Making Knowledge the Most Powerful Affect: Overcoming Affective Nihilism

After briefly introducing the problem of affective nihilism in Nietzsche and detailing a variety of its forms, I identify and investigate potential Nietzschean strategies for jump-starting the agency of the affective nihilist and overcoming affective nihilism. By attending to Nietzsche's own practices and recommendations, I locate strategies that might enable the affective nihilist to will and, eventually, to transform herself. The two strategies I investigate include (1) "living experimentally" by placing oneself in a variety of potentially stimulating climates and contexts and (2) undertaking particular practices of self-knowledge, especially the formation and reflection upon a personal narrative. Both of these strategies employ the production of affect in an individual to potentially energize one's will and stimulate one's drives.