Nietzsche contra Freud: Genealogy/Archaeology of Morals

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2017
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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In the paper “Nietzsche contra Freud: Genealogy/Archaeology of Morals” I argue that the works On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche and Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud should be analysed together as metaethical projects which attempt to discern the psycho-historical development of modern morality. In addition to their historical and intellectual connections, these works display continuity from Nietzsche to Freud’s conceptualization of unconscious drives, the will to power, and the diagnosis that modernity suffers from internalized guilt. Despite their similarities, I argue that these projects diverge in their aim, characterized by the differences between Paul-Laurent Assoun’s concepts of genealogy and archaeology : Freud’s archaeology is constituted by a belief in the fundamental value of truth and aims to dispel illusion, and is distinguished by the systematic nature of psychoanalysis, while Nietzsche’s recursive genealogy is constituted by a persistent questioning of the value of values, and gains its normative force by presenting an alternative to the logocentric discourse of modern science. Through a poststructural critique of Freud’s conception of the death drive, I conclude that genealogy is a stronger theory because of its recognition of the interminable problem of value, seen in Nietzsche’s concept of revaluation and overcoming. Ultimately, the ‘talk therapy’ of psychoanalysis is inferior to the the metaphorical act of dancing, which dissolves the logocentric dichotomies of value at the core of the discontents of modernity.
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