I’ve been watching the lecture by Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins on Nietzsche from The Teaching Company. (It’s currently on sale.) I’ve made my way through the first twelve lectures so far. I didn’t take many notes on the first 9 lectures or so because they were mostly a rehash of what I’ve already written about. But I did end up taking far more copious notes on lectures 10 through 12. These are my notes from lecture 12. I’ll have to back up and provide earlier notes later, but this lecture was of particular interest to me.

I find some of the concepts within Existentialism interesting although I must admit my main interest as far as Existentialism goes are people who aren’t necessarily existentialists - Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. The main thing that distinguishes Nietzsche from the existentialists is that he rejects the existential notion of freedom. Sartre’s understanding of freedom is that it is entirely up to us what it is we become. It’s almost as though we are given a blank slate and can write upon it (besides where we were born, how old we are, etc.) whatever it is we choose to write upon it.

This is not how Nietzsche understands freedom. Nietzsche’s idea of freedom can be summarized in one phrase: “Become who you are”. This is not the same thing as the meaningless comment parents often tell their children - “Be who you are”. Being who you are suggests an unchanging event. Becoming suggests something in process. We are born with talents, abilities and potentialities. But we are rarely thrown into circumstances that cultivate these abilities. It is up to us to cultivate them.

In England and France, a negative conception of freedom, Laissez Faire, had become popular. To be left alone was freedom. But in Germany, the idea of freedom was a positive notion - “freedom to”. Freedom to have a career, freedom to participate, etc.

Nietzsche had a totally different idea of freedom. He said freedom was to become who one is. He believed the idea of freedom as freedom from constraint was a fantasy - especially a fantasy of the oppressed. Great art and great things in general are not freedom from constraint. It’s the limits which define greatness and make for creativity. (For instance, the creativity that emerges through Haiku or the Japanese art form that requires a single brush stroke. When the paintbrush is lifted from the page, the drawing is finished.)

We are constrained by culture, biology circumstances of history, etc. For Nietzsche, freedom could only be understood within these constraints. He summarized freedom as “freedom to create”.

Nietzsche is an individualist, but not in the modern sense which emerged in the 12th century.  The 12th century is when the notion of individual first became prominent. The idea of the individual found even more prominence through the Enlightenment and Romanticism. What gets left out of this notion is family, community, etc.  But Nietzsche’s idea that freedom is an individual’s ability to create is not the same as an individuals ability to choose. There are always constraints and determinants on our behavior (something Sartre completely denies).

Nietzsche was a biological determinist. He said that often what appears to be choices aren’t choices at all. But we can “become who we are”. We have to spend our lives creating ourselves - not on a blank canvas saying anything goes - but within the limitations and restrictions of our individual circumstances. It’s similar to the idea of self-realization if you can drop the new-age baggage that goes along with that idea. We are born into a tradition, a culture, etc. that defines are limits.

Nietzsche would not agree with Sartre that it is our choice who it is we become. But he does say that there are many choices along the way that are already in accordance with a shape that has been given to us, from the most part, from birth. In order to become who it is we are, we have to trust our instinct. We are much more in tune with the person we can become through instinct than we are through reason. This is because reason is very often based on compliance with the culture.

We each have our own idea, our own character, our own destiny to fill out. Nietzsche rejects universal will. He asks, “Do we have a will”? Do we decide to do something or is it done through us? How much do we choose to do and how much is an expression of our natures?

This makes agency a subtle problem for Nietzsche. What makes us think we are the agents of our own actions?  Take thinking, for instance. Why are we so sure we are thinkers? Nietzsche says a thought comes when it will, not when “I” will. Nietzsche therefore thinks we overemphasize agency, freedom and choice. There is a sort of fate and it is important that we love our fate (amor fati). But we can and will be something if we work hard enough to cultivate it.

So while he definitely rejects the existentialist notion of freedom, he emphasizes what all existentialists emphasize - the imporance of individual existence and seeing to it that we take responsibility for who it is we are.

It seems true to me that we are born with a certain conditioning that limits our choice to an extent. We are interconnected beings. We don’t live in a vacuum.