I was just now doing some super light reading on Nietzsche's aristocraticism. Seems to me that a lot of human history, both intellectual and social, is an attempt to create a stronger class system. Nietzsche's higher types being an example, sans god or gods.

I suppose even humanism could be seen as a dissonant form of this, classifying humans over anything else.

Is Nietzshe's thought part of a larger tendency, both in philosophy / art and society in general, toward a more robust classification of people? Of exclusion and hierarchy.

Has anyone claimed this?

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    It feels like this is articulating an "answer" to a much larger problem -- maybe something like: what is the role of hierarchy and exclusion in political history (for Nietzsche)? Possibly consider making some of this material an answer and refocusing the question appropriately? – Joseph Weissman Sep 26 '16 at 16:56
  • @JosephWeissman i'm not sure i'm good enough at the internet to do so. sorry, i mean you're welcome to close and / or edit – user6917 Sep 26 '16 at 16:57
  • So, possibly some of the adjustment might reconfigure the framing of the question. Note the question-form you use here is somewhat symptomatic -- being much closer to "am I right/what do you think" than to a neutral POV question about the role of a notion in the work of a thinker... – Joseph Weissman Sep 26 '16 at 17:00
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    I guess the main task of philosophy is providing destinctions. And not only destinctions, but justifications for destinctions. In this sense, there should trivially be the tendency of creating ever more 'robust' systems of 'classes', i.e. categories. This, then, also applies to societies. The real question, as I take it, should be wether they are prescriptive or rather descriptive, i.e. wether history has the tendency to implicitely provide prescriptive classifications of people where there should be none. – Philip Klöcking Sep 26 '16 at 17:04
  • @PhilipKlöcking that's interesting, thanks. is there anything else which problematises categories? – user6917 Sep 26 '16 at 17:07

I cannot speak generally, but Neitzshe specifically postulates nature's "will to power". He argues that all of nature, including humans, is motivated solely by moving up in various hierarchy's relative to others. All other actions and motives are derived from this will to power.

This philosophy requires the idea of classification and hierarchy, as without it there would be no higher state to will oneself to.

So, to answer your question: no, this is not part of some larger tendency, rather it is a fundamental principle of Nietzche's philosophy.

  • i'm sympathetic but you make authoritative sounding statements with no references, just a bit of wordplay, which itself only goes part way to saying what you do – user6917 Sep 27 '16 at 1:26
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    @MATHEMETICIAN I came to a logical conclusion based on the sources and ideas that I referenced you to. I don't see a problem – Dynamic Sep 27 '16 at 12:45
  • you certainly don't deduce that it isn't part of a larger tendency – user6917 Dec 15 '16 at 15:32

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