Date of Award

2024

Degree Name

Master of Philosophy (School of Philosophy and Theology)

Schools and Centres

Philosophy and Theology

First Supervisor

Renee Kohler-Ryan

Second Supervisor

Dejan Simkovic

Abstract

Jünger is typically interpreted in the philosophical literature according to a Heideggerian reading to be a metaphysical Nietzschean who took the will to power to be the essence of reality. This is especially so for Jünger's “Gestalt of the worker.” Yet Jünger likened his Gestalt to Goethe’s “Urpflanze,” a phenomenological, not metaphysical, conception. And Jünger's uses of "will to power" and "eternal return" are inconsistent with cosmological readings of Nietzsche.

This thesis will argue that the core of Jünger’s epistemology is an account of “intuitive perceptions.” Through these intuitive perceptions Jünger thought he grasped metaphysical reality. Through this grasping Jünger came to maintain metaphysical commitments which are incompatible with Heidegger’s reading.

This thesis will argue that Heidegger’s reading of Jünger is mistaken and that Heidegger projects his account of Nietzsche’s metaphysics onto Jünger. And that Jünger himself advanced an epistemological method of intuitive perception and posited metaphysical commitments about the “undifferentiated,” which was his conception of ultimate reality.

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