This essay, the last in a series, focuses on the relationship between Nietzsche's mental illness and his philosophical art. It is predicated upon my original diagnosis of his mental condition as bipolar affective disorder, which began in early adulthood and continued throughout his creative life. The kaleidoscopic mood shifts allowed him to see things from different perspectives and may have imbued his writings with passion rarely encountered in philosophical texts. At times hovering on the verge of psychosis, Nietzsche was able to gain access to unconscious images and the music of language, usually inhibited by the conscious mind. He reached many of his linguistic, psychological and philosophical insights by willing suspension of the rational. None of these, however, could have been communicated had he not tamed the subterranean psychic forces with his impressive discipline and hard work.
Creativity can be defined as aptitude to bring into being something original, valuable and of lasting significance. It is a complex multidimensional construct with both cognitive and affective components, many of which appear to reflect a shared genetic vulnerability with bipolar disorder (Greenwood, 2016). The creative act is not creation ex nihilo, but it is more like unveiling, rearranging and synthesising already known facts, ideas and skills. The etymology of the verb cogitare (to think) goes back to the reduced form co- of the Latin prefix com (together) and agitare (to shake). Shifting moods can become that "shaking agent". The familiar can be seen in a new light, and this forms the essence of a creative act. How many people had seen an apple falling to the ground before this common occurrence inspired Newton to formulate a theory of gravity? Paradoxically, sometimes the more original a discovery, the more obvious it may seem afterwards.
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A genius - that creative spirit - is a rebel and a provocateur who deconstructs the established truths, setting himself at odds with his contemporaries. As Nietzsche would have put it, s/he is often "untimely" and "born posthumously", with an influence that increases with the passage of time. Arguably, few philosophers have left a deeper imprint on Western culture than has Nietzsche - not just in the realm of philosophy, but also in psychology, literature, music and the arts in general. Thinkers as diverse as Heidegger, Freud, Jung, Camus and Wittgenstein; poets and writers including Rilke, Strindberg, Yeats, Hesse, Mann and O'Neill; composers such as Scriabin, Mahler and Richard Strauss; and painters - Munch, de Chirico, Dali - and many others fell under his spell. Wildly diverse groups such as anarchists, Nazis, and Zionists have claimed Nietzsche as their patron-philosopher.
One might argue that few of Nietzsche's ideas were completely new and that it is his art of expression - rich in paradox, ambiguity, vividness of imagery and beguiling beauty - that in fact makes such an indelible impression on the reader. Unlike most philosophers, Nietzsche speaks through emotion, in the manner of poets and musicians. At the heart of what he tries to communicate is deep pain and suffering, and anyone who is familiar with these feelings is likely to become "hooked" on him. He often spoke of his writings as "fish-hooks" and, in a manner of Jesus, he thought of himself as a "fisher of men"
The link between madness and creative genius has long been recognised. Plato emphasised the role of "divine madness" (theia mania) as a source of inspiration (see his Phaedrus, 370 BC/1997, p. 370), and Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, conceded that every discovery contains an "irrational element" (Popper, 1959/2005, p. 8). Henri Poincar, a prominent nineteenth century French mathematician, stressed that "it is by logic that one proves, but it is by intuition that one invents" (cited by Gray, 2013, p. 12). Manic depression (now renamed "bipolar affective disorder") has been shown to be particularly linked to literary creativity (Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1993; Ludwig, 1995). Nancy Andreasen (1987), in her pioneering study of 30 writers, matched with a control group, found that 80% of writers met the diagnostic criteria for mood disorder, and as many as 50% met the criteria for bipolar disorder. By comparison, the lifetime prevalence of a severe form of bipolar disorder in the general population is 1% (6% when considered as a spectrum). Up to 50% of those experienced psychotic symptoms at some time, mostly during manic episodes. Of course, bipolar disorder is not a guarantee for creativity, since only 8% of those affected could be considered highly creative (Greenwood, 2016). Other factors, such as acquisition of knowledge and skill, ambition, determination, discipline and hard work - all of which Nietzsche demonstrated in abundance - are of great importance. As Jamison (1993) observed, many geniuses, including Byron, Tennyson, Melville, William and Henry James, Schumann, Coleridge, Wolf, Hemingway and Plath suffered from bipolar disorder.
Oscillating feeling states can be beneficial in diverse ways, and upswings of mood appear to spur bursts of creativity. Elated mood can ignite thought, create a temporary chaos and open the gate to the irrational by removing customary inhibitions and censorship, thus widening the associative field (see Carson, 2014). In this Dionysian tumult, novel associations by sound or image can be forged. The former may lead to assonances, alliterations, onomatopoeias, rhyme and rhythm, whist the latter can initiate similes, metaphors, allusions, metonymies and connotations. Paradox, oxymoron, irony and hyperbole may also be released by elated mood (Kane, 2004). High energy, which often accompanies elevated mood, can enhance the speed of cognition and expediency of work. By his own account, Nietzsche completed the first three books (chapters) of his Zarathustra in three separate 10-day bursts of creativity. Also, such moods often have an admixture of dysphoria and irritability, and this may lead to bald, even vicious, attacks on ideas or persons. Depressive moods, on the other hand - with slow cognition- are conducive to rumination. Mixed affective states, marked by rapidly fluctuating mood and energy levels, can spark some startling juxtapositions in thought. Alternating moods change the perspective and induce divergent thinking, which lies at the heart of creativity.
Andreasen aptly commented that during "the creative process the brain begins by disorganising" (Andreasen, 2005, pp. 77-78). For Nietzsche, creation and destruction were two sides of the same coin: "we can destroy only as creators" (Nietzsche, 1882/1974, p. 122). The Kantian categorical framework breaks down in psychosis, if only temporarily, and a regression to the pre-categorical mode of thinking is necessary to forge novel associations. Linking remote elements into new combinations is at the heart of the creative process (Mednick, 1962), with a "cognitive flux" as its essential precondition.
Hans Eysenck (1995) drew attention to a link between psychoticism and genius. But how can the psychotic apperception of the world be conducive to creativity? Several researchers have purported that, in psychosis, there is a failure in the filtering mechanism between the conscious and the unconscious (Carson, 2014; Carter, 2015; Frith, 1979). I propose that the term "enlarged consciousness" designate such a condition, and posit a regression to earlier stages of cognition (Freud's "primary process thinking") as its mechanism. In this state of enlarged consciousness, antithetical thoughts and images are set to be allowed in, and this can lead to oxymoronic expressions and contradictions (see below the examples of these in Nietzsche's writings). Eric Kandel, a Nobel Prize neuroscientist, stressed that psychosis does not generate creativity, but rather liberates powers of imagination, which would usually remain locked in by the inhibitions of social and educational convention (Kandel, 2018, pp. 146-147). It goes without saying that a creative individual must already have a wide associative pool at his or her disposal, and that no "dancing star" can be born from chaos alone.
Arthur Koestler suggested that the ability to suspend and then reinstate rational thought is an essential feature of creative genius. He considered association by sound affinity - punning - one of the notorious "games of the underground", which manifest themselves in dreams, in the punning mania of children, and in mental disorders. The capacity to regress to these "games", without losing contact with the surface, is a vital part of poetic and other forms of creativity (Koestler, 1964, p. 314). Kris, an art critic and a psychoanalyst, held that creative individuals have the capacity to switch between the rational (Freud's "secondary process-thinking") and the irrational (Freud's "primary process thinking") almost at will. He dubbed it a "regression in the service of the ego" (Kris (1936/1952, p. 177). By contrast, cognitive inhibition acts as a filtering and pruning mechanism of material not relevant to the task at hand (MacLeod, 2007), which forms a vital part of the executive function of the mind.
It is often by way of revelation that a creative genius arrives at novel association. Sass, inspired by German psychiatry, called it a "truth taking stare" in which reality is unveiled as never before and the world looks eerie, weirdly beautiful and tantalisingly significant (Sass, 1992, p. 44). The concept of unveiling the truth as aletheia was central to Heidegger's phenomenology of meta-physics (Heidegger, 1926/1962, p. 57). Heidegger adopted this term from ancient Greek mythology, and it has been variously translated as "disclosure", "unconcealedness" or "unforgetting" (given its etymological association with the river Lethe in Hades, drinking from which leads to complete forgetfulness). When a familiar, yet repressed, experience erupts through the threshold of consciousness in a historically unfamiliar situation, it feels both familiar and new; as such, it feels uncanny (see Freud's "The Uncanny", 1919/1985). Aletheia is closely related to apophenia, a tendency to perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things. 152ee80cbc
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