Normativity and Expressive Agency in Hegel, Nietzsche, and Deleuze

Abstract

This article synthesizes several different studies of Hegel's and Nietzsche's expressive conceptions of action and agency and identifies a related account in Deleuze's Logic of Sense. It argues that such conceptions not only challenge familiar voluntarist accounts of action and agency; they also demand a reassessment of standard approaches to the relation between norms and action. For the voluntarist, an agent's action is caused by the separate, prior intention of the agent. For expressivists, an agent's intention is inseparable from the action expressing it and nonisolatable from the expression of this intention-action in interpretative activity. For the voluntarist, the norms governing action can be thought of as more or less freestanding, entering into the prior formation of the agent's intention. For the expressivist, the norm or principle on which an agent acts will be produced over time, through the unfolding of the action expressing it, as well as through interpretative struggle over the meaning of that action, all of which takes place in a social space governed by more basic norms concerning the offering of actdescriptions, recognition, and social and hermeneutical struggle. A number of important differences among Hegel's, Nietzsche's, and Deleuze's accounts are identified, and their significance is explored.

The morality of fighting inequality: Nietzschean philosophy and the pursuit of progress

“…that his own will to truth is an expression of the will to power, but this introduces no paradoxes into his position" (p. 239), and that "what Nietzsche objects to in previous philosophers is not that they read their values into the world, but that they pretended to be doing something else, that they were not 'honest enough in their work'" (p. 240). 6 For example, see Houlgate (1986), Jurist (2000, Wolfenstein (2000), Dudley (2002), Church (2012), Williams (2012), and Bowden (2015). An earlier version of the claim that Hegel and Nietzsche share significant common ground can be found in Kaufmann (1968).…”

“…66For example, see Houlgate (1986), Jurist (2000), Wolfenstein (2000), Dudley (2002), Church (2012), Williams (2012), and Bowden (2015). An earlier version of the claim that Hegel and Nietzsche share significant common ground can be found in Kaufmann (1968).…”

Expressive Embodiment: Hegel, Habitual Agency and the Shortcomings of Normative Expressivism

“…A fourth assumption concerns the normative and constructivist approach to the expressive relation, which is understood here as a matter of social self-constitution of normative states (see also Bowden 2015). As Pinkard for instance writes, ‘we are self-conscious, self-interpreting animals […] our status as geistig , as “minded” creatures is a status we “give” to ourselves in the sense that it is a practical achievement’ (Pinkard 2012: 18).…”