Jiani (Stephanie) Fan

This article examines the concept of qingjing (sentiment-landscape) and its related aesthetic notions, such as qingjing (sentiment-scene) and yijing (idea-scene) in Wang Fuzhi’s and Wang Guowei’s aesthetic theories. We will compare these categories of aesthetics with the German aesthetic notion of Stimmung from the early Romanticism to Schopenhauer and investigate into parallel evolutions and influence studies. Although Goethe, Schiller, and Schopenhauer do not belong to the group of German Romantics, their conception of Stimmung and the spiritual eye draw on aesthetics of German Romanticism. Wang Fuzhi’s conception of qingjing is still inscribed into Chinese classical thought, such as Daoist cosmology based on the original Breath and the epistemology of Indian Buddhism, such as pramāṇa (measure). We will compare the parallelism in thought evolution regarding Wang Fuzhi’s theory of qingjing and the German concept of Stimmung, both as a crystallization and intertwinement of indissociable sentiment and landscape. Many German writers proclaim that landscape is the projection of subjective emotions from inside to outside, so it can be understood as an externalization of Stimmung. According to Wang Fuzhi, sentiment unfolds as landscape, and landscape, driven by a vital impulse, is truly endowed with emotion. There is still a dichotomy between subject and object related to Stimmung, but this is not the case for qingjing. Moreover, we will also investigate the direct influence of Stimmung on Wang Guowei’s conception of qingjing and jingjie, since Wang Guowei has already been influenced by the aesthetics of German Romanticism and Idealism, especially the notion of Stimmung. This influence also contributes to Wang Guowei’s deviation from Wang Fuzhi’s aesthetic theory.

Both Nietzsche and La Rochefoucauld rejected metaphysical principles, such as the Kantian moral imperatives, and adopted psychology as their first philosophy. In this article I explore their views of self-love and of the will to power as the first principles of human motivation. Although both thinkers reduce actions to egoistic motives, they define the human drives and passions differently. While Nietzsche criticizes La Rochefoucauld’s view of a self-love-oriented intention as the principal cause of deeds, his interpretation is reductionist seeing that La Rochefoucauld also gives a quasi-expressivist account of deeds based on multiple drives. Unlike La Rochefoucauld, Nietzsche claims that there is no preexisting intention before or behind deeds, but rather that the doer expresses herself in and through her deeds. He laments that La Rochefoucauld’s concept of self-love is overshadowed by Christianity and criticizes him for condemning secular virtues as postlapsarian vices in disguise. Egoism, for Nietzsche, is a drive that is ingrained in the psyche for self-elevation. By comparing and contrasting their views, I conclude that self-love for La Rochefoucauld is pure self-affirmation at the expense of other drives or other agents, while Nietzsche’s notion of the will to power is a master-drive’s organization of other drives in service of the grander project of the self, which at the same time allows the subordinate drives to express themselves and fulfill the functions proper to their own nature. This interpretation sheds light on the key concept of egoism and the will to power in Nietzsche’s moral psychology, as well as on the first principles of human action in Nietzsche and La Rochefoucauld.

ABSTRACT Friedrich Nietzsche offers different opinions of the ancient Skeptics. On certain occasions, he praises them as philosophers of intellectual integrity, because they constantly question dogma and continue to inquire (ζητϵῖν) into the truth. He insists, however, that it is indispensable for every individual to adopt her own perspective in specific conditions, rather than suspend judgment as the Skeptics do. On other occasions, Nietzsche criticizes the ancient Skeptics because they separate their academic investigations from their philosophy of life and only comply with conventions or apparent phenomena observed through sensations. Furthermore, he ridicules their ultimate goal – tranquility of mind (ἀταραξία) – as a product of feeble exhaustion. He himself is ready to embrace torments of life as part of the will to power. Although some similarities can be traced between Nietzsche and the ancient Skeptics, Nietzsche is more consistent in connecting his theoretical investigation and his philosophy as a way of life.

This paper investigates Nietzsche’s assessments of Pascal’s embrace and rejection of various branches of skepticisms that Montaigne embodies or ignores. Nietzsche admires Pascal for intellectual probity and skepticism. Pascal finds fault with Montaigne’s Academic Skepticism, viewing it as insufficiently honest, because it ceases to inquire into Nature, and takes the self as the anchor of psychological tranquility. Inspired by Pascal’s criticism of Montaigne’s Skepticism in his Essais III.13, in D 46, Nietzsche also disapproves of Montaigne’s sluggish tranquility and deems this a symptom of feebleness and nihilism. Some scholars claim that Nietzsche admires Montaigne’s earthly cheerfulness and probity as that of a free spirit regarding Montaigne’s adoption of Pyrrhonian. By contrast, I argue that Nietzsche misinterprets Montaigne’s Academic Skepticism in the Essais III.13.1218 as Pyrrhonian Skepticism, because the Skepticism here is characterized by ignorance and incuriosity instead of probity. Montaigne’s very Academic Skepticism vexes Pascal because of the latter’s complacent lack of curiosity about the supernatural world. Regarding this, Nietzsche inveighs against Pascal’s insufficient honesty as entangled with a dogmatic observance of Christian truthfulness instead of a free-spirited honesty, but advocates Montaigne’s this-worldly naturalism. Nietzsche sees Pascal’s unyielding application of Christian self-examination will finally lead to his skepticism of Christianity.