This article re-examines Nietzsche’s analysis of the phenomenology of agent causation, in particular his analysis of our conscious, first-person sense of agency. It shows that Nietzsche assumes a self-mechanism that — while experientially underpinning a false concept of ‘free will’ — tracks a self-systems’ successful effort in overcoming resistance, which takes the experience of agent causation. The article argues that Nietzsche’s account of agent causation is continuous with the results of Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy studies as well as Antonio Damasio neurobiological account that understand the self as a homeostatic system that knows of itself precisely because it ‘tracks’ — with the help of primordial feelings, affects, and emotions — its embodied and situated nature.
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