Nietzsche's Sensualism

Abstract: The late Nietzsche defended a position which he sometimes to refers as ‘sensualism’ and which consists of two main theses: senses ‘do not lie’ (T1) and sense organs are ‘causes’ (T2). Two influential interpretations of this position have been proposed by Clark and Hussain, who also address the question whether Nietzsche's late sensualism is (Hussain) or not (Clark) compatible with the epistemological view which he held in his previous work and which has been dubbed the ‘falsification thesis’ (FT). In my paper I will show that both readings raise substantial difficulties and propose an alternative account of Nietzsche's sensualism. In particular, I will argue: (a) that according to Nietzsche the representational content of sensory experience ‘does not lie’ since it is physically grounded in causal exchanges with the external world which are mediated by sense organs; (b) that Nietzsche believes that the claim that senses ‘do not lie’ is also true of the phenomenal, qualitative content of sensory experience; and (c) that FT, despite its prima facie tension with (a) and (b), fit well Nietzsche's sensualism.     

尼采的革命

弗里德里希·尼采是当今西方非马克思主义世界中最有影响的哲学家。他的影响范围冲破了那种通常把知识分子和政治活动家分开的、理论与实践的传统界限。而且 ,他的学说已经在公众中广为传播 ,即使在那些从未听说过他的名字或从未读过他的著作的人中也是如此 ,从表面上看 ,这似乎与尼采本人的不为群氓写作的主张相矛盾。值得注意的是 ,尼采是一位自诩的颓废者、虚无主义者、无神论者、反基督教者、经院哲学的反对者 ,社会主义、平均主义和“人民”的严厉批评者。他拥护贵族的政治观念 ,坚决主张将人类划分为不同的等级 ,他甚至劝说男人到女人…     

Nietzsche's radical experimentalism

The literary complexity of Nietzsche's writings is by now largely familiar; it needs no further display. Instead, I try to reconstruct some of his ideas such that they amount to a sustained philosophical argument and promising project, namely, an attempt to understand — after the Kantian and Darwinian turns — the very possibility of the formation and continuation of infinite varieties of forms of life.I demonstrate that such a project could make good sense only as a transcendental experiment in which the idea of a reality which is ready-made, immutable, and fixed in itself must not only be dismissed as something incomprehensible, but as something not in the least worth striving for, and replaced by the idea of synergetic processes (of self-organization) and what Nietzsche called art without an artist. Read as an empirical-historical narrative we would have to reject Nietzsche's account as a mere rhapsody and arrogant fantasy.Abbreviations AS Attempt at a Self-Criticism. 1886 Preface, BT. - BG Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1966. - BT The Birth of Tragedy. Trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. - GM On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. W. Kaufmann & R. J. Holingdale. New York: Vintage books, 1967. - GS The Gay Science. Trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. - HH Human, All Too Human. Volume 1. Trans. M. Faber, with S. Lehmann. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. - HI On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life. Trans. P. Preuss. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980. - NF Nachgelassene Fragmente.Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe. Volumes 7–13. Edited by G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin: dtv-W. de Gruyter, 1980. - PT On the Pathos of Truth.Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks of the early 1870s. Trans. and ed. D. Breazeale. Atlantic Heights: Humanities Press, 1979. - TL On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. Ibid. - UM Untimely Meditations. - WP The Will to Power. Trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Holingdale. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.     

Nietzsche's Naturalized Aestheticism

This essay seeks to overcome the divide that has emerged in recent scholarship between Alexander Nehamas’s reading of Nietzsche as an aestheticist who eschews the dogmatism implicit in the scientific project and Brian Leiter's reading of Nietzsche as a hard-nosed naturalist whose project is continuous with the natural sciences. It is argued that Nietzsche turns to the natural sciences to justify a relationalist ontology that not only eliminates metaphysical concepts such as ‘being’ and ‘things-in-themselves’, but also can be linked to key components of the aestheticist reading. As a result, Nietzsche's naturalism should not be understood as opposing important features of his aestheticism. Instead, Nietzsche's project should be understood in terms of a naturalized aestheticism that rejects the metaphysical-moral interpretation of existence espoused by philosophers such as Plato, Kant, and Schopenhauer.     

Nietzsche's Pluralism about Consciousness

In this paper I argue that Nietzsche's view on consciousness is best captured by distinguishing different notions of consciousness. In other words, I propose that Nietzsche should be read as endorsing pluralism about consciousness. First, I consider the notion that is preeminent in his work and argue that the only kind of consciousness which may fit the characterization Nietzsche provides of this dominant notion is self-consciousness (^Sconsciousness). Second, I argue that in light of Nietzsche's treatment of perceptions and sensations we should conclude that he takes each of such state types to involve a specific kind of consciousness which differs from ^Sconsciousness. I label these two additional kinds of consciousness perceptual consciousness (^Pconsciousness) and qualitative consciousness (^Qconsciousness), respectively. I conclude the paper with some remarks on how, in Nietzsche's picture, these three different kinds of consciousness might relate.