An Eminently Bearable Lightness of Being—On Nietzsche's Critique of Metaphysics
Eftirfarandi ritgerð fjallar um hugsun Nietzsche. Nánar tiltekið er hún um gagnrýni hans á hefðbundna frumspeki og hinn svokallaða handanheim. Málverkið í haus er eftir John Frederick Kensett frá árinu 1869 og heitir Lake George. Ritgerðin er um 5000 orð. Tölurnar í hornklofum merkja tilvísanir, sem finna má að ritgerðinni lokinni. Vonandi njótið þið lestursins.
Introduction
The German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche[1] is widely thought to be an absolute opponent of the philosophical discipline commonly known as metaphysics. Generally, this conception is correct. However, as any careful reader of Nietzsche must recognize, there is always some degree of nuanced subtlety, irony and skepticism at work in his thought, which makes absolutist characterizations of Nietzsche quite dubious. In my view, as I will endeavour to show in the course of this essay, Nietzsche’s attitude towards metaphysics is not at all a static, dogmatically antithetical view. It might better be described as a skeptical and nuanced inquiry into the “uses and abuses” of metaphysics for life. In order to do this, I will highlight some aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophical thought that, while highly critical of the history of metaphysics as a whole, ultimately point towards a measured appreciation and reevaluation of the foundations of the metaphysical discipline as such.
Now, anyone faced with the seemingly innocuous task of writing a short, coherent essay about Nietzsche’s thought is in for a rough ride. Not only is he an “evolutionary” thinker—in the sense that his written corpus comprises a protean,[2] kaleidoscopic body—but throughout his philosophical career he favored incomplete thoughts, aphorisms and quasi-poetic narratives over systematization, completeness and rigorous coherence such as has been prevalent in modern philosophical methodology.[3] Any essay on Nietzsche must then, in a sense, retain the aphoristic incompleteness[4] at work in his writings: in order to write effectively about his work, one must restrict one’s scope to a select range of his writings, and in so doing, one almost inevitably leaves out of consideration various “contradictory” elements.[5] In the course of this essay, I restrict myself to a reading of Nietzsche’s “middle” writings—a period of great intellectual ferment—including both his published and unpublished writings from the period of Human, All Too Human, up to and including Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
As indicated above, this essay comprises an argumentative “rumination” of sorts,[6] one that takes as its focus a single but variegated strand running through Nietzsche’s middle writings: the question and critique of metaphysics, as well as what it might mean for an individual to take Nietzsche‘s critique to heart. The essay is structured as follows.
The first section covers Nietzsche‘s ideas on the origin of the metaphysical beyond in his early middle writings. In his view, metaphysics is grounded in certain errors which privilege linguistic constructs, such as concepts and names, over against sensory experience, appearance. This privilege ultimately gives rise to imaginary worlds “beyond” the world. Because of this, Nietzsche tended to conceive of metaphysics in general as an unscientific, erroneous and ultimately frivolous mode of inquiry, one that‘s inconsequential for flesh-and-blood humans and doomed to disappear.
In the second section, I will examine in detail Nietzsche‘s case against metaphysical beyonds and critically examine his proposed alternative as it appears in Human, All Too Human. I‘ll argue that his proposal is ultimately unattractive because it is neither positive nor creative enough. It has the effect of throwing Nietzsche‘s readers into weightlessness because it relies too heavily on a naïve scientism devoid of positive content. What is needed is a novel narrative, a new evaluation, not a world of ruins.
The third section explores this last point further. In it, I seek to show how Nietzsche comes to understand that the ultimate point of criticizing and overcoming metaphysics is not simply to be rid of metaphysics. The deeper insight to be gleaned can be found by examining the soil from which metaphysics sprung in the first place—the drives and evaluations that underlie the “metaphysical need” as such. In the later middle period, Nietzsche comes to realize that in and through an examination of these values, their contingency is brought to the foreground, which undermines their authority just enough for a reevaluation to become conceivable. The philosopher becomes capable of courageously “[inscribing] new values on new tables”[7] instead of inheriting a dogma of the meek—a dogma grounded in an excessive craving for security and uniformity, enslaving them to some transcendent principle or other, a reality residing beyond appearance.
Finally, in the fourth section, I will consider in greater detail whether Nietzsche actually manages to alleviate the off-putting fatalism of his earlier position discussed in the second section. I will argue that he does not, in fact—and that instead he opts to embrace fatalism. In closing, I consider whether the Nietzsche of the middle period has in truth “overcome” metaphysics in any meaningful sense—and find in conclusion that he in fact does, finally suggesting that he may have found a way to transform metaphysics into a form of play for adults.
I. Metaphysics and the origin of the yonderworld
Let us begin, then, by considering Nietzsche’s early middle-period account of the presuppositions and origins of traditional metaphysics. Following the short-lived metaphysical intoxication of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche seeks to slow down his thinking, to become “cool, sober, icy”[8]—and in Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche does this by turning away from the metaphysical romanticism of Schopenhauer and Wagner, looking instead towards materialism and science.[9] In the first chapter of Human, All Too Human, aptly titled “Of First And Last Things,” he rails against the methodology behind metaphysical and religious systems, calling them “the very worst methods of knowledge.”[10] The argument is set against “the world beyond the world”—which might be called the “yonderworld,” the prefix yonder- used here in the sense of “be-yond.”[11] The origins of the concept of the yonderworld, Nietzsche argues, may be traced back to the ancient distinction between “appearance” and “reality”. This distinction initially arises, Nietzsche argues, from a primordial identification of the relatively static world of words and grammar (the “metaphysics of the people”[12]) with a “true” or “real” world.[13] Words, grammar and concepts are then imagined to be wholly separate and prior to simple sensory data, which in turn becomes, in a topsy-turvy manner, “less palpable.”
The argument becomes readily apparent—and in my view quite plausible—when one surveys the most quintessentially “metaphysical” doctrines the history of philosophy has to offer. Parmenides, for example, locates the truth of Being in the tautology: “That which is, is―but that which is not, is not,” [14] locating a world of immutable certainty beyond our everyday doxastic and bodily experience which wrongly assumes that there is change in the world. Plato, likewise, locates the truth of Being in ideal “forms,” of which the sensible realm of becoming is a mere shadow or image—forms which are only accessible to us through ratiocinative discourse or dialectics.[15] Similarly, Descartes finds assurance and certainty in logical “clear and distinct ideas” as opposed to the data provided to him by his faulty senses, and ultimately, the clarity and distinctness of these ideas are guaranteed by a transcendent God.[16] Even Kant―who portends to finally do away with fanciful metaphysical speculation by establishing the limits of reason itself―ultimately succumbs to a form of transcendence when he “[suspends] knowledge in order to make room for belief,”[17] locating the practical basis for morality in the Ideas of Reason; God, freedom and immortality―ultimately, beyond the event horizon of the Ding an sich.[18] Metaphysics thus appears to us, in general, as a discourse on the transcendent beyond―and it’s all because of this original, erroneous distinction.
Of course, religion has a similar modus operandi, one that has the transcendent as its focus, although religious discourse is not ratiocinative but rather mystical. Instead of appealing to human rationality, religion appeals to divine revelation or mystical enlightenment in order to establish a transcendent reality―a heaven, hell, pure land or any other form of mystical jenseits. Although these modes of discourse can differ in their methodological approaches, they are all founded upon the same fundamental error: they all refer in some way or another to a transcendent world, a logos,[19] reality or principle beyond an apparent world which grounds and justifies the latter. For simplicity’s sake, we shall uniformly refer to these transcendent worlds beyond the world as yonderworlds.
In sum: traditional metaphysical practice has relied on a division between “appearance” and “reality,” in which ratiocinative and logical discourse is privileged[20] as a science which allows access to that which is “true” or “real”―a reality which resides above and beyond that which merely appears or seems.[21] By and through this division traditional metaphysics tends to conclude that there is another world beyond the world which is exclusively accessible and comprehensible through this rational discourse. The belief in and privileging of the world beyond carries weighty implications for morality, of course. The moment one infers the existence of such a yonderworld one erroneously superimposes a completely fictitious idea of a “reality” beyond appearance upon appearance itself. Moreover, it is a “reality” that is ultimately based on appearance—although alienated from it by way of abstraction. Believing the fictitious idea of the beyond to have a greater reality than appearance, one then makes of this superimposed fiction a roadmap for how best to live one’s life. For example, in superimposing the Christian yonderworld[22] upon the world of appearance, one “translates” one’s actions in the realm of appearance into a result in the realm of truth: one must not sin, for the sinful are destined to burn in hell for all eternity. It is in this way that moral ideas based on yonderworldly presuppositions corral us towards behaving in a specific manner, one that might not at all be healthy or good for us.[23]
II. Against the yonderworld in Human, All Too Human
Thus having divined the origin of yonderworlds, Nietzsche goes on to make a strong claim in Human, All Too Human. He contends that once we have revealed the methodology and presuppositions underlying metaphysics to have been founded upon an error, the whole affair will have been effectively refuted once and for all.[24] This early argument relies strongly upon the reader coming to see metaphysics as having been exposed and made vulnerable by Nietzsche’s exposition of the fundamental assumptions underlying it as a traditional practice. The idea, it seems, is for the reader to immediately grasp the significance and gravity of his insinuations and to fall back, in light of this crisis, on a scientism of sorts; a trust in the explanatory power of biology, history, psychology and various other branches of empirical science.[25] This seems a somewhat hasty, naïve conclusion—one which appears to be implicitly undermined even in the very same chapter when Nietzsche contends that fully understanding metaphysics must require taking a step backwards in order to understand the “historical and psychological justification in metaphysical ideas.”[26]
As far as I can tell, Nietzsche does not take this crucial retrograde step in Human, All Too Human—at least not in the first volume. Instead of doing so, he seems to leave the reader mired in an icy, almost Hyperborean scientism, in which all human life is “sunk deep in untruth,” leaving “only one way of thought left”: personal despair accompanied by a destructive philosophy.[27] He does attempt to provide the reader with some reassurance—although, a little disappointingly, it seems to fatalistically depend on the temperament or nature of the reader. A reader predisposed to neurosis or melancholy would certainly find Nietzsche’s philosophy impossible to stomach,[28] as they would find in it nothing but despair and destruction. The secure, mild and cheerful reader, however, could probably make do with finding themselves in a world of post-metaphysical ruin—to quote Horace: “si fractus inlabatur orbis, inpavidum ferient ruinae.”[29] Such an undaunted soul might content itself with weightlessly hovering over the ruins of churches and temples[30]―free of the goading thought that one might be at a remove from nature, different from it.[31] It seems to me, however, that Nietzsche’s reassurance is an unsatisfactory one.[32] The end result of the argument in Human, All Too Human feels akin to a game of ultra-nihilistic Russian Roulette. You either bite the melancholic bullet and consign yourself to despair or you must force yourself to keep up a manner of indifference in the weightlessness of the abyss left behind by the death of the yonderworld. This isn’t the Friedrich Nietzsche we’ve grown accustomed to—the philosopher of good cheer and joyful experimentation. This is perhaps Nietzsche at his very coldest and most disillusioned.
Ultimately, that which leaves Nietzsche’s analysis wanting is the lack of an elucidation of the drives and evaluations underlying metaphysics—a complete lack of positive narrative to take the place of the ancient yonderworldly one. Leaving the reader suspended in weightlessness as Human, All Too Human seems to suggest is to violently pull the rug from under their feet, throwing them into an inescapable nihilism, which is probably equally as bad or possibly even worse than dogmatically believing in a metaphysical doctrine. Exposing metaphysics to a scathing criticism of its fundamental assumptions and methodologies is simply not enough to destroy them—it appears to create more problems than it solves. What Nietzsche must do, and this he comes to realize throughout his middle period—with a fuller understanding surfacing as early as in The Wanderer and his Shadow[33]—is to point the reader towards glimpsing the possibility of a positive reevaluation of the values underlying metaphysics and a selective cultivation of drives. The restriction of our choice between the terrifying “Either/Or” of abolishing either our reverences or ourselves—Nietzsche has become deathly suspicious of this ultimatum, as a particular aphorism in the Gay Science clearly shows.[34] Why not, instead, create new reverences—reverences which spring from ourselves, reverences which do not require us to “abolish ourselves”? In light of this development, the aim of Nietzsche’s philosophical project thus undergoes an important shift: it becomes a positive science of introspection and observation of the drives and a critical reevaluating process of self-cultivation through the application of certain crucial intellectual virtues. He comes to understand that it is only as creators that we are capable of destruction.[35] It becomes, in a sense, a novel and radical physics of the personal.[36]
III. Evaluations, drives and the feeling of power
As mentioned above, it is in the later middle writings that Nietzsche starts to look towards a theory of drives and valuations. In brief, the idea—as I understand it—is as follows. Nietzsche contends that metaphysics only arise from a certain drive. Drives are bio-psychological forces—loci of movement—from which the phenomenon of desire originates. Desires view certain objects or aims as valuable, they evaluate. The certain drive from which metaphysics springs (the “religious drive”)[37] places value upon a certain kind of formal, cognitive recognition of the identical and habitual—it is a desire for the regular, foreseeable and unsurprising. Underlying all privileging of linguistic constructs over the flux of sensory data is a drive for a feeling of security, a drive that makes the uniform and identical desirable. One might view this drive as an evolutionary byproduct: those organisms capable of identifying recurring patterns in the constant flux of sensory difference and thus anticipating what was to come were more likely to survive, since they could better take precautions against danger and predators.[38] Such a drive could also be construed as a drive for a feeling of power—since those organisms that could anticipate events before they took place were in a greater position to exercise power over other organisms precisely through that capability.[39] It’s easy to complete the puzzle from here on: the use of universal concepts and names, fictional but useful identities, allowed human organisms to recognize and act upon potentialities before they were actualized. The universals were then reified and privileged as the more real.
Now, the most immediate observation this insight might engender within us is the thought that an individual organism’s well-being is not at all necessarily equal or even commensurable to the well-being[40] of the individual organism’s species[41]―which means that advantages on the macro-scale may just as well be liabilities on the micro-scale. All in all, this means that our itch for security and uniformity (which we scratch in and through fictitious linguistic identities and narratives) may thwart our search for a joyful life and a feeling of self-possession and power. It might very well be the cause of our “seriousness,”[42] acting as a leaden yonderwoldly gravity that keeps us grounded[43]―when we might possibly be able to spring lightly into the air instead.
Insightful as this may seem, an important question remains unanswered: how does knowing this help us at all? Does it not simply constitute another layer of alienating and yet useless explanation―a further bolstering of our already disconcerting understanding of the cosmic indifference that has hitherto shaped human desires, values and meaning? I would argue, and Nietzsche would as well, that it need not. On the contrary, understanding the need for metaphysics to have sprung out of a drive for identity and security lays bare the historicity and contingency of commonly held valuations and clarifies the possibility of performing a conscious and personal reevaluation, a novel creation in the fullest, purest sense. Further, and more importantly, the concepts of drive and valuation are the positive narrative devices Nietzsche was lacking in building a philosophical alternative to the yonderworld. They allow him to focus on and emphasize on this world, this life, this body—in a way few other philosophers have managed to do.
The more significant point is that one might not be able to completely escape the reification of fictitious linguistic narrativizations and “return” to a primordial world of pure flux. However, that’s not necessarily a negative result. If recognizing the falsity of metaphysics is the first and more negative step, understanding the impossibility of such a “return” is the second, more positive step. Our all-too human existence is one of complete submersion in concepts, names and ideas—which have their uses and abuses for our lives. Instead of ridding ourselves of them, our task is rather to judge which ones are useful and empowering and which ones are poisonous and enfeebling. Ironically, it is through the very dialectics invented by the drive for uniformity and identity that the philosopher is capable of reasoning against the drive for identity and for another one instead―but the reasoning must always be performed in and through the drive for security, ultimately sublimating it.
Instead of burying our heads in the “sand of heavenly things,”[44] we become capable of attending to and appreciating that which is nearmost to ourselves; our environment, our body, our feelings.[45] We can create for ourselves a diverse garden[46] in which we can observe and cultivate certain drives while weeding out others[47]—a garden in which we can actively respond to the simple appearance of ourselves—a garden of observatory responsiveness and responsibility. This, I believe, is the profound meaning of Nietzsche’s hearty “hurrah!” for physics: we are not to become physicists in the colloquial sense, but rather in the idiosyncratic—we must become observers of ourselves, observers of that which is lawful and necessary within us, natural scientists of our ownmost natures.[48] We are thus not talking about a “physics” in the usual meaning of the term at all, but rather of a meta-physics without the “meta,” the after- or the beyond in the sense of “τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά.” Perhaps we might call this new discipline of ours a ‘physics—the comma denoting the obsoletion of the after, of the yonder.[49]
But how are we to proceed, then, in our new-found science? Given that one accepts Nietzsche’s reasoning, what is one to make of it? This becomes the grand question for each of his readers. It should not come as a surprise that Nietzsche himself does not portend to provide his readers with any final or ultimate answers to such a question—and he even contends that to do so would lead to ruin.[50] However, there are some hints or sketches to a methodology or, perhaps more aptly, a handbook,[51] scattered through the writings of the latter middle period.
Firstly, Nietzsche emphazises an active, skeptical and experimental approach to the cultivation of the drives.[52] Secondly, he places great importance on a few crucial intellectual virtues: honesty, courage, magnanimity and politeness.[53] This may very well be all Nietzsche needs to do to set us upon our merry way. Each of us needs only cultivate within ourselves an honest, courageous and magnanimous demeanor through experimentation and skeptical questioning—and if we stay true to ourselves through this cultivation, we’ll better be able to create for ourselves a joyful way of life, discover the truths that make us and only us happy. The gaya scienza requires naught but the constant, critical and conscientious application of these basic principles to work—and that’s the beauty of it.
IV. A problem reproduced—and perhaps solved
A question remains. Has Nietzsche truly taken a step beyond the unsatisfactory weightlessness we found in Human, All Too Human? Our disappointment arose from the powerlessness of the individual regarding their own joyfulness—their reaction to the “death” of the yonderworld seemed to completely depend upon their constitution, whether they were naturally melancholic or of good cheer. Now we must ask ourselves again: does Nietzsche solve this powerlessness by locating the potentiality for autopoiesis in the cultivation of certain drives? In doing so, he necessarily relies upon the existence of another drive—a drive for honesty and joyfulness, a “passion for knowledge,” of sorts. There is no transcendental ego which makes the final decision on which drives should be nurtured and which should be neutered. There are solely drives, each of which is in competition with each other within the human organism over the reins to the body.[54] The decision to cultivate certain drives thus must be the result of a valuation performed by a desire springing from another drive. In a sense, it’s “drives all the way down”!
What I mean, then, is that the unsatisfactoriness apparent in Human, All Too Human—the unsatisfactoriness which sprung from the seemingly fatalistic conclusion that those melancholic in nature faced naught but despair while those of good cheer might be able to make do—seems to have resurfaced in the theory of drives. In order to be able to cultivate certain drives towards a joyful way of life, one must then already be of a certain nature: one must already possess a strong drive towards honesty, towards courage, towards idiosyncracy. One must, when it comes down to it, already possess strength and courage in order to strengthen and embolden oneself. In light of this, I would argue that Nietzsche does not solve the powerlessness—and I imagine he would concur: there is no “solution” of the kind one would like to search for.
I believe Nietzsche saw this problem very clearly—and as far as I can tell, this seemingly inescapable fatalistic dimension is the reason why he’s forced to fall back upon the highly controversial idea of eternal recurrence[55] as a narrative device. One must embrace fate, one must love fate (hence, amor fati[56]) and fearlessly give to life everything one’s got. The idea of recurrence serves as a litmus test of sorts: if eternity appears too heavy for you to bear, you are already doomed to a timid, ephemeral existence—you never were strong enough to create for yourself a gay science.
This is precisely why Nietzsche calls recurrence “the greatest weight”:[57] because, in order to counter the weightlessness, one must throw in one’s own weight—one must take a bet on oneself. The point is to take a chance on oneself, using love courageously “as a device”[58] for experimentation, cheering oneself on even when it seems most hopeless, even when it feels like there’s no chance for improvement or empowerment. It’s not “rational,” and it doesn’t “make sense.” But for certain types it’s a necessity. For them, it’s either this enormous risk or the living hell of a gloomy and dreadful abyss of weightlessness—an “Either/Or” much preferable to the one discussed above: at least there’s the sheer possibility of a payout.
Now—towards a conclusion. Upon reading Nietzsche’s aphorism on skepsis[59] in conjunction with his aphorism on mid-life and the “great liberator”[60]—one is struck by the complex and yet elegant honesty of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Grand systematics, logical completeness and the sickly sweet otherworldliness of traditional metaphysics are nowhere to be seen during this middle period in its icy beginnings, optimistic daybreak and ecstatic science. An invitation to boldly experiment with one’s life is all there is to it. It’s a call to take a risk, take a chance, make a change—to break away and live dangerously, to build one’s house on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.[61] It is through amor fati that we are capable of recognizing that there truly is no single road to science:[62] that one can only become a creator of values in and through one‘s unique individuality and that embracing this individuality means taking an immense life-threatening risk. It is only by daring to embrace this individuality that one can practice self-cultivation, introspection and experimentation—it is only by way of courageously forging ahead and creating for oneself, and solely for oneself, a way of life replete with intellectual virtue, a life of “detours”[63] from the normative and moral, that one can “become those [they] are.”[64] Such a becoming is the only viable liberation from the heavy and leveling shackles of transcendence—a becoming that consists of a joyful and innocent manner of philosophizing: a gay science.
It is a humble, unpretentious and forthcoming philosophy, even if it’s often clothed in a poetic grandeur—but above all it is a genuinely edifying philosophy. Reading, chewing on and truly ruminating upon Nietzsche is a transformative education, one which you can’t truly find within standardized institutions of education. It truly is a path one must take purely on one’s own. If one gives heed to Nietzsche’s message and truly takes his word for it—learns him by heart, so to speak[65]—one inevitably finds oneself following him by way of “[following one’s] own self faithfully.”[66]
Is Nietzsche, then, beyond metaphysics? In a sense, he is—because his philosophy has no need of the yonderworldly, he has gone beyond the yonder. He has not overcome discourse or narrative, nor does he intend to—since he is content with a narrative of immanence—but narrative has become something else for him than it has been for metaphysics throughout the ages. Perhaps his attitude towards philosophy may be crystallized in a certain reflection from his unpublished fragments: “Warum sollte man nicht metaphysisch spielen dürfen?”[67] In closing on a joyful note, it might thus be apt to quote Zarathustra: “One does not kill by anger but by laughter. Come, let us kill the Spirit of Gravity!”[68]
Endnotes
[1] Throughout these endnotes I will be using the following abbreviations for citing Nietzsche’s work; eKGWB: Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke und Briefe, HH: Human, All Too Human, MOAM: Mixed Opinions And Maxims, WS: The Wanderer And His Shadow, D: Dawn, GS: The Gay Science, Z: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, GM: Genealogy of Morals, TI: Twilight Of The Idols. The bibliography delineates the editions used.
[2] Cf. D, §461.
[3] Cf. HH §178 & TI: “Maxims and Arrows” §1.26.
[4] As Jill Marsden rightly emphasises, the aphoristic form is a “refusal to elaborate” which compels Nietzsche’s readership towards a certain self-transformative activity. See Jill Marsden, “Nietzsche‘s Art of the Aphorism”, in A Companion to Nietzsche Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 2006. pp. 22-39.
[5] To say nothing of the infinite volume of secondary work one would have to reckon with in order to achieve a clear picture of the reception of Nietzsche‘s thought.
[6] Cf. GM Pref., §8
[7] Z, “Zarathustra’s Prologue”, §9.
[8] HH Pref., §3
[9] Marion Faber, “Introduction” in Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. Translated by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann, with Introduction and Notes by Marion Faber. St Ives: Penguin, 2004. P. xii.
[10] HH, §9.
[11] Compare to the German “Hinterwelt” [Z; Von den Hinterweltlern].
[12] GS, §354.
[13] HH, §11.
[14] Parmenides, Poem of Parmenides. Translated by John Burnet. URL = http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm. Retrieved 25. December 2019. §II.
[15] Richard Kraut, "Plato", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition). Edited by Edward N. Zalta. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/plato/. Retrieved 25. December 2019.
[16] René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy. Published in Key Philosophical Writings. Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross. Edited with an Introduction by Enrique Chávez-Arvizo. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997. p. 140.
[17] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Translation by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. §Bxxx.
[18] Cf. HH, §16 & GS, §335.
[19] Cf. eKGWB, NF 1878, 36[1].
[20] See also Stephen Houlgate‘s discussion on this in the third chapter of his Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986—for example, pp. 39-40.
[21] HH, §11.
[22] Cf. John 1:1
[23] Cf. eKGWB, NF 1878, 30[24].
[24] HH, §25.
[25] HH, §10 & §17.
[26] HH §20.
[27] HH, §34.
[28] Any self-proclaimed “pessimist” certainly could not—cf. eKGWB, NF 1878, 38[1].
[29] Horace, Carmina. Book III, Ode 3, Verse 7-8. URL = http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi001.perseus-lat1:3.3. Retrieved 26. December 2019.
[30] HH, §34.
[31] This recalls a contemporaneous entry in Nietzsche’s notebooks (eKGWB, NF 1878, 30[5]) in which he quotes Goethe’s Campaign in France.
[32] As Keith Ansell-Pearson points out, alongside Michael Ure, in his recent book on the middle writings—the account Nietzsche gives in HH is a curiously joyless one. See Keith Ansell-Pearson, Nietzsche‘s Search for Philosophy: On the Middle Writings. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. p. 31.
[33] WS, §16.
[34] GS, §346.
[35] GS, §58.
[36] Cf. GS, §335.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Cf. Peter Poellner’s extensive treatment of this topic in his Nietzsche and Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. pp. 138-150.
[39] Cf., for example, GS §110 & D, §23.
[40] If a species can even be said to have something like “well-being.” Hence Nietzsche’s constant suspicion of the concept of “man.”
[41] However, as Nietzsche points out, the continued preservation of a species cannot be reduced to a single impulse: the “evil” impulses also have their use for the species, although they serve a different function to the mollifying moral impulses—they serve to advance the species, rather than to simply preserve it (Cf. GS, §4).
[42] GS, §327.
[43] Cf. Z, “Of the Spirit of Gravity” & “Of the Vision and the Riddle”.
[44] Z, “Of the Afterworldsmen”.
[45] WS, §16.
[46] D, §560.
[47] Cf. D, §435.
[48] GS, §335.
[49] There are great parallells here between Nietzsche‘s work and that of the French Symbolist fin-de-siècle writer Alfred Jarry. A juxtaposition of Jarry’s ‘pataphysics and Nietzsche’s reconstrual of “physics” might well be quite a fruitful topic to explore—although we won‘t be able to pursue that line of thought here.
[50] D, §108
[51] Cf. Walter Kaufmann’s footnote on the double meaning of “vademecum” in GS, Prelude §7—both as a “come with me” and as a “handbook.”
[52] See, for example, D, §109 and GS, §51.
[53] D, §556.
[54] D, §109.
[55] GS, §341.
[56] GS, §276.
[57] GS, §341.
[58] HH, §621.
[59] GS, §51. “I favor any skepsis to which I may reply: “Let us try it!””
[60] GS, §324. “[T]he idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge—and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery.”
[61] GS, §283.
[62] Cf. D, §432.
[63] D, §553.
[64] GS. §335.
[65] Z, “Of Reading and Writing”.
[66] GS, Prelude §7.
[67] eKGWB, NF 1878, 29[45]: “Why may we not play metaphysically?” See also 29[49] & 29[50].
[68] Z, “Of Reading and Writing”.
Bibliography
Cited works by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche:
eKGWB: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Digital critical edition of the complete works and letters. Based on the critical text by G. Colli and M. Montinari, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter 1967-, edited by Paolo D’Iorio. URL = http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB.
D: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Dawn: Thoughts on the Presumptions of Morality. Translated by Brittain Smith, with an Afterword by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
GM: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by Michael A. Scarpitti, with an Introduction and Notes by Robert C. Holub. London: Penguin Books, 2013.
GS: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York City, NY: Random House, 1974.
HH: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Human, all too Human. Translated by Marion Faber & Stephen Lehmann, with Introduction and Notes by Marion Faber. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
MOM/WS: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Human, all too Human: volume two. Translated by Gary Handwerk. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
TI: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Twilight of the Idols with The Antichrist and Ecce Homo. Translated by Antony M. Ludovici. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2007.
Z: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translation and notes by R. J. Hollingdale. Middlesex: Penguin, 1969.
Other works cited or consulted:
Ansell-Pearson, Keith (Ed.). A Companion to Nietzsche. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 2006.
—Marsden, Jill. “Nietzsche‘s Art of the Aphorism,” pp. 22-39.
—Moore, Gregory. “Nietzsche and Evolutionary Theory,” pp. 517-531.
Ansell-Pearson, Keith. Nietzsche’s Search for Philosophy: On the Middle Writings. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Published in Key Philosophical Writings. Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross. Edited with an Introduction by Enrique Chávez-Arvizo. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997.
Horace. Carmina. Edited by Paul Shorey, Gordon Lang, Paul Shorey and Gordon J. Laing. URL = http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi001. Retrieved December 26. 2019.
Houlgate, Stephen. Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translation by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Kraut, Richard, "Plato", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/plato/. Retrieved December 22. 2019.
Parmenides, Poem of Parmenides. Translated by John Burnet. URL = http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm. Retrieved December 22. 2019.
Palmer, John, "Parmenides", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/parmenides/. Retrieved December 22. 2019.
Poellner, Peter. Nietzsche and Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
