Dawn, Thoughts on the Feeling of Power

Aurore, pensées sur le sentiment de puissance

David Simonin (1)

1 ITEM – Nietzsche - Équipe Friedrich Nietzsche et son temps

This article has two main purposes. First, as the title indicates, it aims to show that the concept of "feeling of power", although less famous than the will to power, is the guiding thread of Nietzsche's relatively little studied book Dawn, whose subtitle is Thoughts on the Presumptions of Morality. Nietzsche's philosophy of the feeling of power expresses in this sense a central dimension of his critique and naturalism of morality. Secondly, by arguing that the feeling of power is an architectonic concept that is at the heart of the very project of Dawn, the paper focuses on two of its main aspects: on the one hand, the opposition between individual and collective feelings of power (or powerlessness); on the other hand, the opposition between effective feelings of power, when the feeling adequately attests to a certain quantum of power, and illusory ones, when one feels powerful without being so, or more powerful than one actually is.

Domaines: Philosophie

David Simonin. Aurore, pensées sur le sentiment de puissance. Figures de la puissance dans la philosophie de Nietzsche, Les Éditions de la rue d'Ulm, A paraître. ⟨hal-04034437⟩