Nietzsche on Instinct and Language

Book excerpt: This volume consists of the revised and expanded versions of the papers presented at the International Conference “Nietzsche On Instinct and Language”, held at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) in December 2009. The list of contributors includes top Nietzsche scholars, like Werner Stegmaier, Patrick Wotling, and Scarlett Marton. The volume as a whole represents a fresh look at Nietzsche’s attempt to connect language to the instinctive activity of the human body. Four of the papers focus on Nietzsche’s early Nachlass notes and writings, including The Birth of Tragedy and On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense; the other seven deal with his mature views on this important subject, especially in Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, and the Nachlass. In focusing on how Nietzsche tries to dissolve the traditional opposition between instinct and language, as well as between instinct and consciousness and instinct and reason, the different papers consider, from this viewpoint, such Nietzschean themes as morality, value, the concept of philosophy, dogmatism, naturalization, metaphor, affectivity and emotion, health and sickness, tragedy, and laughter.