A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
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Peter Georgsson
Abstract
Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals is a singularly enigmatic book. Here I propose a reading that construes the book first and foremost as a tool to help us realize something about our personal morality. First, I argue that the rationalisation of the true origin of values, which according to Nietzsche is inherent in Occidental morality, constitutes an obstacle to Nietzsche's communicating his insights about theprevaling morality. Therefore he needs a strategy that makes the reader find out some of the main points for himself. I argue, further, that in the preface to On the Genealogy of Morals the reader is directed to observing his own reactions when reading the text. The first stage of Nietzsche s special strategy is thereby in place, consisting infixing the reader's attention to himself and then provoking the relevant experiences. At the end of the paper I present an outline of how to read the book in this light.
© Philosophia Press 2005
Articles in the same Issue
- The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I
- Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
- Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory
- Contractualist Account of Reasons for Being Moral Defended
- Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
- Ethics in the Tractatus and Imaginative Understanding
- A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
- Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
- Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
- Book Review
- Robin May Schott, Discovering Feminist philosophy; Knowledge, ethics politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. x +157
- Cecilia Sjöholm, The Antigone Complex, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, pp. 240
- Phenomenology and Psychiatry: A Contemporary Diagnosis Introducing the Work of Thomas Fuchs
- Gunnar Foss and Eivind Kasa (eds.), Forms of Knowledge and Sensibility: Ernst Cassirer and the Human Sciences, Høyskoleforlaget AS – Norwegian Academic Press, 2002, pp. 223
- Dan Zahavi, Søren Overgaard and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer (eds.), Den unge Heidegger, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2003, 229 pp.
- Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson, Stockholm: Thales, 2005. 351 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I
- Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
- Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory
- Contractualist Account of Reasons for Being Moral Defended
- Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
- Ethics in the Tractatus and Imaginative Understanding
- A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
- Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
- Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
- Book Review
- Robin May Schott, Discovering Feminist philosophy; Knowledge, ethics politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. x +157
- Cecilia Sjöholm, The Antigone Complex, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, pp. 240
- Phenomenology and Psychiatry: A Contemporary Diagnosis Introducing the Work of Thomas Fuchs
- Gunnar Foss and Eivind Kasa (eds.), Forms of Knowledge and Sensibility: Ernst Cassirer and the Human Sciences, Høyskoleforlaget AS – Norwegian Academic Press, 2002, pp. 223
- Dan Zahavi, Søren Overgaard and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer (eds.), Den unge Heidegger, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2003, 229 pp.
- Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson, Stockholm: Thales, 2005. 351 pp.
