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SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory

Lecture 14 - Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality. Today we take a bridge into the twentieth century, constructed by Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber's critical theory. Each author is different in important ways, but they also agree on two crucial points: we must subject our consciousness and assumptions to critical scrutiny and, along with increasing liberation and rationalization in some ways, modern society also has repressive elements. Nietzsche is the oldest of these thinkers; he dies in 1900 and stops working a decade before due to mental illness. While he was ill, his sister, a proto-Nazi and associate of Hitler, cared for him. Her control of his papers and how they were released to the public painted him as a proto-Nazi himself, but reading his whole oeuvre illuminates that Nietzsche subjected Judaism and Christianity to the same scrutiny. In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche attempts to use the genealogy method to be critical of modern morality without taking a certain vantage point. We discuss most specifically his genealogy of the ideas of good and bad and of good and evil.
(from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 14 - Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality

Time Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00] 1. Nietzsche, Freud and Weber and The Problem of Modernity
[00:10:23] 2. Nietzsche in a Historical Context
[00:25:35] 3. Nietzsche's Major Works
[00:33:21] 4. Major Themes in "On the Genealogy of Morals"

References
Lecture 14 - Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
Instructor: Professor Ivan Szelenyi. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Introduction
Lecture 02 - Hobbes: Authority, Human Rights and Social Order
Lecture 03 - Locke: Equality, Freedom, Property and the Right to Dissent
Lecture 04 - The Division of Powers- Montesquieu
Lecture 05 - Rousseau: Popular Sovereignty and General Will
Lecture 06 - Rousseau on State of Nature and Education
Lecture 07 - Utilitarianism and Liberty, John Stuart Mill
Lecture 08 - Smith: The Invisible Hand
Lecture 09 - Marx's Theory of Alienation
Lecture 10 - Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (1)
Lecture 11 - Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (cont.)
Lecture 12 - Marx's Theory of History
Lecture 13 - Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation
Lecture 14 - Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
Lecture 15 - Freud on Sexuality and Civilization
Lecture 16 - Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism
Lecture 17 - Conceptual Foundations of Weber's Theory of Domination
Lecture 18 - Weber on Traditional Authority
Lecture 19 - Weber on Charismatic Authority
Lecture 20 - Weber on Legal-Rational Authority
Lecture 21 - Weber's Theory of Class
Lecture 22 - Durkheim and Types of Social Solidarity
Lecture 23 - Durkheim's Theory of Anomie
Lecture 24 - Durkheim on Suicide
Lecture 25 - Durkheim and Social Facts