Multi-Layered Embodied Consciousness

Nietzsche's consciousness is multi-layered and embodied, with the body serving as 'grand reason' that repositions the ego as a tool rather than the seat of agency. Perspectivism emerges as a phenomenological feature, where the soul is a subjective multiplicity of drives and affects competing in dynamic interaction with the world, leading to multiple perspectives. Aphorism 36 of Beyond Good and Evil summarizes his view of intentional consciousness as self-constituting and world-constituting through will to power.

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Abstract

This chapter further unpacks Nietzsche’s phenomenological view of consciousness as multi-layered and embodied. It delineates the topology of consciousness that emerges in key passages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, such as “On the Despisers of the Body”, wherein his view of the body as “grand reason” emerges. It is important to understand how he repositions the ego, and thereby repositions agency and the traditional cogito as a tool for the conscious body. This understanding leads to an exploration of the key Nietzschean concept of perspectivism which is revisited as yet another phenomenological feature of Nietzsche’s thought. The chapter also discusses the notion of the soul as subjective multiplicity as it is presented in the first book of Beyond Good and Evil. This text is importantly connected to the topology of consciousness presented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and to the notion of perspectivism. The soul, as multiple, is a dynamic becoming within which drives and affects compete in their interaction with the world, leading to the adoption of multiple perspectives. The chapter concludes by revisiting one of the most important passages in Nietzsche’s work with regards to the notion of will to power, aphorism 36 of Beyond Good and Evil. The analysis shows that this section serves to summarize Nietzsche’s views on intentional consciousness and its constitution of itself and the world.