Nietzschean Wholeness

In this paper I investigate affinities between Nietzsche’s early philosophy and some aspects of Kant’s moral theory. In so doing, I develop further my reading of Nietzschean wholeness as an ideal that consists in the achievement of cultural—not psychic—integration by pursuing the ennoblement of humanity in oneself and in all. This cultural achievement is equivalent to the procreation of the genius or the perfection of nature. For Nietzsche, the process by means of which we come to realize the genius in ourselves is one in which our true content comes to necessarily govern or guide the shaping of our outer form (or our outward activities). Since this true content turns out to be our autonomy or free agency, I argue that this Nietzschean idea of necessitation parallels in important ways Kant’s notion of normative necessity. In particular, I claim that for Nietzsche the agent’s form becomes necessitated by his content as a result of the agent’s recognition of the duties that befall those who aspire to belong to a genuine culture and his resolve to guide his actions in accordance to them. These duties spring from the idea of humanity, from the image we have of ourselves as endowed with the capacity to be the helmsmen of our lives or to be more than mere animals or automata. The person who takes up this ideal of humanity turns his life into a living unity of content and form by organizing it around an aspect of his being that belongs necessarily, hence more truthfully, to him. He also participates in a collective project (that of the ennoblement of the human being) that can lend a certain coherence and imperishability to his individual life and through which he becomes necessarily connected to everyone else for all eternity

La relación entre la Ciencia y el Ideal Ascético en 'La Genealogía' de Nietzsche

RESUMEN En este ensayo propongo una interpretación de la relación entre la ciencia y el Ideal Ascético en La Genealogía de la Moral, que busca explicar la enigmática alianza entre ambos que Nietzsche establece al final del tercer tratado de la mencionada obra. Según Nietzsche, contrario a lo que se cree, la ciencia moderna no es realmente un antagonista del Ideal Ascético sino más bien su forma más reciente y más noble. Argüiré que, para Nietzsche, el Ideal Ascético ha sido hasta el momento la única respuesta que el ser humano ha dado a su forma especial de existencia, que consiste en encontrarse en la situación de ser el único animal capacitado para la independencia y la soberanía. El Ideal Ascético expresa una huida de la responsabilidad y la carga (el sufrimiento) que esa capacidad para la soberanía comporta. Así pues, la ciencia, como expresión última de dicho ideal, representa al igual que éste una evasión de la independencia y una declaración de guerra contra la libertad de la voluntad, es decir, contra la autonomía

La relación entre la ciencia y el ideal ascético en la genealogía de Nietzsche / The Relationship between Science and the Ascetic Ideal in Nietzche's Genealogy

En este ensayo propongo una interpretación de la relación entre la ciencia y el Ideal Ascético en  La Genealogía de la Moral, que busca explicar la enigmática alianza entre ambos que Nietzsche establece al final del tercer tratado de la mencionada obra. Según Nietzsche, contrario a lo que se cree, la ciencia moderna no es realmente un antagonista del Ideal Ascético sino más bien su forma más reciente y más noble. Argüiré que, para Nietzsche, el Ideal Ascético ha sido hasta el momento la única respuesta que el ser humano ha dado a su forma especial de existencia, que consiste en encontrarse en la situación de ser el único animal capacitado para la independencia y la soberanía. El Ideal Ascético expresa una huida de la responsabilidad y la carga (el sufrimiento) que esa capacidad para la soberanía comporta. Así pues, la ciencia, como expresión última de dicho ideal, representa al igual que éste una evasión de la independencia y una declaración de guerra contra la libertad de la voluntad, es decir, contra la autonomía.Palabras Clave: Nietzsche, ideal ascético, ciencia, soberanía, autonomíaAbstract:In this essay I advance an interpretation of the relationship between science and the ascetic ideal in The Genealogy of Morals, that seeks to explain the enigmatic alliance Nietzsche establishes between both at the end of the third treatise of the aforementioned book. According to Nietzsche, contrary to what is believed, modern science is not really the antagonist of the ascetic ideal, but constitutes rather its latest and noblest form. In what follows, I argue that, for Nietzsche, the ascetic ideal has been the only response human beings have given to their special form of existence, which consists in being the only animals capable of independence and sovereignty. The ascetic ideal expresses a flight from the responsibility and the burden (the suffering) that is entailed by the exercise of that capacity for sovereignty. Thus, as the ultimate expression of that ideal, science too represents an evasion of independence and a declaration of war against freedom of will, that is, against autonomy.Key Words: Nietzsche, ascetic ideal, science, sovereignty, autonom

Joyful Transhumanism: Love and Eternal Recurrence in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

In this paper I examine the relation between modern transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy of the superhuman. Following Loeb, I argue that transhumanists cannot claim affinity to Nietzsche’s philosophy until they incorporate the doctrine of eternal recurrence to their project of technological enhancement. This doctrine liberates us from resentment against time by teaching us reconciliation with time and something higher than all reconciliation. Unlike Loeb, however, I claim that this “something higher” is not a new skill (prospective memory), but rather a love for the past in the form of loving that aspect of it that is still with us, namely, the will to power itself, which is the engine of all life. Love of the past is thus equivalent to love of life. Since human beings are conscious incarnations of the will to power, in our case, love of life manifests itself as love of our humanity or love for that aspect of ourselves that connects us to each other, for we recognize it to be the same in all of us. Thus, learning this kind of love enables us to joyfully coordinate our wills in the pursuit of Zarathustra’s superhuman ideal without turning it into a destructive mockery of itself. While learning this kind of love would facilitate a joyful version of transhumanism, I conclude by suggesting that it is unlikely to be achieved through technological interventions of the sort envisioned by transhumanists. Instead, it requires the kind of participatory pedagogical program that Nietzsche thought his Zarathustra would fulfill

El significado político de la alegoría de la caverna de Platón

El artículo sostiene que la caverna de Platón es fundamentalmente una alegoría política, no epistemológica, y que solo así podremos apreciar la relación que guarda con las imágenes del sol y de la línea. Sobre la base de evidencia textual, se ponen en duda las dos hipótesis principales sobre las que se funda el esfuerzo por encontrar un paralelo epistemológico entre la caverna y la línea: que los prisioneros representan a la humanidad en general, y que la caverna simboliza el mundo visible de la experi-encia corriente, mientras el mundo fuera de esta representa el reino de las ideas. La suspensión de estos supuestos posibilita una lectura que resalta los temas culturales y políticos que están en juego en esta famosa alegoría.The article argues that Plato’s cave is fundamentally a political and not an episte-mological allegory, and that only if we see it thus can we understand its relation to the images of the sun and the line. On the basis of textual evidence, the article raises questions regarding the main hypotheses grounding the effort to find an epistemo-logical parallel between the cave and the line: that the prisoners represent humanity in general, and that the cave symbolizes the visible world of everyday experience, while the world outside the cave represents the realm of ideas. The suspension of these assumptions makes possible a reading that highlights the cultural and politi-cal issues at stake in this famous allegory

An Interpretation of the Ideals of Sovereignty, Wholeness, and Becoming What One Is in Nietzsche's Practical Philosophy.

My dissertation deals with three important ideals that Nietzsche recommends: the ideals of Sovereignty, of Wholeness, and of Becoming What One Is. I locate the main texts where Nietzsche addresses each of these topics and I offer a consistent and coherent interpretation of them. On my reading, the ideal of Becoming What One Is involves a process whereby we become mature and give expression to our own uniqueness. This process requires an active self-reflection on our part and a dynamic practice of relinquishing and regaining our capacity to be the cause of our own behavior (the capacity for autonomous self-control). Besides emphasizing the ideal’s connection to authenticity and our capacity to be autonomous, my interpretation provides a more detailed description of the mechanisms whereby one attains this ideal than that offered by other commentators. In the case of the ideal of Sovereignty, I argue that for Nietzsche becoming sovereign entails accepting and even embracing one’s susceptibility to moral guilt. For Nietzsche, having a sovereign conscience means understanding oneself as a morally responsible agent. This self-understanding confers on us a freedom that other creatures do not have, but at the cost of becoming subject to blame and guilt for our wrongdoings. In this respect, my account is at odds with the propensity in the secondary literature to characterize Nietzsche as a staunch opponent of the moral notion of guilt. Finally, my interpretation of Wholeness runs against the grain of the prevalent readings that characterize this as an ideal of psychic unity aimed at restructuring the various parts of the agent’s mind into a harmonious whole. I argue, on the contrary, that wholeness fundamentally concerns social – not psychic – integration: the person becomes whole by placing himself within the circle of genuine culture in which he works together with others in the perfection of nature and freedom. In this way, the person finds redemption from the meaninglessness of existence by ensuring that his energies survive into the future within a suprapersonal community in which life and creativity are perpetually renewed and guaranteed.Ph.D.PhilosophyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61669/1/gabrielz_1.pd

The agrarian question and violence in Colombia: conflict and development

This article examines connections between Colombia’s internal armed conflict and agrarian questions. It pays attention to the country’s specific historical trajectory of agrarian change, the violent expression of social tensions that this elicited, and the particular ways in which these dynamics were influenced by a changing global context.This analysis of the intimate ties between violent conflict and agrarian questions in Colombia, both in terms of their historical development and their contemporary manifestations, challenges popular notions of the relationship between armed conflict and development. In particular, the article contributes to a critique of the conventional version of the conflict–development nexus by illustrating ways in which the experience of capitalist development in Colombia has been violent and produced poverty

The quest to bring land under social and political control: land reform struggles of the past and present in Ecuador

Land reform was one of the most important policies introduced in Latin America in the twentieth century and remains high on the political agenda due to sustained pressure from rural social movements. Improving our understanding of the issue therefore remains a pressing concern. This paper responds to this need by proposing a new theoretical framework to explore land reform and providing a fresh analysis of historical and contemporary land struggles in Ecuador. Drawing on the pioneering work of Karl Polanyi, the paper characterizes these struggles as the attempt to increase the social and political control of land in the face of mounting commodification. The movement started in the 1960s and remains evident in Ecuador today. Exploring land reform in Ecuador from this theoretical perspective provides new insight into land struggles in the country and contributes to debates over land reforms of the past and present elsewhere in the Global South