Drives and the Question of Understanding: Spinoza, Nietzsche and Kuno Fischer

Abstract

This article is concerned with the Spinozian topic of understanding human actions (E3Praef., TP1) and its interpretation by Nietzsche in The Gay Science 333. Nietzsche doesn’t read directly Spinoza’s work but rather the volume of Kuno Fischer’s History of Modern Philosophy dedicated to the XVIIth century philosopher; this can be confirmed by the way in which the text is quoted. Even if Nietzsche reduces greatly the power of understanding to one of its aspect translating intelligere as erkennen, it is necessary to emphasize that the aphorism presents a novelty that can enrich the study of the relationship between these two philosophers. Nietzsche identifies conscious thought with the “last scenes of reconciliation” between different drives of a previous unconscious (unbewusst) process. Even if the point of departure of this survey is the centrality of affects in both thinkers, it will also identify a precise limit which distances Spinoza’s understanding of the affects from the centrality of drives in Nietzsche’s philosophical project.