Friedrich Nietzsche's on the Genealogy of Morality As History
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Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality as History Serving Life By Aaron John O’Brien A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctoral Degree in Philosophy Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Aaron John O’Brien, Ottawa, Canada, 2017 Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements v Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Historiography Serving Genius in On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life 12 1.1 Historical Sense and Unhistorical Feeling 14 1.2 The Suprahistorical Perspective 19 1.3 Nietzsche’s Disavowal of the Suprahistorical Perspective 23 1.4 Schopenhauer on Historical Knowledge and Aesthetic Contemplation 26 1.5 The Schopenhauerian Nature of the Suprahistorical Perspective 31 1.6 Other Interpretations of the Suprahistorical 37 1.7 Three Modes of Relating to the Past 47 1.8 Two Kinds of Life: Genius and the Masses 54 Chapter 2: Historical Epistemology in On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life 58 2.1 The Nature of Truth and Knowledge in “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” 59 2.2 Historical Epistemology in On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life 81 2.3 The Valuation of Creativity in “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” 89 Chapter 3: Perspectivist Epistemology in Nietzsche’s Later Thought 95 3.1 The Falsity of Appearances in The Gay Science 97 3.2 Denial of the Thing-In-Itself 103 3.3 Immanentist Epistemology 112 3.4 Perspectivist Epistemology 117 3.5 Knowledge, Truth, and Philosophy 131 3.6 The Role of Non-Truth 138 ii Chapter 4 – Truth and Non-Truth in the Second Treatise of the Genealogy 152 4.1 Nietzsche as Naturalist 153 4.2 Morality of Custom and the Sovereign Individual 157 4.3 The Sovereign Individual as Creator of Values 172 4.4 The State-Form of Community 177 4.5 Bad Conscience 182 4.6 The Double Effect of Socialization and Punishment 186 4.7 The Nobles as Men of Conscience 193 4.8 The Conquered as Human Beings of Conscience 196 4.9 The Emergence of Bad Conscience Reconsidered 198 4.10 Pre-Social Man 202 4.11 Darwin on the Origin of Human Sociability 208 4.12 Nietzsche’s Concern with Truth in GM II 212 4.13 The Unhistorical in GM II 224 Chapter 5: Truth and Persuasion in the First Treatise of the Genealogy 231 5.1 The Natural Origins of Noble Morality and Slave Morality 233 5.2 The Role of Affects in Knowing a Morality 258 5.3 Conflicting Affects 259 5.4 A Critical Portrait of the Advocate of Slave Morality 263 5.5 A Monumental Portrait of the Noble 270 5.6 Janaway on the Lambs and the Birds of Prey 276 5.7 Arousing Disgust 279 5.8 The Noble Perspective of GM I 286 5.9 The Fiction of the Neutral Subject 289 Conclusion 301 Bibliography 321 iii Abstract Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1874 essay On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life (HL) presents ideas on how the past ought to be appropriated and how history ought to be written. His 1887 book On the Genealogy of Morality (GM) presents an account of the historical development of European morality. Given that Nietzsche appropriates the past through writing in GM, the question arises: does GM put into practice Nietzsche’s earlier ideas from HL concerning how the past ought to be appropriated through the writing of history? I argue that GM does indeed apply some of Nietzsche’s key ideas from HL. In particular, GM remains consistent with HL insofar as it appropriates the past unhistorically, makes use of the monumental and critical modes of history, and appropriates the past in a way that encourages the flourishing of an elite kind of human being. However, Nietzsche’s manner of appropriating the past in GM also diverges from what he espouses in HL. Whereas in HL he emphasizes the usefulness and desirability of forgetting and distorting the past, in GM he exhibits a more notable concern with knowing the truth about the past. I show that this difference in approach is due to the significant change that Nietzsche’s epistemology underwent between the writing of HL and the writing of GM. This difference in approach notwithstanding, the great virtue of illuminating GM through the lens of HL is that it allows us to see more clearly how a lack of concern with truth and knowledge plays a positive role in Nietzsche’s writing of the past in GM. It also helps us to understand why he appropriates the past the way that he does in GM. Just as in HL Nietzsche thought that the past ought to be appropriated in a way that encourages the activity of genius, his writing of the history of European morality in GM is undertaken with the intent to encourage the occurrence and activity of a select kind of human being, a kind of human being that Nietzsche values above all else. iv Acknowledgements Thanks to Anaïs, Andrew, Dave, Diana, Hector, Jillian, Lauren, Lydia, Lynn, Matt A., Matt M., Michelle, Neil, Pierre, Rob, Sean, Shawn, and Tim, and everyone at the Ottawa Outdoor Club and St. Joe’s Supper Table for their friendship. Thanks to Dr. Sonia Sikka for patience and faith. Thanks to the Gatineau Hills for being there. v Abbreviations AC — The Anti-Christ AO — Assorted Opinions and Maxims BG — Beyond Good and Evil DB — Daybreak DS — David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer EH — Ecce Homo GM — On the Genealogy of Morality GS — The Gay Science HA — Human, All Too Human HL — On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life SE — Schopenhauer as Educator TI — Twilight of the Idols TL — On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense WP — The Will to Power vi Introduction In 1874 Friedrich Nietzsche published an essay on historiography entitled On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life (HL). In it he presents some ideas on how the past ought to be appropriated and how history ought to be written. Almost fourteen years later in 1887 he published what would become one his best known books, On the Genealogy of Morality (GM), a work in which he presents over the course of three treatises an account of the historical development of various aspects of contemporary European morality. Since GM is an extended attempt by Nietzsche to appropriate the past through writing, one is naturally led to wonder if he there puts into practice what he had earlier advocated in HL. This is precisely the problem that I wish to address over the course of this dissertation. In other words, I will provide an answer to the question “Does Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality put into practice his earlier ideas from On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life concerning how the past ought to be appropriated through the writing of history?” I will argue that GM does indeed apply some of the key ideas that constitute Nietzsche’s view on historiography in HL. In particular, I will show that GM remains consistent with HL insofar as it appropriates the past unhistorically, makes use of the monumental and critical modes of history, and appropriates the past in a way that encourages the flourishing of an elite kind of human being, a kind of human being that is analogous to the figure of the genius in HL. Thus, in significant ways GM exhibits the historiographical approach that Nietzsche advocates in HL. However, Nietzsche’s appropriation of the past in GM also diverges from what he espouses in HL. Whereas in HL he is keen to emphasize the usefulness and desirability of forgetting and distorting the past, in GM he exhibits a more notable concern with 1 knowing the truth about the past. It will be shown that this difference in approach is due to the significant change that Nietzsche’s epistemology underwent between the writing of HL and the writing of GM. This difference in approach notwithstanding, the great virtue of illuminating GM through the lens of HL is that it allows us to better understand how a lack of concern with truth and knowledge plays an important role in Nietzsche’s writing of history in GM. That is, given HL’s emphasis on the value of non-truth in the writing of history, interpreting GM in light of HL allows us to see more clearly the way in which non-truth plays a positive role in Nietzsche’s writing of the past in GM. It also helps us to understand why he appropriates the past the way that he does in GM. Just as in HL Nietzsche thought that the past ought to be appropriated in a way that encourages the activity of genius, his writing of the history of European morality in GM is undertaken with the polemical intent to encourage, through artistic means, the occurrence and activity of a select kind of human being, a kind of human being that Nietzsche values above all else. In Chapter 1 I offer my explication and interpretation of HL. I focus on what I take to be the essay’s main ideas: the historical sense, unhistorical feeling, the suprahistorical perspective, the three modes of relating to the past (monumental, critical, and antiquarian), and the figure of the genius. I argue that the essay exhibits a tension between Nietzsche’s tendency at this stage in his thinking to endorse and employ Schopenhauerian metaphysics on the one hand, a metaphysics that devalues the worldly assertion of will and desire, and his own inchoate and positive valuation of will and desire on the other, a valuation that will become more prominent as his thinking gains greater distance from the Schopenhauerian paradigm.