Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind

361 Pages·2018·2.34 MB·English

by  Manuel Dries

Manuel Dries (Ed.)
Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind
Monographien und Texte
zur Nietzsche-Forschung
Herausgegeben von
Christian J. Emden
Helmut Heit
Vanessa Lemm
Claus Zittel
Begründet von
Mazzino Montinari, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, Heinz Wenzel

Advisory Board: Günter Abel, R. Lanier Anderson, Keith Ansell-Pearson,
Rebecca Bamford, Christian Benne, Jessica Berry, Marco Brusotti, João Constancio,
Daniel Conway, Carlo Gentili, Oswaldo Giacoia Junior, Wolfram Groddeck,
Anthony Jensen, Scarlett Marton, John Richardson, Martin Saar, Herman Siemens,
Andreas Urs Sommer, Werner Stegmaier, Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir,
Paul van Tongeren, Aldo Venturelli, Isabelle Wienand, Patrick Wotling
Band 70
Nietzsche on
Consciousness and
the Embodied Mind
Edited by Manuel Dries
ISBN 978-3-11-024652-0
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-024653-7
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039165-7
ISSN 1862-1260
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950639
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Typesetting: 3W+P GmbH, Rimpar
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
www.degruyter.com
Contents
Note on Texts, Translations, and Abbreviations VII
Manuel Dries
1 Introduction to Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind 1
Part I: Embodied Cognition and Eliminative Materialism
Christa Davis Acampora
2 Nietzsche and Embodied Cognition 17
Manuel Dries
3 Early Nietzsche on History, Embodiment, and Value 49
Helmut Heit
4 Becoming Reasonable Bodies: Nietzsche and Paul Churchland’s
Philosophy of Mind 71
Part II: Consciousness and Freedom of the Will
Mattia Riccardi
5 Nietzsche on the Superficiality of Consciousness 93
João Constâncio
6 Nietzsche on Will, Consciousness, and Choice: Another Look at
Nietzschean Freedom 113
Part III: Mind, Metaphysics, and Will to Power
Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen
7 Nietzsche’s Panpsychism as the Equation of Mind and Matter 145
Frank Chouraqui
8 On the Place of Consciousness within the Will to Power 163
VI Contents
Part IV: Consciousness, Language, and Metaphor
Lawrence J. Hatab
9 Talking Ourselves into Selfhood: Nietzsche on Consciousness and
Language in Gay Science 354 183
Benedetta Zavatta
10 The Figurative Patterns of Reason: Nietzsche on Tropes as Embodied
Schemata 195
Part V: Towards Naturalism
Anthony K. Jensen
11 Selbstverleugnung—Selbsttäuschung: Nietzsche and Schopenhauer on the
Self 217
Christian J. Emden
12 On Natural Beings: Nietzsche and Philosophical Naturalism 235
Part VI: Ethics and “Life”
Maria Cristina Fornari
13 “Shadows of God” and Neuroethics 261
Charlie Huenemann
14 Nietzsche and the Perspective of Life 273
Part VII: Redlichkeit and Embodied Wisdom
Vanessa Lemm
15 Truth, Embodiment, and Probity (Redlichkeit) in Nietzsche 289
Keith Ansell-Pearson
16 When Wisdom Assumes Bodily Form 309
Index 329
Notes on Contributors 349
Note on Texts, Translations, and Abbreviations
German texts of Nietzsche referred to are:
KSA Nietzsche, F. (): Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. G.
ColliandM.Montinari.Munich,BerlinandNewYork:DTVandDeGruyter.
KGB Nietzsche, F. (–): Briefwechsel. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, estab-
lishedbyG.ColliandM.Montinari,continuedbyN.MillerandA.Pieper.
Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
KGW Nietzsche,F.(–):Werke.KritischeGesamtausgabe,establishedby
G. Colli and M. Montinari, continued by W. Müller-Lauter and K. Pesta-
lozzi (eds), Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
ContributorsciteNietzscheusingstandardacronymsforhisworks,usuallyfollowed
by a Roman numeral for a part or chapter (if any), with separately numbered or
namedsections,e.g.GMI1,orBGE19,orEHClever,orZIIITablets.ForNietzsche’s
Nachlass (NL), if a note is included in The Will to Power (a selection not made by
Nietzschebutbylatereditors,EnglishtranslationbyW.KauffmannandR.J.Holling-
dale, NewYork:Random House, 1968) thecontributorsoftenciteitasWP,followed
byits number, as WEN (Nietzsche, Writingsfromthe Early Notebooks, ed. R. Geuss
and A. Nehamas, trans. L. Löb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), fol-
lowed by page numbers, or as WLN (Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks,
ed. R. Bittner, trans. K. Sturge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), fol-
lowed by page numbers. For all notes from NL, they further provide the year and
KSA volume number, followed by notebook number, and in square brackets the
notenumber,e.g.WP626=NL1883–4,KSA10,24[10].TranslationsofNietzsche’s
works and notes are either by the contributors, who have consulted and amended
existing translations, or as noted separately in each essay.
The following abbreviations are used for the titles of writings by Nietzsche:
A The Antichrist
AOM Assorted Opinions and Maxims
BGE Beyond Good and Evil
BT The Birth of Tragedy
CW The Case of Wagner
D Daybreak
DS David Strauss
DW The Dionysiac Worldview
EH Ecce Homo
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110246537-001
VIII NoteonTexts,Translations,andAbbreviations
GM On the Genealogy of Morals
GS The Gay Science
HH Human, All Too Human
HL On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life
NL Nachlass (Nietzsche’s Posthumous Notebooks)
PTAG Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
RWB Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
SE Schopenhauer as Educator
TI Twilight of the Idols
TL On Truth and Lies in an Extra-moral Sense
UM Untimely Meditations
WS The Wandererand His Shadow
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Abbreviationsused for works by other authors
René Descartes
Med. Meditationes de prima philosophia
PP Principia philosophia
Immanuel Kant
CPR Critique of Pure Reason
Arthur Schopenhauer
WWR The World as Will and Representation
WWV Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
Manuel Dries
1 Introduction to Nietzsche on Consciousness
and the Embodied Mind
This collection of essaysaims towiden our understandingof the possible contribu-
tionsNietzschecanmaketocurrentdebatesonconsciousnessandthemind,bothof
whichheconceivedasfundamentallyembodied.Nietzsche’sphilosophyhasattimes
beenbroughtintofruitfuldialoguewithalargenumberofdifferentdisciplines,such
asanthropology,history,neuroscience,biology,psychology,andlinguistics,toname
justafew.Hisrich andunsystematic treatmentofconsciousness andthe bodycan-
not be reduced to any single discipline and has the potential to speak to all of the
above, and more. In the famous note at the end of the first essay of GM, Nietzsche
proposes an interdisciplinary research programme for the study of morality, and
moralvaluesinparticular.Hisrecommendationistostudymoralityfromallpossible
perspectives,withthewidergoalofbetterunderstandinghumanflourishing.Hisin-
vestigations into consciousness and the embodied mind are also not free-standing
philosophical analyses but should be seen as part and parcel of what we could
call his larger ethical concerns.We learn from Nietzsche’s sympathetic and yet al-
ways critical perspective on the natural and other sciences (I am thinking here, for
example,ofGMIII23)thathesupportsspecializedscientificenquiries(andpresum-
ablythiswouldincluderesearchintoconsciousnessandtheminde.g.bycontempo-
raryneuroscience)nevermerelyasanendinitself,butratherguidedbybroadlyeth-
icalconcerns.ThisvolumeoffersatreatmentofNietzsche’sphilosophyofmindfrom
anumberofdifferentanalyticandcontinentalperspectivesandaimstoshowitscon-
nection to Nietzsche’s broader ethical concerns.
ItiscommonlyacceptedthatNietzscheregardsthebodyveryhighly.Nopassage
better captures Nietzsche’s admiration and shift towards a more correct, adualistic
embodied self-conception than the well-known passage from Z:
theknowingonesays:bodyamIthroughandthrough,andnothingbesides;andsoulisjusta
wordforsomethingonthebody.Thebodyisagreatreason,amultiplicitywithonesense,awar
andapeace,oneherdandoneshepherd.Yoursmallreason,whatyoucall“mind”isalsoatool
ofyourbody,mybrother,asmallwork-andplaythingofyourgreatreason.“I”yousayandare
proudofthisword.Butwhatisgreateristhatinwhichyoudonotwanttobelieve–yourbody
anditsgreatreason.ItdoesnotsayI,butdoesI.(ZIDespisers)
What is perhaps still less well established, despite a lot of excellent work that has
been done on the subject in recent years (cf. e.g. Schlimgen 1999, Abel 2015
[2001], Emden 2005, Richardson 2004,Constâncio et al 2012 and 2015, Leiter 2015,
Gemes/Le Patourel 2015, Katsafanas 2016), is Nietzsche’s position on reflective con-
sciousnessorself-consciousness.Nietzschedoesnotdifferentiateexplicitlybetween
themanydifferenttypesofconsciousnessthatwecurrentlydistinguishincontempo-
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