I argue that Nietzsche's work brings into question one-sided accounts of emotional phenomena and the means by which we are to investigate and evaluate them. Through a provisional and questioning, rather thari systematic, vocabulary Nietzsche advances ideas about the dispositional and standing character of emotional phenomena and how these are shaped by cultural forces. On the one hand, then, Nietzsche shows the limits of a narrowly conceived naturalism in accounting for emotional phenomena, because of its tendency to reduce or remove the influence of culture. But, on the other hand, in opposing the idea that emotional phenomena can be reduced to physiological events, Nietzsche does not simply take up the cognitivist view that emotions just are judgements. Instead, he produces a revised account of the meaningfulness of emotional phenomena, one in which a plethora of other dimensions are also integrated. In rejecting narrowly naturalistic readings ofNietzsche, I also argue that he cultivates a herrneneutic and semiotic approach to the investigation of emotional phenomena, one that has significant affinities to the literary psychology of authors such as Stendhal and Dostoyevsky. In this way, I claim, Nietzsche's work articulates an historical and contextual analysis of emotional phenomena. Finally, I also address the intrinsically evaluative aspect ofNietzsche's discussion of emotional phenomena. Nietzsche produces a genealogical account of Western culture within which various emotional phenomena are located. This narrative concerns emotional phenomena as they relate to personal and communal decadence. In understanding what decadence is, and how it arises, I argue that Nietzsche produces a framework within which different emotional phenomena are to be assessed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:559266 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Meakins, William |
| Publisher | University of Essex |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds