This paper aims to show the continuity and unity of Nietzsche’s political thought. Its first thesis the claim is made that The Greek State and the third Untimely Meditation already contain essential elements of Nietzsche’s later conception of the “Übermensch”, the meaning of which is better understood by connecting it to arguments articulated in these early writings. According to the second thesis of this paper, Nietzsche conceives the generation of a higher type of man or “Übermensch” not primarily (...) as the affair of an isolated individual but as a social and political task. (shrink)

The study contains the interpretation of F. Nietzsche's concept “Übermensch” as a program of modern human’s orientation within conditions of secularization. The “Übermensch” is presented as a form and a mode of secularized ethics. Such interpretation gave the methodological instruments to describe the main features of contemporary ideological and world view tendencies and their changes character, including such processes in Ukraine.

At the end of ‘The Age of the World Picture,’ Heidegger offers a brief sentence, ‘Keiner stirbt für blosse Werte’ (No one dies for mere values.). This sentence underscores one of the central themes of Heidegger’s later essays, the nihilism that results from living in an economy of value. This way of life is lived by a certain kind of human being, one who treats a culture’s embedded habits and practices as value systems to be exploited and exhausted. A more (...) difficult problem presents itself: what is it like to be a person who has mastered this economy of value? This paper sets out to examine this question, and to propose another perspective: no one dies for mere values, but how does Heidegger’s rendition of the Übermensch manage to live? How does one live for mere values? I argue that Heidegger’s technological examples (e.g., the hydroelectric plant) have two salient features: each is ‘infectious’ and ‘exhaustible,’ features that are not consonant with the appropriative use of our habits and practices. I will focus on the condition Heidegger describes, and the person who makes this condition manifest, and conclude with a proposal for a ‘Nietzschean corrective.’. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Nietzsche's enigmatic concept of the Ubermensch. Many endeavors have been made to elucidate this term and all have confronted certain problematic areas concerning the Ubermensch. First, there are very few direct references to the term, and this applies not only to the published works but also Nietzsche's notes. Secondly, and more importantly, whenever Nietzsche does comment on the Ubermensch he does so with a vagueness that always leaves one puzzled concerning the concept. What results is a questioning (...) of the reasons for this lack of clarity: does it derive from the concept itself or from an inability on Nietzsche's part to expound on the Ubermensch? ;In attempting to answer this question, Nietzsche's relation to Dionysus is examined since he suggests that his entire philosophy is a result of a Dionysian Experience of man and existence, and not a Socratic experience. What is contrasted are two perspectives on existence: the Socratic which is grounded in the Greek term , and the Dionysian which is based on . Both of these perspectives offer a corresponding telos in correlation to their experiences of man and existence. The Socratic, which Nietzsche presents as the major influence on Western philosophy, seeks a telos which corresponds to its desire for , a telos of an Eternal nature. The Dionysian perspective, on the other hand, recognizing the Primordial Unity of existence and the aesthetic nature of man seeks a telos which complements a non-metaphysical existence; a telos termed by Nietzsche the Ubermensch. ;From these proceeding I conclude that the Ubermensch is necessarily vague as it is a non-descript term based on aesthetic projection rather than Socratic . The Ubermensch is a Dionysian telos that represents an ability to project a future derived out of the process of Uberwindung rather than a definitive, descriptive telos that would be universal for all men. Hence, the Ubermensch must remain amorphous for to clarify it once and for all would be to Socratically project in Error. (shrink)

This essay deals critically with Nietzsche’s anthropological typology of the “free spirit par excellence”, “we spirits”, persons endowed with positive as against negative powers, and the ideal of the Übermensch. From this presentation, which actually amounts to a concise summary of my various publications on Nietzsche, I draw two conclusions: The first, and quite surprising one, is that it was not Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch that was the pinnacle of his anthropological philosophy but the even more ideal (...) type of the “free spirit par excellence”. The second, and less surprising, conclusion asserts that a society consisting of such “free spirits” is impossible. This finding will be highlighted by contrasting the Übermenschen, who, according to Nietzsche, need society as a sine qua non for their cultivation, with free spirits par excellence, who, by definition, are free from any need of a society. We will see, however, that on Nietzsche’s terms the ideal of the Übermensch is also not viable in society. Hence this paper points to an inherent flaw in Nietzsche’s existential philosophy -- the non-viability of its most sublime ideals. Nonetheless, one has to speculate about Nietzsche’s reasons for introducing the ideal of the free spirit par excellence -- an ideal that he himself thought to be existentially impractical. (shrink)

The comic book hero Superman grew from a social crusader and a “champion of the oppressed” in the 1930s, to a patriotic and paternalistic fighter for “Truth, Justice, and the American way” in the 1940s and 1950s, to a compassionate Christ‐like savior in the latter part of the twentieth century – and always defending the Judeo‐Christian values upheld by the American majority. Friedrich Nietzsche’s “superman,” on the other hand, firmly rejects the very same values its superhero namesake upholds. While it (...) has been a common trope in the superhero genre and popular culture in general to characterize figures explicitly based on Nietzsche’s Übermensch as inhuman monsters, this chapter argues that Nietzsche’s concept can be reinstated through the character of Superman himself. Like Übermensch, Superman is strong, creative, noble, independent, and life‐affirming, but unlike him, Superman is compassionate and looks out for the little guy. (shrink)

During the android Ash's confession in Alien, peope learn a lot about the creature that has been stalking the crew of the Nostromo. Rather than give the human survivors some hope about their chances of overcoming the Xenomorph, Ash waxes poetic about the alien's nature, describing it as the “perfect organism”. The nature of the Xenomorph illustrates some of the core principles of Nietzschean philosophy. This chapter focuses on the idea of the Übermensch and how the aliens from this (...) beloved franchise so perfectly realize, in fiction, the kind of existence Nietzsche hoped to make a reality. It draws on not just the four films of the Alien quadrilogy, but also the franchise's expanded universe of comics, novels, video games, and other product tie‐ins. In order to introduce his cinematic terror in Alien, director Ridley Scott had to transport viewers to a harsh, distant world where strange vessels house even stranger mysteries. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzscheforschung Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 75-88.

Nietzsche's notion of the Übermensch is one of his most famous. While he himself never defined or explained what he meant by it, many philosophical interpretations have been offered in secondary literature. None of these, however, has examined the significance of the notion for Nietzsche the man, and this essay therefore attempts to address this gap.The idea of the Übermensch occurred to Nietzsche rather suddenly in the winter of 1882-1883, when his life was in turmoil after yet another (...) deep personal setback. The early loss of his father had deprived Nietzsche of a meaningful “mirroring” and a chance to experience realistic, age appropriate disappointment. This left him with a lifelong tendency towards idealisation. It became his proverbial Achilles’ heel and the source of repeated disillusionments and sorrow. The Übermensch may thus have been a culmination of his impulse to create altars and worlds before which he could kneel. Trying to cope with his own vulnerability, Nietzsche evoked an ideal of the Übermensch, a mask of hardness that was designed, if unconsciously, to ward off any future assaults on his fragile self.The double aspect of Nietzsche's personality is explored in this essay. While a highly provocative, belligerent and uncompromising Nietzsche often emerges from his published works, a vulnerable, lonely and sometimes self-pitying Nietzsche lurks in his letters and the accounts of his friends and acquaintances. But could an “ideal of strength”, such as the Übermensch, serve as a protective mask for someone with a sensitive, passionate interior? Nietzsche's descent into madness would suggest that no ideal can be a substitute for human, all too human, compassion. (shrink)

The Übermensch, the overcoming of man, is one of Nietzsche’s debated concepts to be situated in posthumanism. In Žižek’s posthumanism, the human as subject can not only be read in Nietzsche’s understanding of the last man, but is inherently tied to the concept of trauma. This is so that trauma, as I exposed before, is a crucial element in advancing a posthuman. This article argues that trauma is, tout court, not enough to realize a posthuman Übermensch. It faces (...) paradoxes that render it a transitory jolt. First, trauma still relies on the fiction of an afterworld. Second, trauma can be further traumatized and that there is a transitoriness of choice that belies its function between dream and fiction. Later, following from the traumatic standpoint of the Real, I provide a clarificatory corollary why the posthuman project also cannot work as a Lacanian fantasy. (shrink)

We hear much these days of lifelong learning and higher levels of nursing practice. We have even been introduced to the concept of the supernurse. This paper seeks to contribute an ethico-political dimension to the largely performative uses of these terms in contemporary nursing politics. This is done by exploring the promise of certain elements of Nietzsche's philosophy for nursing. Certain major Nietzschean themes are outlined in the context of modernity followed by their exploration in a nursing context. These themes (...) come principally from Thus Spake Zarathustra, and include not only that of Übermensch (Superman), but also the related ideas of eternal recurrence, nihilism, and the last Man. It is argued that the conditions in which nurses now learn and practice have become increasingly instrumentalized and technorational to the extent that they are in danger of effecting a nihilism in what becomes a culture of perpetual obligation to those who would seek to measure our performance. It is against this background that Nietzsche's idea of the Übermensch is explored as a figure for self-overcoming the professional subjectivity that may be constructed in the face of these conditions. However, it will be seen that this raises certain issues which beg the question of the productive value of Nietzsche's philosophy in this particular context. At this point, in the last part of the paper, by considering the tensive relation between the discourse practices of present-day managerialism and nursing ethics, it is argued that it is these very problems that present the Übermensch as a tensive but potentially productive figure for nursing and nurse education in its broadest sense. (shrink)

THIS paper consists essentially of three parts. The first part argues the case for construing Nietzsche's remarks about Übermenschlichkeit as endorsing some specific set of character traits, of "virtues" if you like. To be an Übermensch, on this reading, is to possess or exhibit certain traits of character, traits which in the typical case are associated with notions of self-overcoming, sublimation, creativity, and self-perfection. An Übermensch, construed in this way, expresses Nietzsche's vision of the human ideal, of what (...) human beings should or might be like. In this sense Nietzsche merely continues the ancient project of articulating the human ideal, the conception of human perfectibility. Although Nietzsche's answer may appear to be shockingly different, the project of articulating a human ideal is scarcely radical. The project qua project is no different than that of Plato or Aristotle, the Stoics, Spinoza or Kant. For Plato, the philosopher-king represents the ideal of human self-perfection; for Aristotle megalopsychic man conjoined with the life of contemplation; for the Stoics apatheia and right reason; for Spinoza the intellectual amor dei was a necessary and perhaps a sufficient condition for human liberation; for Kant, the genuinely moral person qualifies as the human ideal, the person whose actions are always and only governed by the categorical imperative, although Kant would probably have called such a will a "holy" will rather than a human one. (shrink)

From the 1890s on, the atheist philosopher F. Nietzsche exerted a profound and enduring impact on Russian religious, cultural, and social reality. The religious philosopher V.S. Solov'ëv perceived Nietzsche's thought as an actual threat to Russian religious consciousness and his own anthropological ideal of Divine Humanity. He was especially preoccupied with the idea of the Übermensch since sometwo decades before the Nietzschean Übermensch was popularized in Russia, Solov'ëv had already developed his own interpretation of the sverkhchelovek.

Questo studio investiga quali siano i punti di contatto tra il filosofo tedesco Friedrich Nietzsche e lo scrittore svedese Hjalmar Söderberg nel romanzo di quest’ultimo Doktor Glas. L’articolo prende in esame due testi nietzschiani finora poco messi in relazione con l’opera söderberghiana, Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne e Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, evidenziando gli influssi che il pensiero del filosofo tedesco ha esercitato sulla concezione del Doktor Glas. L’analisi prende le mosse dai concetti di menzogna e conoscenza così come (...) formulati in Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne e dal concetto di “morte di Dio”, identificando in quest’ultimo il crollo della metafisica nel pensiero filosofico europeo a partire dalla rivoluzione copernicana. Il saggio illustra come a questo cambiamento sia sopraggiunto lo svilupparsi di una nuova sensibilità tecnico-scientifica legata alla physis, cambiamento che vede nella figura del medico il suo massimo esponente. L’articolo mette dunque in luce come nel Doktor Glas il passaggio dalla metafisica alla physis venga rappresentato come un momento di crisi esistenziale, non avendo il medico la capacità di superare il trauma della perdita della metafisica. Quest’incapacità è causata dalla conoscenza, la quale se offre la possibilità di scoprire le menzogne usate dalla società, non consente però di trovare lo stimolo per superare la condizione di vuoto causata dalla “morte di Dio”. Söderberg fornisce dunque nel suo romanzo un’interpretazione pessimistica della crisi di Fin de siècle, inquadrando nella paralisi interiore del dottor Tyko Gabriel Glas e l’omicidio inconcludente del pastore Gregorius il fallimento del passaggio dal paradigma metafisico al paradigma della physis e l’impossibilità di superare la crisi tramite una metamorfosi nella condizione di Übermensch. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The demand for sublimation of one's primitive and “evil” instincts plays a crucial role in Nietzsche's ethics. But prominent misreadings of Nietzsche's concept of sublimation have led to errors in interpreting his view of the highest type of man. I argue that Nietzsche's view of sublimation is that it is the elevation of the objects of a drive through reinterpretation or reimagining them in such a way that the attainment of these new objects achieves a greater potency of expression (...) for the drive while retaining its intrinsic aims. I also clarify the function of sublimation in his ethics. (shrink)

ISBN 978-1-4384-9027-4 Argues that Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch was a central concern of filmmakers in the 1920s and 1930s. -/- Nietzsche in Hollywood offers a compelling and startling history of Hollywood film in which the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his idea of the Übermensch looms large. Though Nietzsche’s philosophy was attacked as egoistic and a sociopathic version of Darwinism in films from the 1910s, it undergoes a series of cinematic and philosophical transformations in the 1920s and (...) 1930s under the eye and pen of some of the most significant names in early Hollywood, including Erich von Stroheim, Josef von Sternberg, Ben Hecht, Howard Hawks, and Ernst Lubitsch. In addition to establishing historical connections between Nietzsche’s philosophy and these filmmakers, the book provides philosophical readings of many Hollywood films through the lens of the Nietzschean ideas of “perspectivism” and the critique of morality. Offering a new history of classic Hollywood films as well as a new approach to film philosophy, Nietzsche in Hollywood reveals a reading of the philosopher in American culture that has largely been ignored. (shrink)

La inversión en la bolsa de valores se ha interpretado por algunos como unaactividad con daños colaterales en detrimento de las masas. Considerando lasrazones del por qué esto ha ocasionado un sentimiento de indignación en muchos,este texto busca identificar el tipo de inversionistas que se encuentran enWall Street —se inicia con el Übermensch, de Nietzsche y se finaliza con el empresario productor de Ayn Rand—, y qué tan justificado es el resentimiento que se ha generado en contra. Asimismo, dada (...) la llegada de múltiples inversionistas no institucionales al mercado accionario durante el 2021 —quienes publicaban en redes sociales el objetivo de impactar a los fondos de inversiones—, se investiga si lo que se generó fue un movimiento social en contra estos y, al llegar a una decisión negativa, se concluye con las deficiencias de estas acciones que previenen que sean consideradas un movimiento social. (shrink)

In this paper, I critique the prevalent notion that only in the abyss can one emerge to be the Übermensch, or to use Hollingdale’s term, the Superman. To support this, I will first expound on the notion of the abyss as ethical nihilism from the perspective of the death of God to Nietzsche’s critique of morality. I argue that ethical nihilism as an abyss is insufficient in constituting Nietzsche’s Superman. I will then set how the Superman emerges through counter-stages. (...) The paradox is that such tragic an abyss that serves as conditio sine qua non for the Superman falls flat when looked at in the perspective of life. There underlies a fundamental difficulty in simply accepting the proposals of acknowledging the abyss or ‘becoming what one is.’ Later, Nietzsche’s anti-romanticism and anti-Darwinism are explored to support such difficulty. (shrink)

본 논문은 칸딘스키의 추상표현주의와 추상예술론에 함의된 니체의 철학을 고찰함으로써 칸딘스키 추상미술에 담긴 존재론적 측면을 논증하는 내용을 담고 있다. 칸딘스키는 추상미술의 선구자이자 추상표현주의를 통해 전통미술에 대한 해체와 전복을 시도한다. 이와 동시에 예술과 삶에 대한 정신적 전환의 깨우침을 준다. 이와 같은 칸딘스키의 창조적 시도는 내적 필연성을 통해 가능한데 그 배후에는 니체의 위버멘쉬가 자리하고 있다. 칸딘스키는 그의 저서에서 니체의 가치의 전도, 힘에의 의지, 위버멘쉬를 직·간접적으로 드러낸다. 예술에 대한 니체의 정의는 전통적 예술개념의 해체와 확장, 파괴와 창조에 있고 이는 삶의 법칙과도 연관한다. 칸딘스키의 예술론에 담긴 (...) 위버멘쉬의 형상은 추상표현주의를 통해 현현하고 이는 현대미술의 확장에 지대한 영향을 끼친다. (shrink)

RESUMEN El presente artículo se propone mostrar que la idea de una "humaneidad no-incrementada", que define el concepto de lo político de Walter Benjamin a principios de la década de 1920, se continúa subrepticiamente en lo que, en los apuntes preparatorios a su ensayo sobre Karl Kraus de 1931, llama "humanismo real de lo no-humano". Las discrepancias que en cada caso Benjamin establece con la célebre noción de Übermensch acuñada por Friedrich Nietzsche será el hilo conductor que permite vincular (...) ambos momentos. A partir de ello, se muestra cómo emerge en los escritos de Benjamin una singular política de lo (post)humano. ABSTRACT This article shows that the idea of an "unenhanced humanness", which defined Walter Benjamin's concept of the political in the early 1920s, is surreptitiously continued in what, in the preparatory notes to his essay about Karl Kraus of 1931, he calls "real humanism of the non-human". The discrepancies that Benjamin establishes in each case with the famous Friedrich Nietzsche's notion of Übermensch will be the common thread that links both moments. From this, it is shown how a singular politics of the (post)human emerges in Benjamin's writings. (shrink)