Masters Theses

Date of Award

6-1982

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Philosophy

Major Professor

L. B. Cebik

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to provide an interpretation of Nietzsche's remarks concerning women which differs from the bulk of previous Nietzsche scholarship in two primary ways. First, Nietzsche's remarks on this particular subject are integrated into the major schemes of his philosophy. As they are not treated as mere appendages to his texts, Nietzsche's remarks on women serve as a frame of reference by which to evaluate his observations of the human race, and his perceived need to go beyond that race, regardless of gender. Secondly, in contrast to previous interpretations, the view which attributes misogyny to Nietzsche is seen to be ill-founded.

An operant distinction is made between those attributes which Nietzsche ostensibly holds to stem directly from women's psychological nature and those attributes which are acquired as a result of women's social situation. The significance of such a distinction appears in the interpretation that Nietzsche's apparent opposition to women is not grounded in a repulsion toward any intrinsic feminine nature which is inherently inferior to a masculine nature. Rather, Nietzsche's remarks are construed to indicate that women's social behavior, as typified in their assumption of traditional social roles, is an overt index of social and cultural weakness in general.

On similar grounds, Nietzsche's concept of the Eternal-Feminine is explicated as social myth, a device created for social control and stability. Nietzsche's perception of the traditional relations between the sexes in love and in marriage and his subsequent analysis of the sexual difference as one of appropriation point toward the interpretation of his alleged misogyny residing in the social roles of the sexes. That women have traditionally assumed secondary roles is not a necessary con-sequence of their gender, but rather an indication of a subservient social mentality.

Yet Nietzsche remains adamant in his opposition to feminism as it is generally construed. While he does reiterate several of the traditional arguments against feminism, Nietzsche also offers his own opposition. His aristocratic ideal, which entails that universal movements toward humanization preclude the possibility for greatness in individuals, is interpreted, in part, as an allusion to a 'higher feminism' and sub-sequently to a higher culture from which women are not necessarily excluded.

Such a position is reinforced by an examination of Nietzsche's metaphors of life, truth, and wisdom as women when they are considered within the context of the major tenets of his epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics. The Übermensch, Nietzsche's ideal creator-type and apex of his higher culture, is interpreted partially as an androgynous ideal. In his exhortations to creative, valuable action, Nietzsche does not arbitrarily exclude women, nor are the criteria varied on the basis of gender. Nietzsche's stringent individualism, however, entails that the new options which he illuminates are generally perceived as untenable by virtually all persons, male and female.

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