Nietzsche's Overcoming of Humanism: the Deanthropomorphization of Nature and the Renaturalization of Human Being a Thesis S
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NIETZSCHE’S OVERCOMING OF HUMANISM: THE DEANTHROPOMORPHIZATION OF NATURE AND THE RENATURALIZATION OF HUMAN BEING A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY REHA KULDAŞLI IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY JANUARY 2014 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Meliha Altunışık Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andrea Rehberg Supervisor Examining Committee Members Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam METU, PHIL Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andrea Rehberg METU, PHIL Assist. Prof. Dr. Frank Chouraqui KOÇ U., PHIL I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Reha Kuldaşlı Signature : iii ABSTRACT NIETZSCHE’S OVERCOMING OF HUMANISM: THE DEANTHROPOMORPHIZATION OF NATURE AND THE RENATURALIZATION OF HUMAN BEING Kuldaşlı, Reha M.A., Department of Philosophy Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andrea Rehberg January 2014, 100 pages In this MA thesis, I will investigate Nietzsche’s overcoming of humanism, i.e., his critique of anthropocentric and anthropomorphic interpretations of existence in the context of his grand project of the transvaluation of all values. I will problematize humanism with respect to the Nietzschean notions of will to power, nihilism, and evaluative thinking in an attempt to show its shortcomings from a Nietzschean perspective. Then, I will attempt to offer a reading of Nietzsche’s reinterpretation of nature in terms of the will to power as a radical multiplicity that exceeds humanistic interpretations and investigate Nietzsche’s conception of the human being with respect to his physiological and genealogical analyses that emphasize the human being as a multiplicity of unconscious drives. Finally, I will discuss to what extent Nietzsche’s critique of humanism, which consists in the deanthropomorphization of nature and the renaturalization of human being, constitutes an overcoming of humanism. Keywords: Platonism, humanism, nihilism, will to power, overhuman. iv ÖZ HÜMANİZMİN NİETZSCHE TARAFINDAN AŞILMASI ÜZERİNE: DOĞANIN İNSAN-BENZERCİ BAKIŞ AÇISINDAN KURTARILMASI VE İNSANIN YENİDEN DOĞALLAŞTIRILMASI Kuldaşlı, Reha Yüksek Lisans, Felsefe Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. Andrea Rehberg Ocak 2014, 100 sayfa Bu Yüksek Lisans tezinde, Nietzsche’nin hümanizmi aşması, yani insan- merkezli ve insan-benzerci varoluş yorumlarına getirdiği eleştiri tüm değerlerin yeniden değerlendirilmesi projesi kapsamında incelenecektir. Hümanizm, Nietzscheci nosyonlar olan güç istenci, nihilizm ve değerlendiren düşünce kapsamında, sahip olduğu sınırlamaları göstermek amacıyla sorunsallaştırılacaktır. Ardından, Nietzsche’nin hümanist yorumları aşan radikal bir çoğulluk olarak gördüğü güç istenci düşüncesi açısından doğayı yeniden yorumlayışına dair bir okuma önerilmeye çalışılacak, insanı bilinçdışı itkilerden oluşan bir çoğulluk olarak gören fizyolojik ve soykütüksel analizleri çerçevesinde Nietzsche’nin insan anlayışı incelenecektir. Son olarak, Nietzsche’nin doğanın insan-benzerci bakış açısından kurtarılması ve insanın yeniden doğallaştırılmasından oluşan hümanizm eleştirilerinin hümanizmi ne ölçüde aştığı tartışılacaktır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Platonizm, hümanizm, nihilizm, güç istenci, üstinsan. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andrea Rehberg, without the support, attention, and efforts of whom this thesis would have been impossible. My gratitude to her exceeds any kind of expression. Also, I would like to thank Assist. Prof. Dr. Frank Chouraqui for his kindness, patience, and precious recommendations, along with Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam, whose valuable comments are very much appreciated. Finally, I would like to thank my parents who fully supported me throughout the entire process, and my friends, to be in the company of whom has always been and will always be a source of great joy. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM ................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... iv ÖZ ....................................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1 1.1 Platonism ............................................................................................. 4 1.2 Christian Values .................................................................................. 7 1.3 Nietzsche’s Overturning of Platonism ............................................... 10 1.4 The Transvaluation of All Values ..................................................... 12 1.5 Will to Power ..................................................................................... 13 2. THE PROBLEM OF HUMANISM .............................................................. 16 2.1 Nihilism ............................................................................................. 16 2.2 Nietzsche’s Understanding of the Death of God ............................... 19 2.3 Humanism and Reactivity ................................................................. 22 2.4 Platonic-Christian Values and the Values of Secular Humanism ..... 26 2.5 The ‘Human’ of Humanism: The Subject ......................................... 34 3. THE DEANTHROPOMORPHIZATION OF NATURE ............................. 44 3.1 Anthropomorphic Conceptions of Nature ......................................... 45 3.2 Nietzsche’s Dionysian Worldview .................................................... 49 3.3 The Perspectivism of the Will to Power ............................................ 55 3.4 The Dissolution of Anthropocentrism ............................................... 58 4. THE RENATURALIZATION OF HUMAN BEING .................................. 61 4.1 The Sense of Renaturalization ........................................................... 61 4.2 The Question of Animality ................................................................ 63 4.3 The Question of the Human Animal: Civilization vs. Culture .......... 67 4.4 The Riddle of the Overhuman ........................................................... 75 5. CONCLUDING REMARKS ........................................................................ 82 REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 86 vii TURKISH SUMMARY .................................................................................... 89 APPENDICES ................................................................................................ 100 Appendix A: Tez Fotokopisi İzin Formu .............................................. 100 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Although all thinkers have their own weight with respect to their contributions to philosophy, very few have been able to change the course of the history of philosophy with such a ground-breaking thought as Nietzsche’s. Once considered to be but a poet and a great prose stylist, his thought remained concealed until discovered and heeded firstly by Heidegger and then by a host of twentieth-century French thinkers1. The posthumous fame attained by Nietzsche, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, aroused a popular interest in his empirical being, which he himself refers to as Herr Nietzsche2. Before moving on, I would like to emphasize that this thesis will not deal with the biographical elements, i.e., the empirical aspects of his life that constitute Mr. Nietzsche. The reason for this is not only that such aspects fall outside the concerns of this study, but also that interpolations based on Nietzsche’s empirical being result in the humanization of his thinking, as if what he thought simply and exclusively depended on what he had been through, presupposing that the individual is the source of thinking. However, as I hope to indicate more clearly in Chapter 2, this is not Nietzsche’s mode of thinking, which instead emphasizes the self-happening process itself and denies the notion of agency both in general and particularly in the context of thinking. Therefore, remaining faithful to the essence of his thought, I will treat Nietzsche as an impersonal happening in the history of thought, with its own necessity and own terms, outside the all-too-human paradigm. So, as he suggests, “let us leave Mr. Nietzsche”3 and go on. This thesis elaborates Nietzsche’s critique of humanism, which, in this context, signifies a set of anthropocentric and anthropomorphic values that have established themselves throughout the history of Western metaphysics. Although anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism to a great extent