This book explores the significance of human animality in the philosophy
of Friedrich Nietzsche and provides the first systematic treatment of
the animal theme in Nietzsche's corpus as a whole Lemm argues that the
animal is neither a random theme nor a metaphorical device in
Nietzsche's thought. Instead, it stands at the center of his renewal of
the practice and meaning of philosophy itself. Lemm provides an original
contribution to on-going debates on the essence of humanism and its
future.
At the center of this new interpretation stands Nietzsche's thesis that
animal life and its potential for truth, history, and morality depends
on a continuous antagonism between forgetfulness (animality) and memory
(humanity). This relationship accounts for the emergence of humanity out
of animality as a function of the antagonism between civilization and
culture.
By taking the antagonism of culture and civilization to be fundamental
for Nietzsche's conception of humanity and its becoming, Lemm gives a
new entry point into the political significance of Nietzsche's thought.
The opposition between civilization and culture allows for the
possibility that politics is more than a set of civilizational
techniques that seek to manipulate, dominate, and exclude the animality
of the human animal. By seeing the deep-seated connections of politics
with culture, Nietzsche orients politics beyond the domination over life
and, instead, offers the animality of the human being a positive,
creative role in the organization of life. Lemm's book presents
Nietzsche as the thinker of an emancipatory and affirmative biopolitics.
This book will appeal not only to readers interested in Nietzsche, but
also to anyone interested in the theme of the animal in philosophy,
literature, cultural studies and the arts, as well as those interested
in the relation between biological life and politics.
