Self contra Logos: Nietzsche's Fatal Error

2018

One of Nietzsche’s main projects was to critique morality and to invite a revaluation of our values. Neither secular nor religious interpretations of Nietzsche’s critique of morality do it justice. Each support their own interpretation by appealing to certain aspects of his writings. The former appeal to Nietzsche’s rejection of Christianity and Christian morality; while the latter appeal to Nietzsche’s anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian remarks. In actuality, Nietzsche was neither of the two: he argued that Western secular moralities are a modern manifestation of Christian morality, and that Christian morality is a manifestation of what he comes to call “Slave Morality.” On this account, this thesis is a humble attempt to bring forth a philosophical interpretation of Nietzsche’s critique and historical analysis of morality, and how we can incorporate his critique and revaluation of values into our lives so we can live a better life. I hope that my contribution will be a meaningfu...

2014

This dissertation looks at the details of Friedrich Nietzsche\u27s concept of the revaluation of all values. The dissertation will look at the idea in several ways to elucidate the depth and complexity of the idea. First, it will be looked at through its evolution, as it began as an idea early in Nietzsche\u27s career and reached its full complexity at the end of his career with the planned publication of his Revaluation of All Values, just before the onset of his madness. Several questions will be explored: What is the nature of the revaluator who is supposed to be instrumental in the process of revaluation? What will the values after the revaluation be like (a rebirth of ancient values or creation of entirely new values)? What will be the scope of the revaluation? And what is the relation of other major ideas of Nietzsche\u27s (will to power, eternal return, overman, and amor fati) to the revaluation? Different answers to these questions will be explored. Ultimately, the conclusio...

Critique in German Philosophy: From Kant to Critical Theory (Acosta López and McQuillan Eds), 2020

Whether Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of morality is best understood as an internal or as an external critique remains a matter of controversy. On the internalist interpretation (Ridley, Owen, Merrick ), the genealogical enterprise takes as its starting point the perspective being criticized, gradually revealing it to be untenable ‘from within.’ On the externalist interpretation (Leiter, and arguably Geuss, Williams, and Janaway ), this constraint is lifted; the starting point of the critique need not be the perspective being criticized, but may be that of someone who already suspects the latter to be untenable. According to a common objection to ‘external critique’ interpretations, the limited-scope objection, since an external critique to a value-system could only work on an audience whose members were predisposed to abandon that system of values, ‘external critique’ interpretations impose a severe limitation on the transformative potential of Nietzsche’s project. ‘Internal critique’ interpretations, by contrast, can seem hard to reconcile with the polemical character of On the Genealogy of Morality (which lends the book its subtitle, Eine Streitschrift) and with Nietzsche’s frequent remarks to the effect his works were addressing a particular, ‘higher,’ kind of individual. The overarching goal in this paper is to call into question the usefulness of the ‘internal-external’ or ‘immanent-transcendent’ dichotomy for understanding Nietzsche’s genealogical critique. I argue that the apparent usefulness of the distinction between external and internal critiques when approaching Nietzsche’s works rests on the assumption that any critique of values must itself be grounded on values that function as evaluative-critical standards. If the assumption is right, then one of two things, either the values that are deployed as standards coincide with those that are the target of critique, in which case the critique is internal, or they are not (etc.). Thus the assumption is liable to render us forgetful of a third possibility, that of a critical strategy that does not work by deploying (internal or external) values as standards of critical assessment, but by revealing something about the nature of value, and more precisely about the origin of any individual’s commitments to their values. On the view that I defend, one of the crucial steps of Nietzsche’s genealogical method is to bring his reader to realize that any individual’s commitment to their values is expressive of and rooted in their commitment to preserve their way of life. Realizing this does not require that the reader abandon their own values. But it does require that they acknowledge that were they committed to a relevantly different way of life, they would subscribe to different values. And this, in turn, suffices to bring about a transformation in their understanding of and relationship to those commitments through the further realization that it is ultimately always up to them to undertake the project of taking distance from and ‘re-evaluating’ those values.

IGDS eBooks, 2025

This book is about two diametrically opposed approaches to the truth--introspection and extrospection. Introspection was the mature approach of the famous philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. While this approach led to profound insights into his personal psychology, it prevented him from reaching his goal of revaluing all societal values, and it proved so traumatic that it caused the great thinker to lose his sanity. This high-risk, low-reward approach is contrasted with one in which truth is sought through an exploration of the outside world--namely the dynamic life-system, or strategic logos--enabling, among many other things, an understanding of the way societal values are formulated. In one of his last books "Nietzsche contra Wagner" (1888/1895), Nietzsche wrote about Wagner and himself that: "we are antipodes". The same could be said of Nietzsche and me. Yet this difference does not diminish the warmth of feeling I have for Fritz (as he was known to family and close friends), nor the immense respect I have for his dangerous and painful odyssey in search of the truth.

It goes without saying that I do not deny -unless I am a fool -that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged -but I think that one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently -in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently.

Nietzsche’s irrational doctrines have contributed to the emergence of self-destructive extremism on both the right and left ends of the political spectrum. The realization of his Übermensch ideal is not about achieving greatness as an individual but rather about greatness as a collective whole, specifically as a European empire. His philosophy stands in stark contrast to genuine conservatism, which is rooted in Christian principles. Keywords: conservatism, perspectivism, traditionalism, New Right, identitarian, postmodernism, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Heraclitus, extremism, antisemitism, will to power, logos, Christianity.

2014

NIETZSCHE’S REVALUTION OF ALL VALUES Joseph Kranak Marquette University, 2014 This dissertation looks at the details of Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the revaluation of all values. The dissertation will look at the idea in several ways to elucidate the depth and complexity of the idea. First, it will be looked at through its evolution, as it began as an idea early in Nietzsche’s career and reached its full complexity at the end of his career with the planned publication of his Revaluation of All Values, just before the onset of his madness. Several questions will be explored: What is the nature of the revaluator who is supposed to be instrumental in the process of revaluation? What will the values after the revaluation be like (a rebirth of ancient values or creation of entirely new values)? What will be the scope of the revaluation? And what is the relation of other major ideas of Nietzsche’s (will to power, eternal return, overman, and amor fati) to the revaluation? Different a...

Sutanoc, 2025

This study examines morality as the underlying element running across Nietzsche's philosophic enterprise. It also critiques Nietzsche's idea of morality, with a view to showing that irrespective of his radical attempts to exonerate mankind from moral absolutism, he fails in disuniting humanity from such a tradition. Morality for Nietzsche is the standard of value which exists in an individual interpretation. Hence, an idea is merely a perspective and the possibility of moral absolutism should be set aside. For him, 'one morality for all' is detrimental to higher men. It is anti-nature and a threat to human excellence. Attempts are made, in this study, to critique Nietzsche's approach to undermine moral absolutism, especially the metaphysical foundation on which moral absolutism is established. This study adopts the method of historical hermeneutics and textual analysis.

From Kant to Lévi-Strauss, 2002

Nietzsche’s implacable criticism of his time is directed against its culture and the types of character bred by that culture. Using the religious terms of Judaism and Christianity to characterise Western civilisation, Nietzsche traces its arrival at a nihilistic impasse in which there is little prospect of life-affirmation, which would require a transvaluation of all values. His fundamental project is to question the values of Enlightened modernity, such as its fascination with scientific truth, its quest for universal moral principles such as equality and its assumption that reason could set it free. Although he does not use the terms directly, Nietzsche in effect criticises the developing mass culture and politics of modernity. Yet, however disdainful Nietzsche may appear to be about the newspaper-reading ‘last men’ who populated fin de siècle Europe, he is deeply ambivalent about the modern culture in which he lives, always aware that he is also a product of that culture. So, his own propensity to reflect on how Western society came to hold the values that it does is characteristic of the Western tendency to undermine its values by reflecting on everything.

2014