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.

No comments:

Post a Comment