Jeremy Fortier
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226679396
- eISBN:
- 9780226679426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226679426.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The publication of Human, All Too Human constituted Nietzsche’s declaration of independence as an author, thinker, and human being. In this work Nietzsche separated himself from his youthful guiding ...
More
The publication of Human, All Too Human constituted Nietzsche’s declaration of independence as an author, thinker, and human being. In this work Nietzsche separated himself from his youthful guiding lights (the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the composer Richard Wagner) by establishing his own ideal of the “Free Spirit". But after Nietzsche published the first installment of Human, All Too Human, he added two further installments, and his understanding of what it would take to live as a Free Spirit evolved in the process. In the last of the those installments, The Wanderer and His Shadow, the challenges or limitations of the Free Spirit project become especially evident. Nietzsche shows that the Free Spirit’s admirable independence has to be attained through the adoption of an austere self-discipline (involving what Nietzsche characterizes as a restraining or quieting of the heart) that leaves one cut off from attractive and authentic goods characteristic of wholehearted attachment to broader human community. This chapter also shows that Nietzsche’s reflections in The Wanderer were particularly influenced by his discovery of Xenophon’s Socrates, as an alternative to the more famous Platonic portrait.Less
The publication of Human, All Too Human constituted Nietzsche’s declaration of independence as an author, thinker, and human being. In this work Nietzsche separated himself from his youthful guiding lights (the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the composer Richard Wagner) by establishing his own ideal of the “Free Spirit". But after Nietzsche published the first installment of Human, All Too Human, he added two further installments, and his understanding of what it would take to live as a Free Spirit evolved in the process. In the last of the those installments, The Wanderer and His Shadow, the challenges or limitations of the Free Spirit project become especially evident. Nietzsche shows that the Free Spirit’s admirable independence has to be attained through the adoption of an austere self-discipline (involving what Nietzsche characterizes as a restraining or quieting of the heart) that leaves one cut off from attractive and authentic goods characteristic of wholehearted attachment to broader human community. This chapter also shows that Nietzsche’s reflections in The Wanderer were particularly influenced by his discovery of Xenophon’s Socrates, as an alternative to the more famous Platonic portrait.
Jeremy Fortier
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226679396
- eISBN:
- 9780226679426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226679426.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In Nietzsche's late autobiographical writings he shows that the two major turning-points of his career - Human, All Too Human (which established his ideal of the Free Spirit) and Thus Spoke ...
More
In Nietzsche's late autobiographical writings he shows that the two major turning-points of his career - Human, All Too Human (which established his ideal of the Free Spirit) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (whose protagonist goes beyond the ideal of the Free Spirit) - amount to to turning points in his thought because they reflect turning points in his life, involving, above all, changes in his health around the time that he wrote each text. Nietzsche's self-account has the following structure: good health is associated with forgetting of oneself (a process that can be seen at work in and through Thus Spoke Zarathustra), while ill health is associated with returning to oneself (a process that can be seen at work in and through Human, All Too Human). And the major lesson of the autobiographical writings proves to be not the superiority of Zarathustra to the Free Spirits, or vice versa, but, instead, the necessity of each for Nietzsche as tools in a process of examining and enriching his self-understanding ever-more-deeply.Less
In Nietzsche's late autobiographical writings he shows that the two major turning-points of his career - Human, All Too Human (which established his ideal of the Free Spirit) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (whose protagonist goes beyond the ideal of the Free Spirit) - amount to to turning points in his thought because they reflect turning points in his life, involving, above all, changes in his health around the time that he wrote each text. Nietzsche's self-account has the following structure: good health is associated with forgetting of oneself (a process that can be seen at work in and through Thus Spoke Zarathustra), while ill health is associated with returning to oneself (a process that can be seen at work in and through Human, All Too Human). And the major lesson of the autobiographical writings proves to be not the superiority of Zarathustra to the Free Spirits, or vice versa, but, instead, the necessity of each for Nietzsche as tools in a process of examining and enriching his self-understanding ever-more-deeply.
Paolo D'Iorio
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226164564
- eISBN:
- 9780226288659
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226288659.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento situates the turning point in Nietzsche's philosophy at the moment of his 1876 sabbatical in Sorrento. Nietzsche traveled to Southern Italy, accompanied by his friends ...
More
Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento situates the turning point in Nietzsche's philosophy at the moment of his 1876 sabbatical in Sorrento. Nietzsche traveled to Southern Italy, accompanied by his friends Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée, to recover his health, which was declining in the Northern climate of Basel, where he was a professor of philology. In Sorrento, he underwent a transformative experience that would lead him to renounce his earlier work, highly influenced by the metaphysics of Schopenhauer, and to abandon his professorship at the University of Basel so as to become a true philosopher. Also in Sorrento simultaneously to him was Richard Wagner, previously a figure of towering importance to the philosopher, but who had disappointed him irreparably with the first Bayreuth Festival. It was in Sorrento that Nietzsche saw the composer for the last time and made the definitive decision to forego the metaphysics of the artist, which he had placed so much faith in with The Birth of Tragedy. It is also at this time that he initiated his Philosophy of the Free Spirit, writing the book Things Human, All Too Human. D'Iorio advances the thesis of a continuous development from Nietzsche's early research on the scientific aspects of the pre-Platonic philosophers and this new step in his thinking. The upshot of the overall argument is Nietzsche's new affirmation of life and of all that is human, in the face of the Platonic devaluation of human things, which the philosophical tradition previously tended to support.Less
Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento situates the turning point in Nietzsche's philosophy at the moment of his 1876 sabbatical in Sorrento. Nietzsche traveled to Southern Italy, accompanied by his friends Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée, to recover his health, which was declining in the Northern climate of Basel, where he was a professor of philology. In Sorrento, he underwent a transformative experience that would lead him to renounce his earlier work, highly influenced by the metaphysics of Schopenhauer, and to abandon his professorship at the University of Basel so as to become a true philosopher. Also in Sorrento simultaneously to him was Richard Wagner, previously a figure of towering importance to the philosopher, but who had disappointed him irreparably with the first Bayreuth Festival. It was in Sorrento that Nietzsche saw the composer for the last time and made the definitive decision to forego the metaphysics of the artist, which he had placed so much faith in with The Birth of Tragedy. It is also at this time that he initiated his Philosophy of the Free Spirit, writing the book Things Human, All Too Human. D'Iorio advances the thesis of a continuous development from Nietzsche's early research on the scientific aspects of the pre-Platonic philosophers and this new step in his thinking. The upshot of the overall argument is Nietzsche's new affirmation of life and of all that is human, in the face of the Platonic devaluation of human things, which the philosophical tradition previously tended to support.
Wolfgang Riehle
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451096
- eISBN:
- 9780801470936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451096.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter focuses on Walter Hilton, England's mystic theologian. Walter Hilton is regarded as the actual theologian of English mysticism. His intellectual and literary activity belongs to the last ...
More
This chapter focuses on Walter Hilton, England's mystic theologian. Walter Hilton is regarded as the actual theologian of English mysticism. His intellectual and literary activity belongs to the last quarter of the fourteenth century. This chapter considers some of Hilton's English works, which include the two-part Scale of Perfection, Of Angels' Song, Mixed Life, and Eight Chapters on Perfection. It then discusses Hilton's Latin texts, such as De imagine peccati (On the image of sin) and Epistola de utilitate et prerogativis religionis. It also examines Hilton's view of contemplation, prayer, and meditation as well as what he actually means by the term “feelyng” in Scale of Perfection. Finally, it analyzes the reflection of the Free Spirit movement in Hilton, the The Cloud of Unknowing author, and Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls.Less
This chapter focuses on Walter Hilton, England's mystic theologian. Walter Hilton is regarded as the actual theologian of English mysticism. His intellectual and literary activity belongs to the last quarter of the fourteenth century. This chapter considers some of Hilton's English works, which include the two-part Scale of Perfection, Of Angels' Song, Mixed Life, and Eight Chapters on Perfection. It then discusses Hilton's Latin texts, such as De imagine peccati (On the image of sin) and Epistola de utilitate et prerogativis religionis. It also examines Hilton's view of contemplation, prayer, and meditation as well as what he actually means by the term “feelyng” in Scale of Perfection. Finally, it analyzes the reflection of the Free Spirit movement in Hilton, the The Cloud of Unknowing author, and Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls.
Jeremy Fortier
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226679396
- eISBN:
- 9780226679426
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226679426.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche has been one of the most widely read authors in the world from the time of his death to the present day, as well as one of the most controversial. He has been celebrated as a ...
More
Friedrich Nietzsche has been one of the most widely read authors in the world from the time of his death to the present day, as well as one of the most controversial. He has been celebrated as a liberating theorist of individual creativity and self-care, but also condemned as the inhumane advocate of anti-modern politics and hierarchical communalism. This book contends that Nietzsche’s complex legacy is the consequence of a self-conscious and artful tension within his work. That tension is reflected by the two major character-types that he established in his writings, the Free Spirit and Zarathustra, who represent different approaches to the conduct and understanding of life: one that strives to be as independent and critical of the world as possible, and one that engages with, cares for, and aims to change the world. Nietzsche developed these characters at different moments of his life, in order to confront from contrasting perspectives such elemental experiences as the drive to independence, the feeling of love, and the assessment of one’s overall health (or well-being). Understanding the tension between the Free Spirit and Zarathustra takes readers to the heart of what Nietzsche identified as the tensions central to his life, and to all of human life. The book highlights the fact that Nietzsche equipped his writings with retrospective self-commentaries and an autobiographical apparatus that clarify how he understood his development as an author, thinker, and human being, as well as the challenges that he left for readers to confront on their own.Less
Friedrich Nietzsche has been one of the most widely read authors in the world from the time of his death to the present day, as well as one of the most controversial. He has been celebrated as a liberating theorist of individual creativity and self-care, but also condemned as the inhumane advocate of anti-modern politics and hierarchical communalism. This book contends that Nietzsche’s complex legacy is the consequence of a self-conscious and artful tension within his work. That tension is reflected by the two major character-types that he established in his writings, the Free Spirit and Zarathustra, who represent different approaches to the conduct and understanding of life: one that strives to be as independent and critical of the world as possible, and one that engages with, cares for, and aims to change the world. Nietzsche developed these characters at different moments of his life, in order to confront from contrasting perspectives such elemental experiences as the drive to independence, the feeling of love, and the assessment of one’s overall health (or well-being). Understanding the tension between the Free Spirit and Zarathustra takes readers to the heart of what Nietzsche identified as the tensions central to his life, and to all of human life. The book highlights the fact that Nietzsche equipped his writings with retrospective self-commentaries and an autobiographical apparatus that clarify how he understood his development as an author, thinker, and human being, as well as the challenges that he left for readers to confront on their own.
Paolo D’Iorio
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226164564
- eISBN:
- 9780226288659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226288659.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter follows Nietzsche's path as he travels to Sorrento. It relates Meysenbug's passionate desire to help him recover his health and her organization of the journey as well as the stay. It ...
More
This chapter follows Nietzsche's path as he travels to Sorrento. It relates Meysenbug's passionate desire to help him recover his health and her organization of the journey as well as the stay. It explores in great detail Nietzsche's encounter with a young woman named Isabelle von der Pahlen on a night train in Italy, who claims, in her autobiography, to have coined the term "Free Spirit" in her conversation with Nietzsche on this occasion, as a preferable alternative to "freethinker." D'Iorio then leads us through the textual genesis, in Nietzsche's writings, of the notion of the Free Spirit, its connection to the idea of The Light Life (Das leichte Leben), and the meaning it comes to have in Things Human, All Too Human, as a term for one who lives and thinks differently from the way in which the determining factors of his socio-economic position would predict. The chapter ends with Nietzsche's arrival in Naples and his experience of release and connection to truth in the Southern landscape. D'Iorio quotes the phrase Nietzsche writes in his notebook, upon his arrival: "I have enough spirit for the South."Less
This chapter follows Nietzsche's path as he travels to Sorrento. It relates Meysenbug's passionate desire to help him recover his health and her organization of the journey as well as the stay. It explores in great detail Nietzsche's encounter with a young woman named Isabelle von der Pahlen on a night train in Italy, who claims, in her autobiography, to have coined the term "Free Spirit" in her conversation with Nietzsche on this occasion, as a preferable alternative to "freethinker." D'Iorio then leads us through the textual genesis, in Nietzsche's writings, of the notion of the Free Spirit, its connection to the idea of The Light Life (Das leichte Leben), and the meaning it comes to have in Things Human, All Too Human, as a term for one who lives and thinks differently from the way in which the determining factors of his socio-economic position would predict. The chapter ends with Nietzsche's arrival in Naples and his experience of release and connection to truth in the Southern landscape. D'Iorio quotes the phrase Nietzsche writes in his notebook, upon his arrival: "I have enough spirit for the South."
John D. Caputo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823239924
- eISBN:
- 9780823239962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239924.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The chapter traces the reaction of Heinrich Seuse to the condemnation of Meister Eckhart's teachings as heretical in 1329. Inquisitorial procedure as it developed after 1215 is presented, showing the ...
More
The chapter traces the reaction of Heinrich Seuse to the condemnation of Meister Eckhart's teachings as heretical in 1329. Inquisitorial procedure as it developed after 1215 is presented, showing the structural disregard for the sense of spiritual vocation which informs the vita apostolica. Seuse's response is to develop forms of self-monitoring which pre-empt the controlling structures of the ecclesiastical authorities. The result is the development of techniques of self-control, and an associated vocabulary, that prefigure modern forms of identity. A reading of Seuse's autobiography written in part in the form of a dialogue with the Dominican nun Elsbeth Stagel shows the effect of these new structures on the spiritual symbiosis discussed in Chapter 6. The woman's own experience is replaced by the controlling structures of the male cleric creating a dynamic like that criticized by Irigaray in which the terms of woman's spiritual life are either dictated by clerical discourse or are experienced as threateningly unintelligible. Forms which prefigure modern habits of identity are shown to be practices for regulating human togetherness and the longing to “become God”.Less
The chapter traces the reaction of Heinrich Seuse to the condemnation of Meister Eckhart's teachings as heretical in 1329. Inquisitorial procedure as it developed after 1215 is presented, showing the structural disregard for the sense of spiritual vocation which informs the vita apostolica. Seuse's response is to develop forms of self-monitoring which pre-empt the controlling structures of the ecclesiastical authorities. The result is the development of techniques of self-control, and an associated vocabulary, that prefigure modern forms of identity. A reading of Seuse's autobiography written in part in the form of a dialogue with the Dominican nun Elsbeth Stagel shows the effect of these new structures on the spiritual symbiosis discussed in Chapter 6. The woman's own experience is replaced by the controlling structures of the male cleric creating a dynamic like that criticized by Irigaray in which the terms of woman's spiritual life are either dictated by clerical discourse or are experienced as threateningly unintelligible. Forms which prefigure modern habits of identity are shown to be practices for regulating human togetherness and the longing to “become God”.