Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology

Download or read book Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology written by Mattia Riccardi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology, Mattia Riccardi offers a systematic account of Nietzsche's thought on the human mind. A central theme is the nature of and relation between the unconscious and conscious mind. Whereas Nietzsche takes consciousness to be a mere "surface"—as he writes in Ecce Homo—that evolved in the course of human socialisation, he sees the bedrock of human psychology as constituted by unconscious drives and affects. But how does he conceive of such basic psychological items and what does he mean exactly when he talks about consciousness and says it is a "surface"? And how does such a conception of human psychology inform his views about self, self-knowledge and will? Riccardi addresses these and related questions by combining historical accuracy with conceptual analysis: Nietzsche's claims are carefully reconstructed by taking into account the intellectual context in which they emerged; in order to work out their philosophical significance, Riccardi discusses them in the light of contemporary debates such as those about higher-order theories of consciousness and mind-reading.