Philosophy and Literature

Guay, Robert.
The Tragic as an Ethical Category
Philosophy and Literature - Volume 30, Number 2, October 2006, pp. 555-561

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Robert Guay - The Tragic as an Ethical Category - Philosophy and Literature 30:2 Philosophy and Literature 30.2 (2006) 555-561 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents The Tragic as an Ethical Category Robert Guay Binghamton University Tragedy is at the center of Nietzsche's conception of his mature philosophical project as the only alternative to the ascetic ideal, and thus as the only avenue for affirmation. It is not merely an aesthetic category, but one that encompasses the very character of self-determining (or "self-creating") agency. The tragic character of self-determining agency, I shall claim, stems from the conflict between the local, practice-dependent character of our normative commitments and their transcendent purport. My argument will run as such. Becoming what one is, according to Nietzsche, is a matter of taking a particular place in a narrative of self-creation. Such narratives are teleological: they are structured by a kind of directionality (or, more broadly, by "ideals") that cannot, practically, be taken as arbitrary. But these narratives are inevitably incomplete, and so therefore are the norms and selves that depend on them. The very project of a genealogy of morals supports my first claim, that becoming what one is involves a matter of taking a particular place in a narrative of self-creation. The Genealogy of Morals begins with the declaration that we are unknown to ourselves, and the explanation it provides of this...