Becoming Someone: Einverleibung and the Emergence of Subjectivity in Nietzsche

This thesis offers an account of the emergence of subjectivity within Nietzsche's thought out of the process of Einverleibung. Arguing that Einverleibung names the embodied, agonistic process through which life interprets, transforms, and consolidates itself. This study is guided by the research question: How does Nietzsche’s concept of Einverleibung account for the emergence of subjectivity? I argue that subjectivity in Nietzsche should be understood as a feeling of being a subject and that Einverleibung accounts for the emergence of subjectivity by naming the embodied and agonistic dynamic through which interpretive and affective struggles among conflicting drives coalesce into a contingent and reversible feeling of unity. This thesis takes seriously Nietzsche's commitmen to ontological parsimony. Hence, the emergence of subjectivity cannot be explained by inserting stable being behind becoming. Otherwise put: the feeling of coherence is not underpinned by a stable self. Instead,...Show moreThis thesis offers an account of the emergence of subjectivity within Nietzsche's thought out of the process of Einverleibung. Arguing that Einverleibung names the embodied, agonistic process through which life interprets, transforms, and consolidates itself. This study is guided by the research question: How does Nietzsche’s concept of Einverleibung account for the emergence of subjectivity? I argue that subjectivity in Nietzsche should be understood as a feeling of being a subject and that Einverleibung accounts for the emergence of subjectivity by naming the embodied and agonistic dynamic through which interpretive and affective struggles among conflicting drives coalesce into a contingent and reversible feeling of unity. This thesis takes seriously Nietzsche's commitmen to ontological parsimony. Hence, the emergence of subjectivity cannot be explained by inserting stable being behind becoming. Otherwise put: the feeling of coherence is not underpinned by a stable self. Instead, it is retrospectively imposed upon the flux of forces, generating the illusion of a unified subject. Subjectivity, in this view, is not a metaphysical constant but the interpretive residue of conflict.Show less

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Becoming Someone: Einverleibung and the Emergence of Subjectivity in Nietzsche