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Hub AI
Nietzschean affirmation AI simulator
(@Nietzschean affirmation_simulator)
Hub AI
Nietzschean affirmation AI simulator
(@Nietzschean affirmation_simulator)
Nietzschean affirmation
Nietzschean affirmation (German: Bejahung) is a concept that scholars have identified in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. An example used to describe the concept is a fragment in Nietzsche's The Will to Power:
Suppose that we said yes to a single moment, then we have not only said yes to ourselves, but to the whole of existence. For nothing stands alone, either in ourselves or in things; and if our soul did but once vibrate and resound with a chord of happiness, then all of eternity was necessary to bring forth this one occurrence—and in this single moment when we said yes, all of eternity was embraced, redeemed, justified and affirmed.
— Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Will to Power: Selections from the Notebooks of the 1880s (translated by R. Kevin Hill and Michael A. Scarpitti). Penguin Books, 2017, p. 566
Nietzsche’s affirmative philosophy, as expressed in his parable about eternal recurrence, places his conception of amor fati and his instruction towards the positive embrace of the will to power in a cosmically expanded and universally determined context. Only the embrace of what is and will be, according to the will and its position within natural accident, constitutes freedom (or its nameless equivalent) in Nietzsche’s vision. The ethical injunction about what should be is dismissed by this parable.
Walter Kaufmann wrote that Nietzsche "celebrates the Greeks who, facing up to the terrors of nature and history, did not seek refuge in 'a Buddhistic negation of the will,' as Schopenhauer did, but instead created tragedies in which life is affirmed as beautiful in spite of everything." Schopenhauer’s negation of the will was a saying "no" to life and to the world, which he judged to be a scene of pain and evil. "[D]irectly against Schopenhauer’s place as the ultimate nay-sayer to life, Nietzsche positioned himself as the ultimate yes-sayer...." Nietzsche's affirmation of life's pain and evil, in opposition to Schopenhauer, resulted from an overflow of life. Schopenhauer's advocacy of self-denial and negation of life was, according to Nietzsche, very harmful. For his entire mature life, Nietzsche was concerned with the damage that he thought resulted from Schopenhauerian disgust with life and turning against the world.
Jacques Derrida took interest in Nietzschean affirmation as a recognition of the absence of a center or origin within language and its many parts, with no firm ground from which to base any Logos or truth. This shock allows for two reactions in Derrida's philosophy: the more negative, melancholic response, which he designates as Rousseauistic, or the more positive Nietzschean affirmation. Rousseau's perspective focuses on deciphering the truth and origin of language and its many signs, an often exhaustive occupation. Derrida's response to Nietzsche, however, offers an active participation with these signs and arrives at, in Derridean philosophy, a more resolute response to language.
In "Structure, Sign, and Play", Derrida articulates Nietzsche's perspective as:
... the joyous affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without truth, and without origin which is offered to an active interpretation.
Nietzschean affirmation
Nietzschean affirmation (German: Bejahung) is a concept that scholars have identified in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. An example used to describe the concept is a fragment in Nietzsche's The Will to Power:
Suppose that we said yes to a single moment, then we have not only said yes to ourselves, but to the whole of existence. For nothing stands alone, either in ourselves or in things; and if our soul did but once vibrate and resound with a chord of happiness, then all of eternity was necessary to bring forth this one occurrence—and in this single moment when we said yes, all of eternity was embraced, redeemed, justified and affirmed.
— Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Will to Power: Selections from the Notebooks of the 1880s (translated by R. Kevin Hill and Michael A. Scarpitti). Penguin Books, 2017, p. 566
Nietzsche’s affirmative philosophy, as expressed in his parable about eternal recurrence, places his conception of amor fati and his instruction towards the positive embrace of the will to power in a cosmically expanded and universally determined context. Only the embrace of what is and will be, according to the will and its position within natural accident, constitutes freedom (or its nameless equivalent) in Nietzsche’s vision. The ethical injunction about what should be is dismissed by this parable.
Walter Kaufmann wrote that Nietzsche "celebrates the Greeks who, facing up to the terrors of nature and history, did not seek refuge in 'a Buddhistic negation of the will,' as Schopenhauer did, but instead created tragedies in which life is affirmed as beautiful in spite of everything." Schopenhauer’s negation of the will was a saying "no" to life and to the world, which he judged to be a scene of pain and evil. "[D]irectly against Schopenhauer’s place as the ultimate nay-sayer to life, Nietzsche positioned himself as the ultimate yes-sayer...." Nietzsche's affirmation of life's pain and evil, in opposition to Schopenhauer, resulted from an overflow of life. Schopenhauer's advocacy of self-denial and negation of life was, according to Nietzsche, very harmful. For his entire mature life, Nietzsche was concerned with the damage that he thought resulted from Schopenhauerian disgust with life and turning against the world.
Jacques Derrida took interest in Nietzschean affirmation as a recognition of the absence of a center or origin within language and its many parts, with no firm ground from which to base any Logos or truth. This shock allows for two reactions in Derrida's philosophy: the more negative, melancholic response, which he designates as Rousseauistic, or the more positive Nietzschean affirmation. Rousseau's perspective focuses on deciphering the truth and origin of language and its many signs, an often exhaustive occupation. Derrida's response to Nietzsche, however, offers an active participation with these signs and arrives at, in Derridean philosophy, a more resolute response to language.
In "Structure, Sign, and Play", Derrida articulates Nietzsche's perspective as:
... the joyous affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without truth, and without origin which is offered to an active interpretation.