Thoughtless Assertion and Political Deliberation

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 684-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Orlie

Predominant views of political deliberation represent it as a matter either of “contemplation without interest” or of interest without contemplation. Whether we claim that political thinking can transcend power or that it is simply a vehicle for it, we abet a nihilistic political culture and authorize the thoughtless exercise of power. What each view denies—or insufficiently explores—is thinking's capacity to transfigure “interest” and power without pretending to transcend them. By contrast, political perspectivism incorporates multiple perspectives in an effort thoughtfully to respond to the will-to-power that attends our location in the world. We need political spaces if we are to become responsive agents of power, because we often can neither recognize the effects of our activities without the benefit of others' perspectives nor alter those effects by our efforts alone.

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-140
Author(s):  
Mico Savic

In this paper, author deals with Heidegger's account of the modern age as the epoch based on Western metaphysics. In the first part of the paper, he shows that, according to Heidegger, modern interpretation of the reality as the world picture, is essentially determined by Descartes' philosophy. Then, author exposes Heidegger's interpretation of the turn which already took place in Plato's metaphysics and which made possible Descartes' metaphysics and modern epoch. In the second part of the paper, author explores Heidegger's interpretation of science and technology as shoots of very metaphysics. Heidegger emphasizes that the essence of technology corresponds to the essence of subjectivity and shows how the metaphysics of subjectivity subsequently finds its end in Nietzsche's metaphysics of the will to power, as the last word of Western philosophy. In the concluding part, author argues that the contemporary processes of globalization can be just understood as processes of completion of metaphysics. They can be identified as a global rule of the essence of technology. On the basis of Heidegger's vision of overcoming metaphysics, author concludes that it opens the possibility of a philosophy of finitude which points to dialogue with the Other as a way of resolving the key practical issues of the contemporary world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-243
Author(s):  
Paul Slama

Abstract In this paper, I show that Nietzsche is a Kantian, and what being Kantian means. He accepts the idea that our perception is configured by concepts which unify and inform the world around us, and which result from a biological evolution of the human species. His Kantianism is thus biological and mainly influenced by Friedrich Albert Lange’s reading of Kant. But this Nietzschean conceptualism must be inscribed in his thought of the will to power, where the perceptive fixation of the world is the result of a degeneration caused by the biological, psychological and historical recovery of the will to power. Thus, I show that Nietzsche’s Kantianism is as biological as it is axiological.


IJOHMN ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-125
Author(s):  
Hadjer Khatir

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four (1949)and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) stand as two powerful works of art that emanated from a mere disorder and fragmentation. To put it differently, this work of art emanated from a world that underwent an extremely rigorous political transformations and cultural seismology. This is a world that has witnessed an overwhelming dislocation. All those upheavals brought into being a new life, that is to say, a reshuffled life .A new life brings forwards a new art. This research, accordingly, attempts to put all its focus on two modernist visionary works of art that have enhanced a completely new system of thought and perceived the past, the present, and even the future with an entirely new consciousness. In the world of Nineteen Eighty Four and Brave New World, power seems to get beyond of what is supposedly politically legitimate. This power has paved the way for the emergence of a totalitarian system; I would rather call it a totalitarian virus. This system has emerged with the ultimate purpose of deadening the spirit of individualism, rendering the classes nothing but “docile masses”. I will be accordingly analysing how power becomes intoxicating. In other words, I will attempt to give a keen picture of how power becomes no longer over things, but rather over men according to Nietzsche’s philosophical perception of “The Will to Power”.


Author(s):  
Andrey V. Shumskoy ◽  

The article deals with the problem of Nikolai Berdyaev’s reception and interpretation of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. We attempt to reconstruct Berdyaev’s attitude to the creative heritage of the great German philosopher. The phenomenon of Nietzsche was mainly perceived by the Russian philosophy of the early 20th century in a religious context. For Berdyaev himself, the personality of Nietzsche became one of the starting points for comprehending the existential dialectic of human destiny in the world historical process. In Nietzsche’s works, Berdyaev was first of all captivated by the eschatological theme the philosopher addressed, his striving for the end and the limit. Berdyaev called Nietzsche the greatest phenomenon of modern history, dialectically completing the humanistic anthropology of the West. The Russian philosopher viewed Nietzsche as the forerunner of a new religious anthropology, a religious prophet of the West, making a return to the old European humanism no longer possible. Berdyaev was convinced of the need to overcome and internalize the spiritual experience of Nietzsche. The latter opens up the prospect of transition to a new anthropological era, in which human existence must be justified by creativity. Berdyaev viewed creativity as a new religious revelation of Christianity, not manifested in patristic tradition and historical Christianity. In creative acts, man overcomes objectification as a fallen state of the world. The article examines the key ideas of Nietzsche’s philosophy through the prism of religious existentialism and personalism of Berdyaev. Berdyaev’s attitude to Nietzsche was ambivalent: on the one hand, he highly appreciated how radically the German philosopher formulated the problem of a person’s creativity; on the other hand, he viewed the anti-Christian concept of the superman, leading to human godhood, as absolutely unacceptable for Russian religious philosophy and Christianity. Berdyaev assessed the new revelation of Nietzsche about the superman and the will to power as false and demonic, radically contradicting the foundations of Christian anthropology about man and the religious ethics of creativity.


Author(s):  
Clademir Luís Araldi ◽  

This article aims at analyzing the relations between art and organism in Nietzsche’s thought, having as its guiding line the attempt to build a new interpretation of the nature, beyond the ancient and modern teleological models. Using Nietzsche’s critique to Kant’s and Espinosas’s models of organism, it is questioned if the creation of artistic matrix expresses the effective relations of power in the world, or if it is a manifestation of the will to power, while being human will for illusion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Everton Nery Carneiro ◽  
Marcelo Máximo Purificação ◽  
Emerson Nery Carneiro

É preciso compreender o que é um vírus e principalmente sua ação. Assim, trabalhamos o referencial nietzschiano, que intenta a construção de uma base teórica para fundamentar sua hermenêutica/perspectiva sobre a vida, sendo esta na vida, inexistido separação nítida/perceptível entre ciência, teologia, arte e filosofia.  Seguiremos aqui com a biologia (ciência), não divorciada da teologia, visando fundamentar a concepção de vontade-de-poder, numa dimensão filosófica. Na primeira parte, desenvolvemos a compreensão de que caos e cosmo (teologicamente e filosoficamente) são indispensáveis na constituição orgânica e inorgânica, entendendo que o mundo é um caos eterno e qualquer projeção de padrão, ordem ou objetivo é um mero antropomorfismo. Assim, entendemos que a luta, o polemos está estabelecido e, tudo isso pode ocorrer antes mesmo do corpo apresentar quaisquer sinais de enfermidades. Na segunda parte, retomamos o conceito de “eterno retorno”, degustando o aforismo 341. Eterno retorno, que é uma construção filosófica nietzschiana, construído a partir da compreensão teológica de Eclesiastes 2. Por último movimento do texto, apresentamos o para não concluir, que a guisa de um final de artigo, produz pontos elucidativos, aqui um ao qual destacamos:  A vontade-de-poder trabalha uma hermenêutica ao constituir o mundo como uma relação entre campos de força instáveis e em constante conflito e autoconfiguração. AbstractIt is necessary to understand what a virus is and, in general terms, its action. Thus, we work with the Nietzschean framework, which attempts to build a theoretical basis to support his hermeneutics / perspective on life, which is in life, there is no clear / noticeable separation between science, theology and philosophy. We will continue here with biology (science), not divorced from theology, aiming to base the conception of will-to-power, in a philosophical dimension. In the first part, we developed the understanding that chaos and cosmos (theologically and philosophically) are indispensable in organic and inorganic constitution, understanding that the world is eternal chaos and any projection of pattern, order or objective is a mere anthropomorphism. Thus, we understand that the struggle, the polemic, is established and all of this can happen even before the body shows any signs of illness. In the second part, we return to the concept of "eternal return", tasting the aphorism 341. Finally, we present the not to conclude that, as a way of concluding the article, produces elucidating points, one of them here highlighted: The will-to-power hermeneutically constitutes the world as a relationship between unstable force fields and in constant conflict and self-configuration.É preciso compreender o que é um vírus e principalmente sua ação. Assim, trabalhamos o referencial nietzschiano, que intenta a construção de uma base teórica para fundamentar sua hermenêutica/perspectiva sobre a vida, sendo esta na vida, inexistido separação nítida/perceptível entre ciência, teologia, arte e filosofia.  Seguiremos aqui com a biologia (ciência), não divorciada da teologia, visando fundamentar a concepção de vontade-de-poder, numa dimensão filosófica. Na primeira parte, desenvolvemos a compreensão de que caos e cosmo (teologicamente e filosoficamente) são indispensáveis na constituição orgânica e inorgânica, entendendo que o mundo é um caos eterno e qualquer projeção de padrão, ordem ou objetivo é um mero antropomorfismo. Assim, entendemos que a luta, o polemos está estabelecido e, tudo isso pode ocorrer antes mesmo do corpo apresentar quaisquer sinais de enfermidades. Na segunda parte, retomamos o conceito de “eterno retorno”, degustando o aforismo 341. Eterno retorno, que é uma construção filosófica nietzschiana, construído a partir da compreensão teológica de Eclesiastes 2. Por último movimento do texto, apresentamos o para não concluir, que a guisa de um final de artigo, produz pontos elucidativos, aqui um ao qual destacamos:  A vontade-de-poder trabalha uma hermenêutica ao constituir o mundo como uma relação entre campos de força instáveis e em constante conflito e autoconfiguração.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Ainul Fithriyah

The variety of thoughts about the optimal attainment of human self and the satisfaction of human life is what may have made Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1868) deny all worldly phenomena. He saw that the world was full of suffering. Humans, as the supreme product of the basic activities of the world, are in fact the most unfortunate creatures. Therefore, humans will be able to achieve happiness when they are able to kill passions and cravings. Studies on the optimal achievement of humans and the meaning of human life from the two figures above, are still important and beneficial to do. Because the concept of the ideal human being is a model and example for us that we can emulate or maybe we can make it happen if we feel fit and believe in the truth. But the question might arise, is it still relevant to study the thoughts of long-dead figures such as Ibn Arabi and Neitzsche? in the opinion of the author, the study of their thinking is still relevant. Because in their thoughts are contained eternal pearls, and because of the peculiarity of each thought. This is evident if we pay attention today, where the thoughts of the two figures are still the subject of study in various countries, both in the West and the East. The works that examine Nietzsche's thoughts about the Ubermensch man include the work of Chairul Arifin, entitled The will to power: Briedrich Nietzsche. This book discusses Nietzsche's views on human beings and his anti-theism. These two thoughts are then connected by the author of this book with Nietzsche's main thought, namely the will to power. And in one of its chapters, the book also examines the concept of Ubermensch Nietzsche. Another work that addresses Nietzsche and Nietzsche's main ideas, including Ubermensch in a separate chapter is Nietzsche by St Sunardi. Besides that, there are other books. Of the books mentioned above and others to the best of the author's knowledge, there has never been found a work that specifically compares Ibn Arabi's insan kamil concept and Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept.


2021 ◽  
pp. 49-88
Author(s):  
Bernard Reginster

This chapter attempts to circumscribe the character of ressentiment, the affect that plays a prominent role in Nietzsche’s genealogical account of Christian morality. This affect, and the revengefulness that is closely associated with it, is a response to suffering when it is construed as challenging the agent’s standing, understood in a fundamental non-moral sense of having the world reflect her will, or having her presence in the world make a difference in it. Suffering is so construed when it is experienced from the perspective of a special drive, the will to power, or the drive toward bending the world to one’s will. Revenge aims to bolster or restore power when it is threatened, and the adoption of the conceptual apparatus of Christian morality, including its new values, is a particular way to do so: by altering the agent’s will (her values), it alters what counts as power for her.


2020 ◽  
pp. 185-217
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand

This chapter begins by outlining the importance of poltical culture in structuring, but not determining, the behaviour of actors within individual political systems. It illustrates the persistence of its impact with the failure of Mao Zedong to eliminate traditional Chinese ways of thinking and create a wholly new political culture in the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand it cites fluctuations in Russian political culture over centuries to show that the perceived content of a particular political culture can be fundamentally contested and malleable, so that it does evolve. And it notes the recent claims of political leaders in Russia, China and India, amongst others, that their nations’ historical achievements raise them to the status of ‘civilization states’. One feature of a nation’s political culture is the recurring trends of issues and preoccupations in political thinking there. Then it goes on to examine issues in thinking in non-Western countries, that structure political attitudes and political behaviour differently from the West. It begins by looking at traditional notions of legitimate political authority in other regions of the world, particularly Asia, that preceded the arrival of Western colonialists. These often assumed more ‘organic’ and more segmented communities than would be associated with Western individualist ones influenced by the legacy of the French revolution. Then it considers more recent non-Western political thinking.


Author(s):  
Vincent P. Pecora ◽  
Derek La Shot

Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran minister, was a German philologist, philosopher, and iconoclast. He is best known for his controversial but powerful reevaluation of traditional Western morality, epistemology, and theology. His early academic career was devoted to philology, and he secured a professorship at Basel University at the age of twenty-four despite having failed to obtain his doctorate at Leipzig. He obtained most of his philosophical training outside of his speciality. His principle resources were Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation, followed by Richard Wagner’s revolutionary music. Although he admired Schopenhauer’s stark premise that existence was a chaotic affair guided by a will to life, Nietzsche later replaced Schopenhauer’s embrace of ascetic "will-less-ness" as the only response to suffering with the "will to power": the idea that man "will rather will nothingness than not will" (Genealogy of Morals, III: sec. 1; emphasis in the original). His first book was The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (1872; title altered in subsequent editions), which explained Greek tragedy by revealing the wrestling of two intellectual energies within it.


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