The Agonist

Nietzsche and Transhumanism: A Reassessment

2022-09-07T14:52:02+00:00

This paper addresses the scholarly debate over Nietzsche’s relationship to transhumanism. Most writing on this topic has focused almost exclusively on whether or not Nietzsche’s thought is philosophically compatible with transhumanist philosophy. Because ideas are not always transmitted in philosophically cogent ways, this approach is inadequate to address the question of how Nietzsche may have influenced transhumanism. I propose replacing the current approach with a history of ideas approach that also tracks “para-philosophical” vectors of influence. Bringing to bear such an approach, I argue that Nietzsche was crucial in laying the groundwork for transhumanism. First, his rejection of Being, of a fixed ontological order, decisively undermined essentialist conceptions of human nature, opening the door to a radical refashioning of the human being such as that envisioned in the transhumanist “posthuman.” Second, Nietzsche’s superman and the transhumanist posthuman are instantiations of apotheosis, a perennial impulse toward self-divinization at the core of many mystical and esoteric systems. The superman represents the ideal of apotheosis filtered through Nietzsche’s materialism and his processual turn, and it is in this modified, post-Nietzschean form that the ideal passes to transhumanism. Finally, I demonstrate that Nietzsche’s thought is not as philosophically incompatible with transhumanism as some critics claim.

An event-without-witness: a Nietzschean theory of the digital will to power as the will to temporalize

2022-08-01T19:19:46+00:00

This article offers a Nietzschean theory of digital will to power to conceptualize the temporality of social media feeds run by algorithms. Stylistic and methodological temporalities of Nietzsche are discussed as well as their influence in subsequent social theory of political technologies. The paradox of heavy investment in both subjective expression and nonhuman temporalization in social media milieus is addressed with the concept of an event-without-witness drawn from Nietzsche’s account of himself as the solitary thinker of catastrophe of nihilism and psychoanalytical and deconstructive literatures on the catastrophes of the 20th century. Nietzsche’s fundamental resistance to and fascination with the philosophical and cultural modes of mummyfication, i.e. eternalization as an expression of the will to power is used to think the will to power in the creative algorithmic temporalization of social interactions through the selection, distribution and serialization of data for social media feeds.

Nietzsche and Emerson on History

2022-07-05T17:55:37+00:00

This paper aims to show how Nietzsche was influenced by Emerson in developing a conception of history as a set of values to be embodied in order to gain a deeper insight into the essence of reality. It is a conception that Nietzsche first expressed in his second Untimely Meditation, On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life (1874) and that fully developed in the period of his so-called “free spirit philosophy” (1878-1882). Firstly, I will briefly outline the relationship between Nietzsche and Emerson. Secondly, I will illustrate Emerson’s stance on history. Thirdly, I will show how Nietzsche drew from Emerson’s thought.

Front Matter

2022-12-25T07:16:01+00:00