2018 Syea Emma 0800 430 Ethesis
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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Self-Regulation and Reinterpretation in the Nietzschean Self Syea, Emma Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 Self-Regulation and Reinterpretation in the Nietzschean Self Emma Syea A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2018 1 Abstract of the Thesis This thesis examines Nietzsche’s model of subjectivity, with a particular focus on the process of self-regulation. Self-regulation is to be understood as the maintenance of the psychological stability or ‘well-being’ of an individual, especially in the face of adverse circumstances. I suggest that self-regulation provides us with a more intelligible means of exploring the philosophical psychology Nietzsche provides than self-formation. The reason for this is twofold: (i) self-regulation is a phenomenon exhibited by all individuals, not just elite, ‘higher’ types, who are singled out by Nietzsche, as being capable of the task of self-formation, and (ii) we can identify distinct psychological mechanisms involved in this process of self-regulation, in contrast to the somewhat obscure notion of ‘becoming what you are’. The thesis explores key psychological mechanisms involved in regulating a self, namely forgetting, autobiographical memory, and self-deception. The capacities implicated in these regulatory processes can be seen to possess a different functional profile to that of a drive or an affect. The thesis thus supplements current drive-based accounts which have so far dominated discussions of Nietzsche’s model of the self, by further exploring different structures within the self, and their operations. Outlining the interactions between these regulatory capacities, and the drives and affects, enables us to have a richer understanding of how a self may develop itself through interpretation, incorporation, and extirpation. Finally, the thesis offers a taxonomy of the characteristics of self-regulation by triangulating this notion with Nietzsche’s concept of health. This will show how self-regulation can be linked with marks of Nietzschean health such as incorporation, providing a necessary condition for self-formation in strong, artistic, ‘higher’ types. However, the thesis will also show that self-regulation can come apart from health, concluding that self-regulation emerges as a necessary but not sufficient condition for the higher ideal of health. 2 Acknowledgements To paraphrase a friend’s wise advice: ‘no PhD thesis was ever written by just sitting alone at a desk, scribbling down some notes. Unless you’re Kant.’ I can confirm that, from my experience at least, this certainly rings true. Thanks first and foremost to my supervisor Sacha Golob. I could not have asked for a better supervisor and mentor. He has supervised me through an undergraduate degree (dealing with hapless essays written on Kantian metaphysics!), a masters degree, and now the PhD, going above and beyond what is required from a supervisor at each stage. Sacha has taught me so much more than how to grapple with Nietzsche’s thought: I have learnt what it means to be a philosopher and a teacher. I cannot thank you enough. I am very grateful to my second supervisor Michael Silk for countless inspiring conversations about Nietzsche, and for advice and encouragement throughout the project. Thank you to Eliot Michaelson who worked on the project with me for a year. Eliot helped me to find the puzzles in Nietzsche, and made trying to solve them less daunting. I have benefited enormously from conversations and written feedback from the following people: Manuel Dries, Fabrice Teroni, Tom Stern, Andrew Huddleston and Ken Gemes. Thank you all for providing interesting and invaluable perspectives on my work. I have been fortunate enough to be a member of a welcoming and collaborate department, something which has made all the difference during this process. Thanks to Clare Moriarty, Paul Doody, Matt Bodle, John Wright, and Mike Coxhead in particular. Thank you to Rod and Sonja Nash who have not stopped encouraging me, and showing an interest in my academic career since my very first German lesson at school, aged twelve. Introducing me to the German language opened the door to a wealth of literature and philosophy, including, of course, Nietzsche. I could not have done the PhD without good friends around me – you have encouraged, supported, and generally put up with me through the ups and downs! 3 Thanks to: The good doctor Charlie Bell, my Nietzscheans Matthew Dennis, Sander Werkhoven, and Lorenzo Serini, and my Kantian Paola Romero, my departmental partner in crime Vanessa Brassey, and my Epistemologist extraordinaire Giada Fratantonio, and to all the usual suspects: Nick Rutter, Elizabeth Gourd, Emma Obertelli, Anvita Sharma, Alison McGarvey, Christine Good, Sam Scarpa, Alex Clarke, Laura Silva, Ashleigh Ellis, Sam Shetabi, and Adam Dickson. You have all provided much needed moments of sanity and laughter. I am lucky to have you all. And thank you to Ian Jakeway for the adventures. Finally, thank you to my parents for always supporting me and never doubting me. 4 Table of Contents Abstract of the Thesis ................................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... 3 List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 i. The Project........................................................................................................................................... 8 ii. Methodological Preliminaries .................................................................................................... 10 iii. Thesis Outline .............................................................................................................................. 11 1. Nietzsche and The Self ...................................................................................................................... 17 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 17 Preliminaries ............................................................................................................................................. 18 1.1 The Naturalistic Account (Leiter 2002) .................................................................................. 19 The Transcendental Account (Gardner 2009) ............................................................................. 27 1.2 Conscious Willing (Katsafanas 2012) ...................................................................................... 31 Perspectival Knowing (Janaway 2009) .......................................................................................... 40 1.3 Autonomy and Agency (Gemes 2009) ..................................................................................... 48 Repository Self (Anderson 2012) ..................................................................................................... 52 1.4 Evaluation of the Debate ............................................................................................................... 59 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 61 2. Nietzschean Forgetting and Reinterpretation ........................................................................ 62 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 62 2.1 The ‘Paradox’ of Active Forgetting ............................................................................................ 66 2.2 How to Understand Nietzschean Forgetting ........................................................................