Genealogy as ‘Enlightenment’
Reading for Lecture Three
18 September 2014
Peter Kail
Oxford University.
Bad Conscience etc
Useful accounts are in Leiter’s Nietzsche on Morality, and May Nietzsche’s
Ethics, Risse, M ‘The Second Treatise of the Genealogy of Morality’ European
Journal of Philosophy 2001 is very valuable, as are Janaway Beyond Selfishness
chapter 8 and Reginister, ‘The Genealogy of Guilt’ in May (ed.) Reading
Nietzsche’s Genealogy.
The Will to Power
The will to power is seen either as a metaphysically charged notion or psychoexplanatory hypothesis. These readings depend on how much emphasis is put
on Nachlass materials and the pseudo-book The Will to Power. For
metaphysical readings, see Poellner, Nietzsche and Metaphysics Chapters 4 and
9, and John Richardson ‘Nietzsche’s Power Ontology’ in Richardson and Leiter.
For discussions that focus on non-metaphysical readings, see Clark ‘Nietzsche’s
Doctrines of the Will to Power’ in Richardson and Leiter, Leiter Nietzsche on
Morality pp.138-141 and Simon May, Nietzsche’s Ethics, pp.13-18. Highly
recommended are Ivan Soll, “Nietzsche on Cruelty, Asceticism and the failure
of Hedonism”, in Schacht (ed.) Nietzsche, Genealogy and Morality, Reginster
‘Will to Power and the Ethics of Creativity’ in Leiter and Sinhababu Nietzsche
and Morality, and Christopher Janaway Beyond Selfishness chapter 9.
The Ascetic Ideals and the Priest
There are some very useful accounts in Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality Chapter 8,
and May Nietzsche’s War on Morality Chapter 5. Aaron Ridley’s Nietzsche’s
Conscience interestingly discusses the priest’s role in moving the slave revolt
from the ‘immanent’ to a ‘transcendental’ stage. Christopher Janaway’s Beyond
Selfishness chapter 13 integrates a general discussion of the role of the priest
with the will to truth and the ascetic ideal.
The Will to Truth and Asceticism
This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of asceticism, namely why the will to
truth is connected with the ‘life-denial’ in asceticism. I have here tried my own
interpretation based on GS 344. Different interpretations, in addition to the
readings given above, Peter Poellner Nietzsche and Metaphysics (Oxford),
pp.110ff and Maudmarie Clark Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge),
chapter 6.
peter.kail@spc.ox.ac.uk