Nietzsche and the Mother: A Contrast to Kantian Enlightenment

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

3 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

05/30/2008

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction
Nietzsche's critique of the history of religious guilt
Examining the religion of the nobles
The rhetorical brilliance of the passage and the creation of a remarkable synthesis of ideas
Conclusion
Works cited

Abstract

To what extent does nietzsche impose his ideals on the reader or create an open and flexible world-view? Upon closing his arguments in On the Genealogy of Morals nietzsche imagines a reader asking him "'What are you really doing, erecting an ideal or knocking one down?'" (95). He answers with a rhetorical question: "But have you ever asked yourselves sufficiently how much the erection of every ideal on earth has cost?" (95). By this we are not to assume that he must therefore be knocking down an ideal, he is simply questioning the nature of the act of ideal creation. Rather than erecting ideals there seems to be latent in his text the idea of a different kind of ideal creation which turns back to the womb, to the potentiality of pregnancy and new generations, and finds in the mother an opportunity for rebirth of society through her artistic gift to and manifested in the child. Crucial to the development idea is an examination of the imposed, which Kant first began in his essay "What is enlightenment?"