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Nietzsche's Subjectivism About Life's Meaning Nicholas Halford

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Nietzsche's Subjectivism About Life's Meaning Nicholas Halford Nietzsche's Subjectivism about Life's Meaning by Nicholas Halford A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2019 Nicholas Halford Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the subjective nature of Friedrich Nietzsche's account of existential meaning. I aim to emphasize that Nietzsche's account can only be properly understood by considering his subjective account of value and the limitations of knowledge and sensory perception imposed by perspectivism. I seek to illustrate that this is only possible by considering many of his works and the concepts contained therein. I first consider Nietzsche's strongly negative reaction to Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimism; next, I adopt Gilles Deleuze's interpretation of the will to power while arguing that the will to power is not as central as might be thought; and, finally, I argue that the death of God is the foundation of Nietzsche's account, as it is this concept that enables and/or necessitates the will to power, the revaluation of values, eternal return, and perspectivism. ii Table of Contents Abstract: …………………………………………………………………………………ii Table of Contents: ……………………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements: …………………………………………………………………….iv List of Abbreviations: ……………………………………………………………….....vi Introduction: …………………………………………………………………………..vii Chapter 1: Existential Meaning……………………………………………………….1 1.1 Schopenhauer………………………………………………………………1 1.2 Nietzsche……..……………………………………………………………14 1.3 Nietzsche contra Schopenhauer…………………………………………...33 Chapter 2: The Will to Power and Existential Meaning……………………………42 2.1 The Will to Power's Importance…………………………………………..47 2.2 Deleuze's Interpretation…………………………………………………...49 2.3 Alternative Interpretations………………………………………………...86 2.4 Reconsidering the Will to Power's Centrality………………………........108 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..112 Chapter 3: The Death of Objectivity………………………………………………..116 3.1 The Death of God………………………………………………………...123 3.2 Revaluation of Values……………………………………………………137 3.3 "The value of life cannot be estimated"……………………………….....144 3.4 Eternal Return……………………………………………………………156 3.5 Perspectivism…………………………………………………………….161 3.6 The Irrelevance of the Übermensch……………………………………...166 Conclusion…………………………………………..………………………………...172 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………......181 iii Acknowledgments: This project could not have been completed in isolation. To begin with, I must thank my wonderful supervisor, Dr. David Matheson for his kindness, support, compassion, encouragement, patience, and invaluable feedback. Not only did you help bring this project into fruition, you also helped me grow as a scholar. You have my eternal gratitude. The administrators of the Department of Philosophy, Sandra Kirkpatrick and Kristopher Waddell, were also crucial to my completion of this project, as well as being completely fantastic at their jobs. I would also like to thank Drs. Gabriele Contessa, Melissa Frankel, Myrto Mylopoulos, Annie Larivée, and Christine Koggel for their fantastic support and encouragement over the years. While a graduate student at Carleton, I was helped by some fantastic friendships. First, thank you to my former colleagues and friends, Brandon Smith, Rebecca Robb, and Courteney Crump, for enlightening discussions and excellent support. Second, Dr. Devin Shaw for helping me explore continental philosophy while also offering me wonderful friendship, as well as personal and academic support. Third, my fantastic support group of friends: Stephanie Cansfield, Corrie Ross, Alex Angel, Dr. Curtis Runstedler, and Sarah Walker. I could not have done this without you. Fourth, I would like to acknowledge the love and friendship of the Woodcock family. This thesis is dedicated to my immediate family, and all of my loved ones, living or not. iv List of Abbreviations Nietzsche: A = The Antichrist AOM = Assorted Opinions and Maxims (in Human, All Too Human) BGE = Beyond Good and Evil BT = The Birth of Tragedy D = Daybreak EH = Ecce Homo GD = Götter-Dämmerung GM = On the Genealogy of Morality GS = The Gay Science HH = Human, All Too Human NCW = Nietzsche contra Wagner TI = Twilight of the Idols UM = Untimely Meditations WP = The Will to Power Z = Thus Spoke Zarathustra Schopenhauer: WWP = The World as Will and Presentation v Introduction In the spirit of academic integrity and honesty, I must begin by admitting that Nietzsche would never have called his account of existential meaning 'subjective'. However, the reason that he would not have done so is not that he would have considered it objective, but simply because he believed that everything involved interpretation. This is expressed in The Will to Power: Against positivism, which halts at phenomena—"There are only facts"—I would say: No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish any fact "in itself": perhaps it is folly to want to do such a thing. "Everything is subjective," you say; but even this is interpretation. The "subject" is not something given, it is something added and invented and projected behind what there is.— Finally, is it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? Even this is invention, hypothesis. (WP 481) If Nietzsche's response to the statement 'All things are subjective' is that this is just another interpretation because the subject is added in the background of what exists, my thesis would seem to rest upon a false premise1. There are two ways around this problem. The first is to posit that the subject must exist in some sense if it is interpreted, added, invented, and/or projected. But this solution would bring about the further problem of 1 The reader who is suspicious of The Will to Power is advised to look at Beyond Good and Evil, in which Nietzsche declares the self "a synthetic concept[…], a whole series of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of false evaluations of the will itself" (BGE 19). We are then told that we have 'useful "under-wills" or under-souls' and that the body is simply "a social structure composed of many souls" (ibid.). Another source to consider is Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "First, people were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Verily, the individual himself is still the most recent creation." (Z I.15) vi determining in what way the subject exists. The second is to simply bite the bullet and say that the words 'subject' and 'subjective' are simply being used through convenience. They are convenient terms to capture the spirit of Nietzsche's account life's meaning as resting upon particular values derived from particular perspectives. But I get ahead of myself. I. Terminology Throughout this thesis, there are terms that I will float around as if they familiar. The first of these is 'existential meaning,' but this is an easy term to explain. This is a term I frequently use in place of 'the meaning of life' to avoid what I see as awkward phrases like 'the question of the meaning of life' or 'an account of the meaning of life'. I might have just as easily substituted 'life's meaning' for 'the meaning of life,' but I simply prefer the term 'existential meaning' whether written, read, or spoken. The next term is 'objective,' the root word of which suggests that it concerns an object. This is the way in which I usually mean 'objective,' but it is difficult to explain without an example. It seems logical to use the example 'an objective account of existential meaning,' since this is the context in which I primarily use the term 'objective' throughout this thesis. An objective account of existential meaning is simply one in which a life has meaning if and only if it satisfies some objective condition(s) for having meaning. By 'objective condition(s),' I simply mean one/those that come(s) from outside the individual (i.e., from inside or outside of nature) about which our beliefs are either correct or incorrect. If meaning comes from within nature, this is called an imminent or natural account of existential meaning. If meaning comes from outside nature (for example, from following a set of vii religious rules and thereby earning a place in some sort of afterlife), this is called a transcendental or naturalist account of existential meaning. There are two other terms I employ regarding existential meaning: (i) pessimism or nihilism; and (ii) subjective, subjectivity, or subjectivism. In the first case, I tend to refer to 'pessimism' instead of 'nihilism' to match Nietzsche's usage when he refers to philosophers or philosophy. His usage of 'pessimism' is very much tied to his time, but it seems that a proper discussion of a historical figure within philosophy should match the terms in which they would be familiar to that figure. By failing to do so, it becomes more likely that we might introduce concepts into our discussion that bear little to no resemblance to those used in another historical context (in the case of this thesis, the late nineteenth century). As Frederick C. Beiser notes in Weltschmerz, mid-to-late nineteenth century German pessimistic philosophy had such a distinctive character that contemporaries coined it "modern pessimism" to differentiate it from earlier forms of pessimism (4). On the other hand, when Nietzsche refers to 'nihilism,' it is almost always in a psychological, social, cultural, or (arguably) metaphysical way. 'Pessimism,' though, is the doctrine that either (i) life has no meaning, or (ii) life is not worth living; but this should be understood as an inclusive disjunction, not an exclusive disjunction. This means that a pessimist could hold that (i) life has no meaning; (ii) life is not worth living; or (iii) life has no meaning and is not worth living. Subjectivism or a subjective account of existential meaning proposes that life has meaning if and only if it satisfies certain internal or subjective conditions for having meaning. Or, more simply, a life is only meaningful if the individual herself judges it to be meaningful from her own perspective (via her affects or some other, presumably mental, factor). viii II.
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