The Death Drive in Dostoevsky's Demons: A Project in Psychoanalysis
In this essay, I embark on a project of Freudian psychoanalysis of two of the most important char... more In this essay, I embark on a project of Freudian psychoanalysis of two of the most important characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons (1871-1872): Nikolai Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky. Per Freud, I describe what psychodynamic events led to the way the troubled characters sublimate and otherwise manifest their death drives.
In Canadian author Sharon Butala’s autobiography, her new life in rural southwestern Saskatchewan... more In Canadian author Sharon Butala’s autobiography, her new life in rural southwestern Saskatchewan forces her to adapt to a new way of being seemingly opposite from her previous life as a scholar and urban resident of Saskatoon while raising a child, learning, and working. Her new life in the rural North American prairies allows for Butala to develop a passion for the natural world, while also processing her relation and her land’s history with indigenous peoples. With that understanding, this paper partakes in a decolonial and psychoanalytical analysis of the way Indigenous concepts and people are and are understood, all the while discussing the implications of Butala’s ideas and representations as a starting point for the larger indigenous-led effort for justice in respect to their human and cultural rights. I completed this work when I was 18 as a part of a research project for course credit my senior year in high school.
Love, Beauty, Rationality and Faith: Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is an attempt ... more Love, Beauty, Rationality and Faith: Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is an attempt to provide further exegetical support for a more subtle and unusual interpretation of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Arguing against Nehamas' interpretation, notably laid out in his article "The Eternal Recurrence," I defend an interpretation supported by Andrew Huddleston and Andrew Reginster most notably that emphasizes the exaggerated nature of Nietzsche's or Zarathustra's forwarded propositions, respectively.
I follow Walter Kaufmann's suggestion that The Gay Science should be read with each passage informing the other, so to interpret passage 341, I spend time to lay out an interpretation of the surrounding passages and how they support my interpretation of the eternal recurrence in 341.
The eternal recurrence is widely understood to be either a metaphysical claim or a thought experiment used to test whether people affirm their lives, and that affirmation is the epitome of Nietzsche’s philosophical project. I only consider the possibility of the thought experiment interpretation.
I recognize that the thesis is not perfect, but I believe that it could form a significant breakthrough in studies of the eternal recurrence and reorient popular understandings of what Nietzsche meant when he offered the eternal recurrence in The Gay Science.
This thesis was a co-winner for the John Martyn Warbeke Class of 1903 Prize in Metaphysics and Epistemology.
This paper is an edited and condensed version of my final paper for the writing seminar class I t... more This paper is an edited and condensed version of my final paper for the writing seminar class I took my first year at Princeton University. The theme of the class was acceleration, so I took a very theoretical approach to the idea and focused around the term as coined by Dr. Benjamin Noys.
In the paper, I seek to find similarities in political methodology by the former Marxist Jacques Camatte and the semiotician Jean Baudrillard. I defend that there are many more similarities between the theorists' ideas than one may initially presume that stem from their shared understanding of the totalizing nature of capitalism.
Heidegger and Geoengineering: Technology and Being in the Anthropocene, 2019
This paper, initially submitted as a preliminary work that would be placed in a time capsule that... more This paper, initially submitted as a preliminary work that would be placed in a time capsule that will be dug up in 2073 for a freshman seminar taught by Professor Emeritus Robert Socolow, seeks to grapple with two futures that may emerge on our planet: one with geoengineering as an SRM technology, and one without it. Beyond the technology itself, this paper questions the more fundamental nature of geoengineering in terms of how it changes metaphysics, which I use the conceptions of Martin Heidegger to explore while answering why society might or might not collectively decide to geoengineer.
The Death Drive in Dostoevsky's Demons: A Project in Psychoanalysis
In this essay, I embark on a project of Freudian psychoanalysis of two of the most important char... more In this essay, I embark on a project of Freudian psychoanalysis of two of the most important characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons (1871-1872): Nikolai Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky. Per Freud, I describe what psychodynamic events led to the way the troubled characters sublimate and otherwise manifest their death drives.
In Canadian author Sharon Butala’s autobiography, her new life in rural southwestern Saskatchewan... more In Canadian author Sharon Butala’s autobiography, her new life in rural southwestern Saskatchewan forces her to adapt to a new way of being seemingly opposite from her previous life as a scholar and urban resident of Saskatoon while raising a child, learning, and working. Her new life in the rural North American prairies allows for Butala to develop a passion for the natural world, while also processing her relation and her land’s history with indigenous peoples. With that understanding, this paper partakes in a decolonial and psychoanalytical analysis of the way Indigenous concepts and people are and are understood, all the while discussing the implications of Butala’s ideas and representations as a starting point for the larger indigenous-led effort for justice in respect to their human and cultural rights. I completed this work when I was 18 as a part of a research project for course credit my senior year in high school.
Love, Beauty, Rationality and Faith: Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is an attempt ... more Love, Beauty, Rationality and Faith: Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is an attempt to provide further exegetical support for a more subtle and unusual interpretation of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Arguing against Nehamas' interpretation, notably laid out in his article "The Eternal Recurrence," I defend an interpretation supported by Andrew Huddleston and Andrew Reginster most notably that emphasizes the exaggerated nature of Nietzsche's or Zarathustra's forwarded propositions, respectively.
I follow Walter Kaufmann's suggestion that The Gay Science should be read with each passage informing the other, so to interpret passage 341, I spend time to lay out an interpretation of the surrounding passages and how they support my interpretation of the eternal recurrence in 341.
The eternal recurrence is widely understood to be either a metaphysical claim or a thought experiment used to test whether people affirm their lives, and that affirmation is the epitome of Nietzsche’s philosophical project. I only consider the possibility of the thought experiment interpretation.
I recognize that the thesis is not perfect, but I believe that it could form a significant breakthrough in studies of the eternal recurrence and reorient popular understandings of what Nietzsche meant when he offered the eternal recurrence in The Gay Science.
This thesis was a co-winner for the John Martyn Warbeke Class of 1903 Prize in Metaphysics and Epistemology.
This paper is an edited and condensed version of my final paper for the writing seminar class I t... more This paper is an edited and condensed version of my final paper for the writing seminar class I took my first year at Princeton University. The theme of the class was acceleration, so I took a very theoretical approach to the idea and focused around the term as coined by Dr. Benjamin Noys.
In the paper, I seek to find similarities in political methodology by the former Marxist Jacques Camatte and the semiotician Jean Baudrillard. I defend that there are many more similarities between the theorists' ideas than one may initially presume that stem from their shared understanding of the totalizing nature of capitalism.
Heidegger and Geoengineering: Technology and Being in the Anthropocene, 2019
This paper, initially submitted as a preliminary work that would be placed in a time capsule that... more This paper, initially submitted as a preliminary work that would be placed in a time capsule that will be dug up in 2073 for a freshman seminar taught by Professor Emeritus Robert Socolow, seeks to grapple with two futures that may emerge on our planet: one with geoengineering as an SRM technology, and one without it. Beyond the technology itself, this paper questions the more fundamental nature of geoengineering in terms of how it changes metaphysics, which I use the conceptions of Martin Heidegger to explore while answering why society might or might not collectively decide to geoengineer.
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I completed this work when I was 18 as a part of a research project for course credit my senior year in high school.
Papers by Reid Zlotky
I follow Walter Kaufmann's suggestion that The Gay Science should be read with each passage informing the other, so to interpret passage 341, I spend time to lay out an interpretation of the surrounding passages and how they support my interpretation of the eternal recurrence in 341.
The eternal recurrence is widely understood to be either a metaphysical claim or a thought experiment used to test whether people affirm their lives, and that affirmation is the epitome of Nietzsche’s philosophical project. I only consider the possibility of the thought experiment interpretation.
I recognize that the thesis is not perfect, but I believe that it could form a significant breakthrough in studies of the eternal recurrence and reorient popular understandings of what Nietzsche meant when he offered the eternal recurrence in The Gay Science.
This thesis was a co-winner for the John Martyn Warbeke Class of 1903 Prize in Metaphysics and Epistemology.
In the paper, I seek to find similarities in political methodology by the former Marxist Jacques Camatte and the semiotician Jean Baudrillard. I defend that there are many more similarities between the theorists' ideas than one may initially presume that stem from their shared understanding of the totalizing nature of capitalism.
I completed this work when I was 18 as a part of a research project for course credit my senior year in high school.
I follow Walter Kaufmann's suggestion that The Gay Science should be read with each passage informing the other, so to interpret passage 341, I spend time to lay out an interpretation of the surrounding passages and how they support my interpretation of the eternal recurrence in 341.
The eternal recurrence is widely understood to be either a metaphysical claim or a thought experiment used to test whether people affirm their lives, and that affirmation is the epitome of Nietzsche’s philosophical project. I only consider the possibility of the thought experiment interpretation.
I recognize that the thesis is not perfect, but I believe that it could form a significant breakthrough in studies of the eternal recurrence and reorient popular understandings of what Nietzsche meant when he offered the eternal recurrence in The Gay Science.
This thesis was a co-winner for the John Martyn Warbeke Class of 1903 Prize in Metaphysics and Epistemology.
In the paper, I seek to find similarities in political methodology by the former Marxist Jacques Camatte and the semiotician Jean Baudrillard. I defend that there are many more similarities between the theorists' ideas than one may initially presume that stem from their shared understanding of the totalizing nature of capitalism.