Download files
Abstract
This thesis consists of a series of encounters with textual figures, or conceptual personae, which are strongly associated with freedom in Nietzsche’s oeuvre. The conceptual persona, drawn from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, is an integral part of the process of developing and articulating philosophical concepts. Nietzsche’s texts abound with figures, both anthropomorphic and otherwise. I suggest that regarding these figures as conceptual personae in the Deleuzo-Guattarian sense offers a way into some of Nietzsche’s most complex ideas. Freedom surely ranks among Nietzsche’s most multifaceted and teasingly elusive ideations. It has not, however, benefited from the intensive scholarship devoted to signature Nietzschean themes such as will to power, nihilism, or eternal return. This thesis seeks to raise the profile of Nietzsche’s innovations on the subject of freedom by means of close readings of texts featuring three conceptual personae of Nietzschean freedom. These are the free spirit, the sovereign individual, and Zarathustra.
These three personae embody freedom as plural and processual. They animate a conception of freedom as something to be striven for, and, indeed, striven for differently by different individuals. Highlighting the infinite variability of embodied freedom, each persona problematises freedom in a distinctly different manner. The free spirit, understood as representing the intersection between freedom and truth, is a primarily epistemological figure. The sovereign individual, who transvaluates bad conscience into good by means of a masterly praxis of promising, instantiates a novel reconstruction of Kantian autonomy as is thus an ethico-political figure. Zarathustra bodies forth an ontology of freedom based on creative willing.
A detailed study of the complex interaction of the three conceptual personae of freedom is beyond the scope of this project. I outline the contours of such a study in the concluding chapter, arguing that the reverberations between the three figures offer a further demonstration, if that were still needed, of the rich originality of Nietzsche’s thought of freedom.