After God – The Normative Power of the Will from the Nietzschean Perspective (DIA-LOGOS)

This book analyzes the main problems of Friedrich Nietzsche’s critical philosophy, such as the theory of being, the theory of knowledge and the theory of values. It also addresses his positive program which is based on a number of fundamental conceptions, namely the will to power, the Übermensch, bestowing virtue and the notion of the eternal recurrence. The «death of God» must, in Nietzsche’s opinion, lead to a revolution in human consciousness which requires the creation of a new frame of reference for values. To realize this aim, Nietzsche invokes the will which has the normative power to create values and even to overcome time. The author sets his focus on the «tragic gay science» that has never been fully elucidated and still affords new perspectives for interpretation. Cover Table of Contents Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. The ontological and epistemological assumptions of Nietzsche’s philosophy Chapter 1. The meaning of the ‘death of God’ and its ontological consequences I. Unbelievable belief II. The moral-metaphysical structure of the world 1. The loss of the feeling of transcendence 2. The abolition of the dualism between the apparent world and the real 3. The ‘New Philosophy’: beyond idealism and positivism Chapter 2. ‘The sponge to wipe away the horizon’: the normative character of cognition I. A Critique of the will to truth 1. Knowledge as an adventure of the spirit 2. The rejection of metaphysical truth: the will to appearance instead of the will to truth 2.1. Truth as a useful illusion 2.2. Truth as a metaphor II. Perspectivism 1. Language 2. Interpretation: lawfulness and justice 2.1. Linguistic interpretation 2.2. Genealogical interpretation Chapter 3. The genealogical method and its philosophical applications I. Psychological realism II. The origins of morality: ressentiment 1. The concept of ressentiment 2. The reversal of values 3. Ressentiment and Christianity 4. Ressentiment as a source of contemporary spiritual crisis III. The origins of laws: degrees of power 1. Law in the metaphysical sense: justice as pre-established order 2. Justice as mutual advantage 2.1. Rectificatory justice 2.2. Customary law and statutory law: the role of custom and coercion 3. ‘The genius of justice’: the self-sublimation of justice in love Part II. Nietzschean Anthropodicy Chapter 4. Metamorphoses of the spirit: the normative character of the will to power I. The ethics of duty: ‘Thou Shalt’ 1. Ought, obligation, duty 2. Guilt, responsibility 3. A critique of the ethics of duty II. The Will: ‘I will’ 1. Free Will 2. Weak and strong wills 3. The will to power 4. The conception of agency and agent 4.1. Will (willing) and acts of will (acting) 4.2. The construction of the subject III. The total innocence of becoming: ‘I am’ Chapter 5. The creative will as an expression of the self overcoming life I. The necessity of becoming oneself 1. Willing a self 2. Creating the self and our laws 3. The desire to give the self: the bestowing virtue II. Overcoming the human 1. Transcending without transcendence 2. Übermensch Chapter 6. The will to return – amor fati I. The cosmological interpretation of the idea of eternal return II. The ethical-existential interpretation of the idea of the eternal recurrence III. The metaphysical interpretation of the idea of the eternal recurrence 1. Unhistorical, historical and suprahistorical consciousness 2. The myth of the eternal recurrence and the Dionysian formula of existence: amor fati 3. Subjectivity and the experience of time 4. The Riddle of Zarathustra IV. The mystical interpretation of the eternal recurrence Endings: Philosophical Don Juanism References Nietzsche’s Works Literature This book analyzes the main problems of Friedrich Nietzsche's critical philosophy, such as the theory of being, the theory of knowledge and the theory of values. It also addresses his positive program which is based on fundamental conceptions, namely the will to power, the UEbermensch, bestowing virtue and the notion of the eternal recurrence.