Techniques of self-knowledge in Nietzsche and Freud

Copyright © 2015 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Both Nietzsche and Freud believe that our conscious experiences and actions are shaped by the activity of unconscious drives. Despite the significant differences in their understanding of drives and the obstacles faced uncovering them, there is sufficient common ground in their view of drives as multiple, contingent, and historically formed, to compare their methods of investigating them. For Nietzsche, solitude is essential to any project of self-knowledge, while Freud transplants the process of uncovering the activity of the drives from the loneliness of a metaphorical desert to the therapeutic relationship in the consulting room, relying on the effects of transference between analyst and analysand. If drives are relational, then understanding their activity seems to require exploring them in the context of relationships. These relationships, however, may constrain the process of investigation. By contrasting the methods of Freud and Nietzsche, I highlight dangers present in both approaches. Such awareness allows us to find ways to mitigate the inevitable bias that their methods introduce. I conclude that the limitations of a purely solitary or dialogical approach to self-knowledge point to the need to employ both solitude and dialogue to explore our drives, combining a capacity for solitude with a capacity to engage