Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul: A Study of Heroic Individualism

Leslie Paul Thiele

Published by Princeton University Press 1990

Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul

A Study of Heroic Individualism

Leslie Paul Thiele

Volume 36 in the series Studies in Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691222073

Overview
Contents

About this book

Reading Nietzsche's works as the "political biography of his soul," Leslie Thiele presents an original and accessible essay on the great thinker's attempt to lead a heroic life as a philosopher, artist, saint, educator, and solitary. He takes as his point of departure Nietzsche's conception of the soul as a multiplicity of conflicting drives and personae, and focuses on the task Nietzsche allotted himself "to make a cosmos out of his chaotic inheritance." This struggle to "become what you are" by way of a spiritual politics is demonstrated to be Nietzsche's foremost concern, which fused his philosophy with his life.

The book offers a conversation with Nietzsche rather than a consideration of the secondary literature, yet it takes to task many prevalent approaches to his work, and contests especially the way we often restrict our encounter with him to conceptual analysis. All deconstructionist attempts to portray him as solely concerned with the destruction of the subject and the dispersion of the self, rather than its unification, are called into question. Often portrayed as the champion of nihilism, Nietzsche here emerges as a thinker who saw his primary task as the overcoming of nihilism through the heroic struggle of individuation.

Reviews

"Thiele offers an accessible and accurate portrait of Nietzsche's ideal of heroic individualism. [In Nietzsche,] Thiele retrieves a creator of values, of a model of the 'well-ordered soul,' a seductive and paradoxical existential thinker with a psychagogic aim."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PREFACE Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
A NOTE ON SOURCES AND CITATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Heroic Individualism
ONE. The Heroic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
TWO. Individualism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
Part II: The Politics of the Soul
THREE. The Soul as a Plurality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
FOUR. The Well-Ordered Soul Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
Part III: Incarnations and Ideals
FIVE. The Philosopher Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
SIX. The Artist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
SEVEN. The Saint Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
EIGHT. The Educator and the Solitary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
NINE. Apotheosis and Laughter: The Overman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Part IV: The Circle of Return
TEN. Amor Fati and the Eternal Recurrence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
ELEVEN. Becoming Who You Are Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
CONCLUSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	218
WORKS OF NIETZSCHE CITED Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229