Christine Daigle
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781474487849
- eISBN:
- 9781399509626
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474487849.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter examines the ethical ideal of the free spirit that is grounded in Nietzsche’s phenomenological perspective. The free spirits are the sceptics that are searching for truth while freeing ...
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This chapter examines the ethical ideal of the free spirit that is grounded in Nietzsche’s phenomenological perspective. The free spirits are the sceptics that are searching for truth while freeing themselves from received knowledge and external authorities. Indeed, their search for truth and knowledge entails a constructive type of nihilism that negates in order to create. Their scepticism allows them to be authentic. Their longing for authenticity and self-scrutiny leads them to embrace themselves as the dynamic becoming that they are. The chapter provides an analysis of the first section of Schopenhauer as Educator that allows for an understanding of the imperative to become what one is. The human being as homo poeta seeks to become oneself but this entails needing the other for one’s own flourishing. Indeed, as required by the phenomenological conception of the self as a being-with-others, we need to pursue relationships with others that will foster our overcoming and our becoming what we are. The chapter explains Nietzsche’s view according to which agonistic friendships among equals will open the path for this and will pave the way for the Overhuman.Less
This chapter examines the ethical ideal of the free spirit that is grounded in Nietzsche’s phenomenological perspective. The free spirits are the sceptics that are searching for truth while freeing themselves from received knowledge and external authorities. Indeed, their search for truth and knowledge entails a constructive type of nihilism that negates in order to create. Their scepticism allows them to be authentic. Their longing for authenticity and self-scrutiny leads them to embrace themselves as the dynamic becoming that they are. The chapter provides an analysis of the first section of Schopenhauer as Educator that allows for an understanding of the imperative to become what one is. The human being as homo poeta seeks to become oneself but this entails needing the other for one’s own flourishing. Indeed, as required by the phenomenological conception of the self as a being-with-others, we need to pursue relationships with others that will foster our overcoming and our becoming what we are. The chapter explains Nietzsche’s view according to which agonistic friendships among equals will open the path for this and will pave the way for the Overhuman.
