Blackwell Reference Online

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Has not the philosophy that aims primarily for certainty already passed over all fundamental truths , and opened out into the inconsequentiality of a “wholly secure” knowledge? To put the question still more radically: is not regress to secure and apodictically certain truths an avoidance of the real problems, a flight from the insecurity and eeriness of unsettled human existence? ( Fink 1995 : 46) We, however, want to become those who we are -the ones who are new, unique, incomparable, self-legislating, self-creating. (GS 335) In this essay I provide a treatment of unfamiliar (and remarkable) material from Nietzsche's unpublished writings, alongside published material that is often not given the attention it merits, in an effort to secure some new and fresh insights into his figuration of the overhuman ( Übermensch ) . The overhuman is often taken to be a projection of Nietzsche's personal ideal of human excellence and flourishing. For many readers and commentators it is an utterly fantastical one. I would argue, however, that this “projection” is, in fact, intimately bound up with the tasks and experiments Nietzsche outlines in his “free-spirit trilogy” of 1878–82 (the books Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, and The Gay Science ) . We find them outlined as a set in his very first sketch of the thought of the eternal return from August 1881 in which Nietzsche presents ... log in or subscribe to read full text