This thesis examines the problem of the subject in Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. In the general understanding of the history of Western philosophy, Nietzsche's philosophy is often regarded as one that critiques and negates traditional notions of t...
This thesis examines the problem of the subject in Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. In the general understanding of the history of Western philosophy, Nietzsche's philosophy is often regarded as one that critiques and negates traditional notions of the subject. Indeed, Nietzsche incisively critiques Descartes' cogito, which is a paradigm of modern subject philosophy, and strongly negates the age-old belief in the immortal soul, which is rooted in archaic Orphic traditions. The human subject can no longer be considered a thinking substance or an atom of immortal soul. This thesis takes such a philosophical achievement of Nietzsche’s, which can be summarized in the slogan ‘the negation of the subject,’ as its background.
However, this thesis aims to illuminate the discussions within Nietzsche's philosophy that go beyond the negation of the subject. While Nietzsche critiques and negates traditional notions of the subject, he does not entirely reject the concept of the subject in all forms. Rather, by rejecting conventional and fantastical notions of the subject, he draws attention to the ‘body(Leib)’ as the true remnant, and prepares for a new subjectivity based on it. The main objective of this thesis is to reconstruct, in a step-by-step and comprehensible manner, the discussions on the new subjectivity as positively presented in Nietzsche's philosophy.
In order to achieve this, this thesis, as an interpretive work on Nietzsche's philosophy, takes his texts as the primary source and places greater emphasis on their constructive aspects rather than their destructive ones. It is widely acknowledged that Nietzsche's texts are not systematically organized. They are largely fragmentary, and his distinctive style, characterized by hyperbolic tones, leads to apparent contradictions within his texts, thereby adding to the interpretive challenges. Therefore, a meaningful interpretive effort concerning Nietzsche's philosophy should take his hyperbolic style into consideration, minimize contradictions, and construct a more coherent structure, which he incompletely presents. This is the constructive interpretive method adopted in this thesis.
The main arguments of this thesis can be summarized as follows:
One of Nietzsche's reasons for critiquing traditional notions of the subject is that they are merely fantastical. Therefore, the new Nietzschean subject must not be fantastical but grounded in real being, which is none other than the ‘body(Leib).’
The body is not a singular entity. Nietzsche defines the body as a dynamic arena of diverse drives, and regards ‘drives(Triebe)’ as real units of being that possess absolute and fundamental reality. Accordingly, the Nietzschean subject is initially presented as grounded in the being of ‘diverse drives.’
The Nietzschean subject is primarily a ‘multiplicity-subject.’ As such a manifold subject, the human being is composed of the bodily ‘self(Selbst),’ an arena where diverse drives conflict with one another, and the conscious mind, the ‘I(Ich)·ego,’ which is occupied by the most dominant drive at any given moment. In this regard, Nietzsche argues, on the one hand, that humans should honestly confront and cultivate the diversity of drives within their bodily ‘self(Selbst).’ The multiplicity-subject already exists based on diverse drives, but it should allow an even broader diversity of drives to be active within itself. When this diversity of drives reaches an extreme, in the end, this subject appears as if an extreme performer who expresses all kinds of drives in a colorful way.
However, Nietzsche warns, on the other hand, that humans should not fall into such an extreme performer-like state. At this point, the Nietzschean subject is secondarily presented as a ‘unified subject.’ Humans exist based on the diversity of drives, but this diversity also carries the risk of leading to chaotic disorder. Therefore, Nietzsche emphasizes not only the cultivation of diverse drives but also their proper coordination and unification under a single dominant central drive. More precisely, his emphasis lies on the latter. When the multiplicity-subject, through the ongoing―albeit imperfect―conscious effort of the ‘I(Ich)·ego,’ unifies its diverse drives under a single central drive within the ‘self(Selbst),’ it no longer remains merely a chaotic multiplicity but is reborn as a self-standing and unified subject.
Then, the unified subject progressively achieves the ideal attitudes advocated by Nietzsche's philosophy. First, it gains awareness of its own task. Next, it adopts the attitude of amor fati, affirming its entire life. Ultimately, it attains the attitude of affirming eternal recurrence, embracing its destiny as though it were to repeat eternally.