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The Concept of Unified Agency in Nietzsche, Plato, and Schiller
- Journal of the History of Philosophy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 49, Number 1, January 2011
- pp. 87-113
- 10.1353/hph.2011.a412847
- Article
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This paper examines Nietzsche's concept of unified agency. I argue that (1) Nietzschean unity is an account of the distinction between genuine actions and mere behaviors, rather than between free and unfree actions; (2) unity refers to a relation between drives and conscious thought; and (3) unity obtains when the agent's attitude toward her own action is stable under the revelation of further information about the action's etiology. I show that Nietzsche develops this notion of unity by drawing on Plato's and Schiller's accounts of unified agency.