After having raised the question last week of “how we value what we value and how we talk about it,” I thought that perhaps a good place to turn would be to pedagogy, or how we learn. Pedagogy is pertinent to considering how we value things because our values are entirely learned but the way in which we actually pick up these values is complicated. Is being taught something akin to having the knowledge transferred from one person’s mind (the teacher’s) into another’s (the learner’s)? I think not. Understanding is a more non-linear and elusive phenomenon. In my paper, I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche offers an alternative account of pedagogy in which the reorientation or critique of values acts as a corollary to the creation of new values. I call Nietzsche’s perspective here “developmental” because he describes the psychological drive for philosophical truth in relation to life; including one’s evaluation of the value of truth, how desire for understanding comes to be felt and inscribed on the psyche.

Since it was written as an academic thesis, it is stylistically very different from my other posts in the NAP: the logic of the paper is organized around the development of a single argument with minimal diversion; I refer often to critics; I sometimes assume specialized knowledge of philosophical terminology and history. However, I hope that some of these stylistic elements might be overlooked. Without further ado, here is the first part of my thesis (I have attached the file as a document to retain the original layout). Enjoy!

Clay’s Masters Thesis Part 1