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The Nietzschean Subject

Toward a Praxis of Becoming

Brook M. Blair

Based upon an attentive reading of Nietzsche’s writings and situated within a framework derived largely from such post-Nietzschean thinkers as Deleuze, Guattari, Klossowski, Foucault, Derrida, Negri, and Sloterdijk, this study develops a treatment of Nietzsche’s philosophical enterprise as constituting a materialist metaphysics of pure becoming, of pure immanence and the power of the virtual. It thus seeks to challenge traditional characterizations of Nietzsche as laying claim either to the end of metaphysics or the circular repetition of the same. The study instead argues that Nietzsche’s great conceptual triumvirate of the eternal return, the will to power, and the transvaluation of values be recast as invoking the groundless ground of a subjectless subject and, indeed, the repetition of difference rather than sameness. Distinguishing itself from the representational schemes set forth by the Platonic idea, the Christian God, or Hegelian reason and world-spirit, Nietzsche’s undertaking is here characterized, rather, as inaugurating the age of energies and establishing a generative metaphysics no longer amenable to the inner essence of the concept or the inner soul of consciousness.

While the first part of the study develops the philosophical background for this reappraisal of the Nietzschean enterprise, along with an accompanying treatment of the specific problems posed by Nietzsche’s style and discourse, the second part of the study is directed more particularly to the historico-critical relationships between Nietzsche and his various precursors and heirs. Despite his frequent and often exorbitant to originality, Nietzsche’s intellectual proximity to the culture of the sophists, the Renaissance world of Machiavelli, and the poet-philosopher Hölderlin demonstrates a long-standing tendency within Western thought towards what in Nietzsche’s hands would eventually culminate in a counter-philosophy of pure becoming, later to be more fully realized in the writings of Nietzsche’s greatest and most overlooked heir of the early-twentieth century, the Viennese novelist Robert Musil.

The study thus spans a line extending from the Presocratics to postmodernity, with Nietzsche’s great philosophical project serving as its essential fulcrum.

Lexington Books

Pages: 462 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7391-5088-7 • Hardback • November 2018 • $144.00 • (£111.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Epistemology, Philosophy / Criticism, Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy / Metaphysics, Philosophy / Movements / Existentialism

The Nietzschean Subject

Toward a Praxis of Becoming

Hardback

Summary

Based upon an attentive reading of Nietzsche’s writings and situated within a framework derived largely from such post-Nietzschean thinkers as Deleuze, Guattari, Klossowski, Foucault, Derrida, Negri, and Sloterdijk, this study develops a treatment of Nietzsche’s philosophical enterprise as constituting a materialist metaphysics of pure becoming, of pure immanence and the power of the virtual. It thus seeks to challenge traditional characterizations of Nietzsche as laying claim either to the end of metaphysics or the circular repetition of the same. The study instead argues that Nietzsche’s great conceptual triumvirate of the eternal return, the will to power, and the transvaluation of values be recast as invoking the groundless ground of a subjectless subject and, indeed, the repetition of difference rather than sameness. Distinguishing itself from the representational schemes set forth by the Platonic idea, the Christian God, or Hegelian reason and world-spirit, Nietzsche’s undertaking is here characterized, rather, as inaugurating the age of energies and establishing a generative metaphysics no longer amenable to the inner essence of the concept or the inner soul of consciousness.

While the first part of the study develops the philosophical background for this reappraisal of the Nietzschean enterprise, along with an accompanying treatment of the specific problems posed by Nietzsche’s style and discourse, the second part of the study is directed more particularly to the historico-critical relationships between Nietzsche and his various precursors and heirs. Despite his frequent and often exorbitant to originality, Nietzsche’s intellectual proximity to the culture of the sophists, the Renaissance world of Machiavelli, and the poet-philosopher Hölderlin demonstrates a long-standing tendency within Western thought towards what in Nietzsche’s hands would eventually culminate in a counter-philosophy of pure becoming, later to be more fully realized in the writings of Nietzsche’s greatest and most overlooked heir of the early-twentieth century, the Viennese novelist Robert Musil.

The study thus spans a line extending from the Presocratics to postmodernity, with Nietzsche’s great philosophical project serving as its essential fulcrum.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 462 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7391-5088-7 • Hardback • November 2018 • $144.00 • (£111.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Epistemology, Philosophy / Criticism, Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy / Metaphysics, Philosophy / Movements / Existentialism

Author

Brook M. Blair is professor of political science and international affairs at the University of Northern Colorado.

Table of Contents

Chapter I. Preliminaries: The Nietzschean Gambit
Chapter II. The Nietzschean Experience-Book
Chapter III. Nietzsche and the New Image of Thought
Chapter IV. Nietzsche and the Culture of the Sophists
Chapter V. Nietzsche and Machiavelli: Beyond Platonism, Aristotelianism, Christianity, and Humanism
Chapter VI. The Dislocating Energy of the Word: Time and Language in the Writings of Nietzsche and Hölderlin
Chapter VII. Robert Musil and the Nietzschean Subject
Conclusion
Appendix to Chapter VI
Bibliography

Reviews

By offering a deep reconstruction of Nietzsche’s interpretation of the subject, Blair brings the discussion to a new level of understanding. Drawing on a significant range of Nietzsche’s own works and the critical literature, his book allows the reader to dive into Nietzsche’s creative laboratory, to appreciate the unity of his works and style of philosophizing about the inventive praxis that constitutes the subject. In sum, his book addresses a wide range of cultural and political issues and merits the attention of both the academic community and the general reading public.

— The European Legacy

Much more than a contribution to the scholarship on ‘new’ or ‘French’ Nietzsche, Brook Blair’s reading situates Nietzsche within a milieu of philosopher-nomads and poet-thinkers, a heteroclite and motley crew of thinkers and writers of the ‘Outside’ who are all united by one desire: to transform our understanding of ourselves and the world in the light of the praxis of becomings. By reading the Nietzschean subject through the prism of these multiple voices Nietzsche’s central doctrines, and his singular modes of expressing them, are given renewed vitality. The Nietzschean Subject is a fresh and rewarding study of Nietzsche’s life and work.
— Keith Robinson, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Comprised of profound philosophical thinking and lyrical prose, Brook Blair’s The Nietzschean Subject is a must read, not only for readers interested in a fresh angle of vision on Nietzsche’s contributions to political thinking but also for those interested in critical political thinking in general. It is a text full of intellectual contributions that will endure.
— Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai'i, Manoa

The Nietzschean Subject

Toward a Praxis of Becoming

Brook M. Blair

The Nietzschean Subject

Toward a Praxis of Becoming

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