Sunday, March 31, 2019

Perspectivism, Perception, Action

Insofar as Perspectivism is a model of Empirical perceptual experience, Subjects of experience are mutually radically alterior, i. e. absolutely inaccessible to one another, a condition often characterized as the 'problem of the existence of other selves'. Thus, when Zarathustra, in 'The Convalescent', describes another as an "afterworld", he might be expressing a commitment to Perspectivism that Nietzsche briefly makes explicit in Beyond Good and Evil #10.  However, such a concept of Perspectivism does not take into account the possibility that Perception is not autonomous, but is ingredient in Action.  On that basis, a Perspectivist Subject is not only a center of Perception, but also, and primarily, a center of Action.  Thus, while the mutual alteriority of two perceptual fields remain fixed, two fields of action can converge, e. g. in a collaborative project.  Likewise, while for Zarathustra, music may charm the listener into forgetting that alteriority, the Dionysian recognizes that the overcoming of alteriority is actual in dancing.  Regardless, if Nietzsche's aim is to promote a Morality that is a corrective to enfeebling conformism, it is unclear how a model of Experience, even if potentially Egoistic, that abstracts from Action conduces to it.

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Perspectivism, Egocentrism, Particular

Perspectivism entails that the Subject is the point of reference of Experience.  Thus, despite obvious other indications, e. g. that the objects of vision are mere facets, in the absence of a self-awareness as such, the perspectival character of ordinary Experience remains latent, the commonality of which is why Perspectivism is widely regarded as a somewhat esoteric theory, even by Empiricists.  Now, because according to Perspectivism, the Subject is at the center of their World, it is equivalent to Egocentrism, in the strictest sense of the term.  But, the awareness that one is at the center of one's World entails the awareness that each other is at the center of their World, i. e. that one is merely one Particular among others.  Likewise, concepts such as Pluralism and Diversity are grounded in Perspectivism.  Thus, in the absence of the Self-Awareness that is essential to Perspectivism, utterances such as "self-interest", "pluralism", and "diversity" are no more than mere political rhetoric, as is typically the case in contemporary American public discourse.  And, without the understanding that such Self-Awareness entails that one is a Particular Self among other Particular Selfs, "self-interest" is empty rhetoric for a second reason.

Friday, March 29, 2019

Perspective, Particular, Morality

In Beyond Good and Evil #10, Nietzsche briefly expresses an advocacy of Perspectivism, but without developing it.  Continuing in that direction: a Perspective does not falsify Reality; rather, it presents a part of it, which is false only if taken as the whole.  Accordingly, the subject of a Perspective can be classified as a Particular.  Now, a Particular has internal characteristics qua Particular, and characteristics qua Part of a Whole.  So, Morality can be conceived as a program for how Particulars qua Particulars relate to one another, for the benefit of the Whole, e. g. more or less diversely, depending on circumstances.  Thus, Nietzsche could have explicitly jettisoned the concept of the member of the human species as an Individual, and replaced it with Particular.  On that basis, a Self is a Particular, Selfishness a tendency toward greater diversity among Particulars, e. g. as a corrective to enfeebling conformism, and Morality, with the Moralist as its mouthpiece, not a fiction.  As is, this development of Perspectivism remains only a possible interpretation of Nietzsche's later doctrine.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Self and Selfishness

The concepts of Self-Interest, Selfishness, etc. entail a concept of Self.  Nevertheless, a persistent incoherence in Modern Philosophy is a discrepancy between the latter and the former.  For example, Hume, on the one hand, conceives the Self to be a bundle of perceptions, but, on the other, accepts Selfishness as a simple behavioral instinct.  Likewise, Schopenhauer conceives the Self to be a mere Representation, yet accepts the Reality of a Selfish instinct.  Now, Nietzsche is briefly more consistent, recognizing, in The Gay Science #1, that if the concept of the Self is a fiction, then so, too, is any Moral evaluation of it.  However, that brief glimpse seems forgotten later when he converts Selfishness from a Vice to a Virtue, which is tantamount to an inversion of the conventional valuation of the characteristic in his era.  But, because its original Real basis has been obscured, that inversion has been distorted, and what is intended as a correction to a degenerative condition of the species, has been widely accepted as, instead, an advocacy of Individualism, a position which is antithetical to Nietzsche's Dionysianism.  Now, at the root of that confusion is his concept of the Self as a fiction, which has its ground in his uncritical acceptance of the concept of the Species-Member relation as that of Universal-Individual.  Thus, while the lapse of method of his predecessors is in the derivation of the concept of Selfishness from that of Self, Nietzsche's is in the derivation of the concept of Self to begin with.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Genesis, Diversification, Individuation

Nietzsche begins his transformation of traditional Philosophy by re-discovering the pre-conditions of the putative Socratic origin of the tradition.  An analogous project could apply to the account of the widely accepted origin of the human species presented in Genesis 2-3, within the same context, long before Darwin challenges it from without. For, in Genesis 1, the principle of propagation of the species is "be fruitful, and multiply", a blessing that entails Diversification as a positive value.  However, that principle has been obscured by the principle, according to Genesis 3, of the propagation of the species as a curse, salvation from which is possible only on an Individual basis.  Accordingly, Diversification has been eclipsed, in the Philosophical tradition influenced by that Theology, by a Universal vs. Individual antithesis.   But, Nietzsche misses this genealogy of the concept of Individuation, leaving him constrained to accept, via Schopenhauer, the concept of it as inferior in some respect, the inferiority of which is not remedied by merely inverting the antithesis in which it is a term, e. g. by transforming Selfishness from a Vice to a Virtue.  In contrast, because it conceives Variation to have potential Evolutionary value, Darwinism has more in common with Genesis 1 than with Genesis 3, regardless of the well-known conflict with the former.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Vitalism, Conformism, Individual

Nietzsche promotes a Vitalist doctrine.  Will to Power is an energizing principle, and the concept of Eternal Recurrence functions as a necessary condition of the doctrine--a Vitalist is one who loves Life even if all events eternally recur. His Vitalism is a corrective to what he diagnoses as centuries of de-vitalizing Christian Morality that promotes conformism.  Intended or not, the most powerful dimension of that Theological tradition is the concept of the Immortal Individual Soul, which, as the identical in all in its incarnations, levels any corporeal distinctions, and, hence, is egalitarian. Now, Nietzsche struggles with the concept of the Individual because, like not only Schopenhauer and Kant, but the entire Modern Philosophical tradition, he accepts the relation between Universal and Particular as antithetical.  As a result, the status of Individualism only complicates his presentation of the doctrine, e. g. The Gay Science #1.  But, the complication is unnecessary--the problem with the concept of Individual is not that it is a fiction, but, rather, that it is the product of an abstraction. For, the concept of the process of Individuation is an abstraction from the concept of the process of Diversification, which Darwin recognizes as having Evolutionist value, i. e. his 'variation'.  Now, Diversification can vary infinitely, between fragmentation and homogenization.  But, with Individual a univocal cardinal Quantifier, those variations cannot be distinguished, nor can each be evaluated on the basis of a Vitalist criterion.  So, missing in his Revaluation of All Values is Individualism, leaving his Vitalism susceptible to reduction to the former, e. g. by some contemporary Capitalists.  However, because Nietzsche fails to redefine Individuation as Diversification, those contemporary Individualists, e. g. Randians, perpetuate anti-Vitalism, in two ways--by promoting social fragmentation, and by failing to recognize that 'individual' is the most generic, and, hence, conformist attribute possible.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Zarathustra, Dionysian, Morality

In 'The Convalescent' section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra asserts that "Every soul is a world of its own; for every soul, every other soul is an afterworld. . . . For me, how can there be an outside-of-me? . . . But we forget that, when we hear music."  Now these concepts are completely antithetical to the Dionysian principles articulated at the beginning of Birth of Tragedy.  Thus, the passage settles the uncertainty, previously discussed, of whether or not Zarathustra is a non-Dionysian Individualist Moralist defined in The Gay Science #1. Accordingly, even if Naturalistic, cardinal concepts of Zarathustra's doctrine, notably Will to Power and the Overman, are as fictitious as those of his predecessors.  However, an alternative classification of them is available to Nietzsche, though he does not consider it.  For, it is on the basis of the Reality vs. Appearance dichotomy that Nietzsche inherits from Kant and Schopenhauer that he is constrained to consign the elements of an Individualist Morality to the status of fiction.  However, his allusion to the Species as Reality entails the possibility of conceiving an individual member of the species as a Part of a Whole, and, thus, just as Real as the latter.  Furthermore, just as there are parts of an organism, e. g. the proprioceptive part of the brain, that are capable of a holistic function, there can be individual members of the species, e. g. a Moralist, who can grasp Reality, and hence, can articulate a doctrine that is adequate to it.  Finally, freed of Super-Naturalist commitments, the concept of Reality need not be eternally true, so provisional soundness can suffice as a criterion for a doctrine, as the Pragmatists propose.  So, even if Zarathustra himself is a mere Individualist Moralist, his doctrine can have Real value in a different context, e. g. in an Organicist doctrine, such as a variety of Evolutionism.

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Dionysian Psychology

The motives of a man and a woman who are dating might not coincide--for example one is seeking sexual-pleasure, the other security, but if the situation satisfies each, then the relationship might continue.  Now, a 20th-century Psychologist might recognize some latent motives--she reminds him of his mother, she has fears of abandonment because of a cold father, etc.  But a Dionysian Psychologist, who, like Nietzsche in The Gay Science #1, conceives all individual behavior to be an expression of a species drive, might recognize the relationship to be an attempt of the species to propagate.  Furthermore, this latter analysis is not peculiar to sexual relations alone--according to the principle, all human relations are grounded in a species drive.  In other words, according to the Dionysian Psychologist, not only are the 'Individual' and its apparent motives fabrications, so, too, are the concepts of the relations with others into which it appears to enter.  For, implicit in the Dionysian principle is a rejection of the Atomist concept of inter-personal relations as external to its relata, just as social dating, apparently circumstantial, can be the product of a species drive that is drawing the couple together, via deception.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Conjoined Behavior and Will to Power

In the traditional Free Will vs. Determinism debate, the specific point of contention has always been whether or not some personal behavior has an antecedent external cause.  Thus, not at all considered has been whether or not some conjoined behavior has an antecedent external cause, i. e. individual behavior is presupposed on both sides. Plainly, as is evident in everyday experience, both are possible.  On the one hand, sexual relations can be determined by the drive of the species to propagate, while, on the other, collaboration on some project, e. g. artistic, political, can effect a liberation from antecedent conditions.  Now, if, as Nietzsche asserts, the ground of all human behavior is a Dionysian principle, such as a species drive, then, despite appearances, all behavior is actually conjoined and Determinist, i. e. the illusion of 'freedom' is not that of the falling stone that believes that it is flying by its own efforts, as Spinoza illustrates it, but of a finger that believes that its movements are unconnected to that of other fingers.  Accordingly, not only the Morality that promises the salvation of the Individual Soul, but any Egoist descriptive theory or normative doctrine, e. g. Self-Interest, is fictitious.  It also follows, on that basis, that the concept of a personal Will to Power is, at minimum, problematic, one resolution of which is that it is the product of a distribution of Will to Power shared by all involved in the conjoined behavior.  But, Nietzsche does not entertain any of these implications of his Dionysian principle, so whether or not he would accept such a resolution will remain uncertain.

Friday, March 22, 2019

Will to Power and Individualism

Implicit in The Gay Science #1 is the concept of Christian Morality as designed to counter individual belligerence via the fictional promise of otherworldly rewards for non-belligerent behavior, e. g. meekness, pity, etc.  Now, part of the doctrine is that what is offered is a salvation of the individual from themselves.  Thus, a fundamental novelty of the passage is Nietzsche's thesis that that detail is also part of the fiction.  For, he analyzes the immediate target of the threat to be not the Individual, but the Species torn by internal antagonism.  Thus, he is also diverging from Hobbes and his successors, by implicitly conceiving Leviathian to be primarily at the service of not the members of a society, but of the society as a whole.  But, because, beyond the opening sections of Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche devotes little attention to the Collectivism entailed in the Dionysian principle, he does not apply Will to Power to plural agency, thereby leaving it susceptible to being interpreted as entailing, contrary to The Gay Science #1, Political Individualism.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Free Will, Determinism, Will to Power

Schopenhauer's replacement of Kant's Pure Practical Reason with the Universal Will to Live entails the denial of the possibility of Individual Free Will.  So, though he does not explicitly address it, Nietzsche's contrast, in The Gay Science #1, of Individual behavior vs. behavior that is determined by a Species drive, in which he mocks the former, seems to align him with Schopenhauer in the traditional Free Will vs. Determinism debate.  But, if so, then Will to Power is potentially just  another vain illusion.  However, underlying that dichotomy is one that he repudiates in the passage--Super-Natural vs. Natural, entailed in which is the doctrine of the divine judgment upon the behavior of Individual Souls, and, thus, the thesis of Individual Freedom.  It follows from the repudiation of the underlying dichotomy that he is no longer committed to the derived dichotomy, not even to its Hard Determinist pole.  Instead, open to him, as a third alternative, is the concept of an Event as being the confluence of multiple antecedent conditions, as Whitehead later proposes.  On that model, Individual behavior determined by a Species drive can include co-involvement with the behavior of similarly determined other Individual behavior.  On that basis, the concept of Individual Freedom is erroneous not because it false, but because it is partial, i. e. abstracts from a more comprehensive context.  Similarly, Individual Will to Power is erroneous only insofar as it is conceived as the sole determinant of an event with multiple influences.  But, despite the availability to him of that resolution of the Free Will vs. Determinism debate, Nietzsche's frequent attribution of Will to Power to isolated agents encourages the interpretation that it remains bogged down by the traditional dichotomy, and, hence, is an instance of illusory Individual Freedom.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Morality and Opiate of the Masses

Intended by Nietzsche or not as such, The Gay Science #1 can be interpreted as 'Morality has been the opiate of the masses'.  For, it ascribes to Moralists the invention of a "second, different existence" that is "anti-natural", for the purpose of convincing individual members of the species that the life of each is meaningful in itself.  So, clearly exemplifying this formulation is Morality the goal of which is the other-worldly salvation of the individual soul, as a reward for meek this-worldly behavior.  Thus, Nietzsche's subsequent 'revaluation of all values' can similarly be classified as a Naturalist attempt to put Morality 'back on its feet', including a devaluation of meekness--not because meekness is antithetical to Power, but insofar as meek behavior is a low-grade expression of the Will to Power.  Accordingly, in particular, even if the Overman is currently a fiction, it is still a Naturalist concept, and, hence, a goal that does not require corporeal death to achieve, nor, therefore, a Morality that simulates incorporeality.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Temporality and Will to Power

In Schopenhauer's system, Temporality is a characteristic of Epiphenomena.  Hence, the initial motivational spark of his Noumenal Will to Live must be atemporal.  Accordingly, he lacks the capacity to recognize that his Will to Live might might more accurately be a Will to Extend Living, as Spinoza conceives it, and, hence, entailing a Temporal dimension.  So, Nietzsche's replacement of Will to Live with Will to Power, especially when characterizing the latter as 'seeking to discharge strength', seems to inherit Schopenhauer's concept of the initial spark as atemporal in some respect.  If so, then he, too, lacks the capacity to recognize that Will to Power might be, more accurately, Will to Extend Power, or equivalently, to increase efficacy, as has been previously discussed.  Nevertheless, Will to Extend Power provides a clearer basis for many of his analyses, including that of Self-Overcoming, and its extrapolation to the overcoming of Human by Overman.  As such, it entails a concept of Temporality as cumulative, i. e. even recurring identical cycles are, at minimum, quantitatively cumulative.

Monday, March 18, 2019

Will to Power and Increase of Efficacy

Certainty is a condition of an Epistemological subject, the objective correlate of which is Necessity.  Now, Necessity signifies Omnipotence.  Hence, the quest for Certainty that has motivated Philosophers for centuries is easily attributed to a Will to Power.  Similarly, Religion, beginning with the effort to influence a deity who can bestow benefits, e. g. a bountiful harvest, and culminating in a single 'almighty' deity, who can save a Soul, is also easily attributable to a Will to Power.  Accordingly, Efficacy can be defined as the cardinal Value of Will to Power.  But the history of Religion, beginning with the worshipping of local deities, and culminating in that of a single all-purpose deity, evinces another dimension of Will to Power--that it seeks an increase of Efficacy, which Nietzsche misses when mocking the demand for exclusivity of the monotheistic deity.  On that basis, Self-Overcoming is an expression of a conatus to greater Efficacy, and Willing-backwards does not so much liberate Will to Power for Willing-forwards, but establishes a basis for the latter, i. e. a degree of Efficacy that can be increased.

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Will to Power, Evolutionism, Pragmatism

Schopenhauer modifies Kant's Noumenon-Phenomenon distinction to Noumenon-Epiphenomenon.  At the outset of The Gay Science, the studies corresponding to the latter two realms are Psychology vs. Morality.  Also there, Nietzsche characterizes the Noumenal Psychological principle as the Survival of the species, at the unwitting service of which is Individualistic Morality.  Now, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the Survival of the species is replaced with the goal of its Overcoming, i. e. by the Overman.  In other words, Nietzsche now seems to be be advocating a variety of Evolutionism.  However, it is unclear if Evolution is in this context merely an Epiphenomenal fiction designed to replace Survival.  Nevertheless, Will to Power, as replacing the passive Will to Live with an active principle in relation to the given, has concrete potential Evolutionist significance--the emergence of Adaptation-Of, from traditional Adaptation-To, as the predominant mode of the Human Species-Environment relation.  The overwhelming evidence, in even the 19th-century, of the efficacy of Technical Reason proves that predominance.  So, even if the Overman is just another fiction, a Morality of Will to Power is patently not, therefore indicating that the new hierarchy of Values that it entails is indeed a concrete expression of a possible variety of Evolutionism, and no mere Epiphenomenon.  Regardless, this 'Philosophy of the Future' may be more contemporary than he seems to realize--Pragmatism, already emerging, though far away from the European traditions that he seeks to overcome, in which efficacious Technical Reason is recognized as a fundamental fact of Human experience.

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Certainty, Eternal Recurrence, Value

Among the cardinal Philosophical values throughout history has been Certainty, or, equivalently, Necessity.  This value is not only an Epistemological and a Logical criterion, but a Moral one, as well, as is exemplified by Kant's Categorical Imperative.  Now, Certainty is not an explicit target of Nietzsche's 'Revaluation of All Values', but it seems to be an implicit one in images such as a dice-playing deity.  And, it may be the presumption of Certainty that is the specific object of the Dionysian mockery of the Moralist in The Gay Science.  However, Eternal Recurrence entails Necessity, so Zarathustra's affirmation of it can be interpreted as Nietzsche's acceptance of Fatalism that is merely a change of attitude from Schopenhauer's Pessimism.  But, on that basis, the Revaluation of All Values is ultimately just as inefficacious as what it replaces, though wittingly, and, hence, circumscribed by Irony.  In contrast, the clear repudiation of the primacy of Certainty by the Pragmatists means that the Moralist who offers the hypothetical recommendation to try A can be effective without being unwitting or disingenuous.  So, a similarly emphatic supplanting of Certainty by Nietzsche might have made his use of Eternal Recurrence less equivocal, his introduction of Will to Power more concrete, and his distancing from Schopenhauer sharper.

Friday, March 15, 2019

Value and Form

While Noumenon-Phenomenon is the explicit fundamental dualism in Kant's system, the implicit one is Form vs. Matter, in which Noumenal Causality is Formal.  But, neo-Kantian Epiphenomenalism misses how a non-Noumenon can function as a Formal Cause, e. g. any sequence of instructions.  Hence, it does not consider the function of Value as a Formal Cause, e. g. in guiding behavior in one direction as opposed to another.  In contrast, the approval of the Past treats it as Matter for potential Future actions, e. g. lemons for lemonade, in the popular saying.  In other words, for Nietzsche, Value is an expression of the Formal Causality of the Will to Power, even when it is functioning as a weapon in Slave Morality.  Notably also missing that function of Value is Moore, who recognizes neither that the Good is a Form for Plato, nor that the deficiency of Utilitarianism is the Form-lessness of General Happiness.  So, he instead reduces the Fact-Value distinction to a question-begging Natural vs. non-Natural contemporaneous contrast.  But because he also characterizes Good as 'undefinable', among those influenced by him, the distinction has typically reverted to an Epiphenomenal, i. e. merely linguistic, exercise.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Fact, Value, Temporality

The distinction between Fact and Value has a simple origin that has been so entangled in extrinsic problems from which even Nietzsche does not disengage them.  The origin is briefly glimpsed by Hume in his thesis of a habit of expecting the Future to repeat the Past, but because of his focus on Causality, it slips away.  Instead applying Skepticism to that expectation--the Past is set, while the Future is uncertain.  On that basis, the Past is a Fact, while a Value helps determine Future action.  Accordingly, there are three common confusions of the duality: 1. Evaluating the Past; 2. Conceiving the Future as a Fact; and 3. Conceiving Fact and Value as contemporaneous.  Any Determinism is an example of #2, Kant's Nature-Freedom and Phenomenon-Noumenon dichotomies are examples of #3, and any judgment that has no practical consequences is an example #1.  Another example of #1, of especial interest to Nietzsche, is Ressentiment, in which one is stuck re-enacting the Past, as is also the case with some Freudian Neuroses.  Now, Willing-backwards, i. e. approving the Past, is designed by Nietzsche as a cure for Ressentiment.  However, as an Evaluation of the Past, that involves conceiving it as the Future as well, he only perpetuates the underlying confusion, thereby leaving obscure his Futural concepts--Self-Overcoming, Overman, and Philosophy of the Future.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Eternal Recurrence and Evaluation

Kant's Noumenon-Phenomenon duality revises Cartesian Mind-Body and Theological Spirit-Matter dichotomies, by introducing a new factor into the contrast.  His discovery of the primacy of Pure Practical Reason entails the duality of what has more recently been termed Ought vs. Is, or, equivalently, Value vs. Fact, with the latter overt, on which the former is a potential hidden influence.  As is well-known, Mill attempts to reduce Ought to Is, but as is less well-recognized, so, too, does Schopenhauer, as is expressed in his doctrine of fixed character.  And, as is obscured by a focus on the theoretical structure of Eternal Recurrence, e. g. Heidegger, Nietzsche's saying Yes to it, like Schopenhauer's saying No to it, entails a Value-Fact distinction.  But, having repudiated Super-Naturalism, Nietzsche needs a Naturalist ground of that distinction, to which the concept of Will to Power is his solution.  For, entailed in the concept of Self-Overcoming is a conatus from a given condition, to a superior condition, or, in other words, an Evaluation of a Fact, the prototype of which is overcoming the fact of Eternal Recurrence by saying Yes to it. Accordingly, Nietzsche subsequently shifts his attention to Evaluation, and to the implementation of Evaluation via Legislation.  But, he has not abandoned his earlier focus on Psychology; rather, he has discovered that Morality-Psychology is another duality that is internalized in the concept of Will to Power, without Morality being reduced to either a Fact or an Epiphenomenon.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Music Composition and Moral Prescription

A paradox, if not incoherence, in Schopenhauer's system is that while Individuality is sub-real in some respect, the process that produces it, the Principle of Individuation, qua Principle, must be real.  Likewise, while plastic art is, according to Birth of Tragedy, Apollonian, qua anodyne for the pain of Individuation, it must be at the service of the Dionysian principle, just as, in The Gay Science, Morality is at the service of the survival of the Species.  Now, a converse unclarity in Birth of Tragedy is the status of the composer of music.  On the one hand, Wagner is portrayed as a Dionysian artist.  On the other hand, unlike the Tragic chorus or orchestra, the art of the composer consists precisely in the writing of symbols on some surface, a process that is just as much a manipulation of a plastic medium as is sculpting.  But what the composer produces is not a beautiful illusion to be contemplated; it is a set of instructions to be followed.  Likewise, the Moralist produces a set of instructions to be followed, not an anodyne fiction, and, hence, not inefficacious.  So, Nietzsche's characterization, in Beyond Good and Evil, of the Philosopher as 'Legislator', might reflect that the life-affirming of Thus Spoke Zarathustra not only refutes Schopenhauerian Epiphenomenalism, but also leads to a new appreciation for Kantian Moral Prescriptivism.  The Overman and Evolutionism may be as fictitious as God and Creationism, but a Eugenics program is as actual as the Ten Commandments

Monday, March 11, 2019

Epiphenomenalism, Organicism, Morality

Schopenhauer's Epiphenomenalism radicalizes the Kantian Noumenon-Phenomenon dichotomy--not only does he replace Reason with the Will to Live, he reduces the concept of Individual Will to mere illusion.  In The Gay Science #1, Nietzsche proposes that the Noumenon is the Will to Live of, specifically, the Human species.  Accordingly, Morality, as a motivator of Individual behavior, can only be fiction.  In other words, what Nietzsche introduces in this passage, that influences the forthcoming Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is a hybrid of a Biological concept--Species--and an Epistemological framework--Epiphenomenalism.  He thus takes for granted the appropriateness of the latter to the former, not considering that a Biological concept requires a Biological framework for its fruitful development.  One such Biological framework is Organicism, according to which an 'individual' is actually a Part of an Organic Whole, and, as such, while subordinated to the latter, is just as real and as potentially efficacious as the latter, as any bodily part illustrates.  So, the adoption of Organicism in The Gay Science #1 has implications for Morality that are very different than what ensues for Nietzsche, e. g. Individual Morality is no longer fiction, but a specification of a role that a Part might play in the Whole of the efforts of the Species.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Epiphenomenalism and Eternal Recurrence

Schopenhauer's system is sometimes called Epiphenomenalism--according to which the objects of Consciousness are no more than representations of latent processes, with the significant implication that Individual Consciousness lacks causal efficacy.  In other words, what is illusory is not Individuality per se, but Individual Free Will.  Nietzsche inherits Schopenhauer's Epiphenomenalism, the implications of which for Morality are what he is examining at the outset of the Gay Science.  However, instead of straightforwardly accepting Schopenhauer's Fatalism, he recognizes that the very awareness of such Fatalism introduces an Ironic element.  But, that Irony remains inefficacious until the central Moment of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, when Zarathustra further discovers the Freedom to choose between the affirmation or the denial of Eternal Recurrence, the later of which is Schopenhauer's choice.  In the process, he specifically recognizes the irrelevance to that Freedom itself of the thesis that the outcome eternally recurs, just as Kant discovers a Practical Freedom that is irreducible to Theory.  Thus, at the heart of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a repudiation of Epiphenomenalism, but not one that Nietzsche explicitly addresses.  Thus, the extent of the transformation that Zarathustra experiences is unclear, i. e. whether Will to Power signifies a moment of real empowerment, or simply a change of Moralist fiction.

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Tragedy and Dionysian Comedy

Part of Birth of Tragedy is also an analysis of the death of Tragedy, and how the work of Wagner can be classified as a rebirth of Tragedy.  Accordingly, the introduction, in The Gay Science, of Zarathustra as "the tragedy begins" suggests that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is another 'rebirth of Tragedy'.  However, it can also be classified as a novel theatrical type.  For, in Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche equates the death of Tragedy with the birth of Comedy, as exemplified by the works of Euripides, to which he attributes the "Greek cheerfulness" that suppresses the Tragic origins of Greek culture.  Now, in Gay Science #1, he alludes to not only Tragedy, but also to Comedy, though not of the superficial Euripidean variety.  Rather, this variety might be characterized as Dionysian Comedy, since it consists in the provoking of Dionysian laughter at the human all too human seriousness of Individuality.  Likewise, such laughter becomes a prominent feature in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, thus suggesting the rubric for it of 'Dionysian Comedy', and a birth of a new sensibility.

Friday, March 8, 2019

Morality and Irony

In Gay Science #1, Nietzsche portrays the Moralist as both an Apollonian artist and a Tragic hero--both the purveyor of comforting individualist fictions covertly designed to promote the interests of the species, and unwittingly functioning as such.  The passage is significant, since the original edition of the work ends with the introduction of Zarathustra, by "the tragedy begins".  Accordingly, Zarathustra's main concepts--Overman, Eternal Recurrence, and Will to Power--are subject to the classification as fictions, and Zarathustra to that as their unwitting author.  However, insofar as Zarathustra is a surrogate for Nietzsche himself, and Nietzsche is not unwitting, Zarathustra can be interpreted as a new kind of Moralist--one who is also an Ironist, not in the sense usually connoted by 'Socratic', but one aware that his truths may be fictions.  Thus, Zarathustra's affirmation of Eternal Recurrence is also an affirmation of the irony involved in the act, and in his assumption of functioning as a Moralist.  Accordingly, Thus Spoke Zarathustra fulfills the challenge that Nietzsche poses at the outset of The Gay Science--the transformation of the traditional vanity of Morality into the dawning awareness of it as a species strategy.

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Eternal Recurrence and Evolution

Nietzsche's concept of Eternal Recurrence, taken literally, consists in a closed, exhaustive, repetition of the same sequence, and, so, seems to entail the denial of both a progression from Human to Super-Human, and Evolution, in general.  Nevertheless, the concept of Recurrence cannot completely eliminate the possibility of a progression.  For, even if the same sequence repeats, e. g. the seasons, two cycles are differentiated by their order, i. e. one comes after the other, but not vice versa.  So, Eternal Recurrence constitutes a spiral, not a circle, and, hence, entails the possibility of a progression from one cycle to the next.  Regardless, as has been previously discussed, it seems more likely that he conceives it as a heuristic device that transforms the Past from a burden into a resource for Future creativity, i. e. the origination of a superior species, perhaps via miscegenation and/or eugenics, as he suggests in some places.

Death of God, Overman, Evolution

Probably the best-known expression from Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the phrase "God is dead."  Now, it seems unlikely that Nietzsche means by this that an immortal existent deity is now deceased.  Instead, it is more likely a reference to the implication of the repudiation of Geocentrism--that the concept of a deity that inhabits a realm that encompasses the Earth is no longer tenable.  If so, then he is hardly the first to do so--it is also implicit in Spinoza's Pantheism.  But, as is evident elsewhere in his oeuvre, Nietzsche's main concern is not strictly Theological; rather, his concern is a consequence of that 'death'--the decline in effectiveness of a sustaining myth, that he diagnoses as incipient Nihilism.  Accordingly, he concomitantly recognizes the urgency of replacing it, which is why he complements the announcement of the Death of God with the positing of the Overman.  Now, as has been previously discussed, one interpretation of the Overman is that it is the Evolutionist successor of the Human species.  If so, then in these passages, Nietzsche anticipates the Religion vs. Evolution conflicts to come, though with an emphasis on the future of the Human species, not on its origins.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Willing Backwards and Evolution

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Will to Power and Eternal Recurrence are linked by what Nietzsche calls 'willing backwards'--willing that the Past recur eternally.  The problem with this link is that it seems to conflict with the definition of Will to Power as Self-Overcoming, and, hence, as the overcoming of ape by Human, and of Human by Super-Human.  Now, taken literally, 'willing backwards' is not equivalent to the eternal recurrence of the Past.  For, starting from the Present and proceeding into the Past, not only is the sequence of events the reverse of how it unfolded, each event itself unfolds in reverse.  So, a more accurate formulation of what he seems to mean is 'treat what has happened as if one willed it as such'.  In other words, willing backwards functions as a heuristic device for liberating the Present from the Past by assuming it, thereby empowering Future creativity, common expressed as 'If life gives you lemons, make lemonade'. So, one application is personal, e. g. Zarathustra's drama.  Another is more general--to counteract the deflation suffered by Humans upon the discovery that their origin is not divine, but animal, which, once affirmed, empowers Humans to resume the evolution towards the Super-Human.  There have been numerous interpretations of these features of Thus Spoke Zarathustra; this one is coherent and constructive.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Will to Power, Axiology, Utilitarianism

On the basis of On the Genealogy of Morals, it might be concluded that Nietzsche is a Moral dualist--Master Morality vs. Slave Morality, a dualism rooted in Zarathustra's Yes vs. No.  However, as the title also connotes, and as Nietzsche explains in Ecco Homo, the work is actually an etiology of given Good vs. Evil dualism, culminating in a different issue--refuting Schopenhauer's concept of Will-lessness.  Such a refutation is requisite for Nietzsche's concept of Volition, with respect to which a denial of Will poses a potential counter-example.  But, his Will to Power is adequate to such a refutation, exposing the denial of Will as an exercise of Will to Power of the lowest grade.  Thus signified is an alternative dualism--Better vs. Worse, corresponding to stronger vs. weaker varying degrees of the exercise of the Will to Power, and entailed in his concept of 'order of rank' that is prominent in other contexts.  Thus, an Axiological kin of Will to Power is a doctrine to which it is otherwise radically distinguished--Utilitarianism, with its comparative evaluations derived from its calculus.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Will to Power, Gravity, Superogatory, Evolution

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Spirit of Gravity' connotes conformist Morality, the overcoming of which by the Will to Power, e. g. Supererogatory Morality, as has been previously discussed, Nietzsche signifies as 'flying'.  Now, merely a few years later, the Human overcoming of Gravity becomes literal, as does flying.  Eventually, this venturing of the species into a new environment, i. e. the air, becomes more radical, as it leaves even birds far behind, i. e. outside the terrestrial biosphere.  So, on the basis of Will to Power, Human extraterrestrial exploration can be conceived as both an Evolutionary leap and Supererogatory action.

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Will to Power and Morality

Will to Power qua Self-Overcoming, as it is originally defined, is also Self-Mastery.  So, what Nietzsche later calls Master Morality is, more accurately, Self-Mastery Morality.  Correspondingly, therefore, Slave Morality signifies an inability to Self-Overcome, or, equivalently, a deficient Will to Power.  Now, since 'over' = 'super', in some contexts, Self-Overcoming is Supererogatory action, i. e. action that is beyond the 'good vs. evil' conformist Morality to which one has hitherto submitted.  And, yet, because Supererogatory action can be exemplary, it is not necessarily antithetical to Universalist Morality, i. e. it is antithetical to only the conformist Morality that it surpasses.  So, Will to Power qua Self-Overcoming, as Nietzsche originally defines it, connotes a Morality of indefinite elevation, perhaps even beyond traditional nobility, contrary to interpretations based on passages that are actually diagnoses of relative weakness.

Friday, March 1, 2019

Individual, Will, Evolution

For Schopenhauer, any Individual Human is subordinated to the Universal Will to Live.  For Nietzsche, initially, this subordination is dramatized as ego-shattering Tragedy.  However, he eventually replaces the Will to Live with Will to Power, a principle of Self-Overcoming, instantiated by the transitions from Ape to Human, and Human to Super-Human.  In other words, one scope of Will to Power is the Species.  Furthermore, the moment of ego-crushing becomes, instead, an opportunity for affirmation, by the individual Human, of the superior power, thereby harnessing it, and transforming the experience into one of Self-Overcoming empowerment.  So, in Ecological terms, Schopenhauer's concept of the Individual-Will relation is that of an Adaptation, by an individual Organism, to an Environment, whereas Nietzsche's is that of an individual Organism participating in the Adaptation, by a Species, of an Environment, for Evolutionary purposes.