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Friedrich Nietzsche stands as one of the philosophers who tackled about the complexities of human existence and its condition. It is noteworthy to state that most of his works made several standpoints to what he refers to as the Ubermensch. The conception of such is designed to inspire the individual to substantiate his existence and rouse his self-overcoming and affirmative character. This can be said to arise from the idea of creating a self through the process of undergoing a destructive condition that enables the self to acquire greater power in relation to others.
By recognizing that the idea of the Ubermensch is grounded upon various philosophical milieus, as well as webbed on the totality of Nietzsche’s philosophy, an unambiguous characterization of the Ubermensch is a tricky task.
This leads to a difficulty in examining the characterization of the Ubermensch itself. In lieu of this, what follows is an exposition of the essential aspects of the idea of the Ubermensch.
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“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”
In lieu of this, this paper opts to characterize the very idea of the Ubermensch as such. In other words, it opts to present a structure which will facilitate an analysis of the Ubermensch’s possibility of existence.
The crucial argument for employing the approach is rooted in the very nature of the approach itself, that is, its instrumental faculty to study the primordial presuppositions of a given phenomenon as itself in relationship to the world. On this note, a general exposition of phenomenology will be made, as well as the particular approach which would be employed in this paper.
With these, the phenomenological analysis of the Ubermensch is designed to lay bare the fundamental presuppositions that Nietzsche explicates in accordance to his works.
Thus, examining the Ubermensch is concerned to its own structure and on this note, the question of the possibility and plausibility of its existence [in correspondence to the individual and the world] may be resolved. On The Possibility of the Ubermensch’s Existence It is worthy to note that majority of Friedrich Nietzsche’s works made several allusions to the Ubermensch. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the prophet Zarathustra declared the advent of the Ubermensch as a self-overcoming existence continually striving to assess itself again and again. This is in conjunction with his critiques of the philosophies of his time.
Such critiques combined with his own ideas enabled the attempt to provide a better explanation of things. Moreover, in his posthumous notes, Nietzsche speaks of the concept of power towards an inspiration to become an Ubermensch. He notes that the Ubermensch stands as the “greatest elevation of the consciousness of strength in man, as he creates the overman” (Aphorism 1060). In line with these, Nietzsche also made remarks about being able to continuously strive to assess one’s self by tackling the importance of a suitable bodily health and to thus rule over one’s body (Ecce 96).
His other works made references to the ideas featuring the various facets of the Ubermensch. In Beyond Good and Evil, he creates a critique of morality and examines the historical impact of morality and from this he would imply his own philosophies. The idea of the Ubermensch with these works is alluded through his explanation of the history of morality and by exposing its problematic nature he suggests that the individual should live anew, free from social vindications [a point in which Nietzsche became more or less marked as something ‘against’ the establishment, that is, the institutions within the social sphere (i. e. morality, religion, etc. )]. In addition, by indicating that one should live anew, Nietzsche’s works were more or less regarded in a controversial manner due to his idea about nihilism, an idea which also makes an allusion to the Ubermensch, as exemplified by the destruction of one’s values in life and an explanation of the forthcoming destruction which thus explains “the meaning of our cheerfulness” (Gay 279). Furthermore, the idea would seem to be irrelevant in terms of how Nietzsche makes a reference to the Ubermensch in his explanation of acquiring power largely discussed in The Will to Power and Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Along with his idea of nihilism, Nietzsche’s idea about power was more or less held with controversy, since the idea gives an account of increasing one’s power and with the aforementioned ideas about destruction, the concept of acquiring power leads to the idea of ultimately being powerful above others. On the Ubermensch’s Existence Given these, the way that Nietzsche presented the idea of the Ubermensch seems to mislead this is due to the seeming paradoxical and absurd quality of his explanations as well as the lack of warrant of his expounded ideas.
In relation to this, Nietzsche states that Zarathustra, the main character of Thus Spoke Zarathustra was not an Ubermensch and was only a prophet to declare the advent of the Ubermensch. In that case, Nietzsche did not cite actual representations of who the Ubermensch is but only gave facets of its characteristics. Nietzsche has also written that the Ubermensch is a conception and also admits that he is not an Ubermensch. Nietzsche compares well-known figures of his time to the nature of the Ubermensch and admits that the nature of the Ubermensch is an ideal [if not unworkable] to transpire within man.
To assert that the idea of the Ubermensch is unworkable, we should first examine the workings of the Ubermensch. To be able to analyze the Ubermensch, it becomes inevitable to ask if the Ubermensch can have a possibility of existence at all since the Ubermensch is designed to inspire man with a spiritual individuality. In this way, we can also analyze the plausibility of the Ubermensch itself. Merleau-Ponty’s.
Phenomenology as an Approach.By being able to state the main query and its auxiliary tasks, and by also setting the considerations of the study as well as clarifying the issues they entail, the study should be able to discuss the approach that will be employed to accomplish the analysis. I argue here that phenomenology is an appropriate approach which would be able to lay bare the ‘primordial presuppositions’ and thereby accomplish an analysis of the Ubermensch by relating its aspect of possibility of existence in and within the world, and everyday experience. Phenomenology in General
A thought in the philosophical tradition which Edmund Husserl initiated, phenomenology, as an approach, is generally illustrated as “a study of the essence of phenomena” (Hammond et. al. 162). Its overall project is to describe a given phenomenon within the “life-world” ‘as itself’. Speaking of “as itself” is concerned with what Merleau-Ponty, rooted from Husserlian line of thought, emphasizes about perceiving phenomena by returning “back to things themselves”, that is, understanding the most basic facets of a phenomenon’s existence (5).
As Merleau-Ponty described, its locus is “a direct description of our experience as it is. (5). The phenomenological ‘description’ is expressed through its relationship to the life-world and hence to the “subject”. The description characterizes the core of the phenomenon’s existence in the context of how the individual encounters/experiences it. The spectrum of phenomenology can be taken as an approach to understand a given phenomenon by firstly understanding its essentialities of existence, and its relationship to the individual. The relation to the individual, on the other hand, is underpinned by “consciousness”.
The common ground in phenomenology asserts that the phenomenon is projected by the individual through an experience of it. The way it is experienced becomes a foundation to recognize it and its workings, and thereby related to: firstly, its significance to the individual, and secondly, its significance to the life-world in general [since the individual lives in and within the life-world itself]. Therefore, nature of phenomenology in general is directed towards an account of a phenomenon ‘as it appears’ to the subject, in relation to the experiences of the individual.
Phenomenology also emphasizes the deep-seated and patent correlation of “objects” and “subjects”. Edmund Husserl, influencing other phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty, contributed the idea that the existence of the subject, and the way it understands reality, cannot be compartmentalized by subscribing to a philosophy which absolutizes either on the part of the “object”, or only on the “subject”(Quito 1-7). Phenomenology chiefly cites its critiques on several points. The object [the world, in a general sense] is cut off from being disclosed to the subject because it presupposes that the object cannot be wholly grasped.
Also, the object was held to be known merely on the basis of the mental states of the subject (the idealist), which made the object itself isolated from being experienced in the first place. On the other hand, a purely physicalistic view deprived the subject of its distinctiveness as human (Husserl 23). Phenomenology, considering its historical background, seeks to bridge the gap between the “object” and “subject”, a gap that was put up during the Modern and Renaissance periods.
Bridging this gap implies how phenomenology emphasizes that describing a given phenomenon is interrelated to the ‘disclosure’ of the phenomenon to the individual. Robert Sokolowski appositely remarks that with phenomenology, “we think about the correlation between the things being disclosed and the dative to whom they are manifested” (Sokolowski 186). By highlighting this correlation, phenomenology seeks to give existence back to the object, and afford the subject its humanness. Phenomenology is also ranged towards giving an account of a phenomenon as it exists in the background of everyday experiences.
Phenomenology, as an approach, is generally taken to be roused from phenomena in everyday living, a feature which complements the idea of linking the object and the subject. Also, by indicating this facet of everyday living, it implies that individuals are in a network of relationship, in reference to the phenomena within the world. Indeed, it seems too broad of a spectrum to use such principles in undertaking an analysis of the Ubermensch. Even within the field of phenomenology, there are diverging and varied ways of describing given phenomena. On Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology
Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the well-famed proponents of phenomenology, following the initiative of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology in the sense that the former’s approach towards a phenomenological description is still underpinned by the individual’s projection of the phenomenon. However, the distinctive mark of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology is that it incorporates the spontaneous aspects of existence of phenomena that the individual encounters in the world. Its phenomenological description is precisely those aspects: outlining and expressing them based on such description ‘in relation’ to the individual and the life-world.
The nature of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology reveals the ‘core of phenomenon as itself’ through the ‘perceiving’ individual. It details a holistic examination of the phenomenon as itself and extent of selfhood in relation to the world. Hence, it allows for a given phenomenon a scope in which they can be applied without compromise from their own context – and in the study’s case, the Ubermensch’s. These ideas also show that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology accommodates a given phenomenon based on what the individual ‘does’ when projecting it.
This points out that Merleau-Ponty incorporates and emphasizes the ‘perceptual’ aspect of how the individual projects a phenomenon; and relating to its holistic feature, the ‘perceptual’ aspect is highlighted from everyday living. It is also worthy to note the relationship of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to the idea of the Ubermensch, wherein the central component augmenting phenomenology and the Ubermensch is the idea of ‘human existence’ in general and the ‘ways of life’ which the individual existentially has to express its existence, and towards others in the world.
The aforementioned remarks clarify how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology becomes an appropriate approach to analyze the Ubermensch: the very nature of Merleau-Ponty’s approach constitutes expositions by which the world is revealed to the individual and how the individual confronts the world, thereby putting intelligibility to the idea of the Ubermensch by extracting its primordial presuppositions and subjecting them to an analysis. Given the study’s task, the nature of Merleau-Ponty’s approach itself meets the condition of appropriateness in analyzing the Ubermensch.
On the following exposition of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, considerations should first be laid down to provide a clearer insight on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology [and in relation to the Ubermensch]. Merleau-Ponty’s “perception” is rooted in his idea of ‘intentionality’ which has been one of the central components in the field of phenomenology. In common usage within phenomenology, “intentionality” is a directedness which expresses the individual’s relationship with the phenomenon (Sokolowski 8-9). This directedness allows the individual to ‘phenomenologize’ on the phenomenon one has projected in the first place.
However, Merleau-Ponty’s idea of ‘intentionality’ departs from the Husserlian conception that the relationships made between the life-world and the individual are “acts of consciousness” and hence intuitive and introspective by nature. On the contrary, Merleau-Ponty states that “intentionality” is drawn from the disposition of ‘projection’ unboxed from ‘intellectualist’ and ‘empiricist’ determinations–therefore; “intentionality” pertains to the individual forwarding itself to the world through actions and considerations of ‘possible’ actions (Sokolowski 8-9).
A given “phenomenon” projected by the individual can hence be possibility by nature, and enclosed with it are ‘possibilities of actions’ that the individual can make in looking forward to it (Merleau-Ponty ix). Thus, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, alongside the context it is grounded upon, can be said to take the Ubermensch as a phenomenon by its own right (qtd in Kelley 6). This is in view of the Ubermensch as an idea of something which explicates a ‘self’ through the workings of its contexts.
The Ubermensch as Such The Ubermensch is such whose existence is will to power striving for self-mastery through continuous re-evaluation of its values, integrating its self-overcoming and affirmative will. Willing the “eternal recurrence”, the Ubermensch is capable of interconnecting its diverse drives. At the outset, it regards nihilism as impetus towards becoming an Ubermensch by evaluating the relevance of Ubermensch’s values in relation to its “power”.
Ubermensch as Will to Power. The Nietzschean philosophy about the “will to power” was more or less regarded in a controversial manner, and this is owed from an overgeneralization and colloquial use of it, especially how “power” is signified, mistaking it as determinate cause for behavior/action, marked with political, social and personal connotation, and ultimately as an absolute end a person wills to attain. “Power” in regard to the idea of the Ubermensch features a ‘figurative’ context.
It indicates an affirmative force in an endeavor towards something [a particular drive]. It is in this context that the wills to power are drives themselves. A particular drive is distinct over others through its content, state [when actualized] and activity with respect to other drives operating as means or relation to the former. Hence power is not a shared or absolute attribute in the actualized drive, since the particular drives are individuated according to content, state, and activity.
In contrast to the misleading connotations of “will to power”, Nietzsche establishes the figurative context of will to power through critiques of certain theories that are defective of diversity as far as human existence is concerned. Nietzsche evaluates particular theories of teleology as mechanical necessity by attributing a certain behavior a determinate end (Will 552). Given these remarks, power in this figurative context is a rousing dynamic: power as that which is political, social, personal, etc. s just a particular aspect of power itself, and that power as having determinate goals is only means for it. Thus, “will to power” purports not an end in-itself, but the pursuit in maximizing the actualization of a drive in relation to the drive’s endeavor, that is, the reinforcement of what one has towards greater extent of actualization: “the doctrine preached by life…to have and to want to have more–growth, in one word” (Will 125). Power dwells in the improvement of the progress in the drive’s activity pattern in contrast to habit which merely repeats.
One’s actualization of a drive becomes a will to “self-overcoming” by transcending that particular drive towards a greater extent, leading its fruition onto a stronger drive. With the aforementioned, diversity indicates wills to power, and growth in a particular drive is distinct against others and in relation to and/or against those other drives. What is reinforced is what the Ubermensch has; growth in the extent of the particular drive is dynamic.
At best, the Ubermensch as will to power can be illustrated by Nietzsche’s typology wherein the Ubermensch is a much higher type than the “master”, and a step ahead of the “slave” [as far as their tendencies of their will to power are concerned viz. the “active” / “reactive”]. On one hand, the “master” is what Nietzsche calls a “sovereign individual” of nobility, adept over certain situations and a commander of itself. Conversely, it is susceptible to ‘predictability’ and ‘over-generalization’ brought by its “morality”, and the tendency to discount other values not his own disposes to ‘sickness’ when subjected to the “revolt of the slaves”.
The master’s condition of existence is disposed in assigning what values must be [good as noble, bad as despicable against the values of the master]. This typology indicates how the master actualizes its own drives [overcoming them through imposition of its ‘morality’: strength and nobility, whose way of assigning values concurs with the master’s drives]. Hence, the master can organize and ‘preserve’ itself. The master’s morality assigns as bad the values that it does not own, indicating its non-recognition of other wills to power.
Its self-mastery and realization of drives are only parallel to the values it assigns. Thus, the master is susceptible to a simplification of existence because of its non-recognition of the ‘diversity’ of will to power. His “elevation” as man furthers a preservation of its morality, and its lack of diversity would lead to a symptom of predictability. Nietzsche’s famous quote of “yes to life” in Will to Power is, for the master, a determinate one since he is inflexible to diversity and directed only to preservation of values.
In relation to the slave, the master becomes vulnerable to be succumbed by the “revolt of the slaves” [which is the inversion of his own values]. On the other hand, the “slave” is subjected to the master’s values. Although the slave acknowledges wills to power [and thus the diversity of his own drives], the slave cannot, unlike the master, synchronize them since the slave denies them at the outset. The slave is subdued from acting from its own drives and thus cannot actualize them, making its diversity internally muddled (Beyond 260).
In addition, given the denial of the slave to its own drives, it cannot put cohesion onto such drives in the first place. In this condition of disagreement within its existence, the slave conducts a frustration but at the same time an attraction to the synchronized values of the master, and this leads the slave availing the master’s values. This is impetus to the slave’s “ressentiment” (Beyond 219). The slave would then invert the master’s morality and consider it “good” in the attempt to level off with the master [which accounts for the “revolt of the slave”].
The slave’s sickness is transmitted to the master, and that having equality over them indicates the dissipation of ressentiment, and human existence is reduced into comfort, ease, peace, and security [passive existence]. The Ubermensch and Transvaluation Given the distinctions of will to power between the Ubermensch and the defects of the master and slave, Nietzsche’s “transvaluation” becomes chief underpinning for the Ubermensch to distinguish itself against the master and slave.
The Ubermensch’s existence and values are continuously overcome, and as such, the Ubermensch would continuously “say yes to life” (Will A35). The essentialities of the Ubermensch’s will to power are related to the self-overcoming character of the Ubermensch since will to power and distinctive growth are continuously overcome by itself through transcendence of previous productivities of will to power thereby furthering the Ubermensch’s feeling of power. The Ubermensch enables itself to accept the totality of life. With such acceptance, the Ubermensch transcends its conditions of life.
Such transcendence of power and entailing conditions of life further involve the transcendence of its values in which every transvaluation of values entails overcoming of such values towards further productivities. Its obedience is onto its own values in accordance to how to command oneself: to “furnish yourself with your own good and evil and hang up to your own will above yourself as a law…and judge of yourself and avenger of your law”. The self-overcoming character of the Ubermensch, in accord with its transvaluation of values, is also in relation with the strength of its will to power.
As such, the Ubermensch surpasses its previous values and harmonizes itself with the kind of the will to power that it has. However, it should be noted that, in a transvaluation, the Ubermensch undergoes active nihilism to create productivities anew. As will be explained at the latter part, the ‘destruction’ becomes movement towards self-overcoming. The Ubermensch as self-overcoming existence is a “becoming” insofar as its will to power is continuously transcended, and the reinforcement of power continuously ‘becomes’.
Thus, the Ubermensch’s creation of new values incorporates previous productivities; the Ubermensch does not avoid the past but incorporates them as bases for the Ubermensch to enrich in. The Ubermensch and Affirmation The nature of the Ubermensch’s affirmation of the totality of the conditions of life hinders permanent ascription of meaning, end and definition of existence, and this can be illustrated through his critiques against Kant and Descartes who rationalized that human existence is an absolute substance and who made “absolute something conditioned” (Will 584).
Nietzsche asserts that these oversimplify the meaning of human existence to a single idea. In order for the Ubermensch to continuously seek enhancing its power, the Ubermensch firstly affirms. Considering that the Ubermensch is in a continuous pursuit for power, its existence is a becoming for it recognizes that its existence can be of a multitude of meanings and possibilities. The Ubermensch incorporates change and enrichment as part of its existence, and this makes the Ubermensch take all possibilities of actions. Therefore, the Ubermensch is in a sense beyond good and evil.
The Ubermensch’s becoming allows diversity of the world, incorporating their relations in each of them towards the Ubermensch. It is through this way that the Ubermensch lives without restraint. Accordingly, the process of becoming is associated to transvaluation in the sense that, with such diversity as milieu for its existence, the Ubermensch struggles to continuously evaluate and thus overcome itself. Therefore, affirmation rouses the Ubermensch’s transvaluative character and ultimately towards its self-overcoming.
The Ubermensch and Eternal Recurrence. In the same vein, the misleading connotations of the will to power are coupled with the idea of eternal recurrence. “Eternal recurrence” is posited as a ‘thought’, a ‘what if’ cosmological situation where events are temporally postulated occurring repeatedly. It is related to the becoming state of the Ubermensch considering the world is not a symmetry of permanence. Thus, the idea of eternality is highlighted from a becoming condition in each returning events, and returning is underpinned from returning itself. Eternal recurrence can be expressed on the Dionysian affirmation of the totality of life.
Through the symbolism of Dionysus, eternal recurrence becomes a test for the Ubermensch, and with respect to its will to power, the Ubermensch affirms eternal recurrence as condition by which it can further its power. Secondly, an affirmative attitude enables the Ubermensch to endure the struggle entailing every transvaluation. Thirdly, the Ubermensch’s affirmation of eternal recurrence indicates that its transvaluation is continuous. Lastly, the affirmative force indicating a transvaluation is an aspect by which the Ubermensch, in accordance to its will to power, can overcome itself.
Hence, the Ubermensch’s willing of eternal recurrence can be underpinned in the sense that eternal recurrence becomes a condition for the Ubermensch to affirm itself, its actions, and the conditions of its existence in general. In contrast with the Ubermensch, eternal recurrence cannot be endured by the master and slave. Given that the master is predisposed only for the preservation of its values, and that its “transvaluation” is limited, continuous re-creation is not symptomatic of the master.
Likewise, the slave is predisposed to level off with the master and thus dissipate their will to power towards passive existence such that continuous re-creation [of values] cannot be actualized by the slave. The Ubermensch and Active Nihilism For the Ubermensch to enhance its power, overcome and affirm itself it must undergo a preceding condition in which it reflects about the strength of its power; and this is highlighted through nihilism. On this context, [active] nihilism means destroying previous values to create new ones; however, Nietzsche explicitly asserts how nihilism can act on a twofold manner.
The first, which is passive nihilism, suggests “decline and recession of the power of the spirit” (Will 22). This explains the will as meaningless, weary and with a dissolved trust on its own. This is what Nietzsche says to be the “contemplation of the in vain! ” of one’s existence in a passive sense [passive nihilism]. It also means that one’s goals and/or meaning in life are supposed to be pre-determined. The second, which is active nihilism, suggests power which “reaches its maximum of relative strength as a violent force of destruction” (Will 23). Growth is symptomatic of what Nietzsche terms “the period of clarity” (Will 56).
Active nihilism makes it apparent that one’s will is strong enough such that one’s previous productivities no longer correspond to its conditions of existence. Correspondingly, the will’s old values are becoming unfavorable to the will’s strength. Ultimately, one has to destroy them [and transcend them] and re-create new values in accordance to such strength of the will. The destruction of previous productivities is always in accord to the strength of the power of the will, and this is how Nietzsche asserts how one “unlearns” them to express a stronger will in relation to the creation of such new values.
Therefore, the difference between active and passive nihilism rests on the idea that the latter is towards dissolution while the former is towards transcendence. Active nihilism characterizes “decay and sickness” as helping conditions “to form overall value judgments”. Since the Ubermensch’s pursuit for power necessitates a continuous re-creation and transcendence of its previous values and desires, it undergoes active nihilism every time it re-creates and transcends its previous values and desires. Taking these into account, active nihilism becomes critique for pessimism.
However, at the same time, pessimism is a preliminary condition towards active nihilism; and ultimately the Ubermensch is a critique of pessimism. Like his explanation of nihilism, Nietzsche points this out in the sense that pessimism suggests “decadence”, downgrading the will to existence on ideas of meaninglessness: “the world does not have the value we thought it had” (Will 38). It posits mistrust on life’s desires in the sense that life itself becomes a curse. Pessimism becomes a denial of life, and is submitted to the loss of courage to fight against it.
Active nihilism recognizes the pessimistic conditions and/or tendencies of existence, but channels such pessimism into a further enthusiasm that would allow one to reflect and assess on how it lives its life as a whole. Insofar as it is in this context, the Ubermensch takes into consideration the inevitability in which the world and its values are meaningless; but in order to give meaning to one’s life, and in order to express growth, one’s self must be led towards a creation of new and healthier values that are in accord to the strength of one’s will to power.
The Ubermensch as a Phenomenological Entity It should be noted that active nihilism becomes primordial for the Ubermensch, that is, an incommensurate power in relation to its field of experience. Its self-overcoming attitude enables the Ubermensch to overcome such nihilism, so that the Ubermensch can create new approaches to encounter the world in general, and these new approaches correspond to the kind of power that the Ubermensch has.
On the Ubermensch’s Affirmative Force. While the ways of encountering phenomena explain the actualization of a drive, the Ubermensch’s affirmative force [the acceptance of the totality of life] allows its directional nature to be receptive of them in the first place. The Ubermensch’s transvaluation of values can be explained as phenomenological approaches to the ways it encounters the world, which also supports the context in which the Ubermensch widens its field of experience.
This is highlighted by the Ubermensch continuously re-orienting its ways of encountering the world. Its transvaluations are collaborative conditions by which the Ubermensch views its power, in relation to references to past experiences. By relating these remarks about transcending unfamiliar phenomena, it entails for the Ubermensch to re-evaluate its field of experience and create new orientations that would ultimately strengthen its power.
Therefore, its re-orientations are symptomatic of the Ubermensch’s affirmative force to broaden its horizon of experiences, and it entails transcending such horizons of experience; phenomenologically, the Ubermensch’s transcendence means it is continuous. With this affirmation and the re-orientations entailed, the Ubermensch is not controlled by absolute determinations of behavior. Such openness against these determinate warrants becomes basis for the Ubermensch to own its existence, and possess its ways of encountering the world.
Hence, it allows for vast possibilities of actions to ultimately acquire power. On the Ubermensch’s Relation to the World and Other/s One crucial theme in phenomenology is one’s relationship with the world, and the other “self” which is also a constituent phenomenon in the life-world. Considering the aforementioned points, the Ubermensch creates a relationship to the world in general by virtue of the actions it actualizes. On the other hand, the Ubermensch’s relationship to the other “self” should reflect the fundamentality that the Ubermensch maintains being such.
This can be so by encountering the other “self” as an Ubermensch. This is revealed in the sense that the Ubermensch’s actions are referenced from the ways it encounters the world, where such references are contexts by which the Ubermensch orients with in regard to, firstly, the ways it ‘knows’ itself; secondly, affirming the conditions it undertakes in a certain time-space scenario; thirdly, re-orientation of itself towards the enforcement of its power; and lastly, the ways it encounters phenomena essentially are directed towards its field of experience.
As such, considering that the Ubermensch is in a pursuit of power, its possibilities of actions towards the other “self” should signify a relationship that will maintain its existence. This fundamentally marks the distinction of the Ubermensch from the master and the slave. The distinction could be made on the basis of how the Ubermensch projects itself towards the other “self”. The Ubermensch’s projection of its directional nature in the sense that its mastery of the other “self” is a designation of purely commanding the other “self” makes the Ubermensch a “master”.
This means that the Ubermensch reduces its power to a preservationist attitude wherein its existence becomes simplified in terms of how it encounters the world. Accordingly, the projection of the Ubermensch from and against the other “self” in the sense that the Ubermensch is subjugated in encountering the world and designated to be commanded by the other self’s satisfaction would make the Ubermensch a “slave”.
Since the Ubermensch is subjugated by the other “self”, the Ubermensch becomes predisposed to passivity, which thus makes the Ubermensch deny its will to power and hinders the Ubermensch to undertake its ‘own’ actions, and ultimately, to acquire and express its own power. Phenomenologically, this downgrades the Ubermensch’s existence into a mere object for the other “self”. Therefore, the way that the Ubermensch overcomes how it encounters the other “self” and of the latter’s actions should be in such a way that would maintain each other’s existence [the character of being an Ubermensch].
A phenomenological analysis, in regard to how the Ubermensch creates a relationship with the other “self”, the Ubermensch can actualize its possibility of existence insofar as it can create a relationship that would maintain its existence which is its will to power. Conclusion The aforementioned discussion showed the manner in which the phenomenological existence of the Ubermensch as such is ensured by the phenomenological analysis of the existence of the Ubermensch. The phenomenological analysis of the Ubermensch can be summarized on several points.
First, the way that the Ubermensch encounters the world is a catalyst condition for the Ubermensch to recognize itself in an envir0nment. This facilitates in actualizing a self whose essentiality is characterized by its will to power. Second, the Ubermensch as an affirmative force indicates that its directional nature in encountering the world explains the responses and reactions of the Ubermensch, as it perceives the world. These responses and reactions set the Ubermensch in a pessimism which should be channeled into active nihilism, transvaluation and ultimately to affirmation.
These conditions set the Ubermensch into a multitude of possibilities it can undertake to enhance its power. Regarding the Ubermensch’s relation to the other, it is crucial to point out that the Ubermensch should maintain itself as an Ubermensch. Therefore, its power should correspond to the way by which it is an Ubermensch. Its difference between the master and slave is a highlight which gives significance to the Ubermensch’s existence. This leads into two points: first, if the Ubermensch perceives the other as a slave, it becomes a master, and second, if the Ubermensch perceives the other as a master, it becomes a slave.
It is important to note the way the Ubermensch perceives the other as Ubermensch itself who also strives for power, which is essentially self-mastery. It is also important to note how the idea of the Ubermensch connotes a fundamental character which endeavors to ‘inspire’ man and his/her ways of life. The fundamentality is that the character rouses an inspiration and hope for man towards a self who takes utmost consideration of knowing oneself, and of knowing oneself through the world in general.
An Analysis of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. (2020, Jun 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/an-analysis-of-friedrich-nietzsches-ubermensch-essay
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