Razvan Ioan

I focus on the value of agreement and cooperation in Spinoza, over and above both conflict and uniformity. A well-ordered society favors the empowerment of humans who, together, form a power greater than that of any single person. For Nietzsche, the role of physiology is to evaluate peoples and individuals and, in accordance with these findings, it must show us how to breed or cultivate humankind as a whole. Physiology plays a privileged role in Nietzsche’s analysis of institutions, and the beneficial or harmful role they can play in promoting growth. Nietzsche is highly critical of Spinoza because he believes that the Dutch thinker ignores the perils of democracy and of the pursuit of the common good.

In Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-20987-2_6, we see how both believe that the turn to the body, with its emphasis on self-knowledge, is the best way to undermine metaphysical illusions that have enabled theologians and moralists to maintain their power and inhibit authentic self-transformation. I argue that while Deleuze’s analysis reveals much that is of importance, it ignores crucial differences between Spinoza’s and Nietzsche’s accounts of consciousness, their views on how we can know the body, and between the various practical implications of their claims. Both focus on remarkably similar notions of endogenous power and place great emphasis on discussing the multiplicity that constitutes the body. They differ when it comes to the value they assign to conflict in their physiologies and in their power ontologies more broadly.

I argue that Spinoza turns to the body in order to show the path towards empowerment and liberation. Firstly, I highlight the importance of the turn to the body for Spinoza’s epistemology: we have inadequate knowledge because we misunderstand our body; adequate knowledge must begin with adequate understanding of our body. The focus on the body provides important strategic advantages in allowing us to avoid various moral and metaphysical illusions. Secondly, I submit that there are three ways Spinoza talks about the body. While all three give us important clues about how we should understand it, the first method of knowing the body is inadequate, whereas the third does not do enough to illuminate the dynamic nature of Spinoza’s notion of ‘power’.

This chapter addresses Nietzsche’s critique of substance ontology when applied to Spinoza’s concept of ‘substance’. The main result of this section is that Spinoza’s understanding of ‘substance’ allows for the existence of genuine multiplicity, the endogenous power of modes, and includes a relational account of power, but that it does not fully escape Nietzsche’s critique because the production of individual essences that are in agreement can only be explained if the activity of substance is governed by reason. A key difference is that Nietzsche places his philosophical discourse in the context of a historical and developmental account of individuals and societies that does not have a parallel in Spinoza.

Nietzsche seeks, through the turn to the body, to uncover a path towards empowerment and life-affirmation through a critique of metaphysics and morality and their manifestations in décadence and nihilism. This chapter presents a discussion of the content of Nietzsche’s turn to the body, beginning with the conceptual structure of his philosophical physiology. My thesis is that the turn to the body has three functions: interpretative, diagnostic, and normative. This chapter ends with an argument that Nietzsche’s physiology must be understood as a philosophical physiology, and rebuts the accusation that he abandons philosophy for natural science. Contra Heidegger, I argue that this can be done without having to understand Nietzsche’s philosophy as metaphysics.

The fourth chapter discusses Nietzsche’s reception of Spinoza. Nietzsche’s explicit and implicit criticisms will be used in order to identify key points of contact that can help us compare and contrast two philosophies steeped in immanence and naturalism. The first and second parts of this project consist in a diachronic analysis of Nietzsche’s engagement with Spinoza, as Nietzsche knew him from various commentaries, and in a discussion of the major themes in play. The third part is an evaluation of Nietzsche’s criticisms that helps us gain a sense of the coherence running through them, as well as of the core similarities and differences between their philosophies.

Chapter 10.1007/978-3-030-20987-2_7 shows how, against much of the philosophical tradition, Spinoza and Nietzsche defend an understanding of freedom opposed to free will and formulated as an ethical ideal consisting in a transition from a smaller to a greater power of acting. Freedom is a passage to a greater power of self-determination and self-expression of the body. Nevertheless, the continuities between their power ontologies and their respective commitments to a life of knowledge break down in their discussion of the various possible manifestations of power. I will argue that Nietzsche’s distinctive formulation of power as struggle between wills to power enables him to formulate the question of the qualitative dimension of empowerment in a way that is foreign to Spinoza’s rational causal determinism.

ABSTRACT What is the best way to confront the thought of eternal recurrence—the thought that we would have to live our life “once again and innumerable times again”—this great, heavy burden that, as Nietzsche warns, may crush us? In this article, I argue that learning to love oneself plays a privileged role in preparing us for facing this abysmal thought. Self-love consists in the cultivation of self-knowledge and in an engagement with the past that enables us to give it new meaning and significance. Furthermore, Nietzsche’s revaluation of self-love in Thus Spoke Zarathustra brings with it a rethinking of our relations to others. To love oneself implies care for the empowerment and growth of others, as well as the capacity for self-sacrifice.

What are Descartes’s views on the body and how do they change? In this article, I try to make clearer the nature of the shift towards an increased focus on the body as ‘my’ body in Descartes’s Passions of the Soul. The interest in the nature of passions, considered from the point of view of the ‘natural scientist’, is indicative of a new approach to the study of the human. Moving beyond the infamous mind-body union, grounded in his dualist metaphysics, Descartes begins developing a philosophical anthropology centred on the notion of power and better suited to practical philosophy.

How should we understand Spinoza’s views on consciousness against the background of his interest in the pursuit of empowerment and freedom? This paper argues that consciousness consists in a plurality of affections of substance that do not necessarily help us in our striving for liberation. Spinoza wants to dispel various moral and metaphysical illusions associated with previous accounts of consciousness. Nevertheless, he does not provide more details, because an in-depth analysis of consciousness is not the best — nor the most direct — path to empowerment.

Against much of the philosophical tradition, Spinoza and Nietzsche defend an understanding of freedom opposed to free will and formulated as an ethical ideal consisting in a transition from a smaller to a greater power of acting. Starting from a shared commitment to necessity and radical immanence, they present freedom as a passage to a greater power of self-determination and self-expression of the body. Nevertheless, the continuities between their power ontologies and their respective commitments to a life of knowledge break down in their discussion of the various possible manifestations of power. I will argue that Nietzsche's distinctive formulation of power as struggle between wills to power enables him to formulate the question of the qualitative dimension of empowerment in a way that is foreign to Spinoza's rational determinism. While acknowledging the profound similarities, I will argue that we must see Nietzsche's discussion of affirmation as the culmination of his disagreement with his predecessor on the topic of freedom and empowerment.

This paper investigates Nietzsche’s reception of Spinoza in order to develop our understanding of the complex relations between their respective philosophies starting from their shared commitment to ontologies of power. The first three sections of this essay contain a diachronic analysis of Nietzsche’s engagement with Spinoza and a discussion of the major themes in play. The last section consists in an evaluation of Nietzsche’s explicit and implicit criticisms that helps us gain a sense of the coherence running through them, as well of the core similarities and differences between two philosophies steeped in immanence and naturalism. Even if Nietzsche’s criticisms do not always do justice to Spinoza’s thinking, they nevertheless offer invaluable clues to guide our comparative project.