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.

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