Abstract

This essay seeks to accomplish three things: First, to examine Nietzsche’s critique of the “subject” in modern philosophy, with particular reference to Descartes.Second, to present an interpretation of Nietzsche’s alternative conception of “the subject as multiplicity.” And third, to argue that, for Nietzsche, this account of the “subject” as multiplicity does not lead to a kind of atomistic or anarchic view of the “subject,” contrary to what is often supposed. The essay focuses in particular on a number of aphorisms from The Will to Power that articulate most forcefully Nietzsche’s critique of Cartesian subjectivity and its aftermath. Thinking, as interpretation, Nietzsche suggests, is an activity undertaken not by a unitary “subject” that is conscious of itself, but by a much more subtle, largely concealed, and complex interplay of drives as forces of domination that together constitute the phenomenon of the living body.