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WOTLING, Patrick. La philosophie de l’esprit libre: Introduction à Nietzsche. Éditions
Flammarion, Paris. 2008.
ISBN: 978-2-0812-1808-6
445 pages
Review by: Paul Carls
Summary
La philosophie de l’esprit libre by Patrick Wotling is a general introduction to the
work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Yet the book is not conceived of as a classical monograph
that tries to explain all of the themes in Nietzsche’s thought. Instead it privileges several
central questions that Nietzsche tries to answer with his philosophy. In so doing, Wotling
concentrates on the problematics out of which Nietzsche generates several of his
important concepts. By understanding the central questions that Nietzsche tries to answer,
Wotling is better able to understand the concepts that Nietzsche uses in an attempt to
answer them. In this sense, the book is an introduction in that it has as a goal the
clarification of the concepts fundamental to Nietzsche’s thought.
The book is divided into thirteen chapters, each of which discusses an important
theme in Nietzsche’s work. The chapter titles are: ‘truth,’ ‘the critique of metaphysics,’
‘the ethics of thought,’ ‘the refusal of a system,’ ‘the body,’ ‘philosophy and values,’
‘impulse, instinct, and will to power,’ ‘egoism,’ ‘the passions,’ ‘justice,’ ‘will,’ ‘the
eternal return,’ and ‘philosophical writing.’ These chapters are organized with the goal of
explaining the Nietzschean concepts most relevant to the subject of the chapter. For
example, in the chapter, ‘La vérité,’ one of Nietzsche’s central questions concerning truth
is ‘How does one justify the opposition between true and false?’ Nietzsche’s response to
this question, according to Wotling, includes an explication of Nietzsche’s use of
genealogy and his concept of the will to truth. Another example, in the chapter
‘Philosophie et valeurs,’ is Nietzsche’s question, ‘What is the task of philosophy after the
refusal of all systems of metaphysical thought?’ Wotling’s analysis reveals the
importance and meaning of values for life and the role the philosopher plays in
discovering, critiquing, and creating values for the benefit of life. Other important
concepts that are explained in the book include, for example, the will to power, impulse,
the body, affect, and the eternal return.
Apart from these specifics, there are several prevalent themes that run throughout
much of Wotling’s analysis. One aspect of Nietzsche’s thought that finds a dominant
expression in La philosophie de l’esprit libre is the concept of will to power. As Wotling
explains, the will to power is to be understood as a principle that guides all organic as
well as inorganic life. As such reality in its entirety should be interpreted as processual,
homogenous, and thought of as an ensemble of impulsive processes. It is not a unified
entity or reducible in any way to one principle. Rather it is a constant flux of impulses
and powers that conflict with each other for expression. Hence, there is never a neutral
expression of force. The will to power is related to what Wotling calls humanity’s
‘infraconscious’, or the fact that humanity too has these competing unconscious impulses
swirling around within it, especially in the body, guiding its action and thoughts. 1 The
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Exactly why Wotling uses the term ‘infraconscious,’ instead of a more familiar term such as
‘unconscious’ for Nietzsche’s often used ‘Unbewusst,’ is not made explicit in the book. A concrete
definition of the word is likewise lacking. Nevertheless, it seems as if the ‘infraconscious’ denotes the
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‘infraconcious’ is analyzed throughout many of the chapters as it relates to various
concepts in Nietzsche such as the truth, the passions, forgetting, or even the eternal
return. As Wotling presents Nietzsche, humanity is dominated by this ‘infraconscious’
and there is largely no free will, if any at all, on the part of humanity. The conscious mind
is not in control of human action, but rather it is the will to power and the
‘infraconscious’ mind that dictate the course of human events.
Characterization
Wotling’s book, as a general introduction, encompasses all of Nietzsche’s works,
both published and unpublished. The mixture of published works and Nachlass notes is
good, as Wotling does not place an importance on either group of texts over the other.
Rather he uses both sets to complement his analysis and to understand the thinking of
Nietzsche. There is, however, a rather strong concentration on the middle and late works
of Nietzsche, as this is where most of Nietzsche’s important concepts, ie will to power,
genealogy, eternal return, are formulated. Each of these chapters, more or less
independently of each other, is focused on clarifying the key concepts that relate to the
subject of the chapter. The book does not, therefore, discuss the development of
Nietzsche’s thought over time or enter into a discussion of Nietzsche critical philosophy.
Critical Points
La philosophie de l’esprit libre is a very strong introduction to Nietzsche’s
philosophy, and offers much to even those with substantial knowledge of Nietzsche. In
the book the reader finds gathered together a very in-depth overview of many dominating
subjects in Nietzsche’s thought, especially Nietzsche’s investigation into the psychology
of humanity. Perhaps this is the book’s strongest feature, since according to Nietzsche,
psychology is to be the queen of the sciences. Many of the chapters go to lengths to
reveal Nietzsche’s thoughts about human psychology, from why an author is driven to
write, to how a disinterested act is a self-contradiction, to how humanity is guided by its
‘infraconscious’ mind.
Other positives of the book include that the book succeeds largely in doing what it
sets out to do, in that it is able to clarify central ideas and concepts found in Nietzsche’s
work. Nietzschean concepts already mentioned, such as will to power, genealogy, or will
to truth, are re-worked and re-thought out of Nietzsche’s different problematics. This
sheds new light and new understandings of these important words. Other Nietzschean
concepts, such as metaphysics or value, are similarly re-evaluated and defined. For
example, the conception of metaphysics that Nietzsche rejects, is not merely the primacy
of stable being over becoming, but also idealism, putting the emphasis on the abstract
world over the sensory world, and most importantly the tendency to remove the richness
of experience by positing a unity over a plurality. A value is also defined as an idea of a
belief that enters into the unconscious body of a person. It has been incorporated and it no
multi-faceted, competitive, impulsive underground that guides humanity. Despite their importance in
guiding human action and the conscious mind, these forces play themselves out underneath the conscious
mind, hence the prefix ‘infra.’ These ‘infraconscious’ forces are furthermore tied to a more complex
understanding of the human psyche, which includes the role that forgetting, values, genealogy, and the
body play therein. As such, ‘infraconcious’ seems to be an intentional choice on the part of Wotling, since
the word ‘infraconscious’ refers to a complex web of relationships within humanity’s unconscious mind.
To use the word ‘unconscious’ to describe this complex web would seem to be rather inadequate.
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longer needs to pass through conscious thought in order to guide the individual’s
thoughts or actions. A belief or idea thus becomes a sort of ‘infraconscious’ authority that
regulates human action through a set of obligations or prohibitions.
Nevertheless, there are a few drawbacks in the book. A good example comes with
Wotling’s presentation of the concept of the eternal return. In the book, which calls itself
an introduction, Wotling begins by challenging Karl Löwith’s interpretation of the eternal
return. There is no explication of what exactly the eternal return is anywhere in the book
in fact and Wotling presupposes that the reader will have a good grasp of this concept
before the reader picks up his book.2 In fact, the more one reads La philosophie de
l’esprit libre, the more one gets a sense that in order to truly follow everything Wotling is
saying without getting completely lost, one must have, at the very least, already had
either a general introduction to Nietzsche’s thought or a good knowledge of Nietzsche’s
primary texts.
Perhaps the biggest drawback of the book is that Wotling concentrates too much
on the idea of the ‘infraconscious’ in Nietzsche. In his depiction of human psychology,
Wotling leaves little room for human free agency. Given that the Nietzsche-seminar has
had various other visitors present contrary views, Robert Pippin especially, Wotling’s
position that humanity is guided above all by its ‘infraconscious’ mind can be
characterized as far to one-dimensional and inaccurate. Indeed, one very important
concept in Nietzsche’s thought, the concept of self-deception, is completely lacking an
analysis in the book. Almost every chapter is focused in one way or another on
developing the idea of the dominance of the ‘infraconscious’ mind over humanity. As
such, Wotling presents Nietzsche as an author who dismisses the idea of free will. It is
important to note that Wotling is not subscribing to Nietzsche a deterministic view either,
since the will to power can never be described as functioning by any set of natural laws
and does not act at all in a pre-determined, rationalistic way. Nevertheless, one walks
away from the book with the impression that human action is merely an epiphenomenon
of the competing forces of the will to power over which humans have no control. This is,
of course, a legitimate interpretation of the relationship between human action and the
will to power, but it is one that can be contested.
Further Characteristics
The book has a short names’ index in the back, as well as a short but interesting
biography of Nietzsche.
The list of secondary literature is very short and does not go beyond one page. There are
also no references to any recent introductions to Nietzsche’s thought. Nevertheless, the
books listed are of significance, including authors such as Eric Blondel, Jean Granier,
Walter Kaufmann, and Wolfgang Müller-Lauter.
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As it may interest the reader of this report, in the book, Wotling claims that this thought experiment is a
task that is to be understood as a value that is to be incorporated into the individual’s body and not as an
ontological principle. In this way, a change in culture would be brought about, and a re-valuation of values
would be possible.