Introduction to Some of Nietzsches Concepts

Prepared by Paolo A. Bolaos

The greatness of philosophy is measured by the nature of the events to which its concepts summon us or that it enables us to release in concepts. So the unique, exclusive bond between concepts and philosophy as a creative discipline must be tested in its finest details. The concept belongs to philosophy and only to philosophy. - G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy?

The Concepts
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The Horrific Life Metaphorical World The Heaviest Weight Nihilism Force and Power

The Horrific Life

Dionysiac art . . . wants to convince us of the eternal lust and delight of existence; but we are to seek this delight, not in appearances but behind them. We are to recognize that everything which comes into being must be prepared for painful destruction; we are forced to gaze into the terrors of individual existence - and yet we are not to freeze in horror: its metaphysical solace tears us momentarily out of the turmoil of changing figures. - F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, sect. 17

In BT, Nietzsche proposes that it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world can be justified. For Nietzsche philosophy begins with horror - existence is horrible and absurd. The above speaks of Nietzsches influence on existential philosophy. We find this leitmotiv in Heidegger (Angst), Sartre (Nausea), and Camus (Absurd). The BT is the most existential of Nietzsches main works.

 The BT contains Nietzsches early musings on nihilism. Nihilism is articulated as an existential affair arising from a cosmic problem, in contrast to nihilism as a cultural/historical pathology. The BT contributes to aesthetics via Nietzsches discussion of the dialectical interaction between the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits. The BT also stages a critical encounter with Socratic optimism, which Nietzsche sees as decadent and life negating.

Between Apollo and Dionysus

The A and D are competing sensibilities in Greek culture. A - the god of light, dream and prophecy, the shining one. D - the god of intoxication and rapture. A - visible form, comprehensible knowledge, and moderation. D - formless flux, mystical imagination, and excess.

A - names a world of distinct individuals (principle of identity/individuation). D - names a world where distinct individuals are dissolved and find themselves reconciled with the elemental forces and energies of nature. Through Dsian rapture we become part of a single, living being with whose joy in eternal creation we are fused.

A is the god of the plastic or representational arts, like painting and sculpture. While Dionysus is the god of the non-representational art of music, w/out physical form. For Nietzsche, the A is a complex and tedious engagement with the D. Nietzsche seeks for an adequate union between the two sensibilities which he finds in Greek tragedy.

We suffer as individuals for various reasons. Once we recognize our cosmic insignificance we know that there is no ultimate purpose to human existence. The inevitable fact of death brings this home to each individual clearly and forcefully, thats why Heidegger calls it ones ownmost possibility. Life is characterized by desire and energy, but this activity is not centered on us humans - life is a biological network and we dont control it.

This existential nihilism gives us a profound and pessimistic view of life. As humans with the propensity to rationalize the world, we are alienated from nature and our awareness of this separation afflicts us - this is the cause of our suffering - philosophy begins in horror. For Nietzsche, the world is a tragic play of opposites - per se, it knows no redemption and requires no salvation.

 It is through philosophy that one overcomes harsh (not necessarily evil) reality. Philosophy is a matter of tragic wisdom. Tragic wisdom can only be cultivated through understanding the relation between A and D sensibilities. We need to understand that theres a primordial strife between D (darkness) and A (light), or chaos and logos. It is through art that this tragic insight comes in full force - for art itself is this active engagement with existential nihilism. It is through art that one can affirm life and find joy in becoming, even in destruction.

The Rhetorical Worldview

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer coins (TLNM 1).

 Nietzsche takes the role of language seriously. From a rhetorical point of view, the world is mediated through language. It is only by means of language that we make sense of the world, only by means of language as mediation that we negotiate our ways in the world. Thinking is, therefore, linguisticOne infers here according to the grammatical habit: Thinking is an activity; every activity requires an agent . . . (BGE 17). Nietzsche is critical of an ontology and epistemology based on the metaphysical worldview create a world of transcendent forms which results in a nihilistic worldview,

The basic tendency of metaphysics, beginning with Plato, is the over valorization of a hierarchy which prioritizes essences over appearances and, in effect, results in an epistemology which purports an essentialist notion of truth rather than interpretation. An ontology and epistemology based on the metaphysical worldview create a world of transcendent forms which results in a nihilistic worldview, as discussed above.

 An ontology of transcendence downplays the immanent world of appearances; to Nietzsche, this is the fiction that metaphysicians superimpose on reality, a fiction which results in the denigration of the earth, the body, the sensualin other words, the denigration of whatever is physical and the valorization of the supra-mundane, the spirit, the hallowedin other words, the reified. In The Will to Power, Nietzsche points out that the Root of the idea of substance is in language, not in beings outside us! (WP 562). This simply means that what metaphysicians call substance, regarded as essence, is something which we negotiate through the system of language and, thus, is merely an epiphenomenon of thought.

 Common forms of talking about the world (theological, scientific, philosophical, political, or sociological, inter alia) are, to Nietzsche, linguistic transactions with reality. For Nietzsche the strict opposition between conceptual and metaphorical language has already been effaced in the rhetorical view. This is not to say, however, that Nietzsche rejects an outside world. As a matter of fact, based on his philosophy of the will to power where forces are considered expressions of power, the so called outside world is also the world of forces; for Nietzsche, the affirmative expression of force is only possible in relation to other forcesan active force is always a force that acts on other forces, by conquering them or overcoming them.

Our relationship with the world, therefore, is one of subjugation and not comprehension. If we take the world as a force or assemblages of forces, then it is something that gives itself to us (akin to Heideggers notion of es gibt); we do not, however, accept what the world gives us, rather, we subjugate the world via our only possible means, language. Language, therefore, is a way of anthropomorphizing nature.

The Heaviest Weight

What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliness and say to you: This life as you live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again . . .. If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, Do you want this again and innumerable times again? would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? (GS 341).

Eternal return parodies the idea of an ultimate selection, one that would come to an end of ones life as a final judgment and determine whether one goes to heaven or hell. Following Zoroastrian religion, the determination of salvation or condemnation is based on ones attainment of ethical achievement. The ER, therefore, is Nietzsches version of an ethical imperative. It is a psychological test of ethical health.

 As opposed to traditional moral philosophy, Nietzsches ethics of affirmation is not based on metaphysical or transcendent categories. As a psychological test, the ER does not force us to follow pre-given standards but, rather, requires the active selection of what is important and significant in our lives. The ER does not condemn us to an infinitely repeated life in which we are powerless to transform ourselves, but asks us to incorporate in our lives as a musical refrain the question: Do I want this again and again? This way, we are always reminded of the weight of things that confront us.

Nihilism
In the mature Nietzsche, we find a shift in the meaning of nihilism. Nihilism now becomes a cultural or historical pathology. He declares: Nihilism stands at the door,what might have caused it?he adds, the Christianmoral one, that nihilism is rooted (WP, I, 1) The decadent characteristic of the Judeo-Christian tradition is understood by Nietzsche as a mode of being typical of the spirit of ressentiment. The practice of this kind of morality, this purported panacea for the ills of humanity, is nihilistic in the sense that it rips out life by the root, and thus becomes an enemy of life (TI, V, 1).

 He argues that nihilism is rooted in Christian morality, because he views Christianity to be the very epitome of a negative stance towards lifeit has proven itself to be the best vehicle of ressentiment and bad conscience. Nietzsche envisions the end of Christianityat the hands of its own morality (WP, I, 1). However, this critique of morality is not limited to the Christian religion alone, but, significantly, also a critique of the more general contexts of religion, psychology, history, and metaphysics; this is the reason why Nietzsche views nihilism as a cultural experienceit is, in a sense, an all-inclusive reality that has the tendency to creep into every nook and cranny of life.

 Nihilism and the spirit of revenge are synonymous, or ressentiment is an instance of nihilism. Nihilism can also be understood as a mode of being that has informed our ways of living, the spirit of revenge is the genealogical element of our thought, the transcendental principle of our way of thinking (Deleuze, NP) Hence, any analysis of nihilism must take into account this ontological fact, because nihilism is an enemy of life. Nihilism operates whenever ones sensitivity to life is disparaging, and that life itself is rendered dispensable. In this sense, it is not surprising that Nietzsche considers Socrates to be the ancient precursor of this base mode of being.