On sovereignty and overhumanity: Why it matters how we read Nietzsche's genealogy II:2

International Studies in Philosophy

Volumn 36, Issue 3, 2004, Pages

  Acampora, Christa Davis ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60950660597     PISSN: 02705664     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (21)

1. See his A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy: An Experiment in Postmodern Politics (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 1995) pp. 37-38
2. See, for example, BGE16-20
3. and GM I:13
4. See Paul Patton, "Nietzsche and Hobbes," in International Studies in Philosophy 33:3 (2001): 99-116
5. and Javier A. Ibáñez-Noé, "Nietzsche on Individual and Tradition," in International Studies in Philosophy 30:3 (1998): 65-79
6. Hatab, A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy, p. 37
7. Hatab notes that HH 618 refers to "Individuum" in a similar vein
8. ". . . das Verlangen, die ganze und letzte Verantwortlichkeit für seine Handlungen selbst zu tragen und Gott, Welt, Vorfahren, Zufall, Gesellschaft davon zu entlasten, ist nämlich nichts Geringeres, als eben jene causa sui zu sein" (KSA 5, p. 35)
9. "Die causa sui ist der beste Selbst-Widerspruch, der bisher ausgedacht worden ist, eine Art logischer Nothzucht und Unnatur" (KSA 5, p. 35)
10. Interestingly, Kaufmann and Hollingdale inappropriately insert the notion of rights in their translation of the passage with which the second essay concludes. They render the last sentence as follows: "At this point it behooves me only to be silent; or I shall usurp that to which only one younger, 'heavier with future,' and stronger than I has a right-that to which only Zarathustra has a right, Zarathustra the godless.-" But there is nothing in the German original that implies that Nietzsche is talking about rights. Instead, he is clearly implying a kind of freedom, a capacity, not an entitlement, when he writes, "An dieser Stelle geziemt mir nur Eins, zu schweigen: ich vergriffe mich sonst an dem, was einem Jüngeren allein freisteht, einem 'Zukünftigeren,' einem Stärkeren, als ich bin,-was allein Zarathustra freisteht, Zarathustra dem Gottlosen . . ." (KSA 5, p. 337)
11. David Owen, "Equality, Democracy, and Self-Respect: Reflections on Nietzsche's Agonal Perfectionism," in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 24 (Fall 2002): 113-31
12. Richard White, Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignty (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1997)
13. I take Randall Havas to be making this point. See his Nietzsche's Genealogy: Nihilism and the Will to Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1995), especially 193ff. I briefly discuss the views of Havas and Aaron Ridley in a note below
14. Numerous commentators have developed these ideas at greater length, particularly along the lines of Nietzsche's conception of language and grammar. For a concise review of the relevant issues, see Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, "On Judging in a World of Becoming: A Reflection on the 'Great Change' in Nietzsche's Philosophy," in Nietzsche, Theories of Knowledge, and Critical Theory, ed. Babette Babich and Robert S. Cohen (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999), pp. 168-71
15. Compare Nietzsche's own exemplary discussion of these ideas in "On the Prejudices of Philosophers" in Beyond Good and Evil. Also see articles that treat the relation between Nietzsche and Spir and Boscovich. See Greg Whitlock's "Roger J. Boscovich and Friedrich Nietzsche: A Re-Examination," in Nietzsche, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. Babette Babich and Robert S. Cohen (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999)
16. and Robin Small, "Boscovich Contra Nietzsche," in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1984 (46): 419-35
17. Also consult Robin Small, Nietzsche in Context (London: Ashgate, 2002) for his chapter on Spir; Gregory Moore, Nietzsche, Biology, and Metaphor (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002) for his extensive discussion of the biological conceptualizations at work in the Genealogy and elsewhere
18. Owen, p. 116
19. Owen, p. 118
20. Instead, Owen seems to emphasize "self-responsibility" and upholding one's commitments. For some concise accounts of the sovereign individual that do keep promise-making front and center, see Randall Havas, "Nietzsche's Idealism," and Aaron Ridley, "Ancillary Thoughts on an Ancillary Text," both in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 20 (2000): 90-99 and 100-08, respectively
21. White, Nietzsche and the Problem of Sovereignly, p. 86