Books by Manuel Dries
MTNF, Boston, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018
Nietzsche’s thought has been of renewed interest to philosophers in both the Anglo- American and ... more Nietzsche’s thought has been of renewed interest to philosophers in both the Anglo- American and the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions. Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind presents 16 essays from analytic and continental perspectives. Appealing to both international communities of scholars, the volume seeks to deepen the appreciation of Nietzsche’s contribution to our understanding of consciousness and the mind. Over the past decades, a variety of disciplines have engaged with Nietzsche’s thought, including anthropology, biology, history, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology, to name just a few. His rich and perspicacious treatment of consciousness, mind, and body cannot be reduced to any single discipline, and has the potential to speak to many. And, as several contributors make clear, Nietzsche’s investigations into consciousness and the embodied mind are integral to his wider ethical concerns.
This volume contains contributions by international experts such as Christa Davis Acampora (Emory University), Keith Ansell-Pearson (Warwick University), João Constâncio (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Frank Chouraqui (Leiden University), Manuel Dries (The Open University; Oxford University), Christian J. Emden (Rice University), Maria Cristina Fornari (University of Salento), Anthony K. Jensen (Providence College), Helmut Heit (Tongji University), Charlie Huenemann (Utah State University), Vanessa Lemm (Flinders University), Lawrence J. Hatab (Old Dominion University), Mattia Riccardi (University of Porto), Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen (New York University and EGS), and Benedetta Zavatta (CNRS).
Peer-Reviewed Papers by Manuel Dries
This paper argues that Moore’s compelling reading of Nietzsche as a metaphysician in The Evolutio... more This paper argues that Moore’s compelling reading of Nietzsche as a metaphysician in The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (EMM) largely ignores Nietzsche’s philosopher-psychologist approach to metaphysical, general sense-making. Nietzsche’s metaphysical sense-making is often psychologically framed, i.e. sense is made of sense-making as the expression of specific psychological perspectives and types. Nietzsche’s own most general “acts of sense-making,” such as the will to power, nihilism, and eternal return, often need to be interpreted as targeting specific perspectives and types with the goal of affecting their values. Section 2 considers Moore’s definition of metaphysics and asks what evidence there is that Nietzsche is a metaphysician in his inclusivistic sense. Section 3 provides evidence that Nietzsche pursues a psychological project and introduces the idea of “psychological framing.” Sections 4–6 argue that Moore takes will to power (4), nihilism as suffering (5), and eternal return (6) as Nietzsche’s own, most general “metaphysical” sense-making, thereby neglecting the philosopher-psychologist who may elude Moore’s inclusivist conception of metaphysics.
The centrality of the embodiment of mind, self, and values for the later Nietzsche is widely ackn... more The centrality of the embodiment of mind, self, and values for the later Nietzsche is widely acknowledged. Here, I reconstrue Nietzsche’s HL to show that he uses his drive model of the mind already in this early text. The “historical sickness” central to HL is diagnosed in the form of failures of embodiment and drive control. First, I argue that a precursor to Nietzsche’s figure of “the last human” is already the target in HL. Second, I offer working definitions for terms such as ‘drives’, ‘affects,’ and ‘values,’ which are crucial to Nietzsche’s heuristic diagnostic framework. I then focus on the neglected passage that contrasts the medieval memento mori with a modern memento vivere, showing that the former functions as an embodied mechanism of willing and self-control, which Nietzsche claims the moderns have been unsuccessful in replacing. Finally, I draw on recent research in embodied cognition and identify two causes—“overload” and “semantic embodiment”—of the modern “historical sickness” that undermines flourishing.
Nietzsche on Mind and Nature, 2015
While Nietzsche's rejection of metaphysical free will and moral desert has been widely recognised... more While Nietzsche's rejection of metaphysical free will and moral desert has been widely recognised, the sense in which Nietzsche continues to use the term freedom affirmatively remains largely unnoticed. The aim of this article is to show that freedom and agency are among Nietzsche’s central concerns, that his much-discussed interest in power in fact originates in a first-person account of freedom, and that his understanding of the phenomenology of freedom informs his theory of agency. He develops a non-reductive drive-psychological motivational theory: reflective judgement and reasons can motivate by means of affective orientations agents have due to their drives. In particular, due to a standing desire or 'instinct for freedom' agents can generate, in mental simulations, the necessary motivational affects to unify their drives in view of certain long-term goals.
Nietzsche on Mind and Nature, 2015
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Books by Manuel Dries
This volume contains contributions by international experts such as Christa Davis Acampora (Emory University), Keith Ansell-Pearson (Warwick University), João Constâncio (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Frank Chouraqui (Leiden University), Manuel Dries (The Open University; Oxford University), Christian J. Emden (Rice University), Maria Cristina Fornari (University of Salento), Anthony K. Jensen (Providence College), Helmut Heit (Tongji University), Charlie Huenemann (Utah State University), Vanessa Lemm (Flinders University), Lawrence J. Hatab (Old Dominion University), Mattia Riccardi (University of Porto), Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen (New York University and EGS), and Benedetta Zavatta (CNRS).
Peer-Reviewed Papers by Manuel Dries