Greg Detre
Monday, February 05, 2001
Dr Rosen, post-Kantian IV
How
in your view does Nietzsche intend that we take the concepts of the will to
power and the Eternal Recurrence?
What
role do they play in his thought?
Nehamas, 1985, �Nietzsche: life as literature� (Feiii25)
Schacht, Kaufman
John Richardson � Nietzsche�s system (Feiii67)
Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins (ed), 1988, �Reading Nietzsche�
Janaway � Willing + nothingness
Brian Leiter � paradox of
Zarathustra, Nachlass, BGE, TI, GS
the Eternal Recurrence + the Overman are inextricably bound together
they are not so much a metaphysical truth
but a psychological comment about progress
you could see the Overman as being defined in terms of the Eternal Recurrence
(but perhaps also in terms of the will to power)
the thing about the Eternal Recurrence is that it is supra-historical
it makes a mockery of infinite progress (= the Hegelian �Bad Infinite�)
if every moment returns, then no moment succeeds or is superior to another
the End (teleology) is not a point in time
the Overman is not Darwinian
he�s a cultural and individual apotheosis, it�s not genetic, so I spose that there is nothing barring him from birth from attaining it
humanity�s progress consists of how many and how high it�s greatest individuals there are
Nietzsche wants to be distanced from Carlyle
the Overman = he who relishes the Eternal Recurrence
he�s so in harmony with the cosmos that, like a single joy that we wish to cling to or relive, he rejoices in it all
he�s sublimated his impulses, stylised his character, integrated the chaos of his passions etc.
the value of the Overman does not consists in his usefulness
but Eternal Recurrence is not a Kantian Categorical Imperative!
Kant�s CI is not appealing to dispositions
= designed as a method for highlighting conflicts between maxims
Eternal Recurrence is not about moral consequences. the Overman = an overall state of a man
FW 341: on hearing about the Eternal Recurrence the first time, either the will to power is coming through you and you are filled with joy, or its uncontrolled weight turns on you and crushes you
Eternal Recurrence is not a �noble lie� � Nietzsche describes it as the most �scientific� of all hypotheses
is it scientifically realistic/justifiable???
is the universe continuous vs quantised???
what if certain configurations never repeated, i.e. a limited loop???
Simmel: 3 wheels never line up twice
like a waterfall � static/dynamic, Heraclites/Parmenides
value is measured objectively by �organised power� � WM 674
Eternal Recurrence as �transformed the symbolic into crudities�, like xxx � WM 170
opens with an autobiographical note:
�What I am afraid of is not the terrifying figure behind the chair, but its voice. No, not the words, but the horrifyingly inarticulate sound of that creature. If only it spoke in the manner of human beings�
also evidence of Nietzsche father �s brain disease, Nietzsche early pathology, headaches, illness etc
contradiction, memory/repression (Proust), oblivion, language, God, nihilism: �a nihilist is a person who says of the world as it is, that it were better that it were not, and with regard to the world as it should be, that it does not and cannot exist� (WTP 585)
religion � nihilism when all its fundamental assumptions are lost
Time cannot become Eternal, as in heaven
if Time was finite, it would have run out by now
Overman preceded the Eternal Recurrence � �I do not wish to live again� � notes pre-Zarathustra
Eternal Recurrence grants the �weight of eternity� to the otherwise �unbearable� and inarticulate �lightness of being� � articulation requires duration
if we don�t remember, i.e. our states of consciousness recur exactly as now, as they must, what difference?
WTP 617
Eternal Recurrence vs life as �aesthetic phenomenon�
infinite x zero = still zero
it is the �tremendous moment� that matters???
Eternal Recurrence = supreme epic philosophy???
it most pious of those who do not believe in God???
attack notion of progress, cf Hegel: what comes after is not necessarily better
style as the �one thing needful� � parody of Wagner �overriding need� � aesthetising life
vs pity � moral = �to lose one�s way in order to come to the assistance of a neighbour� (GS 338)
�live in seclusion so that you can live for yourself�
he doesn�t condemn the herd men for lacking the capacity needed for style � he is simply uninterested in them (pg 44)
how would Nietzsche have viewed Goering and other vicious, �bestial� stylised characters??? (Nehamas)
no, they�d be weeded out by the Eternal Recurrence
OR, they�d fail on the basis of the neuroses that drove them to violence
or am I refusing to believe what I don�t want to???
discusses his rejection by Lou Salome and how it influenced TSZ � with which he could be seen as purging himself
Eternal Recurrence, will to power etc hardly appear afterwards! (???)
inventing value, wanting untruth! so unplatonic
�
Nietzsche doing what he attacks other philosophers for � creating a system in his own image
the will to power is elevated from a human drive to the ultimate
counter-ascetic ideal
still requires fleshing out with values etc.
the revaluation of value then becomes the business of seeing value in terms of the Eternal Recurrence
This combined with reports of terrible headaches, extreme myopia and his father�s fatal brain disease point o
different ways of seeing the Eternal Recurrence
noble lie � if people believe it, they will act a certain way
metaphysical truth
incoherent notion
The victorious concept "force," by means of which our physicists have created God and the world, still needs to be completed: an inner will must be ascribed to it, which I designate as "will to power," i.e., as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or as the employment and exercise of power, as a creative drive, etc. Physicists cannot eradicate "action at a distance" from their principles; nor can they eradicate a repellent force (or an attracting one). There is nothing for it: one is obliged to understand all motion, all "appearances," all "laws," only as symptoms of an inner event and to employ man as an analogy to this end. In the case of an animal, it is possible to trace all its drives to the will to power; likewise all the functions of organic life to this one source. � WP 619
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence�even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? (GS 341)
He identifies this
�basic conception� not as a cosmology, but as �the highest
formula for affirmation that is at all attainable� (Ecce Homo III �1 [Werke
VI.3: 335]).
Eternal recurrence
gives him a formula for what it is to value the process of life as an
end and not merely as a means.
is the will to power idealism??? it consists of a sort of anthopomorphic, fundamentally life-orientated force, drive and energy, that coheres in living, especially intellectual, beings
it is more though than simply ideas, it�s much more the agent part. it�s more than just a metaphysical medium like matter, it�s more like a law of nature � it is nature
how much of Nietzsche is pertinent to all philosophers of the future, and how much is he simply being one in a long line himself???
is the desire for oblivion, then, the Underman�s craving???
some of the concepts in Nietzsche seem to be a bewildering collection of statements that you just learn to associate with each other � is this understanding???
is the Eternal Recurrence scientific???
is this a �metaphysical consolation� though???
is the world at root suffering or joy???
when Nietzsche there has not yet been an Overman � in this Eternal Recurrence cycle???
how is the Overman a sort of ascetic ideal itself (Routledge) ???
why is God �dead� � is it to indicate that he was a human construct/pet, and we have finally tired of his games???
is the will to power not an underlying reality, a metaphysics, a second world???
is the Overman different to the philosopher of the future/free spirit???