Nietzsche, Reification, and Open Comportment
| dc.contributor.advisor | Stern, Michael | |
| dc.contributor.author | Currie, Luke | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-01-09T21:11:22Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-01-09T21:11:22Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-01-09 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This work primarily discusses the “fallacy of reification” from the perspective of Nietzsche’s late philosophy (particularly in the chapter on ‘Reason’ in philosophy in his Twilight of the Idols). While reification is typically a logical, metaphysical, or epistemological problem in Modern Western philosophy, the author attempts to show that reification is also a problem in ethics. An outline of a groundwork for an ethical “open comportment” is gestured toward by way of Nietzsche’s critiques of “anti-natural morality” and the “conceptual mummies” of philosophy. The likes of William James, Willard Van Orman Quine, and Henri Bergson are discussed to expand on the points made by Nietzsche and to show how his thought could be developed further, though the scope of the paper remains mostly within the perspective of late Nietzschean philosophy. Additionally, the likes of Hesiod, Kant, and aspects of Christianity are mentioned to serve as examples to situate Nietzsche’s campaign to “re-evaluate all values” (a simultaneously destructive and creative endeavor) in the thesis.When a reified concept replaces the “real” entity from which it is abstracted, the original entity risks being missed in favor of the concept. For example, if an outsider has a prejudice about what a certain group of people are like without being open to experiencing them in their multiplicity and diversity, any given person from that group is at risk of being reduced to the prejudice of the outsider, and thereby is treated and understood according to the outsider’s prejudice (regardless of its accuracy in relation to the particular person on whom this prejudice is imposed). The prejudice, in this example, is a reified concept. It is not recognized as an ossified abstraction, but instead appears as a simple, given truth. This blindness to the origin of concepts and their sublimation of difference under abstract sameness is as much of an ethical issue as an issue for the development of human knowledge. Bergson’s peculiar “infinite” shows that things are not reducible to concepts alone, and thereby suggests a possible avenue for open engagement insofar as we develop a comportment toward the irreducible indeterminacy of becoming. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29093 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Bergson | en_US |
| dc.subject | Epistemology | en_US |
| dc.subject | Ethics | en_US |
| dc.subject | Nietzsche | en_US |
| dc.subject | Reification | en_US |
| dc.subject | Twilight of the Idols | en_US |
| dc.title | Nietzsche, Reification, and Open Comportment | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of Philosophy | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | masters | |
| thesis.degree.name | M.A. |
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