Part I
15–17 November 2023

Within the Vienna psychoanalytic circle, very early on, the question of the so-called paradox of Nietzsche's psychological knowledge arose: how is it possible that Nietzsche anticipated some of the important insights of psychoanalysis, if in doing so he did not have at his disposal either clinical experience or all the techniques and methods that make up psychoanalytic science. To answer this question, the pioneers of psychoanalysis had to resort to two concepts—“introspection” and “monstrous intuition”—which not only psychoanalysis was reluctant to embrace, but Nietzsche himself was deeply suspicious of both. The main aim of my presentation is to try to reconstruct Nietzsche's own answer to this question. In doing so, I will focus in particular on the following two aspects. First, I will explain why Nietzsche thought that the indications of the collapse of the primacy of consciousness in philosophy had been ripe since Kant and had at most come to full expression in his own work as one of the necessary consequences of the “God is dead” event. And secondly, I will focus on two concepts that I believe form the core of Nietzsche's onto-psychology, namely the concept of the “embodied error” and the concept of the “internalisation of cruelty”, which also constitutes one of the key intersections with Freud's theory.

To Be Continued?... Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today Part II 16–18 April 2024

Part I 15–17 November 2023

Info, Index

Aleš Bunta (ZRC SAZU)

The Paradox of Nietzsche's Knowledge

To Be Continued?...
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today

Part II
16–18 April 2024

Part I
15–17 November 2023