Saturday, August 31, 2013

Dissonance and Harmony

Dissonance is typically conceived as a negative phenomenon, often as equivalent to Pain or Ugliness.  One apparent exception is Adorno's analysis, according to which Dissonance and Harmony converge--"Dissonance is the truth about harmony.  Harmony is unattainable", for there is "friction in harmony itself" (Aesthetic Theory, 'Harmony and Dissonance').  However, according to his Dialectical method, the convergence of opposites is the rule, not the exception, so he implicitly agrees that Dissonance is fundamentally negative.  Still, that brief moment of convergence that he does recognize exposes the flaw in his concept of the opposition of Dissonance and Harmony--an unexamined presupposed definition of the latter as a positive moment.  In contrast, Harmony and Dissonance can each be defined as a combination of Attraction and Repulsion, with what is typically denoted by 'harmony' as involving less Repulsion than what is typically denoted by 'dissonance'.  On that basis, their distinction is evinced as one of degree in a range between absolute Unity and absolute Dissociation, as are the Beauty-Dissonance and the Pleasure-Dissonance distinctions.  Accordingly, the similarity between Harmony and Dissonance that Adorno discovers is that each entails both Unity and Multiplicity, e. g. it is the Multiplicity entailed in Harmony that constitutes its "friction".

Friday, August 30, 2013

Dissonance, Artwork, Artist

As has been proposed, Dissonance can be defined as a certain contrast of Repulsion and Attraction obtaining between 1) an observer, and 2) a certain contrast of Repulsion and Attraction amongst the components of some object.  Thus, the Aesthetic evaluation that abstracts from the internal structure of an object, and includes as a factor an hypothesis regarding the intention of effects of the object on an observer, is a judgment about, more accurately, an Artist, not an Artwork.  So, Kant's concept of Aesthetic Judgment, which is an instance of that concept of Evaluation, lacks the capacity to even recognize Dissonance properly.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Aesthetic Dissonance, Cognitive Dissonance, Praxis

Like Aesthetic Dissonance, what is commonly known as 'cognitive' Dissonance involves the compresence of two apparently irreconcilable phenomena, but unlike that of the former, the latter experience often occasions an effort to reconcile them.  However, the difference between the two experiences does not consist in a variation between the two dissonances per se.  Rather, as has been previously discussed, the awareness of Dissonance is itself as dissonant condition--a combination of Repulsion and Attraction, the result of which is an inability to act.  And, while an inability to act enhances Aesthetic Experience, and is generally regarded as necessary condition for the evaluation of Art, it can be detrimental in the context of real-life experience.  Thus, the contrast illustrates that the intellectual need to overcome Cognitive Dissonance is, ultimately, one of Praxis.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Dissonance and Aesthetic Evaluation

Dissonance, as constituted by a certain combination of Repulsion and Attraction, obtains not only amongst the elements of an artistic performance, but between performance and audience, as well.  For example, the dissonant character of Tony Soprano, which viewers both are appalled by and sympathize with, is epitomized by the face of Gandolfini, with its juxtaposition of the eyes of a killer and the grin of a sheepish boy.  The phenomenon of artistic Dissonance is thus the occasion for a paradigmatic Aesthetic Experience, in which evaluation is from a vantage point that is simultaneously engaged in and detached from its object.  That perspective is located between the 'Apollinian' participant and the 'Socratic' critic in Nietzsche's analysis of Tragedy.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Will to Power, Vicious Cycle, Binaryism

Previously here, the term 'Binaryism' was introduced to replace the more traditional 'Dualism', because the latter is used virtually always to denote what is, more accurately, a pseudo-Dualistic Monism--a system apparently entailing two principles. but one of which is privileged either analytically or normatively, e. g. Mind-Body, Spirit-Matter, etc.  In contrast, systems exhaustively constituted by Repulsion-Attraction, or Expulsion-Appropriation, i. e. Dissonance, are Binary, because their principles are mutually independent, and neither is subordinate to the other.  Thus, the formulation, in #13 of Beyond Good and Evil, that the Will to Power is a drive that seeks "above all" to discharge strength, is the expression of a Monist principle.  Furthermore, it follows, from the formulation, that any acquisition of strength both is preceded by the discharge of strength and is a means to the discharge of strength, resulting in a cycle that is not logically 'vicious', though as constituting what some might call 'drudgery', might be evaluated as morally 'vicious'.  Accordingly, Eternal Recurrence is a property of the Will to Power, i. e. is its fundamental pattern, in which case it is subordinated to the latter in what is a Monist system.  However, the formulation plainly does not suffice to explain any growth process, nor even the possibility of affirming the cycle, which requires a perspective outside of it, both of which Nietzsche advocates elsewhere.  Thus, interpretations of him as advocating a Monist doctrine are problematic, at best.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Dissonance, Eternal Recurrence, Will to Power

In #25 of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche briefly suggests that an individual human is a instance of Dissonance, presumably because one is constituted by a combination of the Dionysian and the Apollinian principles, i. e. by impersonal and personal factors.  In contrast, in #37 of Human, All Too Human, he suggests a different dissonant constitution of Experience--it is "Janus-faced", i. e. simultaneously looking backwards and forwards.  Now, an example of the former dimension is the taking full responsibility for all one's previous deeds, while one of the latter is the initiation of a new action.  In other words, the concomitance, in individual experience, of the affirmation of Eternal Recurrence and the operation of the Will to Power constitutes a Dissonance, in which case neither is reducible to the other, contrary to some interpretations of their relation.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Will to Power, Expulsion, Appropriation

Examples of Appropriation are domination, exploitation, and suppression.  Examples of Expulsion are discharge and bestowal.  Now, processes from both groups are, at one point or another, implicated by Nietzsche in the manifestation of the Will to Power.  However, because he neither distinguishes Appropriation from Expulsion, nor methodically develops the Will to Power, he does not systematize those varying expressions of the principle.  He, thus, misses, for example, that any act of domination is preceded by a process of the discharge of strength, which implies that in the structure of the Will to Power qua process, Expulsion is more fundamental than Appropriation, i. e. the latter presupposes the former.  Thus, likewise, Bestowal is independent of any appropriative process.  Accordingly, Empowerment is a more fundamental expression of the Will to Power, as conceived by Nietzsche, than is Overpowering.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Dissonance, Expulsion, Appropriation

Closely related to Repulsion and Attraction are Expulsion and Appropriation, respectively.  Included in the latter pair is a distinction lacking in the former--inner vs. outer, i. e. private vs. public.  Accordingly, musical Dissonance is more than an arrangement of given sounds--each sound is produced by a player who is simultaneously exerting outward-directed energy and absorbing the output of the other players.  Thus, what musical Dissonance expresses is a more fundamental compresence--of opaque privacies and shared publicity.  But, that compresence is not peculiar to musical contexts; rather, it constitutes every social setting.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Democracy, Dissonance, Will to Power

Democracy is constituted by a balance between Freedom and Equality.  Accordingly, the common conflation of it with Capitalism falsifies it, since the latter entails no concept of Equality.  Now, Freedom can be conceived as a Repulsive condition, i. e. it establishes the independence of an individual from others, while Equality can be conceived as an Attractive condition, i. e. it homogenizes a plurality of individuals.  Thus, Democracy exemplifies Dissonance, which, as has been previously discussed, combines Repulsion and Attraction.  However, just as the principle of the Will to Power cannot accommodate the concept of Dissonance, as has been previously discussed, it cannot adequately conceive Democracy, and, thus, cannot systematically evaluate it.  Thus, even if Democracy is the preeminent political expression of the cardinal phenomenon of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche cannot recognize it as such in terms of the Will to Power.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Dissonance, Will to Power, Repulsion, Attraction

On the basis of the centrality of Dissonance to Birth of Tragedy, no doubt inspired by Wagner's pioneering use of it, Nietzsche might have developed a Philosophy of Dissonance.  To begin with, as previously proposed here, Dissonance can be defined as a relation between Repulsion and Attraction amongst a plurality of components, a characterization that can be classified as 'descriptive', and/or stipulated as 'normative'.  Now, one advantage of such a principle is that it illuminates an important distinction in the doctrine of the Will to Power that Nietzsche never explicitly recognizes--that between powerful Repulsion and powerful Attraction, though he plainly implicitly entertains it--the resistant loner, and the form-giving conqueror, respectively.  Accordingly, he never systematizes the two expressions of Power, leaving a phenomenon such as the egalitarian aristocracy, to which he alludes in Beyond Good and Evil #259, without an adequate grounding in the Will to Power principle.  In contrast, such an important social configuration can be easily characterized in terms of Dissonance, i. e. as constituted by a relation between independence and cooperation, and, can, perhaps, be judged as an exemplary political arrangement.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Growing Pains, Plurality, Dichotomy

In Birth of Tragedy #24, Nietzsche conceives Dissonance as a dichotomous condition--the juxtaposition of painful individuation, and joyous dissolution of individuality.  However, as the production of musical dissonance evinces, the phenomenon of Dissonance is itself  Pluralistic--a relation among a variety of sounds, none of which is dominant.  Now, Dissonance can be more precisely analyzed as a certain combination of Attraction and Repulsion among its components.  But such a combination is not unique to the extraordinary Tragic moments that are the concern of BT--it also constitutes the more mundane experience often characterized as 'growing pains', in which parts of an organism repulse, while countered by the attractive effort of retaining integrity.  In contrast, the Will to Power has the capacity for only a Dichotomous interpretation of the transition--one condition overcoming another--in which lacking is an explanation of the maintaining of the unity of the organism.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Dissonance, Suffering, Will to Power

In #24 of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche characterizes Dissonance as an admixture of Pain and Pleasure.  Hence, the constructive suffering, i. e. combining pain and strengthening, that he later values can be classified as a 'dissonant' experience.  Now, the inner structure of Dissonance is evinced in the production of it, i. e. in music--a certain juxtaposition of a variety of sounds.  But, such a configuration is not hierarchical.  Thus, insofar as the Will to Power is constituted by relations of hierarchical domination, Dissonance cannot be represented in terms of it.  Likewise, nor can the constructive suffering that he values be.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Pain and Dissonance

Because Nietzsche's evaluation of Pain as potentially positive seems to oppose those of both Spinoza and Schopenhauer, two of his primary influences, merely dismissing the significance of it as "secondary", as he does in Beyond Good and Evil #225, without supplying a methodical derivation of that characterization, is insufficient.  However, that opposition entails either that Pain is not a sign of weakening or that weakening is not 'bad', neither of which seems easily demonstrable in terms of the Will to Power, which is constituted by relations of strength.  Instead, an alternative ground is suggested by his perhaps earliest consideration of Pain, appearing prior to his introduction of the Will to Power--in Birth of Tragedy #24, where he characterizes Dissonance as "primordial joy experienced even in pain", and as "disharmonic".  Implicit in these representations is a concept of Phenomena as constituted by a range of degrees of harmoniousness, with Pain and Joy at the extremes, and Dissonance their midpoint.  On that model Pain and Pleasure are not atomistic, mutually exclusive moments, so, nor are the various experiences of suffering that he judges as having potentially positive value.  However, it is unclear if such nuance is representable in terms of the Will to Power. 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Value of Labor Pains

Nietzsche seems to implicitly reject Spinoza's proposition that Pain is a sign of weakening.  However, his perhaps most famous articulation of his opposition to the latter--"What does not kill me only makes me stronger", #8 of the 'Maxims and Arrows' section of Twilight of the Idols--has limited evidentiary value, especially since, as is less well-known, the assertion is preceded by the qualification "From the military school of life."  Instead, a potentially more compelling counter-example is birth labor pains, which cannot easily be classified as a "weakening" process.  The additional advantage of that example is that the claim of constructive value for its instance of Pain can also be directed at his primary opponent on the topic--the Theology for which labor pain is a 'divine punishment', though such a challenge would be more effective if grounded in a principle in terms of which Pain can be interpreted as a positive experience.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

The Evaluation of Pain

In #225 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche asserts that Pleasure and Pain are "mere epiphenomena and wholly secondary", so that doctrines that "measure the value of things in accordance" with them, e. g. Utilitarianism, are "naivetes".  In contrast, a preceding doctrine, with which he is surely familiar, that similarly conceives Pleasure and Pain as only superficial, is Spinoza's, in which they are signs of strengthening and weakening, respectively.  So, Spinoza's evaluation of Pain as unequivocally 'bad' cannot be as easily dismissed as 'naive' as can be Utilitarianism's.  Likewise, Nietzsche's subsequent attempted justification of Pain requires an adequate explanation of its divergence from Spinoza's position, an argument that is lacking both in this passage, and elsewhere in his oeuvre.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Pain, Creator, Creature

Nietzsche, in #225 of Beyond Good and Evil, defends Pain as necessary to the self-discipline that is a means to personal enhancement.  Now, on his analysis, self-discipline is administered by a part of the self that he calls "creator", on a part that he calls "creature", which are juxtaposed as "form-giver" and "material".  However, two other examples of the form-giver-material relation with which he is surely familiar are conductor-orchestra and director-cast, neither of which requires the infliction of pain in order to succeed.  So, the justification of Pain that he presents in this passage is potentially self-undermining.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Pity v. Pity

The primary theme of #225 of Beyond Good and Evil is a defense of the constructive value of Pain, which includes Nietzsche's important thesis that by attempting to eliminate Pain, Christian Pity is health-threatening.  However, he superimposes on that thesis the ascription of it to what he calls "converse pity", creating a confrontation that he characterizes as "pity versus pity".  In the process, he leaves as a riddle the precise target of Converse Pity, which could be any of three possibilities--1.  the victims of Christian Pity, who are deprived of an opportunity to grow; 2. the advocate of Christian Pity, who, likewise, is stuck in a condition of arrested development; or, 3. the advocate of Converse Pity, for whom the painful experience of observing Christian Pity can be strengthening.  In any case, Nietzsche's real, stronger, opponent in this theme is Spinoza, who rejects both the thesis that 'Pity' is ambiguous, and that it is a 'good'.  Once again, a methodical treatment of a problem can be more powerful than a merely provocative one, which may have no more than a temporary impact, and may ultimately only breed confusion.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Evaluation of Pity

In #293 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche suggests that "pity" is equivocal--what it denotes in the experience of a "Master" is not what it denotes in the parlance of the common Morality of his era.  If so, then the "revaluation" of Pity that is his stated ambition in The Anti-Christ, is, more properly, a disambiguation.  However, there is no recognition of any terminological confusion in #2 of the latter work, in which he offers some Spinozistic formulations, but without addressing that, for Spinoza, 'pity' is unequivocally defined as harmful to Master and Slave alike.  So, #293 is an example of one of the weaknesses of his aphoristic style--its impact may be only near-sighted and ephemeral..

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Communication and Pity

While Communication may be one of the fundamental bases of social cohesion, its value is not unconditional--disease is spread by communication.  Likewise, Nietzsche conceives Pity as a disease, and, so, revalues it to a Vice, from a Christian Virtue.  However, his condemnation of Pity is not as dogmatic as his stridency seems to suggest.  For, in #293 of Beyond Good and Evil, he elaborates that "a man who is by nature a master--when such a man has pity, well, pity has value.  But what good is the pity of those who suffer? Or, those who, worse, preach pity?"  Analogously, the exposure to a disease of a well-fortified physician is essential to the treatment of it.  More generally, Communication has value only to the extent that it strikes a balance between unifying its relata, and maintaining a distance between them, i. e. without that distance, Communication itself is dissolved.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Architecture and Communication

One architectural product that is plainly a 'victory over gravity' is one that Nietzsche just as plainly does not have in mind in #11 of the 'Expeditions' section of Twilight of the Idols.  That product is a bridge, which, as presupposing the existence of two external relata, can hardly be characterized as that which "reposes in itself".  Now, if there is any aspect of human experience that a 'bridge' preeminently symbolizes, it is Communication, with respect to which Self-Satisfaction and Dishonestly are destructive forces.  Thus, this piece of Architecture also illustrates an answer to the challenge that Nietzsche poses earlier in his career--Truth has distinctive value as contributing to a victory over gravity, though not has he conceives it in #11.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Archtecture and Individuation

As has been previously proposed, Architecture symbolizes Power as that which is "conscious of no witnesses around it", and "reposes in itself" (#11, 'Expeditions', Twilight of the Idols), not as vertically superior, as Nietzsche asserts, but as located within.  Those characterizations also help explain, though they are not likely intended as such, his classification of Architecture as a non-Apollinian Art.  For, according to his own Apollinian principle, derived from Schopenhauer, Individuality is a superficial illusion, whereas, the creation of an enclosure produces an individual space, thereby demonstrating the principle of Individuation as concrete and internal.  In other words, Architecture illustrates that Individuation is an Artifactual process.  Thus, for example, the Humean image of the Self that is most accurate is not the "bundle", but the "theater".

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Architecture and Self-Overcoming

On a church, a spire typically functions as pointing towards 'Heaven'.  However, not every building with a spire is a church.  So, in those cases, a spire can be interpreted as simply pointing beyond itself.  Thus, it is an architectural feature that can symbolize the Will to Power qua Self-Overcoming.  But, Architecture expresses Self-Overcoming in a more general way.  For, every new action constitutes a creative advance on given circumstances, including one's entire past.  So, with one's past conceived as the 'ground' of novel experience, the architectural building-ground relation represents a creative advance on that past, i. e. Self-Overcoming.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Architecture, World, Environment

Nietzsche seems to not recognize that the formulation "No inner and outer in the world", from Human, All Too Human #15, is incoherent.  For, if there is no given "inner" in the world, then the locution 'in the world' is meaningless.  More precisely, the concept of 'world' in the locution entails Enclosure, and, hence, does not exist as given either, according to the formulation.  Likewise, an 'environment', i. e. that within which something exists, is also an Artifactual concept, though that is not to say that there does not exist atmosphere, trees, the ground, etc.  Rather, it is to assert that the concept of humans as 'in' the latter, not 'of' it, is an interpretation derived from the experience of being inside a building.  So, insofar as Architecture creates Enclosure, as has been previously proposed, it is the origin of the familiar concept of 'Environment'.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Architecture and the Ascetic Ideal

As previously proposed, building-construction is fundamentally an expression of the human need for shelter, affording protection from adverse parts of Nature.  Architecture is thus the locus of one of the profound errors of human history--the interpretation of Artifactuality as Super-Naturality.  That error typically occurs when a concept of 'Heaven' is generated by the extrapolation from the manufactured independence of a shelter from the rest of Nature, to an uncreated realm of complete separation from all of Nature.  Likewise, from Kant's 'groundwork', there emerges a realm that is 'free' from the laws of Nature.  However, perhaps unwittingly embodying a correction to that error is any church, the most 'sacred' dimension of which is neither its steeple nor what the steeple presumably points to, but the sanctuary that it offers within, which political power usually tends to respect.  In contrast, Nietzsche, in Human, All Too Human #15, likens the Inner/Outer relation to the Above/Below one, without recognizing that the former supplants the latter upon the destruction of Ptolemaic Cosmology.  Likewise, while he derives the 'Ascetic Ideal' from a Will to Nothingness, an alternative genealogy of it is architectural, i. e. from a Will to Shelter.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Architecture, Dionysian, Apollinian

It seems not unreasonable to speculate that Architecture is primarily the expression of a fundamentally biological instinct--the need for shelter.  Accordingly, the 'space' that it creates is, more precisely, an enclosure, concomitant with the construction of which is the production of an external facade of the structure.  Thus, Architecture is the basis of one of the significant contrasts of Modern Philosophy--In-Itself/Appearance.  Of course, Nietzsche is among those influenced by that contrast--it informs, via Schopenhauer, his Dionysian/Apollinian relation.  Thus, it is not merely that Architecture is independent of both the Dionysian and the Apollinian principles, as he suggests in #11 of the 'Expeditions' section of Twilight of the Idols, it is arguably their origin.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Architecture, Inner, Outer

Any building falsifies Nietzche's assertion, from #15 of Human, All Too Human, that there is "no inner and outer in the world".  Similarly, while some Architecture, e. g. a churche, may, as he asserts, in #11 of the 'Expeditions' section of Twilight of the Idols, also symbolize hierarchical relations, the distinction in dimensionality that all buildings concretely effect is Inner from Outer.  So, if Architecture represents a "victory", it is fundamentally not over "gravity", but over some parts of Nature, e. g. rain, large animals, etc.  Likewise, if it symbolizes the human Will to Power in any respect, it is primarily the Artifactuality of the latter, via which the human species separates itself from the rest of Nature.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Architecture and Space

Nietzsche's attention to Space is rare, primarily appearing in the Will to Power collection, usually as a neo-Kantian thesis, e. g. that Space is a necessary fiction.  One isolated and brief exception is in #545, where he proposes that "absolute space is the substratum of force: the latter limits and forms".  He does not further recognize that that proposition is familiarly confirmed by every construction of a building, i. e. which is force creating a space.  Likewise, his focus on the vertical dimension of Architecture, e. g. his interpretation of it, in #11 of the 'Expeditions' section of Twilight of the Idols, as a symbol of hierarchical relations, abstracts from the horizontal dimensions of a building, so he cannot appreciate that Architecture is fundamentally an Art of creating space.  Conceived as such, Architecture no longer symbolizes the privilege of the higher over the lower.  To the contrary--a roof is at the service of what is below it, i. e. it provides the latter with protection.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Will to Power and Architecture

The work that introduces the Will to Power does not exemplify the Art that, according to Nietzsche, best symbolizes the Will to Power.  For, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a 'Tragedy', according to The Gay Science, and, therefore, combines Dionysian Art and Apollinian Art, whereas, according to #11 of the 'Expeditions' section of Twilight of the Idols, the Art that best symbolizes the Will to Power is Architecture, which is "neither" Dionysian nor Apollinian.  Furthermore, Thus Spoke Zarathustra includes no methodical theory-construction, the species of Philosophical writing that best illustrates architectural principles.  Now, one way that Architecture, according to the passage in TI, expresses the Will to Power is as a "victory over . . . gravity", a relation which, upon further analysis, is revealed as requiring the support of every higher part of a structure by every lower part.  In other words, Architecture expresses how the stability of the higher is a function of the strength of the lower.  It thereby expresses a critique of the many passages in which Nietzsche endorses, on the basis of the Will to Power, the abuse or neglect of lower classes by higher classes, e. g. in #258 of Beyond Good and Evil, in which he asserts that it is "healthy" for an "aristocracy" that the parts of society on which it is propped be "reduced and "lowered".

Saturday, August 3, 2013

The Legacy of the Will to Power

It is uncertain if Nietzsche's assertion, at #290 of Beyond Good and Evil, that "every profound thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood", is true.  Regardless, if the subsequent century or so is any indication, he has little to fear with respect to his concept of the Will to Power.  For, the most prominent influence of the latter has been where it has been appropriated as a rhetorical rationale for violence, exploitation, and/or neglect.  In other words, even there, there has been no insight into its innovative implications as a Psychological or Biological theory, or as a Moral doctrine of Empowerment.  No doubt his emphasis on the more brutish interpretation of the concept, i. e. as apparently advocating uncompromising Overpowering, has contributed to the narrowness of its appeal.  Furthermore, despite his well-earned reputation as one of the great writers in the history of Philosophy, his manner of presenting the Will to Power undermines its potential efficacy, by failing to do justice to it.  That failure consists, more precisely, in an inadequacy of Form to Content, e. g. the better expression of a "development of  . . . more comprehensive states" (BGE 257) is a progressive construction, not scatter-shot aphorisms, no matter how cleverly juxtaposed.  So, if he, in contrast, had presented the Will to Power as has been proposed here, i. e. as the methodically constructed doctrine 'Potentism', he might have had more to fear about its being understood, though its legacy might have been a more generally beneficial one.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Potentism, Method, Morality

Method systematizes Empowerment, and, hence, further enhances Potency, i. e. a formula enables action in a variety of circumstances.  Now, while Philosophical schools have been distinguished in terms of Method, e. g. Dialectical, Analytical, Empirical, Phenomenological, etc.,until Kant proposes that Reason is fundamentally Practical, Method is in the service of Theory.  So, while Method becomes specific to Morality in Kant's doctrine, in Potentism, Morality and Method are one and the same.  That is, Potentism expresses the concept of a Moral doctrine as the formulation of the Method with the maximum Scope--the Method of living well.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Potentism, Leader, Follower

One constant through all phases of Nietzsche's career is his high esteem for Education--his early honoring of Schopenhauer as "educator"; Zarathustra's proclaiming himself as the "teacher" of the Overman; and, at the end of Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche characterizes himself as the "teacher" of Eternal Recurrence.  Furthermore, as has been previously discussed, Education is a type of Examplification.  Thus, it is no stretch of the text to interpret the 'bestowing gold' from Z as a symbol of the process of Education.  Now, entailed in the concept of Education is the teacher-learner relation, which can be generalized as one of leader-follower, e. g. conductor-musician, director-actor, etc.  Accordingly, if there is any paradigmatic 'class distinction' that is inherent to Potentism, it is the Leader-Follower relation, in terms of which the Master-Slave and Commander-Obeyer ones are subject to revaluation.