all agents the same goal of maximizing the perfection of the best. I show that Hurka’s case for both parts of this interpretation fails on textual grounds and that the kind of theory he proposes is in conflict with Nietzsche’s general approach to morality. The alternative reading for (...) which I argue defends a form of perfectionism as the value perspective of a ‘noble type’ that may emerge in the wake of a revaluation of all values. The basis of this perfectionism is an individual’s projection of an ideal of life to which she ascribes intrinsic value and in terms of which the value of other things is assessed. Justifying this reading requires drawing a distinction between life-denying ideals – forms of the ‘ascetic ideal’ – and life-affirming ‘counterideals’. It also requires recognizing that the perfection of the noble type is expressed in an individual ideal that cannot be shared with others, as opposed to a common ideal of human perfection. (shrink)

The eternal recurrence of the same. Simmel's critique ; Awareness ; Evidence ; Significance ; Coherence -- Demon or god? Deathbed revelation ; Daimonic prophecy ; Dionysian doctrine ; Diagnostic test -- The dwarf and the gateway. The gateway to Hades ; The dwarf's interpretation ; Zarathustra's cross-examination ; The inescapable cycle ; Crossing the gateway ; No time until rebirth ; The ancient memory ; Midnight swan song -- The great noon. Two conclusions ; Tragic end and analeptic satyr (...) play ; Zarathustra's hour ; Noon crucifixion ; Seventh-day convalescence ; Last temptation ; Third-day resurrection -- The laughing lions. Revaluation of values ; Dawn reunion ; Morning consecration ; Call to arms ; Final farewell and last will ; Zarathustra's great destiny -- The shepherd and the serpent. The eternally recurring human ; The future human ; Zarathustra the dragon-slayer ; The decapitation ; The heavy hammer ; No longer shepherd -- Circulus vitiosus deus. Impotence and revenge ; Backward-willing ; Self-redemption ; The third transformation ; The child spirit ; No longer human ; Zarathustra's dying gift -- Post-Zarathustra. Nietzsche and Zarathustra ; Reversing the bad conscience ; Atheism and the death of God ; Countering the ascetic ideal. (shrink)

Both an introduction to Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, and a sustained commentary on his most famous work, On the Genealogy of Morality, this book has become the most widely used and debated secondary source on these topics over the past dozen years. Many of Nietzsche’s most famous ideas - the "slave revolt" in morals, the attack on free will, perspectivism, "will to power" and the "ascetic ideal" - are clearly analyzed and explained. The first edition established the centrality of (...) naturalism to Nietzsche’s philosophy, generating a substantial scholarly literature to which Leiter responds in an important new Postscript. In addition, Leiter has revised and refreshed the book throughout, taking into account new scholarly literature, and revising or clarifying his treatment of such topics as the objectivity of value, epiphenomenalism and consciousness, and the possibility of "autonomous" agency. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s injunction to examine “the value of values” can be heard in a pragmatic key, as inviting us to consider not whether certain values are true, but what they do for us. This oddly neglected pragmatic approach to Nietzsche now receives authoritative support from Bernard Reginster’s new book, which offers a compelling and notably cohesive interpretation of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality. In this essay, I reconstruct Reginster's account of Nietzsche’s critique of morality as a “self-undermining functionality critique” and (...) raise three problems for it: (i) Is there room within an etiological conception of function for the notion of self-undermining functionality? (ii) If Nietzsche’s critique is internal and based solely on the function it ascribes to morality, where does that critique derive its normative significance from? (iii) Does Reginster’s account not make out ascetic morality to be more universally dysfunctional than it in fact is, given that some priestly types have done remarkably well out of morality? (shrink)

Series Foreword vii Introduction: The Event “Nietzsche” 2 I Nietzsche the Metapsychologist 30 “God Is Dead” 34 The Ascetic Ideal 46 Nihilism . . . 62 . . . as a “Crisis of Sublimation”? 72 II Noon 86 Troubles with Truth 90 From Nothingness Incorporated . . . 124 . . . via Double Affirmation . . . 132 . . . to Nothingness as Minimal Difference 150 Addendum: On Love as Comedy 164 Notes 183.

The experience of evil in all its aspects has always been a challenge for the project of philosophy as a search for meaning. From the beginning philosophers have tried to explain evil, but they could only do so by making this brutal fact somehow intelligible so that it could enter rational discourse. Out of respect for the victims of horrible evil, we may now be inclined to stop all attempts at explanation, which all end up as justifications of evil. But (...) by this refusal to discuss what concerns us humans most, philosophy shows how marginal and futile its intellectual activity is. This is the torture of philosophy: either giving up its own project of making sense or trying to understand evil without justifying it, whereby philosophical arguments always tend to become edifying and quasi-religious. For Kierkegaard this torture shows the impossibility of the philosophical project. All philosophical explanation of evil is "a glossing over of sin, an excuse of sin". Only religion seems to offer meaning for evil, though, as Nietzsche said, it makes suffering worse by bringing it within the perspective of guilt. Philosophers, he argues, should give up this desperate quest for meaning, which always ends with new versions of the ascetic ideal. There is a long tradition wherein philosophy is seen as a therapy and a consolation for those confronted with suffering. The most influential view was the Neoplatonic, which also incorporated many Stoic arguments. In the second part of this paper, some arguments on evil from that tradition are proposed, without, however, a desire for consolation. We may learn from Neoplatonism ways to discuss evil without making it an intelligible object. As Augustine said, we understand evil by not understanding it, as we may see darkness by not seeing it. Evil is not a being, a property, a function, an attribute. It is a perversion, failure, mistake, that is a non-being parasiting upon a being. In a discussion with Spinoza it is argued that it is not possible to give up altogether a normative concept of reality. The Neoplatonic concept of evil is also linked to the acceptance of contingency in the world. Only when things are not absolutely determined, is it possible to understand that something can go wrong. The notion of accidental causality makes it also possible to understand the tragic aspect of evil. However, this notion becomes problematic when applied to moral evil. It is in its explanation of moral evil that the limitations of the Neoplatonic approach to evil become clear. In particular its basic axiom that all agents act for some good, is questionable. (shrink)

Chulpforta, 1862 -- Napoleon III as president -- Saint-just -- Two-poem cycle two kings -- Louis the sixteenth -- Louis the fifteenth -- Agonistic politics, 1871-1874 -- The Greek state, 1871 -- On the future of our educational institutions, third lecture, February 27th, 1872 -- Homer's contest -- Untimely meditations -- David Strauss : the confessor and the writer, 1873 -- Schopenhauer as educator, 1874 -- The free spirit, 1878-1880 -- Human, all too human : a book for free spirits, (...) 1878 -- Miscellaneous maxims and opinions, 1879 -- The wanderer and his shadow, 1880 -- The campaign against morality, 1881-1885 -- Dawn of day thoughts on the prejudices of morality, 1881 -- The joyful wisdom, 1882 -- Thus spoke Zarathustra : a book for everyone and no one, 1883-1885 -- On the new idol -- On the rabble -- On the Tarantulas -- On old and new law tablets -- Conversation with the kings -- Nachlass fragments, 1883-1885 -- Aristocratic radical, 1886-1887 -- Beyond good and evil : prelude to a philosophy of the future, 1886 -- The joyful wisdom, book v, 1887 -- On the genealogy of morals : a polemical tract, 1887 -- First essay, good and evil, good, and bad -- Second essay, guilt, bad conscience, and related matters -- Third essay, what do ascetic ideals mean? -- Nachlass fragments, 1885-1887 -- The antichrist, 1888 -- Twilight of the idols : or how one philosophises with a hammer, 1888 -- Morality as anti-nature -- The improvers of mankind -- What the Germans lack -- Skirmishes of an untimely man -- The antichrist : a curse on Christianity, 1888 -- Ecce homo : how one becomes what one is, 1888 -- Why I am so wise -- Why I write such good books -- The case of Wagner : a musician's problem -- Why I am a destiny -- Nachlass fragments, 1887-1888. (shrink)

On a postcard to Franz Overbeck from January 4, 1888, Nietzsche makes some illuminating remarks with respect to the three treatises in his book On the Genealogy of Morality.2 Nietzsche says that, ‘for the sake of clarity, it was necessary artificially to isolate the different roots of that complex structure that is called morality. Each of these three treatises expresses a single primum mobile; a fourth and fifth are missing, as is even the most essential (‘the herd instinct’) – for (...) the time being, the latter had to be ignored, as too comprehensive, and the same holds for the ultimate summation of all those different elements and thus a final account of morality.’ Nietzsche also points out that each treatise makes a contribution to the genesis of Christianity and rejects an explanation of Christianity in terms of only one psychological category. The topics of the treatises are ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (first treatise), the ‘bad conscience’ (second), and the ‘ascetic ideal’ (third). The postcard suggests that Nietzsche discusses these topics separately because a joint treatment is too complicated, but that in reality, these ideas are inextricably intertwined, both with each other and with others that Nietzsche omits. Therefore, the three treatises should be regarded as parts of a unified theory and critique of morality. Nietzsche’s remarks on that postcard are important because in the Genealogy itself, he makes little effort to show the unity among the treatises. We shall return to this postcard repeatedly.3 The first treatise has attracted most scholarly attention, but much less work has been done on the second treatise, ‘ “Debts”, “Bad Conscience”, and Related Matters’. This is unfortunate, since it seems that, in Nietzsche’s own view, the central notion of the second treatise, namely, the bad conscience as a feeling of guilt, is a key element of Christian morality. Therefore, understanding Nietzsche’s treatment of this notion is essential to understanding his views on Christianity and the impact of the Christian heritage on non-religious moral philosophy.. (shrink)

The mainstream interpretation of Schopenhauer's philosophy is dialectical and stresses the continuity between aesthetics and ethics. This interpretation has its own plausibility but is overly confident in the letter. Restricting the value of Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory to a mere propaedeutic of an ethics, wherein the ascetic ideal of the denial of willing is central, might seem fully justified at first sight, but clearly overlooks a number of crucial complexities and ambivalences. First of all, it obliterates the specificity and (...) complexity of Schopenhauer's theoryof (aesthetic) pleasure. In the first section, aesthetic pleasure is shown to be closely linked with a peculiar form of non-conceptual insight, which is at the core of Schopenhauer's philosophy. In the second section, it is argued that aesthetic pleasure cannotbe reduced to the so-called negative pleasure that accompanies the liberation from individual willing. The dialectical reading of Schopenhauer's philosophy invariably stresses the negativity of aesthetic pleasure to argue for the 'bridge' between the aesthetic disinterestedness and the ethical denial of willing. Schopenhauer's aesthetics, however, acknowledges a kind of intrinsic and positive pleasure, which is bound up with the perception of the (Platonic) Idea in and through the concrete object and with the non-ordinary use of the cognitive faculties. The aesthetic contemplation is a peculiar kind of(non-conceptual) self-consciousness, which is itself a source of pleasure and is to some degree independent of the pleasure of relief from the demands of desire. Moreover, this dialectical interpretation avoids a detailed and radical scrutiny of Schopenhauer's theory of the sublime feeling. In the second section, the sublime feeling is contrasted with the beautiful and is shown to be a pure feeling that meets the specific conditions of an aesthetic appreciation. An attentive reading of Schopenhauer's fascinating theory of the sublime intimates a new interpretation of his philosophy, in which the fissures between aesthetics and ethics appear. The aesthetic feeling of the sublime hampers a smooth crossing from the aesthetic realm to the ethical denial of willing in asceticism, since it is not at all an harmonious feeling which accompanies the liberation from the will and does not promise an everlasting freedom from willing. The sublime feeling is an ambivalent mixture of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow and reveals a deep and unbridgeable gap in the heart of subjectivity itself. It is clearly distinct from and even contradictory to the ascetic's ideal of restraint and denial of the will. (shrink)

What is it that makes Nietzsche Nietzsche? In The Shortest Shadow, Alenka Zupancic counters the currently fashionable appropriation of Nietzsche as a philosopher who was "ahead of his time" but whose time has finally come -- the rather patronizing reduction of his often extraordinary statements to mere opinions that we can "share." Zupancic argues that the definitive Nietzschean quality is his very unfashionableness, his being out of the mainstream of his or any time.To restore Nietzsche to a context in which (...) the thought "lives on its own credit," Zupancic examines two aspects of his philosophy. First, in "Nietzsche as Metapsychologist," she revisits the principal Nietzschean themes -- his declaration of the death of God, the ascetic ideal, and nihilism -- as ideas that are very much present in our hedonist postmodern condition. Then, in the second part of the book, she considers Nietzsche's figure of the Noon and its consequences for his notion of the truth. Nietzsche describes the Noon not as the moment when all shadows disappear but as the moment of "the shortest shadow" -- not the unity of all things embraced by the sun, but the moment of splitting, when "one turns into two." Zupancic argues that this notion of the Two as the minimal and irreducible difference within the same animates all of Nietzsche's work, generating its permanent and inherent tension. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Internalization is an important yet puzzling and undertheorized element in Nietzsche's moral psychology. The aim of this article is to resolve some textual puzzles by way of shedding light on Nietzsche's views on the general nature of internalization, and how it relates to other significant concepts deployed in his thought such as bad conscience, the pathos of distance, the will to power, and the ascetic ideal. I begin by providing a brief interpretation of internalization that is somewhat (...) more perspicuous than exists in the literature. I then make a case for the claim that the consequences of internalization are dependent upon the nature of the attitudes that get redirected inward. This insight allows us to explain why Nietzsche does not give a uniform account of all instances of internalization, and provides resources to give a richer and more satisfying interpretation of his moral psychological and ethical thought. (shrink)

This paper argues that Foucault’s The History of Sexuality contains an implicit but important interpretation of Nietzsche’s critique of the ‘ascetic ideal’. It suggests that Foucault undertakes a non-reductive synthesis of seemingly conflicting aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, on the one hand, its valorisation of the ‘Dionysian’ and, on the other hand, its enthusiasm for ‘self-disciplining’. The consequences of a failure to appreciate how Nietzsche’s thought combines these two themes is illustrated through a sketch of what is termed an (...) ‘oppositional’ interpretation of his thought. This erroneously imposes the nature/culture distinction upon Nietzsche’s thought and reads its critique of morality in terms of ‘repression’, the ‘renunciation of instinct’ etc. An alternative, ‘economic’ interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought in which his ‘affirmation of the Dionysian’ and valorisation of self-disciplining are conjoined is outlined and recommended. Foucault’s interpretation of Nietzsche is presented as an example of such an ‘economic’ reading, in that it appreciates Nietzsche’s libidinal interpretation of self-denial. This combination of Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s thought is termed ‘noble ascesis’. This is illustrated through a reading of Foucault’s account of Greco-Roman ethics. Attention is drawn to how Foucault’s implicit interpretation of Nietzsche helps to clarify Nietzsche’s conception of the possibility of a ‘healthy’ appropriation of the ‘ascetic ideal’. The paper attempts to show how the ‘non-moral’ ethical practice Foucault retrieves from the classical world, on the basis of Nietzsche’s distinction between different forms of self-denial, emphasises the affective and libidinal investments of asceticism. This, in turn, is related to Foucault’s critique of the ‘repressive hypothesis’ and overcoming of the ‘repression/transgression’ model of the nature of power. However, the paper identifies some tensions between Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s accounts of asceticism and interpretations of the ethical practice of the Greco-Roman world and closes by considering whether or not these tensions can be resolved. (shrink)

“The genealogy of morals” is, most famously, a pair of genealogies: that of the good/evil dichotomy in the First Treatise, and that of the bad conscience in the Second Treatise. But the straightforward presentation of these two narratives is subverted even before it begins. Nietzsche classifies the book not as a treatise or inquiry but as a “polemic”; voices interrupt the narrative to insist that much is left unsaid; the narratives are framed by, of all things, reflections on the scientific (...) conscience; Nietzsche declares the entire enterprise to be a contribution to the critique of “the value of values”; the two genealogies of the first two Treatises overlap and various points and ultimately converge in a discussion of the “meaning” of the “ascetic ideal.” Whatever one makes of these complications, two tentative conclusions can be drawn. Nietzsche is profoundly concerned with the status of his genealogy. And genealogy does not function as reportage, primarily concerned with the accurate depiction of events; rather, it aims to reveal something about the status of “moral values” and the possibility of an alternative to them. (shrink)

This book traces the genealogy of ideas of reason, self and sexuality in the West, opening the way to a richer and more diverse understanding of sexual experience. Western philosophy and religion have distorted and continue to distort our experience of sex and love through three far-reaching constellations of reason, self and sexuality. Thinkers like Plato, Aquinas and Kant helped to fashion an ascetic ideal of reason hostile to bodily pleasures and sexual diversity. By contrast, philosophical hedonism advocates (...) a less demanding conception of rationality and defends sexual pleasure. But this approach of thinkers like Hume, Bentham, La Mettrie and de Sade is still one-sided and limiting. A third constellation, Romanticism avoids the limitations of both forms of rationalism, but in the name of a religion of love and passion that ultimately threatens the integrity of the self. In Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought, a richer understanding of sexual experience is traced to a dissident philosophical tradition. In their different ways Montaigne, Spinoza, Hegel and Kierkegaard, Marcuse and Foucault contribute to a more holistic, multi-layered and open conception of reason, sexuality and the self. This book will be essential reading for all students of philosophy and gender studies. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apontar cinco aspectos do pensamento nietzschiano que podem ser relevantes para os debates da filosofia da ciência em torno da natureza e representação do conhecimento científico. Para tanto, é realizada uma revisão de literatura com o objetivo de selecionar trechos de obras nietzschianas como O nascimento da tragédia, Genealogia da moral, A gaia ciência e outras que permitam interpretar Nietzsche como um filósofo da ciência preocupado com a construção do conhecimento cientifico sobre a realidade física. (...) Como resultado é possível identificar uma proposta epistemológica na perspectiva nietzschiana, cuja representação objetiva do mundo deve apontar para uma estética da vida. -/- The purpose of this article is to point out five aspects of Nietzschean thought that may be relevant to debates in the philosophy of science around the nature and representation of scientific knowledge. To this end, a literature review is carried out with the aim of selecting excerpts from Nietzschean works such as The Birth of Tragedy, Genealogy of Morals, The Gay Science and others that allow us to interpret Nietzsche as a philosopher of science concerned with the construction of scientific knowledge about the physical reality. As a result, it is possible to identify an epistemological proposal in the Nietzschean perspective, whose objective representation of the world should point to an aesthetics of life. (shrink)

As is well known, one of the central “existential” goals of Nietzsche’s philosophy was to combat the No-saying attitude to life,1 which he took to be an expression of what he variably called physiological exhaustion, decadence, or sickness.2 This No-saying—which he contrasted with his ideal of life affirmation 3—he supposed to lie at the core of various philosophical and religious views such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Schopenhauerian Pessimism. All, in one way or another, shared in his view that element (...) of the ascetic ideal that preaches that “life: it’s no good” or is a “wrong road”.Not less known is Nietzsche’s characteristic way of dealing with such value judgments... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche and the Political by Daniel W. ConwayDaniel BreazealeDaniel W. Conway. Nietzsche and the Political. London: Routledge, 1997. Pp. xii + 163. Cloth, $65. Paper, $16.95.This brief but stimulating work is a vigorous effort to defend the importance of Nietzsche as a “political” thinker. In order to make this case, Conway has to fight on two fronts: simultaneously rebutting the views of the many contemporary interpreters who argue (...) that Nietzsche is either an anti-political philosopher or else a distinctively inferior political thinker, while also reclaiming Nietzsche’s political thought from the race-theorists and Nazis who so successfully appropriated it earlier in this century. Conway is victorious on both fronts, and makes a compelling case for the contemporary relevance of Nietzsche’s thoughts on the broad topics of “culture” and “education.” This, of course, by no means exhausts the realm of the “political,” and Conway has little or nothing to say about Nietzsche’s views on such topics as the state, justice, legality, etc. Instead, he is concerned with what Nietzsche himself called “great politics.” For this reason, the book is concerned almost exclusively with Nietzsche’s later writings, focusing primarily upon the writings of 1886–88, while generally ignoring the Nachlass altogether.Chapter 1 (“Political Perfectionism”) deals with Nietzsche’s conception of the fundamental task of politics: namely, to facilitate humankind’s endless quest for “perfection,” a quest that alone justifies human existence. Since Nietzsche associated the perfection of the species with the appearance of the rarest and most exotic individual specimens, it follows that the specific task of political activity is “to legislate the conditions under which such exemplars will most likely emerge.” It is within the context of this “political” ideal that Conway offers his own, ingenious and controversial interpretation of Zarathustra’s teaching concerning the Übermensch.The relationship between Nietzsche’s perfectionism and his moral pluralism is the subject of Chapter 2 (“On the Uses and Disadvantages of Morality for Life”). Here Conway offers a thoughtful comparison between Nietzsche himself and some of his “models,” such as Caesar, Napoleon, and the Laws of Manu, and takes advantage of this comparison in order to introduce Nietzsche’s crucial—albeit extremely problematic—notions of the “order of rank” and “pathos of distance.” Chapter 3 (“Perfectionism in the [End Page 177] Twilight of the Idols”) is devoted to Nietzsche’s “critique of modernity.” Here Conway offers his own “political” interpretation of Nietzsche’s withdrawal from the “political macrosphere” of his own age and retreat into the “political microsphere” of his personal life and literary/cultural projects, including his various “educational” schemes. A certain ambiguity in the overall conception of this book becomes apparent at this point, however, inasmuch as Conway finds himself simultaneously distinguishing between Nietzsche’s “moral” and “political” perfectionism, while continuing to insist upon the larger “political” significance of the former—even while conceding that, for Nietzsche himself, political perfection was a mere means for moral perfection. Chapter 4 (“Regimens of Self-Overcoming”) contains a detailed account of the necessary antagonism between the (“untimely”) Nietzschean philosopher and his own age and an insightful discussion of what Conway calls “the aversive mechanism of self-overcoming” (69). Conway’s discussion of the link between Nietzschean perfectionism and the adoption of multiple perspectives (“experimentalism”) is one the clearest and best in the literature. Nietzsche’s own self-experiments and his understanding of the same as “signs” for others are discussed in Chapter 5 (“The Philosopher’s Versucherkunst”). Like other recent interpreters, Conway calls attention to the essential role of erotic love in Nietzsche’s conception of the process of experimental self-education and to the way in which eros links purely individual goals to larger cultural and educational ones. The chapter concludes with an admirable account of how Nietzsche was able to harness and to employ his own resentment as an instrument of self-overcoming. This theme is continued in Chapter 6 (“Comedians of the Ascetic Ideal”), which tries to show how Nietzsche sought to safeguard the crippled will in an unpropitious era, not by rejecting the ascetic ideal, but by employing it in a new way. This is perhaps Conway’s most original... (shrink)

The paper explores the few occurrences of the expression «will to nothingness» (Wille zum Nichts) in Nietzsche’s writings, and its relationship with the notions of ‘will to truth’ and ‘ascetic ideal’. Aim of this research is to show that these notions are mutually related, and that they outline the objectives of Nietzsche’s late thought. The investigation will focus in particular on the concept of “realism” that appears in Nietzsche’s late writings, and that can be interpreted as an existential (...) attitude towards life that contrasts pessimistic nihilism. (shrink)

As well as drawing sceptical conclusions, Nietzsche rejects the concept of absolute or metaphysical truth as unintelligible. Nietzsche's views are elucidated by contrasting his arguments with alternative accounts of ‘objective reality’ belonging to the philosophical canon. It ensues that Nietzsche espouses a variety of anti‐metaphysics premised on the mutual determination of reality and interest. He believes that objective reality cannot be conceived without volitional and intentional agency on the part of subjects who experience themselves as acted upon by the contents (...) of their representations. Having elaborated and explained the prominence of Nietzsche's denial of metaphysical fact, the discussion turns to the origin and significance of the desire for metaphysical truth. In identifying the embracing of metaphysical truth for its own sake with the ascetic ideal, Nietzsche intends to contrast practical engagement with the world with a preference for evaluation divorced from the subject's actual experiences and desires. Belief in objective value and ‘the will to truth’ are subsumed under a general psychological disposition designated ‘the ascetic ideal’, characterized by self‐deception or ressentiment. (shrink)

Argues that Nietzsche's pronouncements on psychology advert to basic facts about the constitution of inner experience and are thus incompatible with his anti‐essentialism. Nietzsche's analysis of non‐egoistic behaviour, his proto‐Freudian presentation of mental life as driven by processes inaccessible to self‐consciousness, and his analysis of the ascetic ideal, ressentiment, and self‐deception amount to a picture of human agency in which all significant aspects of inner experience are ‘in reality’ desires for the experience of power.

Given its apparently scholarly form, the Genealogy of Morals is often read as a succinct, relatively systematic, and canonical exposition of Nietzsche’s mature views on morality. This article argues, however, that the work was intended as a parody of a scholarly treatise and examines how this parody is best understood. It begins by surveying some evidence that supports reading the Genealogy as a ‘textbook’ presentation of Nietzsche’s views. It then develops an exegetic case for reading it as a work of (...) parody, based on the third essay’s claims about the ‘self-cancellation’ of truth-directed discourse and how to oppose the ascetic ideal, along with the Genealogy’s internal organization and its place in Nietzsche’s oeuvre. Finally, it examines whether this parody is best interpreted philosophically as having the force of a strong parody that denies the possibility of truth-directed enquiry or that of a weak parody denying the intrinsic value of such enquiry. Although reading it as a strong parody perhaps makes it more radical and potentially appealing, I argue that the Genealogy is best read as a weak parody, because this is both more tenable and suffices for the claims Nietzsche himself makes about the work’s aims and character. (shrink)

Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality is strikingly book‐ended by the theme of knowledge‐seeking: the Preface opens with the ominous claim that “[w]e are unknown to ourselves, we knowers”, and the Third Essay's climax is the assertion that scientific, scholarly activity does not stand in opposition to the ascetic ideal but is instead only that ideal's most recent and insidious instantiation. This feature of the text is absent from Reginster's The Will to Nothingness. Nonetheless, the interpretive machinery (...) that Reginster develops in his reading of the Genealogy as a genealogy and critique of morality can also go a long way towards helping us to make sense of the text as, at the same time, a genealogy and critique of knowledge‐seeking. Making use of Reginster's account in this way serves to illuminate both the interpretive power and some of the limitations of his reading. (shrink)

This article examines various readings of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality. It treats key issues regarding each of the book’s three essays. The first essay presents slave morality as arising out of ressentiment against masters; Nietzsche thinks that this resentful attitude or affect becomes ingrained and is inherited in later generations. The second essay centers on the phenomenon of “bad conscience.” Nietzsche treats this not just critically, but also as enabling the “artist’s cruelty” which makes possible a new kind of human (...) enhancement. The third essay is about the “ascetic idea,” a “will to transcend” certain essential features of life—such as appearance, change, even willing—from which life suffers. Although Nietzsche finds this ascetic ideal present in the “unconditional will to truth,” this by no means implies that Nietzsche abandons truth as an aim. These three stories should be viewed as “conjectures” and as examples of the kind of thinking needed to understand morality and values. (shrink)

In this essay, we examine certain key aspects of Nietzsche’s contribution to the ongoing debate concerning the nature and status of philosophical wisdom. We argue that, for Nietzsche, philosophical wisdom is tantamount to a “disruptive wisdom” which is expressed in a “permanent critique of ourselves” and our entire mode of existence. Philosophical wisdom, so construed, is not a matter of finding “metaphysical comfort” in consoling theories, images, or ideas; nor is it a matter of offering consolation for frustration and suffering. (...) Instead, it is about disrupting or rupturing those prevailing “human, all too human” myths and illusions that perpetuate human frustration and suffering—especially the myths and illusions associated with what Nietzsche terms the “hitherto reigning ascetic ideal” in the West. By disturbing our “dogmatic slumber” in common-place beliefs and values, Nietzsche’s “untimely” atopic philosophers of “disruptive wisdom” evoke the promise of alternate forms of humanity: new ways of valuing the earth and our life on it, new paradigms for a way of life to be achieved in the future. Disruptive philosophers and the wisdom they impart, help liberate and inspire us to experiment with new ways of thinking and valuing, all of which contribute, as Nietzsche sees it, to the reconstituting and “fashioning of the self” as a transformed “second nature”. (shrink)

In this essay, we examine certain key aspects of Nietzsche’s contribution to the ongoing debate concerning the nature and status of philosophical wisdom. We argue that, for Nietzsche, philosophical wisdom is tantamount to a “disruptive wisdom” which is expressed in a “permanent critique of ourselves” and our entire mode of existence. Philosophical wisdom, so construed, is not a matter of finding “metaphysical comfort” in consoling theories, images, or ideas; nor is it a matter of offering consolation for frustration and suffering. (...) Instead, it is about disrupting or rupturing those prevailing “human, all too human” myths and illusions that perpetuate human frustration and suffering—especially the myths and illusions associated with what Nietzsche terms the “hitherto reigning ascetic ideal” in the West. By disturbing our “dogmatic slumber” in common-place beliefs and values, Nietzsche’s “untimely” atopic philosophers of “disruptive wisdom” evoke the promise of alternate forms of humanity: new ways of valuing the earth and our life on it, new paradigms for a way of life to be achieved in the future. Disruptive philosophers and the wisdom they impart, help liberate and inspire us to experiment with new ways of thinking and valuing, all of which contribute, as Nietzsche sees it, to the reconstituting and “fashioning of the self” as a transformed “second nature”. (shrink)