Nietzsche’s Synaesthetic Epistemology & the Restitution of the Holistic Human

In opposition to the traditional philosophic, religious, and aesthetic conception of the senses, in Nietzsche’s epistemic order, every sense is not only positively valued but also often “crossed” with other senses. While the limited few scholars who actually address Nietzsche’s conception of synaesthesia assert that his depiction and use of it is strictly metaphoric, in fact, it is often precisely the opposite—the phenomenon is conveyed as a distinct reality. Nietzsche was knowledgeable of synaesthesia through medical, aesthetic, and philosophic sources and a persistent engagement with it can be traced throughout his corpus. Further, his interest in synaesthesia may signal that he himself was synaesthetically inclined. While that cannot be definitively ascertained, aside from the testimony of his philosophy, there are several intriguing allusions he makes in letters indicating that he may presumably have had experiential knowledge of the phenomenon.

Syn-Episteme-Master

The Acolytes

To read The Acolytes, visit: https://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=8446

Or to download a PDF of the book: 

Title Pages: The Acolytes-Title Pages

All Chapters: THE ACOLYTES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Acolytes flies in the face of mainstream publishing with its eye on something bigger and vaster than the conventional marketplace. In mode its allegorical approach is so different than the types of Jonathan Franzen “family sagas” that publishers pick up on nowadays.  It’s quirky, weird, and mannered and many of the scenes have the strange power of dreams.  They proceed according to their own logic, stately as yachts, moving irrevocably, like Time. Like John Cowper Powys, Hanshe has the talent for making other species come to life.

 

               —Kevin Killian

The Acolytes is an original and powerful visionary novel which introduces and explores territory—heroic idealism, its illusions and discontents—rarely touched on in American fiction. It addresses deep longings and aspirations that most artists have swept to the side, which is not only courageous, it could prove beneficial to our culture. Hanshe gives promise of becoming a truly important writer.

              —Daniel Blue

The Acolytes is fascinating. It is a highly unusual and unexpected book. It is the kind of work one would not expect from a young American writer today. It is a powerful novel, reverberating in the inner spaces of the self.

               —Walter Sokel, The Writer in Extremis; The Myth of Power & Self: Essays on Kafka