Abstract
Both Nietzsche’s “moral intentions” and the practical objective of his philosophizing have to do with helping us recognize our power and use it creatively in authentic patterns of life. His moral theory of power ultimately turns out to be the hub in which all his earlier and later views “become…more and more firmly attached to one another,…entwined and interlaced with one another” (GM V:2). This logical and ideational interrelation of central Nietzschean concepts and motives transforms what would seem at first to be a loosely connected and aphoristic work into a positive and comprehensive philosophy and psychology of power — one which can be discussed coherently.
Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author…also that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy constituted the real germ of life from which the whole plant had grown. Indeed, if one would explain how the abstrusest metaphysical claims of a philosopher really come about, it is always well (and wise) to ask first: at what morality does all this (does he) aim? (BGE 6)
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References
See also the statement that the genuine philosopher “fühlt die Last und Pflicht zu hundert Versuchen und Versuchungen des Lebens” (KSA 5: 133, BGE 205). Nietzsche’s play on the words “Versuch” (hypothesis or experiment) and “Versuchung” (seduction or enticement) is far from unintentional as, for example, Walter Kaufmann calls it in his translation (Beyond Good and Evil, New York, 1966, pp. 52–53). It clearly points to one of the most significant features of Nietzsche’s philosophy, namely, that it is a sophisticated mode of enticement; see my “Nietzsche’s Phenomenology of Power,” Nietzsche-Studien 15 (forthcoming).
EH III:2 and see Jörg Salaquarda, “Der Antichrist,” Nietzsche-Studien 2 (1973): 91–136 on other meanings of this term in Nietzsche’s thought.
See, e.g. Musarionausgabe, 14: 187. Thus I am here proposing a reconciliation between what Bernd Magnus aptly calls the “normative interpretation of recurrence” (Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative, Bloomington, 1978, p. 142), which stresses the psychological consequences of this doctrine, and Magnus’ own interpretation, emphasizing the existential-heuristic role of this teaching. Thus the introduction of the concept of “enticement” in this context is an attempt to capture the psychological importance of this doctrine without attaching it too narrowly to its truth-value — as does, e.g., the normative interpretation.
Z 3 “The Convalescent” 2 and Cf. Haim Gordon, “Nietzsche’s Zarathustra as Educator, J. of Philosophy of Education 14 (1980): 181–192. This article emphasizes the educative aspect of Zarathustra, seeking to arouse his students to accept the example of the Übermensch, but ignoring the enticing side of this education to adopt the patterns of positive power. See also my “Nietzsche’s Early Educational Thought,” J. of Philosophy of Education 19 (1985): 99–109.
trans. D.F. Pears & B.F. McGuinness (London, 1961). A different sort of analogy between Wittgenstein and Nietzsche may be found in Erich Heller, “Wittgenstein and Nietzsche,” in: The Artist’s Journey into the Interior (New York, 1959), pp. 201–226, which discusses several similarities between Nietzsche and the later Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations.
Witness his biographer Ernst Jones, who in describing the meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society of 28 October 1908, devoted to the analysis of Ecce Homo, remarks that Freud “several times referred to Nietzsche as to the man who had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived or was likely to live” (E. Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, London, 1955, II:385). Coming from the founder of psychoanalysis this is no small compliment. Moreover, Freud and his followers believe that man is able to reach self-knowledge only by following a long and intensive psychoanalysis. Thus, Freud implies in this passage that Nietzsche, who possessed self-knowledge “more than any other man who ever lived” (including Freud himself, who, as is well known, performed self-psychoanalysis while writing Die Traumdeutung), had acquired such knowledge as a result of a painful process of introspection, similar to Freud’s. That this is so appears from some comments made by Freud at the same meeting: “He makes a number of brilliant discoveries in himself. The degree of introspection achieved by Nietzsche had never been achieved by anyone, nor is it likely to be reached again” (Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, New York, 1967, II:32).
Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche (Princeton, N.J., 1968), pp. 92.
Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche (Princeton, N.J., 1968), pp. 183.
See my “Psychology from the Phenomenological Standpoint of Husserl,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36 (1976): 451–471.
Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. Quentin Lauer (New York, 1965), p. 85.
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© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht / Boston / Lancaster
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Golomb, J. (1986). Nietzsche’s Enticing Psychology of Power. In: Yovel, Y. (eds) Nietzsche as Affirmative Thinker. Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4360-5_11
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