Thinkers That Changed the World

I recently had a great interview/conversation with Daniele Fulvi, who is a researcher and lecturer in philosophy at the University of Western Sydney, about Nietzsche for his course “Thinkers that Changed the World”.

Daniele asked about the event of the “death of God” in Nietzsche’s philosophy and the importance of creating new values that enhance and celebrate this life, and not an alleged heavenly afterlife. We discussed the difference between existentialist and anarchist readings of the meaning and place of creation and creativity in life.

Whereas in Existentialist interpretations of Nietzsche, the motif of the death of God is understood as a liberating event that opens the possibility for the human being to become the sole author of its own life and to assume full responsibility for giving meaning to its life, I was arguing that the problem with this Existentialist reading of the death of God is that the human being qua self-creator re-occupies the place left vacant by the Christian God and understands itself as another God (alter deus).

The Existentialist interpretation of the individual qua creator of its own life is overly focused on the ‘heroic’ task to gain mastery over shaping its life. Thereby, it loses sight of what I would call the anarchic character of creation, understood as a process that lacks metaphysical foundations and is instead open to chaos and radical contingency.

The process of creation in Nietzsche does not occur at will or reflects an existential choice where the latter become elements in the creation of an individual’s form of life. Rather, the life of the individual is a function of a creative activity.

See also Vanessa Lemm, “The Work of Art and the Death of God in Nietzsche and Agamben” in Agamben and the Existentialists, eds. Colby Dickinson and Marcos Norris, pp. 83-99. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.