Walking the Tightrope

Part Three of three. “ Insofar as the individual is seeking happiness, one ought not to tender him any prescriptions as to the path to happiness: for individual happiness springs from one’s own unknown laws, and prescriptions from without can only obstruct and hinder it."  (Daybreak 108) Nietzsche intentionally does not prescribe any specific methods or techniques for discovering or mastering the multiplicity of drives and affects.  This may seem as though he has not thought things through very well.  There is little in the way of practical advice in his psychology.  But Nietzsche’s truth claim is merely to understand the mechanics of the multiplicity in all its many facets.  How to master the mechanics and be a well-ordered soul is not specifically told because it can’t be.  Unlike virtually any other “wise” teacher you will encounter, Nietzsche understands that the multiplicity is almost infinitely varied and will manifest differently for everyone....

Part Two of three. One fundamental problem with Nietzsche’s psychology is that while “higher” persons must discover and master their multiplicity of drives Nietzsche tells us in Daybreak (1881):  “However far a man may go in self-knowledge, nothing however can be more incomplete than his image of the totality of drives which constitute his being.  He can scarcely name even the cruder ones: their number and strength, their ebb and flow, their play and counterplay among one another…”  (D 119) How are we to master something we can’t ever fully know?  Well, first of all, many drives do appear in consciousness, especially the most dominant ones which motivate our behavior.  Katsafanas notes: “Drives are initially unconscious, but can be brought to consciousness – all that's required is pressing the drive into a conceptual structure.  But there's no guarantee that the conceptualized expression will be an adequate or accurate expression...notice that they exp...

Part One of three. Psychology dates back at least to ancient Egypt and Greece.  As a proper discipline of study it remained under the umbrella of philosophy until 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first institution devoted exclusively to psychological research.  The new field of science quickly became all the rage in Europe.  Contrasting schools of psychology emerged in 1880’s with Sigmund Freud undertaking his pioneering research beginning in the 1890’s.  Friedrich Nietzsche began dabbling in psychology as early as the late-1860’s.  As this blog attests, there are many avenues to Nietzsche’s philosophy.  One of them is definitely psychological in nature.  Psychology is, in fact, fundamental to Nietzsche’s philosophy.  You cannot understand Nietzsche without understanding his perspectives on this subject.  I am beginning 2020 with a series of posts devoted to Nietzsche’s view of human psychology, which, I believe, is a useful tool in s...