As the Spider Spins: Essays on Nietzsche’s Critique and Use of Language 9783110281125, 9783110280906

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As the Spider Spins

Nietzsche Today

As the Spider Spins Essays on Nietzsche’s Critique and Use of Language

Edited by João Constâncio and Maria João Mayer Branco

DE GRUYTER

ISBN 978-3-11-028090-6 e-ISBN 978-3-11-028112-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Meta Systems GmbH, Wustermark Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements The editors wish to express their gratitude to the following institutions that made this book possible: Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem (IFL), especially its Director, Prof. António Marques; Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), which is currently funding the research project “Nietzsche and the Contemporary Debate on the Self”, PTDC/FIL-FIL/111444/2009; Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)/Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (FCSH), especially its Director, Prof. João Sáàgua. The editors also wish to express their gratitude to the following persons that worked at translating and proof-reading the papers: Richard Bates, Katia Hay, Sean Linney, and Bartholomew Ryan.

Contents References, Citations and Abbreviations

IX

João Constâncio and Maria João Mayer Branco 1 ‘As the Spider Spins’: Introduction

I. On Metaphor and the Limits of Language Céline Denat “To Speak in Images”: The Status of Rhetoric and Metaphor in Nietzsche’s New Language 13 Luís Sousa Knowledge, Truth, and the Thing-in-itself: The Presence of Schopenhauer’s Transcendental Idealism in Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873) 39 Luis Enrique de Santiago Guervós Physiology and Language in Friedrich Nietzsche: “The Guiding Thread of the 63 Body”

II. On Language, Emotion, and Morality Andrea Bertino Discovering Moral Aspects of the Philosophical Discourse About Language and Consciousness With Nietzsche, Humboldt, and Levinas 91 Tom Bailey Vulnerabilities of Agency: Kant and Nietzsche on Political Community 107 Chiara Piazzesi What We Talk About When We Talk About Emotions. Nietzsche’s Critique of Moral Language as the Shaping of a New Ethical Paradigm 129

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Contents

III. On Language, Self-Expression, and Consciousness Jaanus Sooväli The Absence and the Other. Nietzsche and Derrida Against Husserl

161

Luca Lupo Drives, Instincts, Language, and Consciousness in Daybreak 119: ‘Erleben 179 und Erdichten’ João Constâncio Consciousness, Communication, and Self-Expression. Towards an Interpretation of Aphorism 354 of Nietzsche’s The Gay Science Maria João Mayer Branco The Spinning of Masks. Nietzsche’s Praise of Language

197

233

IV. On Language, Self-Expression, and Style Bartholomew Ryan The Rise and Fall of Zarathustra’s Star

257

Maria Cristina Fornari ‘And so I Will Tell Myself the Story of my Life’. Nietzsche in His Last Letters (1885–1889) 281 Contributors

297

Complete Bibliography Name Index Subject Index

307 309

298

References, Citations and Abbreviations All German quotations of Nietzsche’s writings are from the following editions: KSA Nietzsche, Friedrich (1980), Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, Giorgio Colli/Mazzino Montinari (eds.), München/Berlin: DTV/de Gruyter. KGW Nietzsche, Friedrich (1967ff), Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, established by Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari, continued by Wolfgang Müller-Lauter und Karl Pestalozzi (eds.), Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. KSB Nietzsche, Friedrich (1986), Sämtliche Briefe. Kritische Studienausgabe in 8 Bänden, Giorgio Colli/Mazzino Montinari (eds.), München/Berlin: DTV/de Gruyter. References to published or titled texts by Nietzsche follow the standard abbreviations, which are given below. For a complete list see also: http://refworks. reference-global.com/Xaver/extern/10.1515_NO/statics/NO_Siglen.pdf). Unless otherwise stated, the cited translations are the following: Works By Nietzsche Nietzsche, Friedrich (1966), The Birth of Tragedy, ed./transl. by W. Kaufmann, New York: Random House. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1967), On the Genealogy of Morals, ed./transl. by W. Kaufmann, New York: Random House. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1983), Untimely Meditations, transl. by R. J. Hollingdale, Cambridge/London/New York/New Rochelle/Melbourne/ Sydney: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1986), Human, All Too Human, ed. and transl. by R. J. Hollingdale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1989), “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, in: F. Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, ed. & transl. by S. L. Gilman/C. Blair/D. J. Parent, New York: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1989), “The History of Greek Eloquence”, in: F. Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, ed. & transl. by S. L. Gilman/C. Blair/D. J. Parent, New York: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1997), Daybreak, ed. by M. Clark/B. Leiter, transl. by R. J. Hollingdale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1998), Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, ed. and transl. by M. Cowan, Washington: A Gateway Edition.

X

References, Citations and Abbreviations

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1999), “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”, in: F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, ed. by R. Guess/R. Speirs, transl. by R. Speirs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (2001), The Gay Science, ed. by B. Williams, transl. by J. Nauckhoff, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (2002), Beyond Good and Evil, ed. by R.-F. Horstmann/J. Norman, transl. by J. Norman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (2005), The Anti-christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings, ed. by A. Ridley/J. Norman, transl. by J. Norman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (2005), “The Case of Wagner”, in F. Nietzsche, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings, ed. by A. Ridley/J. Norman, transl. by J. Norman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (2005), “Nietzsche contra Wagner”, in F. Nietzsche, The Anti-christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings, ed. by A. Ridley/J. Norman, transl. by J. Norman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (2006), Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ed. by A. Del Caro/R. Pippin, transl. by A. Del Caro, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Occasionally, some of the authors have chosen to quote from the following translations: Nietzsche, Friedrich (1954), “Twilight of the Idols”, transl. by W. Kaufmann, in: W. Kaufmann (ed.), The Portable Nietzsche, New York: Viking Penguin. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1966), Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ed./transl. by W. Kaufmann, New York: Random House. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1966), Beyond Good and Evil, ed./transl. by W. Kaufmann, New York: Random House. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1974), The Gay Science, ed./transl. by W. Kaufmann, New York: Random House. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1979), Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the 1870’s, ed. and transl. by Daniel Breazle, New Jersey: Humanities Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1996), Beyond Good and Evil, ed./transl. by D. Smith, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1996), On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, ed./ transl. by D. Smith, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abbreviations Of Nietzsche’s Works In German

XI

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2009), “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense”, in: F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Early Notebooks, ed. by R. Geuss/A. Nehamas, transl. by L. Löb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Translations from the Nachlass follow the two most recent editions in English: WEN Nietzsche, Friedrich (2009), Writings from the Early Note-books, ed. by R. Geuss/A. Nehamas, transl. by L. Löb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. WLN Nietzsche, Friedrich (2003), Writings from the Late Note-books, ed. by R. Bittner, transl. by K. Sturge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In order to translate two notes from the Nachlass not available in WEN or WLN we have used the English edition of the notorious (and non-existent) book Der Wille zur Macht: WP Nietzsche, Friedrich (1967), The Will to Power, ed. by W. Kaufmann, transl. by W. Kaufmann/R. J. Hollingdale, New York: Random House. Notes from the Nachlass not available in WEN, WLN, or WP have been translated by either the editors or the authors. In the footnotes, Nietzsche’s text is usually reproduced in the original German. References to the Nachlass are given as follows: NL year, KSA volume, note; e.g., NL 1885, KSA 11, 31[131]. References to a translation are added after the references to the KSA, e.g. NL 1885, KSA 11, 31[131] = WLN, 10; e.g. NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[164], my translation. Sections or chapters that are not numbered but given a title in Nietzsche’s text are quoted following the standard abbreviations in English and German: e.g. EH Clever 9/EH klug 9.

Abbreviations Of Nietzsche’s Works In German AC DD DW EH FW FWS GD GM

Der Antichrist. Fluch auf das Christenthum Dionysos-Dithyramben Die dionysische Weltanschauung Ecce Homo. Wie man wird, was man ist Die fröhliche Wissenschaft FW “Scherz, List und Rache.” Götzen-Dämmerung oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophirt Zur Genealogie der Moral. Eine Streitschrift

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Abbreviations Of Nietzsche’s Works In English

GT GT Versuch JGB M MA NW PHG PV UB VM WA WL WS ZA ZB

Die Geburt der Tragödie Die Geburt der Tragödie, Versuch einer Selbstkritik Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft Morgenröthe. Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurtheile Menschliches, Allzumenschliches. Ein Buch für freie Geister Nietzsche contra Wagner. Aktenstücke eines Psychologen Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen Die Lieder des Prinzen Vogelfrei Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (MA II) Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche Der Fall Wagner. Ein Musikanten-Problem Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne Der Wanderer und sein Schatten Also Sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen Ueber die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten

Abbreviations Of Nietzsche’s Works In English A AOM BGE BT BT Attempt CW D DD EH GM GS HH NW PTAG TI TL UM WS Z

The Antichrist (HH II) Assorted Opinions and Maxims Beyond Good and Evil. Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future The Birth of Tragedy The Birth of Tragedy, Attempt At a Self-Criticism. The Case of Wagner Daybreak Dithyrambs of Dionysus Ecce Homo. How One Becomes What One Is On the Genealogy of Morals. A Polemic The Gay Science Human, All Too Human Nietzsche contra Wagner. Out of the Files of a Psychologist Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks Twilight of the Idols. How To Philosophize with a Hammer On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense Untimely Meditations (HH II) The Wanderer and His Shadow Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Abbreviations Of Works By Other Authors

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Abbreviations Of Works By Other Authors ApH

CPR CPrR EKU

FR

G

GesS

KpV

KrV

KU

MAN

Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1998), Critique of Pure Reason, ed./transl. by P. Guyer/ A. W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (1997); Critique of Practical Reason, ed./transl. by Mary Gregor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Erste Einleitung in der Kritik der Urteilskraft”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Schopenhauer, A. (1974), On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, transl. by E. F. J. Payne, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Humboldt, Alexander von (1968), Gesammelte Schriften, 17 vols., ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Kritik der praktischen Vernunft”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Kritik der Urteilskraft”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaften”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.

XIV MS

R

TP

WWR I WWR II WWV I

WWV II

Abbreviations Of Works By Other Authors

Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Die Metaphysik der Sitten”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Kant, I. (1955–1966), “Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. Schopenhauer, A. (1958), The World as Will and Representation. Vol. I, transl. by E. F. J. Payne, New York: Dover. Schopenhauer, A. (1958), The World as Will and Representation. Vol. II, transl. by E. F. J. Payne, New York: Dover. Schopenhauer, A. (1949), “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Erster Band”, in: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2, ed. by A. Hübscher, Wiesbaden: Brockhaus. Schopenhauer, A. (1949), “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Zweiter Band”, in: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 3, ed. by A. Hübscher, Wiesbaden: Brockhaus.

João Constâncio and Maria João Mayer Branco

‘As the Spider Spins’: Introduction I In the unpublished essay On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense, Nietzsche writes that space and time are representations that “we produce within ourselves and from ourselves with the same necessity as the spider spins” (TL 1/ WL 1, KSA 1, p. 885, translation modified). In Daybreak, he uses the same metaphor to describe “the habits of our senses”: The habits of our senses have woven us into lies and deception of sensation: these again are the basis of all our judgments and ‘knowledge‘ – there is absolutely no escape, no backway or bypath into the real world! We sit within our net, we spiders, and whatever we may catch in it, we can catch nothing at all except that which allows itself to be caught in precisely our net (D 117/M 117).1

The sense impressions and sensorial horizons that encircle our bodies and depend on our sense organs are the cobwebs that we ourselves spin, and our conscious thoughts, our words and judgements, our “truths” and pieces of “knowledge” are no more than developments of those cobwebs and hence part of what we ourselves spin (“we spiders”). In fact, the whole world can be seen as a spider – “the great world-spider” (AOM 32/VM 32) – and our cobwebs as part of that enormous cobweb which is “the great spider’s web of causality” (GM III 9). Indeed the monotheistic conception of “God” is precisely the conception of “God as spider” (A 18/AC 18).2 However, in several other passages Nietzsche uses the spider metaphor specifically to express his conception of the formation and development of concepts. In TL, for example, he writes: Here one can only certainly admire humanity as a mighty architectural genius who succeeds in erecting the infinitely complicated cathedral of concepts on moving foundations, or even, one might say, on flowing water; admittedly, in order to rest on such foundations, it has to be like a thing constructed from cobwebs (Spinnefäden), so delicate that it can be carried off on the waves and yet so firm as not to be blown apart by the wind (TL 1, 147/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 882).

1 See also NL 1880, KSA 9, 6[439], NL 1881, KSA 9, 15[9]. In NL 1870, KSA 7, 5[33], our “illusions” are designated as “cobwebs” (Spinngewebe). 2 See also GM III 9, NL 1888, KSA 13, 16[58], NL 1888, KSA 13, 17[4].

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Here this “delicate” and yet “firm” web spun by the spider is seen in a positive light, but in other texts Nietzsche presents the spider as a “bloodsucker” (BGE 209/JGB 209) that either manages to feed on the blood of its victims or gets caught in its own web and has to drink its own blood.3 He uses the spider and spinning metaphors to describe in a negative way the unfortunate and harmful type of life of priests (“the most dangerous type of parasite, the true poisonous spiders of life”, A 37/AC 37), scholars and “specialists” (GS 366/FW 366), sceptics (BGE 209/JGB 209), theologians (NL 1887–88, KSA 13, 15[55]), “metaphysicians and scholastics” (NL 1888, KSA 13, 17[4]). Most importantly, he refers in a negative way to several of the greatest philosophers as “spiders”: to Parmenides (PTAG 10–11/PHG 10–11), Plato (WS Preface/WS Vorrede), Spinoza (A 17/AC 17, TI Skirmishes 23/GD Streifzüge 23), Kant (A 11/AC 11), Schopenhauer (NL 1885–87, KSA 12, 2[197]). Philosophers in general are “spiders” – “cobweb-weavers of the spirit” (BGE 25/JGB 25) – and all philosophies seem to be just the “brain diseases of sick cobweb-weavers” (TI Reason 4/GD Vernunft 4). At bottom, the idea in all these passages is that “philosophising is a type of atavism”. “Philosophical concepts” are spun by spiders because they “belong to a system just as much as all the members of the fauna of a continent do” (BGE 20/JGB 20), that is, because they are no more than historical developments of the “metaphysics of language” (TI Reason/GD Vernunft). All philosophical concepts, no matter how “individual” they seem to be, express “the unconscious domination and direction through similar grammatical functions” (BGE 20/JGB 20), they all unknowingly unfold and explore the metaphysical “grammar” which is embedded and presupposed in human language, particularly in the Indo-Germanic languages.4 Hence, the image of the philosopher as a “spider” is the image of him “imprisoned in the nets of language” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[135], our translation). From all of this it seems to follow that Nietzsche has a fundamentally negative and critical view of language. Most certainly his “task” of “revaluating all values” involves a liberation from the metaphysical “cobwebs” of language, and he famously indicates that overcoming metaphysics, the “ascetic ideal” and “man’s sickness of man” would have to involve a “deconstruction” of our entanglement in language and its grammar: “I am afraid that we have not got rid of God because we still have faith in grammar…” (TI Reason 5/GD Vernunft 5).

3 See PTAG 10–11/PHG 10–11, HH I 427/MA I 427, AOM 194/VM 194, D 71/M 71, Z III Virtue 3/ZA III Tugend 3, BGE 209/JGB 209. 4 See BGE 20/JGB 20, BGE Preface/JGB Vorrede, BGE 34/JGB 34, BGE 54/JGB 54, TI Reason 5/GD Vernunft 5.

‘As the Spider Spins’: Introduction

3

However, one of the main pillars of Nietzsche’s philosophy is the belief that “the world that counts as ‘real’, so-called ‘reality’” (GS 58/FW 54) is to a great extent a linguistic phenomenon. A complete “deconstruction” of our language does not make sense for Nietzsche. It would be the same as a destruction of our world and life. Nietzsche wants to “destroy” only to “create”, he wants to “revaluate all values” only to “create new values”. This point is most clearly made in The Gay Science: Only as creators! – This has caused me the greatest trouble and still does always cause me the greatest trouble: to realise that what things are called is unspeakably more important than what they are. The reputation, name, and appearance, the worth, the usual measure and weight of a thing – originally almost always something mistaken and arbitrary, thrown over things like a dress and quite foreign to their nature and even to their skin – has, through the belief in it and its growth from generation to generation, slowly grown onto and into the thing and has become its very body: what started as appearance in the end nearly always becomes essence and effectively acts as its essence! What kind of a fool would believe that it is enough to point to this origin and this misty shroud of delusion in order to destroy the world that counts as ‘real’, so-called ‘reality’! Only as creators can we destroy! – But let us also not forget that in the long run it is enough to create new names and valuations and appearances of truth in order to create new ‘things’ (GS 58/FW 58).5

This should make clear how crucial it is for Nietzsche to create a “new language” (BGE 4/JGB 4). His critique of language is not meant as a rejection of language, for in criticising the harmful effects of language and its metaphysical grammar Nietzsche is always already creating new uses of language – uses that, on the one hand, call attention to the very fact that “even one’s thoughts one cannot entirely reproduce in words” (GS 244/FW 244) and “every word is also a mask” (BGE 289/JGB 289), but, on the other hand, also claim to be “better” than the traditional, ascetic, metaphysical uses of language. Nietzsche’s anti-metaphysical philosophy – his “genealogy” or “psychology” as a “morphology and doctrine of the development of the will to power” (BGE 23/ JGB 23) – is a “new language”. In other words, Nietzsche uses the metaphor of the spider that spins its cobweb to express his critique of the metaphysical and “sick” use of language – but he also suggests that human beings (“we spiders”) are in principle able to spin different, life-affirming, non-metaphysical cobwebs. Philosophy is not condemned to failure, the creation of new values via the philosophical creation of new concepts is a very difficult task – a task for which one has perhaps to be “destined” – but it is not at all an absurd and harmful task. On the contrary,

5 See also, for example, BGE 24/JGB 24, BGE 34/JGB 34.

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Nietzsche’s hopes for himself and his equals, indeed for humanity as a whole, lie in philosophy – in “every daring of the lover of knowledge”: Indeed, at hearing the news that ‘the old god is dead’, we philosophers and ‘free spirits’ feel illuminated by a new dawn; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, forebodings, expectation – finally the horizon seems clear again, even if not bright; finally our ships may set out again, set out to face any danger; every daring of the lover of knowledge is allowed again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an ‘open sea’ (GS 343/FW 343).

II This book is a collection of 12 essays that focus not only on Nietzsche’s critique of the metaphysical assumptions of language, but also on his effort to use language in a different and better way. Hence the subtitle, “Essays on Nietzsche’s Critique and Use of Language”. It is from that perspective that the book considers such themes as consciousness, self-expression, metaphor, instinct, affectivity, style, morality, truth, and knowledge. The authors that we invited to contribute to this book are Nietzsche scholars who belong to some of the most important research centres of the European Nietzsche-Research: Centro Colli-Montinari (Italy), GIRN (Europhilosophie), SEDEN (Spain), Greifswald Research Group (Germany), NIL (Portugal). The scholarly and philosophical exchange among these research centres has been very intensive in recent years, and we are very happy to contribute with this book to a wider divulgation of our colleagues’ and our own work on Nietzsche. One of the aims of our research project (“Nietzsche and the Contemporary Debate on the Self”, PTDC/FIL-FIL/111444/2009) is precisely to promote the kind of international exchange and research that made this book possible. In the same spirit, we edited Nietzsche on Instinct and Language in 2011, which was also published by de Gruyter. In fact, the two books may be said to complement each other. Let us now conclude this brief introduction with a summary of each chapter and each essay in the book.

III In the first chapter – I. On Metaphor and the Limits of Language – , we have assembled three essays that give pre-eminence to Nietzsche’s early writings on

‘As the Spider Spins’: Introduction

5

language and knowledge and hence to his conception of language as metaphorical. Céline Denat’s essay focuses mainly on Nietzsche’s lectures on Rhetoric (1872) and On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (1873), as well as on the notebooks from the same period, and it tries to show that Nietzsche gives new, wider meanings to the words “rhetoric” and “metaphor”. Nietzsche presents language itself as “rhetorical” and “metaphorical” because he rejects the notion that there is, or there could be, a “proper”, “adequate” (or “ideal”) language. No discourse is “true” in an absolute sense, and therefore no discourse can be labelled as being merely “rhetorical” or “metaphorical” by contrast with an absolutely true discourse. In fact, every human discourse can and should be traced back to a rhetorical “force” that creates metaphors. Most importantly, Denat’s essay also tries to show that this view involves a critique of truth as adequacy or correspondence, but it does not lead to scepticism. For already in his earlier writings Nietzsche conceives of the possibility of what he later calls his “new language” (BGE 4/JGB 4), a language which “remains a speech in images (Bilderrede)” (NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[128], p. 487) but also enlarges the limits of language and hence allows for higher degrees of philosophical probity. Luís Sousa’s essay analyses Nietzsche’s conception of “knowledge” and “truth” in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (1873) and aims to show that the claim that language is metaphorical is part of a radicalisation of Schopenhauer’s idealism. In that early text Nietzsche does not yet fully abandon the idealistic distinction between phenomenon and thing-in-itself. Although some passages already outline his later claim that the very concept of a “thing” and a “thing-in-itself” is just a human creation and “fiction”, he is still mostly “agnostic” with regard to the existence of the “thing-in-itself”. Therefore, he still uses the notion of an adequate access to the “thing-in-itself” as a means for calling human knowledge into question. Since we can know nothing about the “thingin-itself”, no type of human discourse – or even perception – can claim to be a token of “knowledge” or “truth” in the traditional sense of these words. Luis Enrique de Santiago Guervós starts by considering the same early texts as Céline Denat and Luís Sousa – and therefore he also analyses the thesis that language is metaphorical – but he then moves on to Nietzsche’s more mature works and focuses on his purpose of philosophising by following “the guiding thread of the body”, that is, of using the metaphor of the body, the metaphor of a multiplicity of drives and affects, in order to interpret reality. Guervós argues that the early texts already prefigure this metaphor because in presenting language as metaphorical they present the “aesthetic” as a sort of foundation of all thought. But it is only in later writings that Nietzsche fully

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develops the anti-metaphysical metaphor of our “pulsional life” (Triebleben)6 and transforms it into a foundation of his whole philosophy. This is, however, a paradoxical foundation. It seems that in trying to overcome metaphysics within language and by exploring new metaphors, Nietzsche cannot avoid remaining entangled in the metaphysical grammar of human language. Or can he? The second chapter – II. On Language, Emotion, and Morality – assembles the three essays most concerned with the emotional and moral dimension of human language. Andrea Bertino’s essay deals with the ways Nietzsche, Humboldt, and Levinas’ views on language and consciousness question the moral autonomy of individuals, i.e. of the “I” or “Self”. Firstly, Bertino argues that for Nietzsche our linguistic self-understanding in terms of an “I” or “Self” causes a loss of autonomy and individuality, whereas for Humboldt it is only through language, and specifically through the linguistic production of an “I”, that we become autonomous and individual. Secondly, he argues that Levinas has managed to criticise the traditional conception of autonomy and individuality in a more radical way than both Nietzsche and Humboldt. On the other hand, according to Bertino’s argument, the three authors share the belief that philosophy can contribute to the development of new forms of self-understanding and communication which enable new and better forms of ethical life. Tom Bailey’s essay suggests that notwithstanding his criticisms of modern moral and political language – of such terms as “freedom”, “responsibility”, “duty”, “rights”, and “equality” – Nietzsche’s political philosophy is best situated in the modern tradition, that fundamentally concerned with the nature and possibility of human “autonomy”. In particular, Bailey interprets Nietzsche’s political philosophy as reformulating Kant’s conceptions of “autonomy” and “community” by affirming a “respect” for agency that involves a reciprocal vulnerability and measurement of agency among “equals”. Bailey shows how these conceptions inform Kant’s and Nietzsche’s accounts of political obligation, and particularly how Nietzsche’s reformulations of Kantian terms issue in substantially different political conclusions, before exploring what such a Kantian approach might contribute to contemporary debates over the individual’s place in a political community. Bailey’s reading thus implies that, rather than leave modern philosophical concerns behind, Nietzsche provides sophisticated, if neglected, responses to them.

6 Throughout the whole book, we have used the expression “pulsional life” to translate the expression Triebleben and the word “pulsional” to translate triebhaft. This is because it is sometimes very important to distinguish triebhaft from instinktiv, and hence the usual translation of triebhaft by “instinctive” and Triebleben by “instinctive life” is inadequate.

‘As the Spider Spins’: Introduction

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Chiara Piazzesi’s essay discusses the emotional and moral dimension of human language by making the fundamental point that according to Nietzsche the words that refer to our affects, passions or emotions do not denote what the latter really are, but rather what we think they are. This point has several consequences, which Piazzesi sharply emphasises. Firstly, it entails that every attempt to develop a scientific discourse on the emotions will always remain attached to the history of the words we use to speak about emotions and hence to the “folk psychology” which is embedded in that history. Secondly, one cannot separate the history of our discourse on the emotions from our emotions themselves. The creation and use of different words to speak about emotions give rise to different emotions, and we can never become aware of our emotions outside of a social and historical context in which the way we speak about our emotions decisively influences the way we interpret them. Thirdly, all discourse on the emotions is evaluative or “moral”, and this also applies to the type of reflexive, critical, second-order discourse which is favoured by Nietzsche, that is, to a “psychology” which is “genealogical” and hence takes the history of our linguistic creations into account. Nietzsche’s philosophical approach is fundamentally aimed at changing our evaluations and liberating our emotional experiences from traditional morality, and not at presenting a scientific description of what our evaluations and emotional experiences “really are”. The third chapter – III. On Language, Self-Expression, and Consciousness – includes four essays that deal with the problem of language from the perspective of self-expression and consciousness. Jaanus Sooväli discusses the status of the word “I” in Nietzsche’s writings, and he attempts to show that Nietzsche’s views can be said to complement and anticipate Derrida’s critique of Husserl’s conception of the “I”. According to Husserl, the meaning of the word “I” can only be given in solitary speech and is tantamount to an immediate representation of my personality. That meaning, then, can only be given to me; for the others, it will always remain no more than a sign or indication of my personality – it can never be “given” to them. Nietzsche takes a different view. By emphasising the role of communication and rethinking consciousness as an event that occurs only within social and communicative contexts, he anticipates the so-called “death of the subject”. The word “I” is also just a sign or an indication for myself: even in “solitary speech” its meaning remains social and communicative, and hence the “self-presence of the subject” in speech acts is no more than a fiction. The meaning of the word “I” cannot be “given” in Husserl’s sense. Luca Lupo’s essay is an attempt to interpret aphorism 119 of Daybreak, an aphorism which famously describes the unconscious realm of the drives

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and instincts as a “text” and consciousness and language as a “commentary” on that “unknown, perhaps unknowable, but felt text” (D 119/M 119). The main point of Lupo’s analysis is to show that, according to D 119/M 119 and many other texts from the 1880’s, “to live an experience” (Erleben) and “to invent” (Erdichten) the contents of that experience are equivalent terms. Experiences depend on “instinctive judgements”, as well as on “intellectual judgements” that are built upon them, and all such judgements are driven by a “poetic” (dichtende), “inventive” (erdichtende) force (Kraft) of our organism. Thus the “external world” is actually an environment (an Umwelt) that we, as living-organisms, fabricate by means of the activity of our drives, instincts, conscious thoughts and words. This thesis is mostly explored in the Nachlass, but it is also present in Nietzsche’s published writings. However, as Luca Lupo emphasises, Nietzsche does not put forward that thesis in a dogmatic way. On the contrary, everything he states about consciousness, language, the instincts, and the drives has a hypothetical, conjectural, even sceptical, status. João Constâncio’s essay is an attempt to interpret aphorism 354 of The Gay Science, which is arguably one of the most important texts Nietzsche has written on consciousness and language (and which is also one of the main focuses of Andrea Bertino and Jaanus Sooväli’s essays). Constâncio begins by arguing that in GS 354/FW 354 “consciousness” (Bewusstsein) designates a properly human form of awareness which involves conceptualisation, intentionality, and self-reflexivity. However, the most original aspect of this view of consciousness is that it conceives of conceptualisation, intentionality, and selfreflexivity as part of a “systemic” event that only arises within social and linguistic spaces, by means of communication-signs. There is thus an intrinsic public dimension in consciousness and language, and yet this does not imply that self-expression is impossible. According to Constâncio’s argument, Nietzsche believes that all forms of conscious and particularly linguistic communication are forms of indirect self-expression – and, most importantly, that there are forms of self-expression which are better than others. To a great extent, Nietzsche’s “new language” is precisely a means for better self-expression. The main point of Maria João Mayer Branco’s essay is to emphasise that Nietzsche’s critique of language goes hand in hand with a praise of language. Branco uses the spider metaphor as presented in Human, All Too Human to argue that Nietzsche’s project of creating a “new language” is analogous to his project of liberation from the cobwebs of habits via the creation of new, “brief habits” (GS 295/FW 295, HH I 427/MA I 427). The heart of this process is Nietzsche’s “intellectual conscience”, his Redlichkeit, a new “intellectual honesty” that recognises that “everything is a mask” and you can only express yourself by growing a mask – or a multiplicity of masks – within the realm of

‘As the Spider Spins’: Introduction

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“appearance” (Schein). Nietzsche’s love of appearances, Branco claims, includes a love of language, which is compatible with his mistrust of language. Such a love is a form of “action at the distance” (e.g. GS 60/FW 60). The fourth and last chapter – IV. On Language, Self-Expression, and Style – assembles two essays that deal with language and self-expression from a different perspective, namely Nietzsche’s way of writing, his “style”, or rather, his “styles”. Bartholomew Ryan focuses on Nietzsche’s performative use of one of his favourite metaphors: the star. As Ryan shows, this metaphor has been used throughout human history in a variety of ways and as such this is what attracts and compels Nietzsche to explore and subvert “the star”. The word, which has been mostly neglected by commentators, is of paramount importance in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and it functions as a “curtain raiser and closer” in The Gay Science, but it is also present in many other texts. According to Ryan, it usually represents “that which is both the creative force and also the result of acknowledging and struggling through the chaos”. Thus the metaphor functions as a means of expressing Nietzsche’s conceptions of chaos, cosmos, and creation. Most importantly, the way Nietzsche uses the metaphor, that is, his artistry in appropriating and deconstructing “the language of the stars”, shows what he wants to say about chaos and cosmos. Put differently, Nietzsche’s use of the metaphorical image of the “star” performatively expresses his conception of the human being as ever changing and “still undetermined” (BGE 62/JGB 62). The volume closes with Maria Cristina Fornari’s essay on Nietzsche’s last letters (1885–1889). These letters are “a sort of autobiography” that reveals the personal experiences behind the ideas expressed in the published writings and the notebooks. Most importantly, the letters are an important part of Nietzsche’s effort to “recapitulate”, that is, to look back “over the experience of his past writings, with the aim of making himself understandable for action on the present”. In the letters he clearly sketches “a personal development of which he can only become aware himself with hindsight”. The retrospective reading of his own works allows him to find coherence in them, but also to give them a new meaning in the light of the philosophical ideas that they prepared but could only emerge later. However, Nietzsche’s reinterpretation of his previous works also makes him reinterpret his whole “task”. It changes his assessment of the posthumous effect of his work and, therefore, they create the need for new forms of expression. Thus, in the letters, we can see Nietzsche constantly searching for new “masks” of self-expression, new “masks” which are in the end different styles that he wants to imprint on his writings. Such styles aim to adequately express not only his new philosophical ideas, but also the personal experiences that lie at their origin. We believe it is wonderfully

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fitting to end this introduction with a quotation from one of the letters analysed by Fornari: My writings are difficult because rarer and more unusual states of mine prevail over normal ones. I am not boasting about this, but that is how it is. I search for signs of similar emotional situations that are not yet understood and often hardly understandable; my inventive capacity seems to me to be revealed in this. […] Is it not perhaps true that a work’s intention must always create first of all the law of its style? I require that when this intention changes, the whole stylistic procedure must change too (Bf. an Josef Viktor Widmann 04.02.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 986).

I. On Metaphor and the Limits of Language

Céline Denat

“To Speak in Images”: The Status of Rhetoric and Metaphor in Nietzsche’s New Language It has been noticed for a long time: Nietzsche’s texts are characterised by a constant use of tropes or rhetorical figures, which seem to be set against “a ‘simple’ use of the German language, but equally (…) the language of philosophical discourse”.1 Whereas philosophers tend to use a language capable of conveying – as accurately as possible – the rigorousness of their ideas, concepts and arguments, Nietzsche, as he himself sometimes explicitly indicates, does not cease to “speak in images”, to proclaim his purpose in a “figurative way” (im Bilde or im Gleichniss reden).2 This is something which, on the other hand, may have raised doubts about Nietzsche’s rigor: as an author who could seem much more prone to persuade through a mere rhetorical use of language, than to convince through a strict use of rational argumentation. And yet, Nietzsche himself underlines the necessity of the “coldest mistrust” (WS 145) of “images and comparisons” through which we can “convince, but not prove” and which arouse only “conviction and belief”. Moreover, he recalls the need of all philosophical activity to be built upon rigor. How should we, hence, understand Nietzsche, when he explicitly claims to make use of a “pictorial language” and at the same time clearly refuses to use that sort of rhetorical figures which are “images and similes”? In order to account for the coherence of Nietzsche’s intention in this respect, we will study the specific and new meaning that Nietzsche gives to the notion of rhetoric and, thus, of metaphor as well. Indeed these notions no longer bear the meaning that has been traditionally ascribed to them. Thus, rhetoric will no longer refer exclusively to the art of “speaking well”, the art of persuasive eloquence, essentially distinct from common or philosophical language; and the metaphor will not be reduced here to its stylistic and ornamental status, as a short version of a comparison which only makes sense in relation to a pre-existing and “proper” term and meaning. For this purpose we shall, first, pay special attention to the texts from the early 1870’s, most particularly to his lectures on rhetoric given in Basel in 1872, and to his text On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense, where

1 Blondel (1991), p. 18. See also Blondel (1984). 2 See, for instance, HH I 231/MA I 231, GS 24/FW 24, GS 93/FW 93, GS 354/FW 354, BGE 252/JGB 252.

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Nietzsche develops and justifies these theses explicitly. In effect, this study shows how Nietzsche, in an apparently paradoxical way, rethinks language as deriving primarily from a “rhetorical force” which is its creative source. And he does so precisely against the view that rhetoric, metaphors and images only make sense against the background of a “proper” language, as if they were its derivatives. Even more precisely, in these first writings and as a result of this first thesis, Nietzsche rethinks language as being totally metaphorical. In this way he gives the notion of metaphor an original meaning, enjoining us to renounce the idea of a proper or adequate use of language in relation to reality, and hence, most certainly too, leading us to renounce the demand of an absolutely true discourse. We believe that this observation regarding the nature of language enables us to understand better the nature and the use of the “new language” which characterises, as Nietzsche himself admits, the whole of his writings. It also explains the reason why Nietzsche will later say (although without going to the trouble of explaining the precise meaning of this affirmation), that whatever we may do or intend to do, “it all remains a speech in images (Bilderrede)” (NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[128]).3 On the other hand, our effort will also be to show that, with these affirmations, Nietzsche is by no means giving up the demand of rigorousness and coherence, in short: the demand of intellectual probity,4 which, according to Nietzsche, must characterise all philosophical activity and philosophical texts. For, to be precise, what has led philosophy until now to remain dogmatic and a prisoner of the limits and illusions of established modes of discourse is the belief in a true discourse, capable of expressing with adequacy a reality existing “in-itself”. In this sense, language has remained one of the biggest “danger[s] to spiritual freedom ” (WS 55). Conversely, to think of language as being rhetorical and metaphorical is to underscore the vivid and mutable character of language, and hence, of thought itself. This opens both speech and thought to new possibilities, new forms of saying, thinking and interpreting the world – perhaps more rigorous and coherent than the previous ones in spite of the latter’s pretension, or more precisely because of their pretension of adequately conveying “what is” and, thus, of finding absolute truths. Whenever the belief reigns that words necessarily denote real things, and whenever fixed and established modes of discourse are being used without being questioned, the philosopher remains ineluctably “imprisoned in the nets of language” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[135]).5 So far we have believed with too much 3 “Es bleibt eine Bilderrede” [editors’ translation]. 4 In relation to this demand for probity and “intellectual honesty”, which Nietzsche never ceases to affirm, see for example HH I 225/MA I 225, WS 37, GS 2/FW 2, BGE 5/JGB 5. For a deeper analysis of this point we shall refer to: Granier (1966), p. 501–506, Wotling (1995), p. 43, also to our work: Denat (2006a). 5 “der Philosoph in den Netzen der Sprache eingefangen” [editors’ translation].

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confidence that we could “grasp the true in things” (WS 11), without noticing that words very often hide problems rather than solve them,6 and that the distinctions and structures (the “grammar”) of language cover modes of thought which are not necessarily self-evident.7 Nietzsche, thus, intends to think a “new language”.8 Overall, this means that we shall find in his writings new uses of language, which allow him to develop the novelty and freedom of a thought in search of higher degrees of philosophical probity. The notion of metaphor – understood in its widest sense as a shift, a transposition – is precisely what allows Nietzsche to convey the constant shifts, the procedures of substitution or exclusion in relation to accepted uses which can be operative at the core of a given language, and this is what will enable him to overcome the frozen, simplifying and misleading schemes in which language and thought have so far remained imprisoned. The clarification of the specific nature of the “new language”, that Nietzsche believes to be establishing in order to radically express new modes of thought, will enable us to understand the status and importance of such “rhetorical” statements which are so abundant in Nietzsche’s texts. To the question, which we certainly cannot ignore: “do they have an ornamental or a philosophical value?”,9 we must answer that, given that the distinctions between philosophical and rhetorical language, as well as between conceptual and pictorial language, will be overcome and denied in Nietzsche’s writings, such statements are in themselves philosophical statements, even though – or to be more exact – precisely because they renounce to present themselves as a proper language. They are not merely ornamental or secondary and are not to be retranslated and reduced to a conceptual language more fundamental than them, because now philosophical language recognises itself as being necessarily rhetorical and pictorial. In this context, we will be able to consider more rigorously the precise meaning and significance of several types of statements which in effect pervade and characterise Nietzsche’s writings and which are troubling statements (“‘spirit’ resembles a stomach more than anything”, BGE 230/JGB 230), or apparently contradictory statements (“truth does not signify the antithesis of error”, NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[247] = WLN, 15), or statements which at the very least seem to blur admitted distinctions (the body is “your great reason”, “the soul is just a word for something on the body”, ZA I Despisers/Verächtern; our body is “a society constructed out of many ‘souls’”, BGE 19).

6 7 8 9

M 47/D 47: “Words lie in our way!”. See also WS 55, BGE 16/JGB 16. For Nietzsche’s critique of “grammar”, see BGE 17/JGB 17, BGE 34/JGB 34. See, among others, BT Attempt 6/GT Versuch 6, BGE 4/JGB 4, EH Books 1/EH Bücher 1. See Blondel (1991), p. 18.

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Rhetoric as a Force Inherent to Language In his lectures on rhetoric and the history of Greek eloquence held in Basel in 1872,10 Nietzsche extensively insists on the fact that philosophers have given almost no privilege to rhetoric so far. The reason being, that philosophers have misunderstood this topic or understood it only in a very superficial way. The art of rhetoric, being the art of “speaking well”, has too often been considered as a simply formal art, an art of artifice, style and ornament. As a result philosophy, understood as an activity designed to search for and express the truth accurately, i.e. openly and without ornaments, has been opposed to rhetoric as an art of eloquence, designed to seduce in favour either of the true or the false. Hence, the distinction – which seems to go without saying – between a “proper”, clear and “natural” language and a simply rhetorical and “artificial” one11 has led us either to despise and criticise all art of rhetoric for being deceptive, or to do our best to use it as an instrument for accomplishing the philosophical goals themselves. In the first case, the art of rhetoric is expelled from the realm of true philosophy as the demands of rigor, neutrality and clarity for the philosophical discourse proscribe the pursuit of rhetorical effects,12 that is, of all stylistic effects, which could affect the discourse’s universality and objectivity. In the second case, rhetoric is reduced to a second rank, as a simple and subordinate medium. This was the case for Plato, who, even though he confessed to feel a “strong dislike for” rhetoric, nevertheless acknowledged that rhetoric is capable of helping to “inspire a doxa” where the nature of the audience or “the brevity of time allows for no scientific instruction”.13 Rhetoric is hence nothing more than philosophy’s servant: it is true

10 Cf. “Darstellung der Antiken Rhetorik”, and “Geschichte der griechischen Beredsamkeit”, in: KGW, II/4, pp. 363 ff. and KGW, II/4, pp. 413 ff.; see the English translation: Nietzsche (1989), “Description of Ancient Rhetoric” and “The History of Greek Eloquence”, in: F. Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, ed. & transl. by S. L. Gilman/C. Blair/D. J. Parent, pp. 2 ff. and 213 ff. 11 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 21 (KGW, II/4, p. 425): “We call an author, a book, a style ‘rhetorical’ when we observe a conscious application of artistic means of speaking; it always implies a gentle reproof. We consider it to be not natural, and as producing the impression of being done purposefully”. 12 One might think of Leibniz’s Préface à Nizolius sur le style philosophique. Nietzsche refers to Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding, III, 10, §34, p. 508: “But yet, if we would speak of Things as they are, we must allow, that all the Art of Rhetoric, besides Order and Clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheat”. 13 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, I, pp. 7–8 (KGW II/4, pp. 417–419).

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that Plato grants a certain value to rhetoric, but only in those cases where the latter “rests upon philosophical education”, and even then only “provided it is used for good aims, i.e., those of philosophy”.14 Whether seen as an enemy or as a servant the difference is only superficial and only takes place on the basis of a deeper agreement and prejudice: in both cases, rhetoric is understood on the basis of a series of dualistic oppositions – between concept and image, between the seduction of the passions and intellectual knowledge, between knowledge and art, more specifically between the natural and the artificial, between the proper and the improper. The use of rhetoric, being pictorial and improper, is supposed to emerge from a first, natural and proper use of language. It is only in Nietzsche’s later texts that we can find an explicit critique of this dualism, a dualism which he denounces as “the prejudice by which metaphysicians of all ages can be recognized”.15 And yet, already in his notes from the early 1870’s, Nietzsche clearly questions the dualistic distinctions, which lead to a misunderstanding, and more precisely to an unjustified reduction, of the modes in which the notion of “rhetoric” must be understood. This questioning is realised through a double and regressive inquiry: the first one aims to interrogate the history of the notion of rhetoric itself, and the second, in a more radical manner, questions the sources of human language. First of all, the reference to the history of the notion of rhetoric allows Nietzsche, in the first paragraph of his lectures, to recall that the art of rhetoric has not always been considered to be a simply secondary discipline or art, derived from a “natural” use of language. Originally, the Greeks, and even Aristotle, didn’t conceive of rhetoric as being a singular and secondary technē or epistēmē, but as a power (dynamis).16 Nietzsche translates this and designates it as a force (Kraft)17 inherent to language, which renders it naturally capable of producing an effect of persuasion on the audience. This historical element plays an important role, giving us a first indication of the way in which we can conceive of rhetoric in contrast to other modern reductive and devaluating conceptions. But this initial indicator will be confirmed and dealt with in depth in the third paragraph of the same text, which questions “the relation of the rhetorical to language”, and which develops a 14 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, I, p. 9 (KGW II/4, p. 419). 15 BGE 2/JGB 2: “The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is the belief in opposition of values”. 16 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, I, p. 9 (KGW II/4, p. 419). See Aristotle, Rhetoric, I, 2, 1355b18–20. 17 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 21 (KGW II/4, p. 425): “Die Kraft, welche Aristoteles Rhetorik nennt”.

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critical argumentation quite similar to and clearly preparatory to the one developed at the beginning of On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense. In effect, in both texts, Nietzsche questions the usual distinction between a “proper” or “natural” language and a rhetorical, “artificial” or “pictorial” language. The very particular sense that is given to the concept of rhetoric in the 1872 lectures can be seen as a preparation for the equally singular use Nietzsche makes of the term “metaphor” in his On Truth and Lying, to which we will come back later. Nietzsche’s argumentation here consists in showing that the terms which we call “proper” or “natural” are only said to be so in as much as a long habit has made them seem to be so. The classical distinction, according to which Achilles is properly designated as a “man” and rhetorically or metaphorically designated as “a lion”, comes from a customary, but always conventional, use of the terms lion and man. But neither of them is more “proper”, more “adequate” than the other to designate the species man or the individual Achilles. So much so that the greater part of classical philosophy would indeed admit the conventional character of language, manifest through the diversity of languages. Hence, what appears to be artificial or rhetorical in a given linguistic, historical and cultural context could end up seeming quite different in another one. According to Nietzsche, when we make quick and “pejorative” judgements concerning the “rhetorical” and “forced” character of an author or book, we should question “the taste of the one who passes judgement”, that is to say, “what exactly is ‘natural’ to him”.18 This could be just the result of a long habit, of something, which, to start with, is only a conventional creation. The “natural” is always the effect of a long-lasting and habitual convention. Therefore, the belief in a proper language and in its real differentiation from an improper language is the effect of having forgotten the history and the developmental nature of language, as well as of our “taste” for certain modes of expression rather than others. This radical reconsideration about the idea of a proper language allows Nietzsche to abolish the distinction between proper and improper or “only pictorial” languages. What does a word designate in fact? From his early writings, Nietzsche incessantly insists that it is never the thing itself, which is never accessible to us as such. Nietzsche picks up and radicalises a Kantian topic: we only ever have access to the thing’s and the world’s image (Bild) – and of the world as it is in itself, we are unable to say anything at all. So that

18 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 21 (KGW II/4, p. 425), translation modified.

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the whole idea of the “in-itself” can be legitimately abandoned.19 The word never designates an existing “reality” or a pure “fact”; according to Nietzsche’s lectures on rhetoric, the word only designates the image (Bild) we have or make of things: these remain for us unknown, and their images are mere appearances beyond which no being is accessible to us.20 These appearances or images are nothing else than what Nietzsche will later call “interpretations” – interpretations which depend on our own physiological constitution, in as much as we are their authors.21 Moreover, the word itself does not resemble this sensitive image more than the latter can be said to resemble the “thing itself”, which remains unknown to us. The word cannot constitute a “perfectly adequate reproduction” of the visual or sensitive image, because it belongs to a totally different order, namely to the order of sounds and vocality. If it is also in a certain sense an “image”, it is a “sound image” (Tonbild). Therefore, language never says “the essence of things” adequately, but only the way in which they appear to us. In addition, and to be more precise, words and language do not refer to a real thing, but only to the images, to the interpretations which constitute our world, the only ones we can claim to “know”. Language is the image of an image, the original model of which remains for us forever unknown. It never produces, as Nietzsche puts it, “anything more accurate than an image”.22 This is why we can say that language is always pictorial, always improper, always the result of a double process of production or creation, in which we are the creators, although often unconsciously. This is the reason why Nietzsche can say that that “conscious art”, which is the art of rhetoric such as it has normally been conceived, is no more than a “further 19 Although in the 1860’s Nietzsche still seemed to embrace Kant’s distinction between phenomena and thing-in-itself, it is clear that he tried to overcome it since the 1870’s: see, for example, the radical critique of that distinction in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense: “The ‘thing-in-itself’ (which would be, precisely, pure truth, truth without consequences) is impossible for even the creator of language to grasp” (TL 1, 144/WL 1), so that also the term “phenomenon” (Erscheinung) is deceptive. For the image is itself an “appearance” (Schein) which does not manifest anything besides itself. See also HH I 9/MA I 9 and NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 2[154], editors’ translation: “Supposing there is an in-itself, an unconditional, it cannot, precisely for that reason, be known”. 20 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 21 (KGW II/4, pp. 426), translation modified: “Man, who forms language, does not perceive things or events, but stimuli (Reize): he does not reproduce sensations (Empfindungen), but merely copies (Abbildungen) of sensations. The sensation, evoked through a nervous stimulus (Nervenreiz), does not take in the thing in itself: this sensation is presented externally through an image (Bild)”. 21 On the relation between the concepts of interpretation and image, a relation which allows Nietzsche to defend that even sensible and allegedly immediate knowledge is already the result of an interpretation, cf. Denat (2006b). 22 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 23 (KGW II/4, pp. 426), translation modified.

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development (…) of the artistic means already found in language”; in other words, it is merely the fine tip of an “unconscious” rhetorical art, which is necessarily present in all forms of language: The force (Kraft) to discover and to make operative, with respect to each thing, that which has an effect and makes an impression, a force which Aristotle calls rhetoric – this force is, at the same time, the essence of language; the latter is based just as little as rhetoric is upon that which is true, upon the essence of things; language does not desire to instruct, but to transpose to others (auf Andere übertragen) a subjective emotional response and its acceptance.23

Put differently: because language is always the (sound) image of an image, the vocal transposition of the image we make of “reality” according to the type of beings that we are, and because it could never aspire to more than to “convey only a doxa and not an epistēmē”, we can conclude that “there is obviously no unrhetorical ‘naturalness’ of language to which one could appeal: language itself is the result of purely rhetorical arts”.24 In other words we must say that “[…] language is rhetoric […]”.25 And, in addition, as Nietzsche will say again in a later note, “[…] the figures of rhetoric [are] the essence of language” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[215], editors’ translation). Rhetoric is, hence, not just that specific use of language which could be opposed to a philosophical, rational, demonstrative or dialectic use of language; it is not just that artifice which enables discourses to exercise a certain persuasive effect on the audiences, particularly in political contexts. Rhetoric must be conceived, more radically, as that force (Kraft) which is at the core of all creation and of all particular linguistic uses. It is what gives all discourses the force to perform a particular form of thinking: human discourse can never “instruct” in a neutral way and regarding ideas or truths already existing in themselves, it can only “transmit” or “transpose” to others “a subjective emotional response and its acceptance”. This is the case even when this force inherent to language has been forgotten and remains neglected, such that we come to believe in the objectivity and truth of a discourse, which pretends to be neutral and perfectly “adequate to reality”. The beginning of Nietzsche’s Lectures on Greek eloquence announces this thesis in other terms, recalling what the Greeks knew, and we have forgotten, namely that the mastery of discourse is what allows us to “control ‘opinion about things’ and hence the effect of things upon men”.26 23 24 25 26 in:

“Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 21 (KGW II/4, p. 425 f.), translation modified. “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 21 (KGW II/4, p. 425). “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 23 (KGW II/4, p. 426). “The History of Greek Eloquence”, p. 213 (“Geschichte der griechischen Beredsamkeit”, KGW II/4, p. 371).

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From this perspective we can now understand that language is never neutral, because it is originally understood as a “force”, as a “power”. A particular language entails the practical rather than theoretical power of inducing ways of thinking, values, and hence, of inducing specific modes of life. The unity of a word, for instance, leads us to believe in the reality and unity of the “thing” it is supposed to designate. This applies to terms such as “spirit” or even “will”, which lead us to believe in the existence of a certain faculty27 that would be the condition of our freedom and moral responsibility, or, if that should be the case, the condition of our culpability and condemnation. Certain “linguistic usage[s]” are supposed to make us overestimate the intellectual, spiritual and divine spheres and, conversely, devaluate the “closest things” (WS 5) that concern the body and the conditions of everyday life. Because we are not able to abstract from these “things” and we do not take them seriously enough, we come to neglect our own existence. In later texts, Nietzsche does not cease to insist upon these “deceptions” (Täuschungen) that are involved in language, deceptions that are as difficult to detect as they remain “unconscious” (NL 1872–73, KSA 9, 19[216], editors’ translation). In the same way he insists that we must resist the “philosophical mythology” which remains “concealed in language” (WS 11), because it forms our ways of thinking, living and acting without our noticing it. As Nietzsche insistently claims at the beginning of the 1870’s,28 language is one of the essential conditions for the constitution of any particular culture and this is why it is so important to avoid neglecting its specific nature and effects. Conversely, we must say that such inattention to and such misreading of the rhetorical character and force inherent to language, which, on the other hand, ensure the creation and/or recreation of language itself (what Nietzsche sometimes calls its “plasticity”), condemn those who neglect these aspects to stay trapped in immutable forms of talking and thinking, where they will remain incapable of questioning the singularities, limits and eventual problematic character of language. In as much as philosophers consider conceptual, rational language as the only rigorous form of language, giving it thus an absolute value, they neglect the developmental character of this particular form

27 See HH I 14/MA I 14: “the unity of the word is no guarantee of the unity of the thing”; NL 1876–77, KSA 8, 23[163], editors translation: “Once there are words, human beings believe that something has to correspond to them, e.g. soul, God, will, destiny etc”; D 33/M 33, BGE 19/JGB 19. 28 See the posthumous notes from the period of the Untimely Meditations I-II: NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[308], 19[329], editor’s translation: “First stage of civilization: the belief in language, as a form of designation which is entirely metaphorical”, NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 26[16], etc.

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of language, as well as the particular modes of thought which are “embedded” within it.29 Because they make a radical distinction between proper and rhetorical language, reducing the latter to an inessential art of linguistic figures and ornament, and hence, neglecting language’s inherent plastic and practical force, they have condemned themselves to dogmatism, to remain prisoners of the “nets of language” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[135]), as Nietzsche clearly indicates already in 1872 in his Lectures on the history of Greek eloquence: The philosophers, however, have no sense for this activity [sc. eloquence] (for they have no understanding of the art which lived and flourished around them […]), and so their hostility is too vehement […].30

By contrast, the way in which Nietzsche shifts the meaning attributed to the notion of rhetoric, and with this shift, the attention paid to the rhetorical force and the creative power at the root of language, which are inherent to language itself – all of this invites us to think of the possibility of a modification, a recreation of language, and hence, a modification of the ways of thought which are entangled within language, as well as a modification of the types of culture which are conditioned through language. As Nietzsche will write in 1880, “to improve one’s style” is not just to change ornaments and form: “To improve one’s style – means to improve one’s thoughts and nothing else!” (WS 131). At this point, however, we come across a manifest difficulty: if there isn’t any proper language and if there isn’t any true discourse, why should we want to “improve”, correct or modify them? If all forms of objective knowledge of a given reality are impossible, and if all discourses are equally inadequate, must we not say that they are all equal? And what is the purpose of wanting to create a “new language”? These are the difficulties that we intend to resolve in the second part of our essay.

A “New Language”: Learning how to “Use Language as an Artist” First of all, as we have seen above, what needs to be “improved” is the belief that language can be the holder of an absolute truth, the belief that through language “we grasp the true in things” (WS 11). But Nietzsche’s critique of 29 See the posthumous notes from the period of the Untimely Meditations I-II: NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[117], NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[215], NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[216]. 30 “The History of Greek Eloquence”, p. 216 (KGW II/4, p. 371).

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language does not end here: far from considering all languages and all, present or future, forms of discourse to be necessarily equivalent, he stresses the intrinsic difficulties – both practical and theoretical – of certain forms of expression, so that he indicates the necessity of conceiving new forms of discourse: different forms of discourse which will surpass the present ones. Even if we were to admit, as Nietzsche himself sometimes does, that “all hundred different languages express in different ways the needs that are typical and unchangeable in human beings” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 29[88], editors’ translation), after having exposed the problematic or weakening character of those very needs, as well as of the modes of expression responding to them – which in the end only reinforce and perpetuate them – , the necessity of conceiving a new language becomes clear, a new language which, in its turn, would allow us to transform humanity. However, as Nietzsche mostly insists, we must add that the different languages or the varied styles existing within a language presuppose different needs, values and types of interpretation, which can also be incited in new audiences and readers.31 In this respect, what Nietzsche mostly criticises is the lack of finesse within a language, its simplifying character. The word, or to be more precise the belief in its referential character, i.e. the belief that one word necessarily designates one thing (and, conversely, that what lacks a name should be disregarded,32) leads us to conceive of complex phenomena as substantial unities. Words make us believe in the unity and simplicity of a sentiment for instance, whereas a more rigorous examination will reveal its “polyphonic”33 character. They make us believe in the unity and simplicity of the “will”, which, in fact, presupposes a complex flux of affections, sentiments and tendencies, which do not have a “verbal unity” (BGE 19/JGB 19). The belief in the referential character of words and grammatical distinctions induce a simplifying, and hence, reassuring vision of the world.34 The grammatical distinction between subject and verb leads us to believe in a real distinction between the agent and his (or her)

31 See BGE 28/JGB 28, and BGE 20/JGB 20: “Philosophers of the Ural-Altaic language group (where the concept of the subject is the most poorly developed) are more likely to ‘see the world’ differently, and to be found on different paths from those taken by the Indo-Germans or Muslims: the spell of particular grammatical functions is in the last analysis the spell of physiological value judgments and racial conditioning”. 32 See D 115/M 115. 33 D 133/M 133: “All of this, and other, much more subtle things in addition, constitute ‘pity’: how coarsely does language assault with its one word so polyphonous a being!” 34 See WS 11: “Through words and concepts we are still continually misled into imagining things as being simpler than they are, separate from one another, indivisible, each existing in and for itself”.

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action, between a cause and its effect,35 i.e. precisely at the point where it seems most legitimate to perceive and think of a complex and fluid continuity.36 Through dualistic oppositions (such as good and evil, true and false, natural and artificial or proper and improper) it is easy to allow oneself to ignore a big part of what is real, because as we overvalue one of the terms to the detriment of the other we tend to neglect the totality characterised by the latter. In other words, the faith in the truth of one sole interpretation leads us to neglect other possibilities of thought; the belief in the proper character of a certain form of discourse leads us to reject all other forms of expression for being inadequate, to such an extent that “the way seems as good as blocked for certain other possibilities of interpreting the world” (BGE 20/JGB 20). But Nietzsche accuses such a necessity of simplification and negation of being a symptom of both intellectual dishonesty and weakness. Dishonesty, because by doing this, one simplifies the text itself and cuts it off from the appearances in which it is based, i.e. from the indefinitely varied and changing character of the images that function as one’s starting point. Weakness, because these simplifications are evidently a measure which saves us from confronting the complex and contradictory character of the apparent world and spares us the difficulty of understanding it. In this context it is easier to understand why it is not pointless for Nietzsche to want to create and use a new language. If it is true that no language could ever adequately say what is reality in itself, it is nevertheless also true that certain languages produce a weak and weakening vision of “reality”, whereas others enable us to think in a more nuanced way, which is also more difficult to embrace, and which therefore requires more courage. It is precisely in this context that we need to consider Nietzsche’s critique of conceptual language, which he develops in his On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense: in the same way we believe a word to be designating a thing, we come to believe that one general term, such as “leaf” for instance, necessarily covers a certain concept, which is also general and which is supposed to be independent and more fundamental than all the singular and varied leaf images; in fact, however, this concept is just the effect of the negation of all such particular leaf images, even if it comes first and foremost from them and their infinite differences. That is, the concept is nothing else than the effect of reducing the non-identical to the identical (TL 1/WL 1). All these elements enable us to comprehend the necessity of a new language: intellectual honesty presupposes that we use a language that does not claim to designate reality adequately; philosophical probity entails that the

35 See BGE 21/JGB 21, GM I 13. 36 See GS 112/FW 112.

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modes of discourse used do not intend to simplify the appearances, but rather to embrace their diversities and their complexity without negating them. But, for this purpose, it is necessary to gain a certain distance from language and from the common uses of language, in which Western philosophy has remained trapped until now.37 Nietzsche does not, however, think of this distance as a radical “goodbye” to common language. His writings give evidence to this: Nietzsche’s “new language” is not radically unknown to the reader; in many respects, the original language Nietzsche uses is not so different from the common language used by his compatriots. The novelty does not consist in the creation ex nihilo of new terms, but rather in renovated uses and definitions of old terms, and in completely new ways of associating terms which had not been related in the same way before, or which had even been considered to be mutually exclusive. It is this aspect, which we would now like to develop further, and which will enable us to better understand the sense in which Nietzsche uses the notion of metaphor. It is important to note that from his early as well as in his later writings Nietzsche insists on the following idea: “mastery” of language involves more than just mastery over known and admitted usages of a given language. To master a language means to be acquainted with the usual uses, but also to be aware of its deficiencies, its impoverished or vulgar character and to know how to make up for these deficiencies with singular, personal and new uses. In this sense and throughout his Lectures on Greek eloquence, Nietzsche praises the “freedom” and the “audacity” of the ancient Greeks, as well as the “wonderful process of choosing new forms of language, which never cease to develop” in Greece, even in late antiquity.38 In contrast to the traditional demand of universality and stability, Nietzsche indicates in his Lectures on rhetoric (§6) the importance, i.e. the necessity, of singular uses of language for all those who intend to develop new thoughts. Thus in the case of Thucydides: Thucydides felt that the common language was neither appropriate to him, nor to his theme. He displayed his mastery of the language in using new and peculiar forms, and in unusual constructions.39

However, in order to avoid any form of flaw, it is important to note that, as far as language is concerned, this singularity, this novelty and this freedom cannot

37 See again BGE 20/JGB 20. 38 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, VI, p. 51 (KGW II/4, p. 441). 39 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, VI, p. 43 (KGW II/4, p. 438).

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be understood as a rule-less creation of a totally new language. As the example of Thucydides shows: what he attains is a singular use of the attic dialect, characterised, for instance, by the use of archaic terms, by the voluntary and reiterative rupture of certain syntactic rules, but it is not a new language created from scratch. In the same period, in the second conference On the Future of our Educational Institutions, and then later in the first of his Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche insists without any ambiguity upon the fact that an authentically original use of a language is only possible after one has first assimilated and learnt the ancient uses of that language. Without this the supposed creative freedom is nothing more than chaos and lack of style. This is opposed to modern tendencies; the modern content themselves with a theoretical knowledge of language and are generally satisfied when they use the most vulgar linguistic forms, thus avoiding the effort of a “rigorous training” (ZB, KSA 1, p. 683, editors’ translation) in the practice and effective assimilation of the rules of language. In this way they prematurely encourage a form of originality, which nevertheless can only be achieved on the basis of the ancient rules and constraints.40 On the other hand, if, as Nietzsche writes from 1874 onwards, it is true that we must be able to “find” or “make our own language”41 in order to convey a thought or singular experiences, we also have to admit that such a new language will only be understood and will only have imitation effects on the audience or readers, if this new form consists in a displacement and revival of the ancient, rather than in the creation ex nihilo of radically unknown terms and idiomatic turns.42 In contrast to the “modern rage for originality”, we must understand and admit, such as the ancient artists did, that “obstinately to avoid convention means wanting not to be understood” (WS 122) and that newly created conventions will only make sense upon the basis and from within old conventions.43 During the period of his Untimely Meditations Nietzsche wrote that we must be able to […] pass a judgment on the corruption of today’s language, and thus to ask the past for help. The treasure of words and expressions which are available to everyone now must

40 Cf. ZB II; see also UM I 11. 41 See the posthumous notes from the period of the Untimely Meditations I-II: NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 34[20] and NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 37[7]; see also the BT Attempt 6/GT Versuch 6. 42 This is why the demand of a “new language” does not preclude Nietzsche from criticizing the will to violently create “neologisms”: see, for instance, WS 127: “Against innovators in language”, an aphorism that I quote below. 43 WS 122. See also WS 140: “This was the school in which the Greek poets were raised: firstly to allow a multiplicity of constraints to be imposed upon one; then to devise an additional new constraint, impose it upon oneself and conquer it with charm and grace: so that both the constraint and its conquest are noticed and admired”.

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be seen and felt as used; language is much richer than this treasure suggests […]. Therefore, one should use language in an artistic way, so as to escape from feeling nauseated (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 37[7], editors’ translation).

To create “one’s own” language does not mean to create a new idiom, but to know how “to use language in an artistic way”. It means to revivify and renew the usages of language and of the pre-existing “treasure of words and expressions” – and all this, in order to reach new ways of thinking. As Nietzsche will note in The Wanderer and his Shadow, in relation to language, creation should not be understood as the addition of new, previously unknown elements, of neologisms. It is a question of “possessing better” than others the language in use, of using in a “light and delicate way […] the everyday and seemingly long since exhausted in words and phrases” (WS 127). It is precisely in this context that we need to understand the nature of Nietzsche’s new language and also the nature of the difficulties hereby involved: if Nietzsche still uses old terms, he does so in order to modify the use, the sense and the relations between them. To describe, for instance, the “spirit” as being analogous to a “stomach” is a way of overcoming the dualism between spirit and body, but without neglecting it from the beginning; it is a way of indicating that thought and knowledge, far from being intellectual phenomena, are part of the vital activity of assimilation which characterises the human beings’ way of being alive. Moreover, it is a way of indicating that the spirit, far from being a “mirror” truthfully reflecting an external reality, is a means and a movement of appropriation responding to and being determined by certain needs. Nietzsche does by no means renounce the usage of the old terms he criticises – such as the term “soul”, for instance. But far from contradicting himself through this, it is important to see that, by reusing such terms in his own way, he shows what type of new and more complex usage can be made of them. The continuous interweaving of physiological with psychological vocabulary (the body’s “great reason”, the soul considered as “something on the body”, and more generally speaking, the claim of a “genuine physio-psychology”44) should lead us to overcome the distinction between them.45 The description of “new versions” and “new hypotheses” concerning the plurality of what has so far been called “soul” should enable us to renounce thinking of it in terms of its substantial unity46 and to glimpse the 44 See Z I Despisers/ZA I Verächtern and BGE 23/JGB 23. 45 For this precise question see the study of Wotling (1999), p. 52 ff. 46 BGE 12/JGB 12: “Between you and me, there is absolutely no need to give up ‘the soul’ itself, and relinquish one of the oldest and most venerable hypotheses – as often happens with naturalists: given their clumsiness, they barely need to touch ‘the soul’ to lose it. But the path lies open for new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis – and concepts like the ‘mortal soul’ and the ‘soul as subject multiplicity’ and the ‘soul as a

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complexity of what we call “thinking”. By enunciating in multiple ways new relations between old words and by showing the deficiencies of traditional definitions, it is possible to lead the reader to form a new image of man and the world. But, as we shall now see, these displacement and transposition procedures in relation to language and its common terms is precisely what allows us to think of the term “metaphor” in the sense in which Nietzsche uses it in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense.

The Metaphor as a Transposition Process It is precisely because the already existing turns of phrase and words need to be treated differently and because this is a matter of displacing and transforming rather than creating radically new terms and formulations that the notion of metaphor (which, on the other hand, should be understood in relation to what has been said above about the new sense Nietzsche gives to the notion of rhetoric) has a particular importance for Nietzsche. We have already seen it: Nietzsche stretches the sense that the modern give to the notion of rhetoric and by doing so he surpasses the distinction between “rhetorical” and “proper” language. In this way he invites us to undertake a practical task concerning the recreation of language, and hence, of culture. In this sense we can rightly talk about a metaphorical renewal of the term “rhetoric”: whereas we usually (though not “properly”) use this term to designate a particular use of language, for Nietzsche rhetoric comes to designate the source and nature of language, which, hence, is considered to be the result of a creative force, as well as the bearer of a power to modify both individuals and cultures. According to its etymology, and as Aristotle’s Rhetoric clearly shows (which in this case is one of the most important influences in Nietzsche’s thought), such a displacement in the meaning and use of a given word is precisely what the idea of “metaphor” primarily designates. In effect, Aristotle defines metaphor (metaphora) above all as the “transport” or “transference” (epiphora) of a name whose meaning is usually “strange” or “foreign” to what it is transferred to.47 This etymological and relatively broad definition is the same definition Nietzsche ascribes to the term in §3 of his Lectures on rhetoric. Having shown that language is as a whole improper and rhetorical, he can then affirm that

society constructed out of drives and affects’ want henceforth to have civil rights in the realm of science”. 47 Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b6.

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“there is as little distinction between actual words and tropes as there is between straightforward speech and so-called rhetorical figures”:48 […] all words are tropes in themselves, and from the beginning. […] In sum: the tropes are not just occasionally added to words but constitute their most proper nature. It makes no sense to speak of a ‘proper’ meaning which is carried over to something else only in special cases. […] What is usually called speech (Rede) is actually all figuration.49

Recalling the principal tropes we are used to distinguish, Nietzsche defines metaphor in the following terms: The second form of the tropus is metaphor. It does not create new words, but gives a new meaning to them (Sie schafft die Wörter nicht neu, sondern deutet sie um).50

Metaphor is to be understood as a displacement of the meaning of a word, from a usual context and use (“man is endowed with feet”) towards an unusual context and use (“the foot of the mountain”). One could reproach Nietzsche for making an inappropriate use of the notion of metaphor; the inappropriateness being due to the fact that his use is excessively broad. Indeed his definition can be confounded with the notion of catachresis. In this sense, a far too imprecise and not sufficiently technical definition of metaphor would lead him to wrongly see metaphor as being at work everywhere.51 However, in the end, such an objection overlooks three points: first of all the radically new way in which Nietzsche thinks of rhetoric, which now does not refer to a particular discipline, the function and specific use of which would need to be understood; secondly, the practical dimension of Nietzsche’s proposal, who by no means intends to offer a theoretical classification of the figures and is least of all worried about his definitions being faithful to the ones admitted by the language specialists. Nietzsche is much more preoccupied with rethinking the vital and cultural issues at stake here. And finally, in this particular context and in accordance with the latter requisite, the semantic choice that leads Nietzsche to displace the usual meaning accorded by the 48 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p 25 (KGW II/4, p. 427), translation modified. 49 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, pp. 23 and 25 (KGW II/4, p. 426 f.), translation modified. 50 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, III, p. 23 (KGW II/4, p. 427), translation modified. 51 Cf. Charbonnel (1999), pp. 32–61: “[la métaphore] à l’œuvre partout, […] enrôlant même sous sa bannière n’importe quel tour, n’importe quelle tournure, le fait même de qualifier, plus : le fait même de nommer. Est paré alors du prestige de la métaphorisation, de ses pompes et de ses œuvres, tout déplacement, du moment qu’il se dit en langue, et même le déplacement premier, celui des choses aux mots. Sous prétexte d’embrasser la rhétorique, c’est bien là l’étouffer”.

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moderns to the term “metaphor” by expanding its meaning and recalling its ancient signification: The Greeks first signified the transposition (Übertragung) (Isocrates, for example) by metaphora; also Aristotle. Hermogenes says that among grammarians one still calls metaphora what the rhetoricians call tropos. Among the Romans, one adopts tropus; Cicero still speaks of translatio, immutatio; later, one will say motus, mores, modi.52

In a first instance, metaphora is not only a trope amongst others, which would have to be formally distinguished from them: synecdoche, metonymy, etc. These remarks given by Nietzsche enable us to indicate that the metaphor, first of all, designates all forms of displacement, all forms of translation or change in meaning, and hence all tropes, – the Greek term tropos appearing only in a first phase as an equivalent, a simple transposition of the term metaphora: for if the latter consists in displacing the meaning of a word, etymologically the tropos is also what “makes it turn”, what turns and modifies it. It is certainly in this particular sense that Nietzsche uses the term “metaphor” (Metapher) at the beginning of On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense: this term does not really designate a particular rhetorical figure; it does not even designate a linguistic displacement, but the successive processes of displacement which lead from one sphere to another totally heterogeneous sphere (from the nervous stimulation to the image, from the image to the word). Nietzsche had already evoked these processes in his Lectures on rhetoric. [The creator of language] designates only the relations of things to human beings, and in order to express them he avails himself of the boldest metaphors (Metaphern). The stimulation of a nerve is first translated into an image (Bild): first metaphor (erste Metapher)! This image is then imitated by a sound: second metaphor (zweite Metapher)! And each time there is a complete leap from one sphere into the heart of another, new sphere (TL 1, 144/WL 1).

The metaphor is not, in itself, an “image”, nor is it an element amongst other elements of a “pictorial language”, but it is rather the very movement of displacement “from one sphere to the other”, which contributes to produce perceptive images and language. The “boldest metaphors” Nietzsche refers to at the beginning are clearly not only, and most certainly not immediately, static forms or results, but rather dynamic processes of transposition – processes which, on the other hand, do not only concern the sphere of language, but also the sensible “knowledge” (the image) itself. It is thus, in terms of being the result of such process of transposition that he will later refer to the “meta-

52 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, VII, p. 53 (KGW II/4, p. 443).

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phors of things” which constitute the only knowledge we have, or the “moving multitude of metaphors”, to which all pretended “truths” are reduced. This understanding of the term “metaphor” is thus what enables Nietzsche to express in a new and more precise way the always improper and developmental nature of language, that is to say, what he designated more generally, in his lectures of 1872, as its “rhetorical” character. This means that if we can legitimately say that, according to Nietzsche, language is characterised by being totally “metaphorical”, we can only do so in a very singular sense. For sure, if we were to understand metaphor in its most common sense, such a statement would be absurd: for in that case, one would be justified in arguing that “I can use language metaphorically only if I use it literally as well”, and that “we deprive ‘metaphor’ of determinate meaning if we deny the possibility of its opposite”,53 that is, of a proper or literal use of language. But if, on the one hand, and as we have seen, the “proper” use is nothing more than the common and usual use, and if more radically, on the other hand, metaphor means now not a particular linguistic figure, but a series of displacements producing, in the end, language and its discourses, the proposition that all language is metaphorical takes on a whole new meaning. The proposition implies not only that (as we have already seen and as Nietzsche also reiterates in this text) no discourse is “an adequate expression of reality” (TL 1/WL 1) and that it does not produce “anything more adequate than an image”. The proposition also means more precisely that this inadequacy is the consequence of the fact that language is the result of a series of displacements which Nietzsche here designates precisely by the term “metaphor”, understood in a wider and more original sense than we are used to. In this sense, it is important that we insist on an outstanding aspect of these displacements. They do not come from a reality exiting in itself – a form of existence which for Nietzsche could not be attributed to anything anyway54 – but from the “nervous stimulation” (Reiz), which is “transposed” into a sensible image. The “metaphor”, such as Nietzsche understands it here, derives neither from a literal meaning, nor from a certain reality, which would have the role of a first principle or an absolute ground and to which we would like to return in order to escape the sphere of pictorial language, the sphere of images. It is true that one could be led to ask: is it not the case that the body, the physiology, the “nervous stimulations”, which Nietzsche mentions here,

53 Clark (1990), pp. 69–70. 54 This point was made above: see, again, TL 1/WL 1: “The ‘thing-in-itself’ (which would be, precisely, pure truth, truth without consequences) is impossible for even the creator of language to grasp” (my emphasis); see also the continuation of this passage.

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constitute at least one point of reference, a real ground, against which he ultimately considers all things? And can’t the “nervous stimulation” (Reiz) be thought of as a “proper” term? In this case there would be a manifest absurdity and a contradiction: the image we have of ourselves as bodies cannot be considered as a reality in itself any more than the other images constituting our “world”. Nietzsche does not think of the body in any way as a real ground or a first cause; this would mean to follow a contradictory conception, as Nietzsche himself denounces without any ambiguity.55 On the contrary, he recognises its “unknown” and “unknowable”56 character and he enjoins us to avoid claiming we can determine its “ultimate meaning”.57 Nietzsche’s statements in relation to the body, to the nervous system or even to the drives cannot be understood as if they were an exception to Nietzsche’s thesis. As Nietzsche himself admits: as long as we are talking about organisms, physiological movements, affections, it all “remains a speech in images [or “a pictorial language”, Bilderrede]”.58 However, if this pictorial language is preferable to other languages it is because it has the advantage, on the one hand, of having the courage of recognizing itself as pictorial, and on the other, of producing a complex and refined image of man as a totality of drives, i.e. of the totality which is at the basis of all image or interpretation of the world – and of man himself. The notion of metaphorical displacement, as Nietzsche uses it here, does not lead us to posit an ultimate ground, but rather to admit the absence of all form of ultimate reality and principle.59 But why does Nietzsche, nevertheless, choose to make such a new and – from so many viewpoints – strange use of the term “metaphor”? Without any doubt, his lectures on rhetoric provide evidence that there is a text that constitutes an important source for him in this respect. Indeed, Nietzsche refers to a passage from Jean Paul’s aesthetical writings, which affirms that “every language […] is a dictionary of faded metaphors”, faded metaphors to which all the supposed “proper” meanings of words can be reduced to.60 But recalling this possible source does not explain, however, why Nietzsche chose to adopt this singular use of the term and what this may mean. In order to understand this better, one must realise, firstly, that this choice makes sense against the

55 See BGE 15/JGB 15. 56 See D 119/M 119. 57 See D 119/M 119 and NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 5[56], editors’ translation. 58 NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[128], editors’ translation. 59 See Blondel (1991), p. 286–292. 60 “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, VII, p. 53 (KGW II/4, p. 443), translation modified. Jean Paul (1861), p. 179. According to Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, Nietzsche discovered this quote in Gustav Gerber (1871), p. 361.

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background of the Nietzschean refusal to take a merely theoretical stance with regard to language and, secondly, that the originality of these developments lies in the fact that Nietzsche is not satisfied with a merely theoretical description of the nature and origin of language. It is clearly not only a question of saying what language is, but performatively showing the careful reader the way in which language is made – and also that it still can be made by “using language in an artistic way”. In this respect we need to recall three points. The first one relates to the Aristotelian notion of metaphor, particularly in his Poetics. In effect, Aristotle characterises the metaphor as coming from an unusual use of language, which goes against or beyond the common use (para ton kurion), and which can hence be called “noble” or “dignified” (semnē), in opposition to the vulgar language.61 To be more precise, Aristotle often insists on the modifying power of metaphors in relation to the language from which they emanate. And this in two respects. First of all, the metaphorical procedure palliates the insufficiencies of language: the metaphorical displacement of an ancient word enables us to expand its meaning in order to say something for which “there is still no word”.62 Aristotle is the first to use such displacements, especially in his ethical works. And he does so in order to designate, in a significant and clear manner, the virtues that nobody had made the effort to name until now,63 and that, because of this, had remained unnoticed. But the metaphor also possesses the power of enabling us to see or to think totally new connections: a person who creates metaphors, writes Aristotle, creates “enigmas” in the sense that she is capable of “describing a fact by an impossible combination of words”.64 In other words, where common language only sees exclusive distinctions and oppositions, the metaphor is able to bring forth unusual connections, thereby blurring the usual distinctions and demarcations. Thus, in an Aristotelian context, which is certainly not insignificant for Nietzsche, the metaphor is what preserves language’s vivid character. Most 61 Aristotle, Poetics, 1458a18–23 : “That which employs unfamiliar words is dignified and outside of common usage. By ‘unfamiliar’ I mean a rare word, a metaphor, a lengthening, and anything beyond the ordinary use”. 62 Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b25–30 : “For instance, to scatter seed is to sow, but there is no word for the action of the sun in scattering its fire. Yet this has to the sunshine the same relation as sowing has to the seed, and so you have the phrase ‘sowing the god-created fire’”. 63 See, for instance, Eudemian Ethics, 1230b12–13, where Aristotle writes that in using the name akolasia (“profligacy” or “intemperance”) “we make a transference of meaning”, we literally “metaphorise” (metapheromen), because the term usually means “absence of punishment” in regard to children – and so the displacement of this term in ethics allows us to name a lack of moderation concerning our own pleasures. 64 Aristotle, Poetics, 1458a23–25.

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especially, the metaphor is what gives language the possibility of growing from within and of renewing itself by using its own forces: through its multiple metaphorical displacements, a pre-existing and common term acquires a new and noble meaning. Indeed one can understand the importance of such a proclamation for a thinker who intends to renew language and its uses, who intends to palliate its insufficiencies and the deceiving illusions language is capable of inducing. To this first idea we must add a double analysis concerning the name and the concept of metaphor itself. Indeed we should insist on the fact that the narrow sense usually accorded to the notion of metaphor is in itself metaphorical: if, in a first instance, phora designates a spatial movement, its use to designate a linguistic and semantic displacement is in effect the result of a metaphor. In this case, the choice of using this term is by no means irrelevant: this choice constitutes a good example of a word whose “proper” meaning appears to be “only metaphorical” when one makes the effort of looking closer. To put it in a more radical way: it is important to see that the meaning of “metaphor” is always said metaphorically: indeed, to define metaphor (metaphora) with Aristotle as a displacement (epiphora) amounts to defining it metaphorically. As Paul Ricœur rightly notes: “it is impossible not to talk metaphorically […] about the metaphor” because “the definition of the metaphor is recurrent”, that is to say, it already implies the application of the term to be defined. From now on, this appears to be determining for Nietzsche’s effort, because it shows that – to take another clarifying formulation from Ricœur – “there is no place where one could consider the metaphor or all other figures as a game displayed before one’s eyes”.65 Indeed, the Nietzschean choice of using this singular term and, in addition to this, making a new displacement regarding its own meaning can be explained as follows: Nietzsche is showing that there is no non-metaphorical language from which we could say and consider metaphorical or pictorial language and that in dealing only with metaphors one is allowed to create new metaphors, i.e. to operate displacements on ancient terms in order to modify their meaning and use. Nietzsche shows this, not only by saying it in an argumentative manner, but also by doing it: the theoretical discourse is coupled with statements that can be considered to be performative, because they effectively undertake a new metaphorical displacement in relation to the terms metaphor, language, but also truth and lie, which do not appear as opposites any more, but rather as being necessarily bound to each another.

65 Ricœur (1975), p. 25, editors’ translation.

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Overall it is important to say that the question for Nietzsche has practical as well as theoretical consequences: to say in a new way what language is, is also to transform the value and use of language. By affirming that to believe in the truth of a particular discourse is nothing more than an illusion – an illusion resulting from our “forgetting this primitive world of metaphor”, from the “scleroses” of “a mass of images, which originally flowed in a hot, liquid stream from the primal power of the human imagination” (TL 1/WL 1) – , Nietzsche confronts the reader with the possibility and even the necessity of considering other possible modes of discourse. Far from being content with telling us what language is, Nietzsche already performs a series of modifications, indicating to us in this way that it is possible for language to become something different than what it has been so far. The least one can say is that this is no less a question of transforming language than of understanding it better.

Conclusion: “To Speak in Images – and Without Images” Language, as Nietzsche understands it, does not allow any “proper” or adequate discourse to remain beyond or beside metaphorical discourses, as if the former could or should measure the validity of the latter. It does not allow us to posit the existence of any reality in itself either. All statements, as we have already seen, are metaphorical, and this means that the difference we generally think of between “proper” and “figurative” statements vanishes. And this also means that it is illegitimate to maintain, as some commentators do, that the statement which says that man is an “animal” has to be taken “literally”, whereas a statement comparing man to a “plant” would have to be taken metaphorically.66 This distinction is superficial and impedes us from understanding the way in which Nietzsche conceives and most especially uses language and its images. By transposing, retranslating the discourse on man (which is always already a pictorial discourse) into the realm of animality or into a vegetal order, Nietzsche is rethinking man and his relation to the world differently. He is allowing a new image of man to emerge, a new image which, in its turn, might contribute to transform him. To rethink philosophy as “medicine” or “genealogy” is likewise to use metaphors, in themselves significant, which will lead to a radical modification of the traditional conceptions of phi-

66 We take this example from Reed (1978), p. 159.

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losophy. This also means that we do not need to seek to reduce them to more “proper” conceptual formulae – in which case we would, precisely, risk missing their meaning. If we can still think of valuable distinctions and differences in relation to language, these can only consist in the following: a language can either be habitual and common and, hence, it can give us the illusion of being obvious and natural, or it can be new and involve new modes of expression and an original style. These will be the condition for new modes of thought, but they will also be “difficult to understand”, as Nietzsche regularly indicates in relation to his own texts. A language can encourage the need to simplify, to deny, the need to turn the back on the diversity of the appearances, or, on the contrary, it can encourage or even increase our capacity of embracing its variable and moving character, and hence of increasing our own strength. In this sense, the power of this new language, which Nietzsche intends to use, comes from the fact that it recognises itself as an “improper” and “pictorial” language, so that it constitutes itself as a transformation, displacement and deviation from the usual language in a way that aims at overcoming the weaknesses and gaps of this latter form of language. By affirming with Nietzsche that his language is no more than pictorial or metaphorical we are thus by no means devaluing Nietzsche’s writings, undermining or negating their philosophical character. Neither are we saying that his language should be rewritten or retranslated into another more conceptual or more rigorous one: for, in the same way that our knowledge of the world could never be anything other than an interpretation or an image of the world, and in the same way that all philosophy “always creates the world in its own image” (BGE 9/JGB 9), so language is always pictorial and cannot claim to do anything other than to propose a new image, a new interpretation of the world. Nietzsche’s text is precisely this paradoxical text, which can be considered as being totally metaphorical, but also, from now on, as being totally proper, in as much as it is totally figurative. In this sense Nietzsche sometimes completes the famous formula “to speak in images”, as follows: “to speak in images (and without images –)…” (BGE 9/JGB 9). Finally we would like to argue that, from a point of view which, to those who are used to the habitual philosophical claims concerning language, will seem uncommon or even awkward – to say the least – , to speak in images boils down to the same as speaking without images, because what is proper to language is that it is always figurative.

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Bibliography Aristotle (repr. 1991), Poetics, transl. by W. H. Fyfe/W. R. Roberts, Cambridge/London: Loeb Classical Library/Harvard University Press. Aristole (repr. 1952), Athenian Constitution. Eudemian Ethics. Virtues and Vices, transl. by H. Rackham, Cambridge/London: Loeb Classical Library/Harvard University Press. Blondel, Eric (1984), “Nietzsches metaphorisches Denken”, in: Berlinger, R./Schrader, W. (eds.), Nietzsche Kontrovers IV, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Blondel, Éric (1991), Nietzsche. The Body and Culture, transl. by Sean Hand, Stanford/ London: Stanford University Press/Athlone Press. Charbonnel, Nanine (1999), “Métaphore et philosophie moderne”, in: Charbonnel, N./ Kleiber, G. (eds.), La métaphore entre philosophie et rhétorique, Paris: PUF. Clark, Maudemarie (1990), Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Denat, Céline (2006a), “‘Les découvertes les plus précieuses, ce sont les méthodes’: Nietzsche ou la recherche d’une méthode sans méthodologie”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 35, pp. 282–308. Denat, Céline (2006b), “Par-delà l’iconoclasme et l’idolâtrie. Sens et usages de la notion d’image dans l’œuvre de Nietzsche”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 35, pp. 166–194. Gerber, Gustav (1871), Die Sprache als Kunst. Vol. 1, Bromberg: Mittler. Granier, Jean (1966), Le problème de la vérité dans la philosophie de Nietzsche, Paris: Seuil. Jean Paul (1861), Sämmtliche Werke, Berlin: Reimer. Locke, John (1975), An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. by P. H. Nidditch, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reed, T. J. (1978), “Nietzsche’s Animals: Idea, Image and Influence”, in: Pasley, M. (ed.), Nietzsche, Imagery and Thought. A Collection of Essays, London: Methuen, pp. 159– 219. Ricœur, Paul (1975), La métaphore vive I, Paris: Seuil. Wotling, Patrick (1995), Nietzsche et le problème de la civilisation, Paris: PUF. Wotling, Patrick (1999), La pensée du sous-sol. Statut et structure de la psychologie chez Nietzsche, Paris: Allia.

Luís Sousa

Knowledge, Truth, and the Thing-in-itself: The Presence of Schopenhauer’s Transcendental Idealism in Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873) 1

In this article I will compare Nietzsche’s analysis of the concepts of “knowledge” and “thing-in-itself” in the essay, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (TL), with Schopenhauer’s idealism. Nietzsche’s essay is usually read as a turning point regarding his relation to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and the possibility of metaphysical knowledge in general. In this essay Nietzsche starts to question not only the possibility of knowing the thing-in-itself, but also the possibility of knowing anything at all – the concept of truth itself. At the same time, the essay has been the subject of many discussions on account of its theory of language. This theory – according to which all language is metaphorical – has been often presented as the key to Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics.2 I shall try to show that, despite appearances, TL’s critique of truth and language can be read as a radicalisation of Schopenhauer’s idealism.3 We will see how the central tenets of Schopenhauer’s idealism come to be incorporated and developed in Nietzsche’s essay and used to deny the possibility of knowledge of the thing-in-itself. In the end we will see that TL is still a hybrid. For while it still betrays a very strong Schopenhauerian influence, some of its elements already point the 1 I would like to thank Marta Faustino and João Constâncio for their suggestions and helpful criticism of earlier versions of this article. [Editors’ note: All quotations from TL in this essay are from Löb’s translation: Nietzsche, Friedrich (2009), “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense”, in: Friedrich Nietzsche, Writings from the Early Notebooks, ed. by R. Geuss/A. Nehamas, transl. by L. Löb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] 2 See Emden (2005), p. 82: “Commentators following the more radical positions of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man often consider Nietzsche’s understanding of language as metaphorical to be the cornerstone of his philosophical criticism”. 3 But my intent is not of a historical-philological nature. The comparison between Nietzsche’s and Schopenhauer’s views is meant to be philosophical and, therefore, independent of Nietzsche’s interpretation of Schopenhauer, as well as independent of Schopenhauer’s historical influence upon Nietzsche. For this reason, I shall leave out of consideration the history of the genesis of TL/WL. For a survey of the most recent interpretations of the essay, cf. Hödl (2003), pp. 183–199. See also Emden (2005) for a comprehensive overview of the influences that helped shape Nietzsche’s thought in this essay.

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way to an actual overcoming of transcendental idealism – that is, of the distinction between phenomenon and thing-in-itself – , and so it contains some of the seeds of Nietzsche’s later views.

1 Schopenhauer’s Transcendental Idealism Kant’s greatest merit was, according to Schopenhauer, “the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself” (WWR I, 417). This is for Schopenhauer the kernel of the position called transcendental idealism. Transcendental idealism means for Schopenhauer very much the same as what it meant for Kant: that the objects of our knowledge are not things-in-themselves but only phenomena. Thus, transcendental idealism does not question the fact that there is something outside us, but only that empirical things are in-themselves as they appear to us. Thus, transcendental idealism is compatible with empirical realism.4 Transcendental idealism ensues in part, for Schopenhauer like for Kant before him, from the fact that all our possible knowledge must be submitted to a priori forms. These forms are, for Schopenhauer, essentially space, time and causality. Thus, to be an object is, for Schopenhauer, to be located in space, time and in causal interaction with other objects. Schopenhauer, however, tries also to give a more systematic account of these forms. Thus, he holds that we can trace all our a priori knowledge back to one of the forms of the principle of sufficient reason.5 Although he praises Kant for being the first to establish the distinction between thing-in-itself and phenomenon by means of the discovery of our a priori forms of knowledge, he thinks we can establish that idealism is true in a more straightforward way, namely by means of an analysis of the very concept of knowledge. For Schopenhauer, all knowledge presupposes the relation between subject and object. This relation is the most general form of representation (WWR I, 3). This form is instantiated in all particular types of knowledge and is, thus, the essential structure of all knowledge. The fact that the subject of representation is a condition of objectivity entails that being an object means the same thing as being a representation for the subject, i.e., phenomenon. These terms, “object” and “representation”, are synonymous.6 Otherwise it would be possible to conceive an object that was not a representation for a 4 See FR, 49–50, WWR I, 4, WWR I, 14–15. 5 See FR, 42, FR 232–233. 6 See FR, 41–2, WWR I, 95 and passim.

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subject. According to Schopenhauer, this was one of the points where Kant had gone astray (WWR I, 434). For Kant got entangled in confusion and contradictions concerning the status of the object of representation. According to Kant, there are, on the one hand, representations and, on the other hand, an object to which representations must correspond. This is Kant’s transcendental object, to which our representations are said to be related by means of the categories. For Schopenhauer this amounts to a kind of “object-in-itself” (WWR I, 434), since it is, on the one hand, an object that is beyond representation, but, on the other hand, it is an object that is not yet the thing-in-itself, occupying a sort of middle position between both. Besides these general arguments in support of transcendental idealism Schopenhauer tries to demonstrate it in more detail by means of an account of how our cognitive faculties come to represent objects on the basis of sensations and how these objects get conceptualised. I now turn to this account. As was already the case for Kant, for Schopenhauer all knowledge begins with sensation. Sensation is an affection of the body, in particular an affection of the senses. For this reason, Schopenhauer says that the body is the subject’s immediate object, meaning that our most immediate knowledge is knowledge of affections of our own body. Thus, sensations are submitted only to the form of inner sense, that is, to time, which for Schopenhauer consists only in relations of succession.7 Although all knowledge begins with the affection of the senses, in particular sight and touch, for Schopenhauer it is of the utmost importance to highlight the fact that sensations have a totally subjective status. Nothing is really known only through the senses, i.e., without further contribution from our cognitive apparatus. As Schopenhauer says, “all perception is intellectual, for without the understanding we could never achieve perception, the apprehension of objects”.8 The senses do not give us objective data about objects, “sensation of every kind is and remains an event within the organism itself; but as such it is restricted to the region beneath the skin; and so, in itself, it can never contain anything lying outside the skin and thus outside ourselves” (FR 76–77).9 In order for representation to take place, the subjective 7 See WWR I, 48. 8 See “On Vision” in FR, 237. 9 There is a problem in Schopenhauer’s account of perception. If objects exist only for the understanding, they cannot exist prior to the activity of the understanding. But from whence comes sensation? First of all it is important to emphasise that, in contrast to what Kant suggests, sensation is not an effect of a thing-in-itself. That would entail a causal relation between the thing-in-itself and our representations, which, according to Schopenhauer, is absurd. On the other hand, if we take sensation to be the effect of an empirical object, this object would exist prior to the activity of the understanding. It should be noted that Schopenhauer nowhere says that sensation is an effect of the object, but he does not offer

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data of the senses must be transformed into an intuitive perception of an object. This is, according to Schopenhauer, the outcome of the activity and operation of the understanding. Although the effects of the understanding can be manifested in many ways, Schopenhauer tries to reduce them to a single function. This function, which defines the understanding, is knowledge of causal relations: To know causality is the sole function of the understanding, its only power, and it is a great power, embracing much, manifold in its application, and yet unmistakable in its identity throughout all its manifestations (WWR I, 11).

Before anything else, the function of the understanding is to render intuitive perception possible. For we only represent “objects” in the proper sense of the word when the brain interprets the data of the senses as the effect of a cause. Accordingly, the outcome of this operation is that sensation is perceived as an effect of an object located in a part of space which is different from the one my body occupies.10 Moreover, this operation is not the product of reflection or reasoning – it is, rather, immediate and intuitive.11 Application of the principle of causality to the affection of the senses is the minimum level of possible cognition, and it is something common to all animals, although the understanding can have many levels of extension (Ausdehnung) and acuteness. In humans, it can pursue long chains of causal relations and perceive hitherto unknown causal relations, thereby discovering laws of nature. Nevertheless, for Schopenhauer this is something that can take place in the absence of reason. In opposition to the understanding, reason is the privilege of man alone.12 It is the mark that distinguishes man from the animal. What, then, is specific to reason? What does reason contribute to our knowledge of the world? Schopenhauer reduces reason – with all its different manifestations, such as language, deliberate action and science – to the power of forming concepts: Reason also has one function, the formation of concept, and from this single function are explained very easily and automatically all those phenomena, previously mentioned, that distinguish man’s life from that of the animal (WWR I, 39).13

an alternative explanation for the origin of sensation, and this is no doubt a gap in his account of intuitive perception. 10 For the details of Schopenhauer’s physiological account of this process cf. FR, 75–120. 11 See FR, 78. 12 See FR, 145. 13 See also FR, 145 and FR 150.

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Concepts are characterised by their abstract nature, that is, they, as opposed to intuitions, are not objects of perception, but of thought. But although their form is essentially different, the power of abstraction or reflection is defined precisely by its relation to intuitive objects or objects of perception.14 Since this relation is the essence of concepts, they are essentially “representations of representations” (WWR I, 4o). For all concepts have their origin in intuitive perception. All their material or content must be drawn from the objects of intuition. On that account, reason is a secondary power of the mind, and its strength consists in mirroring the world by means of the isolation of features that belong to it. Therefore, reason cannot contribute with anything new to the world of perception that is not already contained, even if implicitly, in intuitive perception. It achieves at best a change of form, not of content. This has some important consequences for Schopenhauer’s theory of knowledge (Wissen) and science. According to Schopenhauer, all true and genuine knowledge must be rooted in intuitive perception.15 Although truth exists only in the domain of reason, its nature is utterly relational since it must be referred ultimately to some intuition.16 Closely connected with reason is language. For Schopenhauer language is one of reason’s essential “manifestations” and one that distinguishes man’s life from the animal in important ways. Language allows us to keep concepts in our memory by means of signs, i.e., words, and thus to communicate them further. Without language abstract representations would “slip entirely from consciousness and be absolutely of no avail for the operations it intended therewith (…)” (FR, 148).17 Thus, we can only think, that is, represent objects in an abstract manner, by means of those arbitrary, perceptible signs, words.18 With his analysis of the different faculties of the mind, of which I have just presented a short summary, Schopenhauer strengthens his case in favour of ide14 See WWR I, 40–41. See also FR, 146: “Such abstract representations have been called concepts (Begriffe), since each conceives or grasps (begreift) in (or rather under) itself innumerable individual things, and hence a complex or comprehensible totality (Inbegriff) thereof”. 15 See FR, 154, FR 155, WWR II, 71–72. 16 See FR, 156, FR, 159. 17 See also FR, 149: “(…) and to reduce the whole essence of such a world to abstract concepts is the fundamental business of the faculty of reason, a function that it can carry out only by means of language”. 18 Besides thought by means of words there is, for Schopenhauer, thought “in a wider sense”, which means thought by means of images: cf. FR, 153–154. Actually only thought in this wider sense is “original” and “genuine”, since it goes back to the source of all truth, intuitive perception. Cf. FR, 155. Nevertheless, Schopenhauer suggests that thought by means of images is not the operation of reason in the strict sense, but of the mediator between reason and understanding, that is, the power of judgement. Cf. FR, 153–154.

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alism. He argues that, since all elements that constitute intuitive perception – no matter whether they be material, such as sensation, or formal, such as space, time and causality – are of subjective origin, they do not lead us to reality initself.19 Concepts have meaning only by their reference to intuitive perception, and therefore reason cannot take us beyond the realm of experience. Frequently, Schopenhauer tries to give a more physiological account of his idealism. Whereas Kant did not concern himself with the material status of transcendental representations, Schopenhauer is resolute in presenting such representations as functions of our brain.20 According to this physiological version of transcendental philosophy, representations are processes in the brain and are conditioned by it in a way that precludes access to things-inthemselves.21 But in view of the contrast that I shall try to establish with Nietzsche’s TL, the most important aspect of this naturalistic turn in Schopenhauer’s transcendental philosophy is the view of the intellect that it implies. According to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, the organism is the objectivity of our individual will.22 Its different organs exist in function of the organism’s various needs, which ultimately can be reduced to the end of preservation and propagation of the species.23 Accordingly, the brain as a product of the organism is not only dependent on it, but works in its “service” as much as any other organ.24 According to Schopenhauer, this entails an objective corroboration of his idealist thesis. For, he holds, if the intellect is a servant of the organism qua will, it cannot know things-in-themselves, but only their relations, in particular their relation to the needs of our organism (our will).25 However, it is doubtful whether the idealist position established by the “objective view of the intellect” (i.e., by “physiology”) can really be seen as equivalent to Kant’s transcendental idealism – an equivalence that Schopenhauer held to be true as long as he lived. In any case this is extremely relevant not only for Nietzsche’s reading of Kant, but also for our interpretation of Nietzsche’s own “idealist” stance, as we shall see. Regardless of its different versions, the outcome of transcendental idealism is, in any case, that the thing-in-itself cannot be reached if one follows the path of representation. This means that the principle of sufficient reason in any of its

19 See WWR II, 10–12, WWR II, 193. 20 See WWR II, 254–256 and WWR II, 259: “That which, seen from within, is the faculty of knowledge, is, seen from without, the brain”. 21 See WWR I, 191–192. 22 See WWR I, 101–103, WWR I, 107. 23 See WWR I, 108–109. 24 See WWR I, 150, WWR II, 259, WWR II, 278–279. 25 See WWR II, 284–290.

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forms, but especially in the guise of the principle of causality, cannot be used to reach the thing-in-itself. Thus the relation between representation and thing-initself cannot be one of causality.26 Causality can only be valid for relations between objects. In following the thread of causality we are always led from an object to another object. This means, also, that the thing-in-itself is essentially something non-objective. Even Kant has, according to Schopenhauer, made precisely the mistake of positing the thing-in-itself as a cause or ground of the phenomena, that is, he has applied the principle of causality – which should be immanent to experience – to the relation between the phenomena and the thingin-itself, thereby conceiving of the latter as another kind of object.27 As we saw, Schopenhauer’s theory of representation closes every path that could be thought to lead us beyond phenomena. Actually this is something that follows analytically from Schopenhauer’s conception of the nature of knowledge. He even says explicitly that “being-known of itself contradicts being-in-itself, and everything that is known is as such only phenomenon” (WWR II, 198).28 For the thing-in-itself is, by definition, a thing as it may be apart from its representation. Accordingly, in order to know what the world is – i.e., what it is besides being representation for a subject – , Schopenhauer appeals to what he thinks is a form of acquaintance with the world thoroughly different from the one provided by knowledge. This notwithstanding, a reader only perfunctorily acquainted with Schopenhauer could easily object to us that Schopenhauer certainly goes beyond the phenomenon by claiming that the thing-in-itself is “will”. Although we cannot enter here into the core of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical argument, it should be noted that it is at least questionable whether the will is the thingin-itself in the strict sense referred above.29 And there are passages where Schopenhauer stresses explicitly that the will is only the most immediate phenomenon of the thing-in-itself, and precisely for that reason the one which has to serve as a clue or point of departure for the interpretation of nature’s phenomena.30 If this is so, then Schopenhauer’s metaphysics does not claim to be knowledge of a thing-in-itself in an absolute sense, but only of a thing-in-

26 See WWR I, 13–16 and passim. 27 See WWR I, 502–503. 28 See also WWR II, 275: “Accordingly, a ‘knowledge of things-in-themselves’ in the strictest sense of the word would be impossible, because where the being-in-itself of things begins, knowledge ceases, and all knowledge primarily and essentially concerns merely phenomena”. 29 For an interpretation of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics as one which remains immanent in the Kantian sense of the term, cf. Young (1987). 30 See WWR I, 110–111.

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itself insofar as it appears, insofar as it is phenomenal. Thus Schopenhauerian metaphysics can be said to be akin to a hermeneutics of nature that always remains relative to the phenomena.31

2 Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense We will now turn to Nietzsche’s 1873 text On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. The text was written a year after Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. The Birth of Tragedy is embedded in the language and metaphysics of Schopenhauer. Even when Nietzsche is consciously recasting some of Schopenhauer’s doctrines regarding art, and even if it be debatable how much Nietzsche actually accepted of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics at that time, the tone is definitely shaped by Schopenhauer’s thought. By contrast, the tone in Truth and Lie seems to be thoroughly sceptical concerning metaphysics. Moreover, the essay is usually taken as the starting point of Nietzsche’s questioning of truth and knowledge in general. However, what is generally overlooked is how much Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics is based on Schopenhauer’s theory of knowledge. In fact, Nietzsche’s overcoming of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics can in part be seen as the outcome of a radicalisation of his predecessor’s transcendental idealism. With this I do not intend to claim that the essay does not go beyond Schopenhauer in many ways. It is here that Nietzsche lays the basis for his critique of the “drive for truth” and the value of truth, as well as his valuation of the drive for illusion as the fundamental drive of man. Since we will not deal with many of the aspects that transcend Schopenhauer’s influence, we will start by giving a general account of the essay in order to highlight the aspect of it that will be dealt with and put in relation to Schopenhauer’s thought. The essay’s main purpose seems to be a bit ambiguous. On the one hand, the essay is designed to show that the human being does not have an inborn drive for truth, i.e., that the human being does not seek truth naturally. That would not by itself necessarily involve scepticism, for it would be conceivable that humans had knowledge without having any natural tendency to acquire it. On the other hand, the outcome of Nietzsche’s argumentative strategy – of

31 See WWR II, 183. For an interpretation that stresses the relative character of the thing-initself and Schopenhauer’s metaphysics as hermeneutics cf. Atwell (1995).

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his genealogy32 of the drive for truth – is a radical scepticism regarding all knowledge. In other words, Nietzsche tries to establish his main thesis that we do not have a drive for truth by arguing that, as a matter of fact, we do not know anything in the sense that we usually presume we do. Nietzsche argues that all knowledge is an illusion, a mere set of anthropomorphisms, and this applies both to our common sense and to science. The drive for truth is exposed by Nietzsche’s genealogical method as a development of a more fundamental drive, a drive for illusion. This drive for illusion, or the drive to form metaphors, has its purest and freest expression in art. Nietzsche makes use of this in order to go back to a central motive of The Birth of Tragedy, the contrast between the theoretical and the artistic man. After Nietzsche has shown that the human being does not have a natural drive for truth and that he is unable to know anything except anthropomorphically, he attacks the value of truth itself, and of the endeavours related to it, like science and philosophy, so that he revalues art as the activity where illusion is given free rein. As we can see from this sort of summary, Nietzsche’s attack on truth in TL is threefold. He manages to contend against (1) the idea of man as a being who strives naturally for truth, (2) the possibility of knowledge; and (3) the value of truth. In this article I shall not deal with points 1 and 3. That is, I shall concern myself only with Nietzsche’s denial of the possibility of knowledge. This question involves, of course, Nietzsche’s critique of the thing-in-itself. However, it is on this point that a philosophical debt to Schopenhauer becomes clear, i.e., precisely where it is usually not acknowledged.

a) Language, Metaphor and Truth I begin by analysing Nietzsche’s theory of language and truth in TL. This theory emerges in the context of Nietzsche’s investigation of the origin of the “drive for truth”. By means of his genealogy of the “drive for truth” Nietzsche manages to

32 Although in TL Nietzsche does not yet give the name “genealogy” to his method of investigation, the essay already displays all the distinguishing features that would later form the core of his genealogical method. According to Hödl (1997), pp. 17, pp. 37–39 and pp. 106–107, TL/WL, rather than Human, All Too Human, is the text where Nietzsche breaks with his early thought, and the Untimely Meditations, although written after it, must be, from the point of view of Nietzsche’s development, situated earlier. In this context Hödl shows how the question about the origin of the drive for truth is the first application of the genealogical method that Nietzsche fully developed later. I do not deny that TL represents a break with Nietzsche’s early thought. What I shall try to show is that that break must be seen against the backdrop of Schopenhauer’s thought, no less than his early work.

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produce a theory of the origin of knowledge, language and truth, the upshot of which is that “truths are illusions” (TL, 257/WL). In what seems to be for Nietzsche the “natural state of things”, human beings are involved in a war of all against all and the intellect is used mainly for “dissimulation”. In this pre-social stage, there is no concept of truth. The first step towards the emergence of a concept of truth takes place by means of socialisation, more precisely with the development of language. According to Nietzsche, with language a first concept of truth is created, i.e., “a universally valid and binding designation of things is invented and the legislation of language supplies the first laws of truth” (TL, 255/WL). Truth, in this first stage, implies no more than the use of language in accordance with what has been agreed upon. Accordingly, the drive for truth has here the shape of a mere social pressure to use designations in their usual sense and, ultimately, it merely serves to preserve society by guaranteeing peace and security as an alternative to the bellum omnium contra omnes that prevails among human beings while they are still isolated beings. Thus, Nietzsche concludes that language was not created as a means to the end of representing things as they are in-themselves, and so even “to the creator of language too, the ‘thing-initself’ (which would be precisely the pure truth without consequences) is quite incomprehensible and not at all desirable” (TL, 256/WL). According to Nietzsche, this first stage in the development of the concept of truth contrasts strongly with the present one, where a “sense of truth” has already been developed and cultivated. The consequence of this “sense of truth” is that truth, i.e., our employment of language, is not taken for what it is – namely, an instrument of socialisation. Man has forgotten that through language he does not have cognitive access to things. The origin of language is not a need to know, language is not an instrument of knowledge: Moreover: how about those conventions of language? Are they perhaps products of knowledge, of the sense of truth, are designations and things congruent? Is language the adequate expression of all realities? Only through forgetfulness can man ever come to believe that he is in possession of truth in the degree just described (TL, 255/WL).

Although in this excerpt Nietzsche seems to question the ability of language to represent things adequately by pointing out that what things are called is conventional and therefore arbitrary, Nietzsche has something else in mind. The main point of his analysis of language can be read as a critique of the idea that language achieves an objective representation of things in a way that is totally independent of our perspective, i.e., that language achieves a representation of things-in-themselves. Nietzsche argues, in the first place, that

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predicates do not stand for real properties of things: “How could we say that the stone is hard, as if ‘hard’ were known to us in any other form than that of a totally subjective irritation?” (TL, 255/WL). Moreover, every word that appears as the grammatical subject in a sentence is, in fact, only another predicate. Although we tend to interpret the grammatical subject as referring to a real, independent “thing” – to a bearer of properties – , this results, according to Nietzsche, from no more than an arbitrary selection of a certain feature, which is then taken to represent an “essence”. Nietzsche’s example of the snake makes this clear. In German, a snake is called Schlange, which according to Nietzsche stems from the verb schlingen, meaning “winding around something”: We talk about a snake: the designation refers only to its winding motions and could therefore also apply to worms. What arbitrary demarcations, what one-sided preferences, now for one property of a thing and now for another! (TL, 255–256/WL).

Thus, there is nothing “outside us” that could correspond to the relation expressed in a proposition or even to its elements. A word is only “the portrayal of a nerve stimulus in sounds. But to infer from the nerve stimulus to the existence of a cause outside us is the result of a false and unjustified application of the principle of sufficient reason” (TL, 255/WL). When Nietzsche denies that the inference of a cause “outside us” is “false and unjustified”, this should not be read as an attack on Schopenhauer’s doctrine of intuitive perception.33 According to Schopenhauer we can only infer a cause by applying the principle of sufficient reason to sensations from an empirical point of view. As Schopenhauer sometimes stresses, this cause is, from a transcendental point of view, “inside us”, because time, space and causality cannot be valid for things-inthemselves. The problem with language is, then, that its referent is a subjective stimulus and not a thing totally independent from us. It is undeniable, though, that there seems to be a tendency in Nietzsche to refer to our language’s conventional character in order to question its ability to represent things as they are. We can take as an example the following excerpt: A juxtaposition of the different languages shows that what matters about words is never the truth, never an adequate expression; otherwise there would not be so many languages (TL, 256/WL).

The problem with this argument is that the conventionality of language would only bear on its truth if language did not have a referent outside of its own 33 Cf. Clark (1990), pp. 80 f.

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sphere. But from what we have seen so far it follows that the words of a language have nerve stimuli as their referent. Therefore, it is not the case that for Nietzsche language is self-referential.34 Instead, the quotation above may be read as an assertion that different languages express different relations and, hence, as a rule different languages express different conceptions of actions and things. Accordingly, Nietzsche does not efface language’s intentional dimension: when we speak, we are in fact directed towards something. The question for Nietzsche concerns the status of the referent and not the fact that language refers to something. Thus, concerning the status of the referent, the problem for Nietzsche is that this referent is altogether subjective.35 The creator of language designates only “the relations between things and men and to express them he resorts to the boldest metaphors” (TL, 256/WL). Language expresses relations of things to man and not to things-in-themselves: Think of a man who is stone deaf and has never felt the sensation of sound and music: imagine how he gazes in astonishment at Chladni’s sound figures in the sand, and, realising that they are caused by the vibration of the string, swears that he now knows what men mean by ‘sound’. This is the situation in which we all find ourselves with regard to language. We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we talk about trees, colours, snow and flowers, and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things which do not correspond in the slightest to the original entities (TL, 256, my emphasis/WL).36

The thesis that all language is metaphorical does not refer primarily to an intra-linguistic phenomenon. We have to distinguish between two senses of metaphor: metaphor as an intra-linguistic phenomenon, as one trope alongside others; and metaphor in the wider sense of a creative transference. It is the latter that is at play in TL. For Nietzsche, the metaphorical character of language does not refer, first and foremost, to relations that emerge between words, but applies to relations between language, perception and reality

34 Moreover, only complete sentences and not isolated words can have truth-value, as is pointed out by Clark (1990), p. 67: “The sentence or judgment constitutes the smallest truthvalued unit. Since only complete sentences can be true or false, nothing ensues in regard to the concept of truth from the fact that language is conventional”. 35 Pace Paul de Man. De Man reads the essay as an attack on the possibility of literal language that puts the extra-linguistic referent into question. Cf. De Man (1979), pp. 106– 110. According to the interpretation that is being proposed here, Nietzsche does not efface the referent of language. His genealogy of the drive for truth is designed, instead, to correct the most common interpretation of what this referent actually is. 36 Maudemarie Clark’s contention that there is a distinction between “things-inthemselves” and “things themselves” seems untenable to us. Cf. Clark (1990), pp. 82–3.

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(things-in-themselves), i.e., to our whole so-called “cognitive” process. Language is metaphorical in the sense of stemming from a process that begins with a subjective nerve stimulus, to which it ultimately refers.37 That is, Nietzsche reverses the traditional hierarchy between knowledge of the senses and knowledge of reason. Sensual knowledge is usually seen as subjective knowledge, and rational knowledge, on account of being articulated linguistically, is seen as an ability and an achievement that transcends our animal condition and provides an objective picture of things. But, according to Nietzsche’s theory of language in TL, the most direct access we have to reality is not linguistic or conceptual, but bodily.38 Language and reason are, in fact, – to use the platonic expression39 – “two removes” from reality in comparison to nerve stimuli. First of all, our representations’ relations to reality correspond to a “transference” (the original meaning of “metaphor”) between two incommensurable spheres (reality initself and representation).40 Thus, knowledge begins with a nerve stimulus. This triggers the formation of an image (Bild) of a thing. Nietzsche does not elaborate too much on what this image might be. Nevertheless, it seems to be something like the pre-conceptual perception of a thing. If we link the “nerve

37 Clark (1990), pp. 77–80, has made the same point regarding the thesis that all language is metaphorical. After rejecting the literal interpretation of the thesis, she speaks of a “metaphorical use of metaphor”. For Clark, metaphor does not apply primarily to language but to perception. She also draws attention to the fact that “Nietzsche’s classification of the object of perception as a metaphor relies crucially on Schopenhauer’s representational theory”. Josef Simon (1999) also draws attention to the metaphorical use of the concept of metaphor, although my interpretation of TL is thoroughly different from his in other respects. Cf. Simon (1999), p. 90: “Sein Sprechen über Metaphern ist ‘notgedrungen’ selbst metaphorisch”. See also Celine Dénat’s essay in this volume. 38 Emden (2005) stresses precisely that for Nietzsche the metaphorical character of language is something that has primarily to do with its rootedness in perception and ultimately in the body. Cf. Emden (2005), p.62: “Inasmuch as his discussion of language was from the beginning inextricably linked to the problems of consciousness and perception, these reflections are also connected to a particular notion of the body. Metaphor is thus grounded in both rhetoric and physiology; it concerns not only language but also the body”, and Emden (2005), p.106: “Language, Nietzsche seems to suggest, is a figurative discourse in itself (that is, in the form of speech and writing), but the metaphoricity of language results from a more fundamental metaphorical process located beyond or perhaps before language”. 39 Cf. Plato, The Republic, 597e-598a. 40 TL, 260/WL: “For between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, no expression, but at most an aesthetic attitude: by this I mean an allusive transference, a halting translation into an entirely foreign language…”.

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stimulus” to Schopenhauer’s blind “sensations”, then the “image” would correspond to intuitive perception, which for Schopenhauer consisted in the application of the principle of sufficient reason to the “material” of sensation. It is significant that, in contrast to what Schopenhauer thought, the relation between nerve stimulus and image is not the result of the application of the principle of sufficient reason. Since for Schopenhauer the principle of sufficient reason is tantamount to a necessary relation between two terms – and this is even the only meaning we can give to the concept of necessity41 – the fact that the perceptive image does not derive from the application of the principle of sufficient reason entails that, for Nietzsche, there is no necessity in the relation between the two instances and no possibility of correctness or incorrectness. Other species and other specimen of the human species could have formed other images, whereas for Schopenhauer there is a correct or incorrect application of the principle of sufficient reason that is valid for every knowing being, including animals. But for Nietzsche every transference from a nerve stimulus to an image is as correct or incorrect as any other. As he puts it, the relation is purely aesthetical.42 Thus the image is a way of expressing the nerve stimulus by other means. That is, the image is a metaphor: “A nerve stimulus first transformed into an image – the first metaphor!” (TL, 256/WL). Then, the image is converted into a sound, and this is tantamount to another transference, another occurrence of the metaphorical process: “The image then reproduced in a sound – the second metaphor!” (TL, 256/WL). These sounds that exist in order to give expression to those perceptual images mark the beginning of the process that will lead to language, that is, to the formation of concepts. For Nietzsche these sounds are in fact words, and every word becomes a concept precisely because it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique, entirely individualised primal experience to which it owes its existence, but because it has to fit at one and the same time countless more or less similar cases which, strictly speaking, are never equal or, in other words, are always unequal (TL, 256/WL).

Besides the fact that the referent of language is ultimately subjective – sounds or words stand for images, which in turn stand for nerve stimuli – , the origin of concepts amounts to “the equation of non-equal things” (TL, 256/WL),

41 See FR, 225–7. 42 TL, 260/WL: “For between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, no expression, but at most an aesthetic attitude: by this I mean an allusive transference, a halting translation into an entirely foreign language…”.

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because every concept (or word) can be used to designate several different things. This entails, according to Nietzsche, that the “emergence of language is not a logical affair” (TL, 256/WL). Although Nietzsche says this in the essay without further comment, he seems to be suggesting that the emergence of language would be logical if concepts were generated in accordance with the principle of identity, which is the highest principle of logic. Since there are no identical instances of anything in the primordial world of images, the formation of concepts, by equating non-equal instances, violates the principle of identity. This analysis implies that the idea of identity and the principle of identity that is based upon it arise only within the sphere of conceptual language. And this means that logic itself has illogical foundations. Thus, after a language is fully developed and inherited over many generations, man comes to feel that it faithfully mirrors the way nature is organised. The world of language becomes more real than the world of perceptive images: For in the domain of those abstract patterns something is possible that would never work under the intuitive first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to casts and degrees, that is, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations and border demarcations, which now confronts the intuitive first impressions as something more solid, more universal, more familiar, more human and therefore as the regulating and imperative force (TL, 258/WL).

Knowledge consists in the attempt to classify everything particular under the concepts we have at our disposal. In the process man forgets that those concepts are his own creation. The knowledge he achieves is a mere translation of something unknown into the anthropomorphic world generated by language: (…) the searcher for such truths seeks only the metamorphosis of the world into man; he struggles for an understanding of the world as something resembling humans and he achieves at best a sense of assimilation (…). He forgets that the original intuitive metaphors were in fact metaphors and takes them for the things themselves (TL, 259/WL).

b) Schopenhauer’s Legacy We can see from what has been shown that Nietzsche’s account and assessment of human knowledge shows some striking similarities to Schopenhauer’s. First of all, as we saw, Nietzsche’s account of the origin of language implies that language and concepts, far from presenting an intrinsic order of things, are ultimately rooted in nerve stimuli. This can, in fact, be seen as a development of Schopenhauer’s thesis. As we saw, Schopenhauer held that reason, the faculty of concepts, was a secondary power compared with intuitive per-

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ception. Moreover, intuitive perception consisted in the application of the principle of causality, which is of subjective origin, to sensation. Nietzsche sees perceptive images as a result of a transformation of nerve stimuli and language, and he identifies the latter with conceptual thought, as a further transformation of those images. Despite the differences in the terms that are used, the outcome is basically the same: language and truth are rooted in perception, and perception is a thoroughly subjective phenomenon. Moreover, the rootedness of language in perceptive images and of these in nerve stimuli points to another affinity with Schopenhauer. As we saw, Schopenhauer did not refrain from establishing the identity of the intellect with the brain. Consequently, Schopenhauer saw the intellect as a function of the organism. From this he concluded that the intellect is designed only to know relations between things and itself, and not things-in-themselves. In TL, Nietzsche shows the same tendency, already present in Schopenhauer, to conceive of the intellect as a natural product, not designed for “truth” and “knowledge”. This idea, which would be familiar to any reader of Schopenhauer, is almost like a hidden premise of TL. Thus, by pointing out that language has nerve stimuli as its referent, Nietzsche is able to show that language is not an instrument of truth, since everything rooted in the organism must be seen as having been naturally selected to fulfil its needs. In addition, Schopenhauer’s main argument in favour of idealism is that every possible object whatsoever presupposes a subject and thus a thing-initself is by definition something unknowable. Nietzsche resorts to a similar kind of argument in regard to knowledge of things-in-themselves: In fact, correct perception – which would mean the adequate expression of an object in the subject – seems to me a self-contradictory absurdity: for between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, no expression but at most an aesthetic attitude: by this I mean an allusive transference, a halting translation into an entirely foreign language, which in any case demands a freely creative and freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force (TL, 260/WL).

As we see Nietzsche differs from Schopenhauer in this point only in regard to the question of the nature of representation. For Nietzsche representation is thoroughly aesthetic and creative, whereas for Schopenhauer the intellect works according to the principle of sufficient reason as a fixed rule. This distinction has important consequences for the type of “idealism” proposed by both authors.43 For Schopenhauer, the principle of sufficient rea43 If I dare speak of “idealism” in regard to Nietzsche, it is only in the strict sense of a doctrine that holds that the objects of our knowledge are only phenomena and not thingsin-themselves. “Idealism” in this sense does not have anything to do with the idea that only

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son rules over all objects and submits their relations to a strict necessity. Schopenhauer manages thus to retain the idea that the phenomenal world is empirically “real” in that it follows necessary rules. But Nietzsche argues that phenomena have no necessary connexion. We saw that for Nietzsche our cognitive endeavours can be traced back to subjective nerve stimuli. But human beings tend to “forget” this because they are always already caught in a network of relations of transference between nerve stimuli, images and words – or, put simply, because they are not at all aware of the whole process that leads from nerve stimuli to the “chamber of consciousness” (TL, 254/WL) where they are imprisoned. We acquire a sense of certainty in regard to knowledge and truth, as if the same nerve stimulus produced always the same images and these in turn were adequately expressed by words. All these transferences seem to us absolutely necessary and natural after they have already occurred. Thus, Nietzsche wants to point out that: Even the relation of a nerve stimulus to the image it produces is not in itself a necessary one. But if the same image is produced millions of times and transmitted through many generations, until in each case it finally appears to the whole of mankind as an effect of the same cause, it will ultimately acquire for man the same meaning as if it were the only necessary image and as if the relation of the original nerve stimulus to the conventional image were a strictly causal one; just as a dream, eternally repeated, would be perceived and judged as absolutely real. But the congealment and solidification of a metaphor by no means guarantees the necessity and exclusive justification of that metaphor (TL, 260).

This entails, on Nietzsche’s view, that the regularity of nature is a “highly subjective construct”, for “if we could only perceive now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant; or if one saw the stimulus as red, another as blue, and a third even heard it as a sound; then nobody would talk about such a regularity of nature” (TL, 261/WL).44 The denial of necessary relations between nerve stimuli, images and words implies that for Nietzsche there is no empirical reality in opposition to illusions the mind is real. When I refer to Nietzsche’s view and use of the term “idealism”, I use it always in that strict sense and in quotation marks. 44 Nietzsche’s idea of transference is akin to that of Hume’s association of ideas. For Hume, the relation of causality, for instance, is just such a subjective association, to which habit gives the appearance of an objective necessity. What seems to us to be a necessary connection between things when an event follows another event reveals itself to be, when we analyse our ideas, no more than a mechanism of association produced by habit. Habit makes us expect a certain effect whenever we see a known cause. Nietzsche’s “forgetfulness” is produced by a kind of Humean mechanism of habit that is fostered by a process of socialisation, and this process determines the transmission and reproduction of the same transferences between nerve stimulus, image and word (concept), so that they come to seem “binding” to us.

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or dreams.45 Our feeling that the empirical world is real results from our habit of positing the same images as causes of the same nerve stimuli and conceptualising those images by means of the words we inherited. In other words, we forget the “primitive world of metaphors” (TL, 259/WL) and ourselves as “artistically creative” subjects (TL, 259/WL). The denial that there are any necessary relations in nature may suggest that Nietzsche renounces any form of transcendental philosophy and his “idealism” is just the doctrine that our knowledge is fundamentally conditioned by the intellect’s rootedness in our body. However, this view is qualified by Nietzsche’s account of space and time in TL. According to Nietzsche, spaceand time-relations are the subjective forms that bestow an appearance of necessity to the “laws of nature”. The regularity of nature consists in these forms alone. Their necessity is transcendental, for they are a priori forms that we ourselves bring into nature. These forms are “produced in us and out of us by ourselves with the same necessity as a spider spins its web” (TL, 261/WL). According to Nietzsche, the creation of metaphors “with which every perception begins […] already presupposes, and is thus implemented in” space and time. Everything that comes to us through nerve stimuli is embedded in this transcendental structure. These forms are that which is thoroughly intelligible in things, because they are what we bring into things. For “if we must understand all things in these forms alone, then it is no longer a miracle that what we really understand of all things are only these forms…” (TL, 261).46 Space and time are, in fact, the only remnant of Kant’s (and Schopenhauer’s) transcendental apparatus. Otherwise Nietzsche seems to embrace in TL an idealism based on a full-fledged naturalism, which is in fact the natural development of Schopenhauer’s view on the intellect as a natural product.47 45 Nietzsche even refers with approval to Pascal’s contention that “if we had the same dream every night we would be as much exercised by it as we are by the things that we see every day” (TL, 262/WL). 46 This is actually only a repetition of Schopenhauer’s contention that the more formal our knowledge is, the more it is foreign to the thing-in-itself, for the forms of our knowledge are merely subjective. Cf. WWR I, 121–122. 47 However, for both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (around the time of TL/WL) there are exceptions to the instrumental character of the intellect. Although, as we saw, the intellect creates the ideas of knowledge and truth, for Nietzsche its main power lies in “dissimulation” (TL, 254/WL). The intellect is most free when he can “deceive without causing harm” (TL, 263/WL). Accordingly, when we give free reign to the “fundamental drive of man”, “the drive to the formation of metaphors” (TL, 262/WL), the intellect becomes capable of shattering the rigid world of concepts. This is done, of course, in the realm of art and myth. And here another interesting parallelism with Schopenhauer comes to light. For Schopenhauer, the intellect can be liberated for a short period of time from the dictatorship of the will (or the organism) and come to an adequate knowledge of the world. This

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c) The Thing-in-itself and the Standard of Truth in TL So far, my exposition of Nietzsche’s TL may seem to suggest that he embraces “idealism” in a more consistent way than Schopenhauer, for he does not propose anything parallel to the latter’s metaphysics of the will. Thus Nietzsche seems simply to move from Schopenhauer’s to Kant’s position. But, whereas Kant and Schopenhauer tried to save the phenomena’s empirical reality, this idea seems forever lost in TL. Nietzsche’s “idealism” could then be said to be even more radical than both Kant and Schopenhauer’s. But this can only be presented as an accurate reading of TL on the condition that we confirm that Nietzsche continues to uphold the distinction between phenomenon and thingin-itself. The question on the thing-in-itself in TL depends on the question on Nietzsche’s concept of truth. It seems that without presupposing the ideal of knowledge as knowledge of a thing-in-itself, Nietzsche is unable to attack both common sense and science’s claim to truth as an illusion. In other words, he manages to expose their claim to truth only by setting it against the idea of truth as knowledge of the thing-in-itself.48 Although this interpretation of Nietzsche’s thesis is fairly tenable, it may be put into question by other possible interpretations of the essay. According to Maudemarie Clark’s interpretation of TL, Nietzsche holds three incompatible positions concerning truth: Therefore, […], Truth and Lie‘s denial of truth is based on an unstable amalgamation of three mutually incompatible positions: the ‘Kantian’ position that the ‘pure’ truth is conceivable but unavailable to human beings, the ‘agnostic’ position that we simply can-

knowledge is intuitive and can be communicated by means of works of art. Thus, both he and Nietzsche see art as the domain where the intellect can become free from its servitude. But, whereas for Nietzsche this is achieved by the creation of illusions for illusion’s sake, for Schopenhauer we truly achieve adequate knowledge of the world through art. 48 Maudemarie Clark has drawn attention to the fact that in TL Nietzsche develops a metaphysical correspondence theory of truth as a standard for assessing what we take as true. See Clark (1990), p. 83: “Far from rejecting the conception of truth as correspondence, Nietzsche’s denial of truth evidently presupposes the metaphysical correspondence theory. He claims that truths are illusions because he assumes both that truth requires correspondence to things-in-themselves and that our truths do not exhibit such correspondence”. Daniel Breazeale makes the same point too, cf. Breazeale (1979), pp. xiiixlix, xxvii: “On the one hand, Nietzsche constantly presupposed, and thought that science presupposes, a rather literal correspondence model of knowledge and ideal of descriptive adequacy. When the knowledge that we actually think we possess is measured by such an ideal it invariably falls short of the expected standard of truth”. We will see that, although this is in part quite correct as an interpretation of TL, the essay furnishes elements that put the idea of truth as correspondence into question.

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not know whether our truths match the ‘pure’ truth, and the ‘neo-Kantian’ position that such truth is unavailable precisely because it is inconceivable.49

The first position she mentions corresponds to the interpretation we have just hinted at. “Pure truth”, i.e., knowledge of things-in-themselves, although unavailable to us, would be the standard for assessing the “truth” of common sense and science. These, as we saw, fail the test and cannot live up to this standard at all. Moreover, this position is unequivocally expressed in the essay. This can be seen, for example, when Nietzsche talks about “original entities” to which our metaphors “do not correspond” (TL, 256/WL), or about nature as an “X which, for us, is inaccessible and indefinable” (TL, 257/WL), and especially in the passage that compares the relation of language to things-inthemselves as that between “Chladni’s figures in the sand” and sounds (TL, 256/WL). Nevertheless, Clark’s characterisation of the first position must be subject to some qualification. It is true that for Kant “pure truth” is unavailable and yet conceivable. But in TL Nietzsche’s position is in this respect more akin to that of Schopenhauer. For Schopenhauer, surprising as it may be, “pure truth” is not even conceivable, for, as we saw, he considers that by definition the thing-in-itself cannot be known: “being-known of itself contradicts being-initself” (WWR II, 198).50 This first position is certainly called into question by “agnosticism”, which is Clark’s second position. There is also some good textual basis for considering this possibility.51 Consider this passage in particular: We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking the individual and the real, while nature knows no forms or concepts and therefore no species either, but only an X which, for us, is inaccessible and indefinable. For our contrast between the individual and the species is also anthropomorphic and does not stem from the essence of things, even though we dare not say that it does not correspond to it, because that would be a dogmatic assertion and as such just as unprovable as its opposite (TL, 257/WL).

49 Clark (1998), p. 47. 50 This position may be explained if we take into account that the conceivability of the thing-in-itself depends, for Kant, on the possibility of an intellectus archetypus, i.e., a divine intellect that could know things by means of an intellectual intuition. Schopenhauer does not consider this kind of knowledge a possibility. Nietzsche, too, does not need the idea of an intellectus archetypus in order to conceive of the existence of things-in-themselves. 51 There are some hints of the “agnostic” position in unpublished writings from this period. See NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[125] = WEN, 130: “We must then say against Kant that, even if we agree with all his propositions, it still remains perfectly possible that the world is as it appears to us”.

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According to the “agnostic” interpretation, nature as an X would be so unknowable for us that we could not even say that we do not know it, i.e., we cannot dogmatically affirm that none of the properties that we recognise in objects (e.g. time) correspond to intrinsic properties of nature. The problem with this interpretation is that it would weaken Nietzsche’s devaluation of science and common sense’s claim to truth. The world constructed by science could be the “true world” after all. Moreover, this would call into question the idea that all kinds of representation involve a metaphor, that is, a transference between incommensurable spheres. Thus, it seems that there are good reasons for rejecting the “agnostic” position if we confer weight, as we should do, to Nietzsche’s theory of metaphor, a theory according to which every level of representation involves a creative leap in relation to the one that preceded it. The idea of such a leap implies that perception and language cannot be adequate to or correspond to the thing-in-itself, since nerve stimuli are already a first metaphor of the thing-in-itself.52 Clark’s third position, according to which the thing-in-itself is “unavailable because it is inconceivable”, could be, in fact, better expressed as the idea that the thing-in-itself is a human creation. According to this position, “truth” – in the sense of what common sense and science take it to be – is a standard that they themselves created and yet fail to meet. This position comes into the fore when we consider the fact that there was no concept of truth before the emergence of language. When language was created, “truth”, according to Nietzsche, meant no more than “using the valid designations” for things. Truth was only a convention. With time and the “obligation to call one thing red, another cold, a third mute” (TL, 258/WL) man has come to achieve a “sense of truth”. This “sense of truth” corresponds to the belief that “this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself” (TL, 258/WL), that is, the belief in knowledge of things-in-themselves. This is also the reason why Nietzsche says that it would be pointless to ask which of the world’s perceptions are correct, that of a man, an insect or a bird, “because the answer would require the prior application

52 It could be argued that the process of metaphorisation begins only in the transition between nerve stimuli and images. In fact, this would correspond to Nietzsche’s later position, according to which “falsification” and “simplification” are not a falsification and simplification of a thing-in-itself (the “true world” is abolished) but exclusively of the “chaos of sensations”. For this interpretation of the later Nietzsche, see Constâncio (2011a). Although in TL (TL, 256/WL) this position is suggested – “A nerve stimulus first transformed into an image – first metaphor!” (TL, 256/WL) – in the following passage Nietzsche explicitly takes nerve stimuli to be metaphors of the unknown X: “Just as the sound appears as a sand figure, so the mysterious X of the thing-in-itself appears first as a nerve stimulus, then as an image and finally as a sound”.

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of the standard of correct perception, i.e. a non-existent standard” (TL, 260/ WL). In the same passage he also calls this standard a “self-contradictory absurdity” (TL, 260/WL). It is true that Schopenhauer would agree with Nietzsche that the concept of “correct perception” is self-contradictory. However, in those passages, Nietzsche seems to want to go a step further and undermine the very idea of knowledge as adequacy to a thing-in-itself. This position seems also to be reinforced by the first sentence of TL: “some clever animals invented knowledge” (TL, 253/WL). Moreover, this position seems quite close to Nietzsche’s later position, according to which the idea of a thing-in-itself is a contradiction in terms. But here in TL Nietzsche’s focus is on questioning the idea of adequacy to the thing-in-itself and not on a straightforward denial of this concept. In fact, the passages where he shows agnosticism with regard to the thing-in-itself are evidence that he has not yet fully rejected this concept. In sum: Nietzsche could only have held the third position coherently if he had dispensed with the concept of the thing-in-itself altogether, and this he does not do for most of TL. Thus, the idea that human beings created the concept of thing-in-itself cannot be clearly established as Nietzsche’s position in TL. The essay is still too much of a hybrid. There are a number of passages where Nietzsche keeps falling back into Schopenhauer’s idealist position, using the idea of adequacy to the thing-in-itself to call ordinary and scientific knowledge into question. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that TL’s position is not fully clear, the third position, the position according to which truth as adequacy to the thingin-itself is a human creation, sheds an altogether different light on Nietzsche’s position in regard to idealism. His campaign against the predominant conception of knowledge should be seen, on the one hand, as a development of Schopenhauer’s idea that knowledge is by definition inadequate to its object (understood as a thing-in-itself). But, on the other hand, it should also be seen as an overcoming of that idealism – for it suggests that the very idea of knowledge as adequacy is itself a human creation. And, once this idea of adequacy is called into question, there is no more reason for considering our knowledge as “merely phenomenal” in the Schopenhauerian sense of “merely illusory” (and, hence, in the Platonic sense of insulated from the “true world”). This last step is the one that Nietzsche will venture into in his later writings.

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Bibliography Atwell, John (1995), Schopenhauer on the Character of the World. The Metaphysics of the Will, Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Breazeale, Daniel (ed. and transl.) (1979), Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the 1870’s, New Jersey: Humanities Press. Clark, Maudemarie (1990), Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Maudemarie (1998), “Knowledge, Truth and Value: Nietzsche’s Debt to Schopenhauer and the Development of his Empiricism”, in: Janaway, C. (ed.), Willing and Nothingness. Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s Educator, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 37–78. Constâncio, João (2011a), “On Consciousness: Nietzsche’s Departure from Schopenhauer”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 40, pp. 1–42. De Man, Paul (1979), Allegories of Reading. Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke and Proust, New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Emden, Christian J. (2005), Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Hödl, Hans Gerald (1997), Nietzsches frühe Sprachkritik. Lektüren zu ‘Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne’, Vienna: WUV Universitätsverlag. Hödl, Hans Gerald (2003), “Metaphern ohne Referenten. Anmerkungen zur neueren Diskussion um Nietzsches Sprachphilosophie”, in: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 28, pp. 183–199. Plato (repr. 1982), The Republic, transl. by W. P. Shorey, Cambridge/London: Loeb Classical Library/Harvard University Press, 2 volumes. Simon, Josef (1999), “Der Name ‘Wahrheit’. Zu Nietzsches früher Schrift ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne’”, in: Riedel, M. (ed.), “Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil”, Philologie und Philosophie in Nietzsches Denken, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau, pp. 77–93. Young, Julian (1987), Willing and Unwilling: A Study in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

Luis Enrique de Santiago Guervós

Physiology and Language in Friedrich Nietzsche: “The Guiding Thread of the Body” Nietzsche’s philosophy would lose all the creative tension it generates if we were to forget the radical reflection on language and the aesthetic and physiological perspective from which Nietzsche approaches the problem of language. In order to understand his critique of the traditional problems raised by metaphysics and epistemology, it is crucial that we are able to use his critique of language as a hermeneutical guide. Thus, the strategy is to follow his critique, because it constitutes an adequate instrument to question the cultural values of our Western civilisation and its decadence. Nietzsche’s issues with philology were definitively settled with his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, as well as with the controversy it subsequently generated.1 As for philosophy, its startingpoint had to be reappraised, that is to say, those very instances, which philosophy had so forcefully fought against ever since the Socratic turn (myth, poetry, art, eloquence, style etc.), had to be transformed into operative elements. But amongst all this, a genuine and fundamental problem emerged with sharp clarity polarising all the rest. It was the problem of language, its origin, its unconscious grounds, its artistic value, its instinctive force, its figurative and tropic character, and above all, the strength and power it conceals. However, Nietzsche does not hesitate to polarise this problem from the “prism of art” (BT Attempt 2/GT Versuch 2), because this was the only way in which a new linguistic paradigm could be articulated; a new paradigm which was able to liberate philosophy from the nets of a language that had lost all its creative value from too much use. Firstly, we shall present the problem of language within the first developments of Nietzsche’s philosophy and we shall see how, in the end, language is considered aesthetically, taking the “body” as a reference; secondly we shall examine Nietzsche’s intuition that a possible solution to the problem can be found in metaphorical language, i.e. in a pictorial language in which language as art has its ground; thirdly we shall see how physiology opens up the path for new ways of expression; and finally we shall expose the paradoxes that arise from a radical position – such as Nietzsche’s – in relation to language. It

1 In relation to the controversy regarding The Birth of Tragedy, see my introductory work, Guervós (1994), pp. 9–44.

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should also be noted that this development bears something in common with the one mentioned above: in contrast to the modern tendency that excludes the pulsional and affective aspects of human life in order to preserve a certain unity, by favouring one element alone, namely the rational, Nietzsche claims the former reality – i.e. the drives and the affects – to be the foundation of philosophy. The theoretical thought inaugurated by Socrates left the reality of the body aside – how was this possible? Language, as Nietzsche said, is sick; and because of this dissociation, the same goes for our culture. Nietzsche’s philosophy breaks the silence philosophy had kept regarding the body and it makes the world of the concealed unconscious speak: Essential to start from the body and use it as a guiding thread. It is the far richer phenomenon, and can be observed more distinctly. Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind (NL 1885, KSA 11, 40[15] = WLN, 43).

Therefore, in order to evaluate Nietzsche’s conception of language, we also need to take the body as our starting point, because it is the centre of our vital experiences and the field where we can find the centres of force that generate the drives for our most diverse activities and interpretations. For man, before building concepts and judgements, is a creator of forms. And the body is, in actual fact, the source from where all our vital creations come: the “sovereign sage”. In these originary infrastructures, in the field of physiology, Nietzsche seems to find the firm ground to build an alternative to the abstract forms of thought, i.e. beyond all logical thought or the philosophy of consciousness. In this way, the body is turned into that “guiding thread” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 37[4] = WLN, 29); it becomes the centre – the multiplicity of forces – that generates our vital creations. The body reveals itself as the metaphor that enables us to interpret the real, in such a way that even what is ideal comes to be seen as a pulsional way of interpreting the real world: Assuming that our world of desires and passions is the only thing ‘given’ as real, that we cannot get down or up to any ‘reality’ except the reality of our drives (since thinking is only a relation between these drives) – aren’t we allowed to make the attempt and pose the question as to whether something like this ‘given’ isn’t enough to render the so-called mechanistic (and thus material) world comprehensible as well? (BGE 36/JGB 36).

1 Diagnosis of Language and Its Creative Function. Instinct and Language Nietzsche’s first diagnosis regarding language is that “language is sick” (UM IV 5/UB IV 5). And it is sick: firstly, because language has ceased being a

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“production” and has lost all its “creative impulse”; secondly, because we are no longer able to communicate what happens to us, because we have become prisoners of conceptual language, which, in its turn, has lost its connection to our feelings, and hence, to nature. This stagnation in language takes place fundamentally because language operates only by convention, as a machine. But, in contrast to the life-threatening domination of conventions, art offers a new perspective out of which the essentially metaphysical conception of language can be overcome and a re-appropriation of the power of language can be attained. This is why, from Nietzsche’s first writings, art and language maintain an on-going relation of implications, in such a way that it would not be an exaggeration to claim that one aspect of Nietzsche’s aesthetics is focused on what language means to art and what art has to do with language. In this context, the principle that “existence can only be aesthetically justified” must be understood in the sense that real existence can only be conveyed through an adequate expression and in a justified way by an aesthetical language, i.e. precisely by the language of real art. And this is why the problem lies not in existence, but in its justification, that is, in its linguistic and figurative representation. In the end, Nietzsche’s diagnosis is a critique of the philosophers’ faith in linguistic structures – in those structures that they deified and converted into the highest representatives of reason. Everybody is now familiar with Nietzsche’s sentence that the overcoming of nihilism depends on the unmasking of the grammatisation of reason and, thus, of those who succumbed to the seduction of grammar: ‘Reason’ in language: oh, what a deceptive old woman that is! I am afraid that we have not got rid of God because we still have faith in grammar… (TI Reason 5/GD Vernunft 5).

That is also why Nietzsche asked himself quite laconically whether philosophers should “rise above the belief in grammar” (BGE 34/JGB 34) or, in other words, whether it would be possible to overcome those modes of speaking and those particular ways of thinking which examine the causes and fundaments of the whole of being, unifying and separating concepts, as if these were real things. In response to the linguistic excesses of metaphysics, Nietzsche does not offer a theoretical, but an aesthetical alternative. However, this alternative or this critique is not restricted to a simple critique of reason, but rather offers the possibility of a transformation of philosophy, as well as of the conceptual language that founds it, by following the path of the experience of artistic creation and aesthetical reason. This reason is not an analytical, but an intuitive reason; a reason based on instincts and passions, for instincts are more

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reliable and deserve more authority than rationality. This rapprochement between the production of language and the artistic process can be appreciated in the posthumous fragments2 from around 1871–73, i.e. from the moment when Nietzsche considers the “artistic condition” and the artistic attitude to be the true source of language – the originary moment where the force of life is driven to overflow itself creatively. This is also how the reconciliation between man and nature would take place. In a fragment from 1869 with the title “On the Origin of Language”,3 it is already clear that Nietzsche’s critical position towards language does not follow the guiding principles of Kantian criticism. Nietzsche took two theses as his starting point: that language precedes truth and that language is prior to thought. And although they are not originally from Nietzsche, they already mark the direction he takes. However, Nietzsche had located the origin of language within the context of nature’s own development, thus affirming that language was a product of natural instincts, and also already hinting towards its physiological basis. At a first glance, language – as a means of communication and a form of mutual understanding – satisfies the needs of the “herd”. This is why one of the first functions of language in its origin was, above all, to express feelings. But on a philosophical level, Nietzsche exposes the following thesis which also provided the germ for future thoughts: “the most profound philosophical insights are already prepared in language”. These first thoughts regarding language are certainly in tune with the tendencies of the time and with authors such as Schelling or Eduard von Hartmann, where Nietzsche explicitly or implicitly finds a great deal of his inspiration.4 Thus, for instance in that short text quoted above, “On the Origin of Language”, Nietzsche adopts for his conclusion the following text from Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology, in which language is grounded upon the unconscious: Because not only no philosophical consciousness, but rather also no human consciousness at all, is thinkable without language, the ground of language could not be laid consciously; and yet, the deeper we inquire into language, the more definitely it becomes known that its depths exceed by far that of the most conscious product. It is with language as it is with the organic beings; we believe we see them blindly emerge into being

2 Most especially in KSA 7. 3 Friedrich Nietzsche: “Vom Ursprung der Sprache (1869–70)”, in: KGW II/2, pp. 183–189. Nietzsche used this short text as an introduction to a lecture on Latin grammar for the winter semester of 1869–70. 4 Sometimes Nietzsche’s dependency on other authors of his time is too much emphasised. In spite of the similarities, it is important to insist on those truly original elements introduced by Nietzsche.

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and cannot deny the inscrutable intentionality of their formation, right up to the smallest detail.5

This text enables Nietzsche to introduce in his reflection the two levels upon which his conception of language is based. Firstly, at a more original and primary level the unconscious provides the physiological foundation for the artistic and creative drive, and, on the second level, consciousness. In this conception of language, the first level, the unconscious language, is the condition of possibility for the second, the language of consciousness. In this way the principle was settled that language does not find its origin in consciousness, but at a more obscure and profounder level. It is at this level that we can also find an explanation for linguistic phenomena. Thus, Nietzsche thinks that human consciousness is what it is depending on the particular form and strength of the language that structures it. In other words, Nietzsche believes that consciousness has a linguistic structure. Nietzsche’s originality lies not so much on the claim of language’s instinctive and unconscious origin – this idea was already present in Rousseau, Schopenhauer and E. von Hartmann6 – , but on his emphasis on the unconscious nature of instinct and its strength relative to the pretensions of reason: Instinct is even identical with the innermost kernel of a being. This is the actual problem of philosophy, the infinite purposiveness of organisms and the unconsciousness of their emergence.7

Thus, from his first writings, the idea that the unconscious linguistic processes are the condition of possibility for the conscious use of conceptuality and

5 Schelling (1979), p. 54, English translation quoted from Schelling (2008), Historical-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology. Like Schelling, Nietzsche gives primacy to the aesthetical, but in a different spirit. Schelling sees art as the culmination of philosophy, on the ground that only art is able to give us an immediate intuition of what is reality from the inside. Nietzsche gives primacy to the aesthetical precisely because it does not offer an idea of “reality”. On Nietzsche’s view, human beings have no access to reality. Their abstractions are worn-out metaphors, and their language is in fact only an embodiment of their innate talent for aesthetical creation. 6 Nietzsche knew the work of E. von Hartmann (1869), Philosophie des Unbewussten. The allusions to Hartman are very frequent in the fragments from the years 1869–1874 in KSA 7. Alwin Mittasch (1952) believes that Nietzsche’s ideas on the unconscious come also from Schelling and Schopenhauer. 7 “Vom Ursprung der Sprache (1869–70)”, in: KGW II/2, p. 186, editors’ translation: “Der Instinkt ist sogar eins mit dem innersten Kern eines Wesens. Dies ist das eigentliche Problem der Philosophie, die unendliche Zweckmässigkeit der Organismen und die Bewusstlosigkeit bei ihrem Entstehn”.

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abstraction constitute the guiding thread of the later development of his radical critique of metaphysics, morality and religion. And from these assumptions, Nietzsche will not cease to emphasise, time and time again, that if human beings were to develop their capacity to explore the unconscious forms of language as creative possibilities, and if they were to transform them in a conscious will as force and action, this very transforming quality of language would enable human beings to embrace a transvaluation of values. In the later writings from the first period, as in the Dionysian Worldview from 1870, Nietzsche already considers conceptual language as a deficient modality of communication in comparison to other forms, such as dance and song. Nietzsche considers these to be “languages” that constitute a more immediate access to the world of feelings. These “languages” are “totally instinctive, without consciousness”.8 A year later, in the fragments on Music and Word, he adopts a more sophisticated conception of language. In this fragment, words are only symbols, not of the thing-in-itself, but of representations. In this way he already questions the relation between language and reality such as it had been understood in the philosophical tradition.9 In the Birth of Tragedy, language is defined by Nietzsche as “the organ and symbol of phenomena” (BT 6/GT 6) and, as such, it cannot express anything about the intimate secrets of nature and the “heart of things” (BT 16/GT 16). In other words, it cannot express all that which only music is able to express. Wagner in Bayreuth marks a profound turning point. Firstly because Nietzsche clearly detects that language is a problem; and, secondly, because he starts thinking about how to overcome the critical state language finds itself in – a critical state which is due to its social instrumentalisation and its becoming purely conventional. But it is in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (1873) that Nietzsche corrects and summarises his views from The Birth of Tragedy. It is in this short text that Nietzsche synthesises in a brilliant way his philosophy of language. The problem of language cannot be reduced to the problem of its origin alone; the problem of language is the problem of its history, that is, of the history of its fall, of its destruction and, above all, it is the problem of the “history of the forgetfulness” of its nature. Nietzsche ventures to give an answer to this problem from an aesthetic perspective. This enables him to show how the theory on the relation between language and reality, traditionally understood as a relation of “adequacy”, has constituted the cornerstone of metaphysics, and how the latter will only be overcome if we understand the relation between language and reality as an “aesthetic relation”:

8 DW 4, KSA 1, p. 572, editors’ translation: “durchaus instinktive, ohne Bewußtsein”. 9 On the development of Nietzsche’s thought on language, see Schlüpmann (1977).

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Our eye binds us to forms. But if we ourselves have gradually acquired this eye by training, then we see an artistic force at work in ourselves. Therefore we see in nature itself mechanisms against absolute knowledge: the philosopher recognises the language of nature and says: ‘we need art’ and ‘we need only a part of knowledge’ (NL 18872–73, KSA 7, 19[49] = WEN, 109).

In this sense, the only thing left for philosophy is the artistic will, that is to say, its “will to illusion”, as well as the realisation that “[…] the power of illusion […] prevails everywhere” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[37] = WEN, 104). Hence, there is no language that expresses the essence of things. There is only the “illusion” we create through fantasy as we make up a world which is not “in- itself”, but is a product of our imagination and fantasy, pure “fable”. The linguistic scepticism Nietzsche is proposing is merely the result of those “anthropomorphic fictions” we create and through which we turn an unknowable and inapprehensible cosmic event into something measurable and knowable for us.10 That is why, in effect, we only “believe” to know something of the things in themselves “when we speak of trees, colours, snow, flowers, […] and yet we possess only metaphors of things which in no way correspond to the original entities” (TL 1, 144/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 879). From these assumptions, Nietzsche maintains that reality is the product of the imagination and that the world is somewhat posited by art. Our laws are the laws we place in the world; we can only direct our perspective to all things through a logical-poetical power, and only in this way do we sustain ourselves in life. Therefore, the artists are the only ones who decide on things, for they are the ones who show us how to see things from an angle or in perspective. Artists show us to dispose of things in such a way that they may remain partly concealed and hence can only be glimpsed from a certain perspective.11 This does not mean that there is no “world”. There is no world as something “initself”, as something apart from the individuals that interpret, understand or talk about the world. There is only a world that is created by them: “[…] no supposed ‘true reality’, no ‘in-themselves of things’ corresponds to this whole world which we have created” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 38[10] = WLN, 38), for the subjects themselves are the ones who enable things to become things (see NL 1885, KSA 11, 38[10] = WLN, 38). Consequently, in as much as the world is a reflection of humanity, we can only talk about the world in an anthropomorphic way, as if it were the “infinitely refracted echo of an original sound” (TL 1, 148/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 1883). Thus the way we are reflected in the world

10 See Kirchhoff (1977). Cf. TL 1, 144–145/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 879 for the idea that nature knows neither forms, nor concepts and is only a “mysterious X”. 11 Cf. GS 299.

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becomes confused with objective truths – because men forget themselves as subjects, and in fact they forget themselves as “artistically creative” subjects (TL 1, 148/WL 1, KSA 1, p.1883). These arguments, which try to bring together the unconscious with the artistic activity, are best expressed through the rhetorical model, which is another form of expression that describes man’s unconscious activity. According to Lacoue-Labarthe, Nietzsche’s new approach to rhetoric causes a real bouleversement12 in his reflections on language. Sarah Kofman asks herself why Nietzsche, who saw in artistic activity a good model of unconscious activity, then introduces a second model, namely rhetoric.13 Clearly, apart from taking a step forward in the development of his philosophical ideas about language, Nietzsche wants to deepen in the artistic model with the firm intention of showing that such model is the one that really allows us to disarticulate the opposition between reality and appearance. That is why, Kofman argues, “artistic activity, at the same time as it invents forms, posits values and meanings which, in its absence, the world would find itself lacking”.14 In this way, Nietzsche takes the problem of language to the sphere of “rhetoric” and emphatically maintains the thesis that language is rhetoric15 and that, ultimately, words are nothing else than tropes. It is in this context that the metaphor, as we shall see, acquires a privileged position in Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics, and most particularly in his critique of knowledge and conceptual language. But at the same time Nietzsche can use this as a bridge that enables him to move from language to the body. Moreover, he also uses it as an instrument to speak of those drives that search their expression in the body before they are encapsulated in words and concepts.16 This is why consciousness, the conceptual world, abstract thought, the soul, are nothing else than modes of a body which is a multiplicity of drives – drives that form that very unconscious world pervaded by the great strength of interpretation.

12 Lacoue-Labarthe (1971), pp. 67, 74. 13 See Sarah Kofman (1972), p. 52 ff. 14 See Kofman (1972), p. 52, English translation quoted from Kofman (1994), p. 32. 15 See an interesting study of this idea in Kopperschmidt/Schanze (eds.) (1994). 16 See Broc-Lapeyre (1988), p. 147. See Z I Despisers/ZA I Verächtern, where Nietzsche speaks of the body as a “great reason, a multiplicity with one sense, a war and a peace […]. Your small reason is […] a tool of your body […], plaything of your great reason”. Jesús Conill stresses how Nietzsche’s inspiration in the body constitutes a neuralgic centre of a genealogical hermeneutic, which could very well be, in as much as it is a bodily hermeneutic, an innovation in relation to other forms of hermeneutics such as Heidegger’s (hermeneutic of being) and Gadamer’s and Apel’s (linguistic hermeneutic). See Jesús Conill (1997), p. 113 ff.

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2 The Metaphorisation of Language: Another, New Way of Speaking The metaphorisation of abstract and conceptual language is not something Nietzsche takes directly from Gustav Gerber’ reflections on language. Previously, Schopenhauer’s philosophy had already shown him that we can only have representations of the essence of things, so that both the world and we are nothing else than indecipherable images. It is therefore not surprising that man, who has been essentially defined, since antiquity, as a “rational animal”, should now be defined as a “metaphorical animal” – for the metaphor represents a fundamental type of human behaviour. This is why Nietzsche considers the metaphor to be something more than a simple rhetorical trope. Following this line of thought, some French philosophers, such as P. Lacoue-Labarthe, J. Derrida, S. Kofman, B. Pautrat, etc. interpreted this rhetorical element in Nietzsche’s thought as a strategy to, amongst other things, deconstruct from within the absolutist sense of “the proper” and thus of metaphysics itself. Moreover, they thought that this strategy was specifically intended to undermine the credibility of “the concept”. In this sense, as part of an effort to remain true to the principles of his own critique, Nietzsche was supposed to be trying to show that the concept as such is nothing but the product of metaphorical activity, that is, a product that denies its metaphorical origin and only through this denial, or this act of forgetting, becomes a concept. In this way, the metaphor would not only have a rhetorical use, but also a strategic one; it would not be a mere stylistic resource or a simple ornament without any philosophical relevance, but it would also show the praxis of the Nietzschean transvaluation, or the affirmation of the game of becoming. The metaphor is thus turned into that very power of fiction which speaks of reality, so that our imaginary relation to the world can be said to take place through the body. Only the metaphor, as a form of transposition, is able to apprehend life through the body and with images; and this is what restores life with its artistic power, thus contributing to the art of living. In this way Nietzsche turns back to those radical “realities” constituting the underworld of the body, because this is where we must place the pre-logic and pre-linguistic processes which precede all that can be thought.17 In order to express “the metaphorical” and interpret the fundamental problem which is the relation between language and reality, Nietzsche uses the term Übertragung (transposition) at a pre-linguistic level:

17 See EH HH 3/EH MAM 3.

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We divide things up by gender, describing a tree as masculine and a plant as feminine [tree, Baum, is masculine and plant, Pflanze, is feminine in German] – how arbitrary these transpositions (Übertragungen) are! (TL 1, 144/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 878, translation modified).

To be sure, this term also plays an important role in the language conception both of Gustav Gerber and Zöllner,18 but in Nietzsche’s notes from 1872–3 (before this he only uses this term very rarely19) it is given a special meaning. Nietzsche was convinced that the way in which language operates is fundamentally metaphorical.20 For a metaphor is not an immediate expression of what is given in nature – which is something he had ascribed to the symbol in The Birth of Tragedy – but is a linguistic construct and, as such, is an illusion or a deceit, the same as any other work of art. In contrast with the concept, the metaphor refuses to present the non-identical falsely as the identical. This is why the metaphor has a “predicative structure”. To consider something as being equal means to use propositions of the form P is Q, in other words, predications. We can see this in Nietzsche’s definition of metaphor: “Metaphor means treating as equal something that one has recognised to be similar in one point” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[249] = WEN, 160). A word on its own is not a metaphor, and this hints towards the referentiality of every metaphor. Thus, through metaphorical language our creative consciousness affirms the apparent and imaginary character of reality, as well as its power of communication; for the person who pronounces a metaphor knows she is the subject and author of what is being communicated and is therefore conscious of her relative and occasional character: she knows that there is no close link between speech and its linguistic object, for they belong to “absolutely different spheres” (TL 1, 148/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 884). What is more, the analogical reasoning which is peculiar to metaphor goes from a particular to another particular and is thus grounded on a mere similarity. But seeing similarities is already a creative act, an “aesthetic way of relating” (ästhetisches Verhalten, TL 1, 148, KSA 1, p. 884) that is not subject to any rules through which nonidentical things could be seen as identical by means of words.

18 See Zöllner (1872). On C. F. Zöllner’s influence on Nietzsche see: Andrea Orsucci (1994), pp.193–207. On the use of this term see also Böning (1988), p. 112 ff. 19 Only in NL 1869–70, KSA 7, 3[20], NL 1870–71, KSA 7, 5[106], NL 1870–71, KSA 7, 5[107]. 20 Slobodan Zunjic says that “all human language is metaphorical, even mimicry, onomatopoeic language and the language of silence”. For him, metaphorical language represents a kind of foundation of the human species: cf. Zunjic (1987), p. 158, editors’ translation.

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Here Nietzsche introduces the power of fantasy or imagination as an essential element of metaphorisation. The power of imagination is the power to successively go from one possibility to another and, because it is a “non-logical power”, it involves the aesthetic ability to see forms, figures, etc. “in the rapid perception of similarities” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[75] = WEN, 116, see also PTAG 3, KSA 1, p. 814). Imagination, such as Nietzsche defines it, is a “strange and illogical drive” for capturing similarities; it is an aesthetical faculty and as such it acts logically, however paradoxical as this may seem. For, by seeing similarities, it grounds the logic of concepts. This way of operating, expressed through the dynamics of metaphor, is the linguistic form that emphasises the similarities and as such constitutes the “non-logical”, i.e. the aesthetic moment of language. The metaphor is thus grounded on the aesthetics working behind all possible conceptual fixations that determine our conception of the world. Nietzsche’s wager that metaphorical language is the most appropriate form of language for the artistic philosopher is based on two aspects: one which is physiological and another which is epistemological. It also offers some advantages in relation to its critical aims. Firstly, man has an instinct or “fundamental drive” to create metaphors. This drive is identical to the artistic, Apollonian drive in nature. Reality is like a metaphorical text, resulting from a “drive to form metaphors” which creates a new “world” from the ruins of a destroyed conceptual order (TL 2, 150–151/WL 2, KSA 1, p. 887). In this alternation of construction and destruction we have what Ricœur has called a “semantic innovation” within the metaphorical meaning. Secondly, on an epistemological level, Nietzsche’s argument for claiming that there is a metaphorical relation between language and reality is as follows: […] for between two absolutely different spheres, such as subject and object are, there is no causality, no correctness, no expression, but at most an aesthetic way of relating, by which I mean an allusive transference, a stammering into a quite different language. For which purpose a middle sphere and mediating force is certainly required which can freely invent and freely create poetry (TL 1, 148/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 884).

In this text Nietzsche claims once more, as he had done in The Birth of Tragedy, that human beings, and most especially the philosophers, must be artists, for it is only as such that they create forms and values. And as creators of language they form, transform and interpret reality from their own perspective. Thus the relation language-reality is not a causal relation, it is not a mimetic relation, but a mediated, conventional and, above all, metaphorical relation. Nietzsche turns to the work of Gustav Gerber to back up his arguments.21 In his work Die Sprache als Kunst (Language as Art), Gerber explains how every 21 Gustav Gerber (1820–1901) was director of the Realgymnasium in Bomberg. He published Die Sprache als Kunst, 2 vols., 1871–1872. (The two volumes were published together in

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concept is the result of a series of “transpositions” or, as Nietzsche would say, of “the left-over residue of a metaphor” (TL 1, 147/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 882). In this sense, already Gerber is proposing a “pictorial language” with a physiological basis. The first metaphor would be the transposition of a nervous stimulus into an image, the second would transform an image into a sound and, finally, there is the transposition of internal forms, sensations and images into the sphere of objectivity. All these transpositions, which Nietzsche also considers as the transit of the particular into the general, are metaphors. In his Lectures on Rhetoric, Nietzsche interprets this process almost in the same terms, stressing the relation between “stimulus” (Reiz) and “images”: Man, who forms language, does not perceive things or events, but stimuli (Reize): he does not reproduce sensations (Empfindungen), but merely copies (Abbildungen) of sensations. The sensation, evoked through a nervous stimulus (Nervenreiz), does not take in the thing in itself: this sensation is presented externally through an image (Bild). However, we must ask ourselves how an activity of the soul can be represented by a sound image (Tonbild) […]. Things do not enter our consciousness – only our way of relating to them enters our consciousness” (KGW II/4, p. 426).22

But only in his later work, On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense, does Nietzsche simplifies Gerber’s conception: The stimulation of a nerve is first translated into an image (Bild): first metaphor! This image is then imitated by a sound: second metaphor! And each time there is a complete leap from one sphere into the heart of another, new sphere (TL 1, 144/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 879).23

Language is thus conceived as the result of a double Übertragung in the sense that it is a transference or transposition and at the same time it unmasks the linguistic process of denotation as a process of understanding by means of signs:

1872). In September 1872 Nietzsche borrowed the first volume from the university library in Basel, as is recorded in the library register, and it is likely that he never read the second volume. See Luca Crescenzi (1994). On Gerber’s influence in Nietzsche see Meijers (1988) and Meijers/Stingelin (1988). 22 Nietzsche, Friedrich (1989), “Description of Ancient Rhetoric”, in: F. Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, ed. & transl. by S. L. Gilman/C. Blair/D. J. Parent, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 21, translation modified. See my introduction (“El poder de la palabra: Nietzsche y la retórica”) to the Spanish edition: Luis Enrique de Santiago Guervós (2000) pp. 9–80. On Nietzsche’s conception of language and his perspectivism, see my book: Luis Enrique de Santiago Guervós (2004). 23 Cf. Peter Bornedal (2010), especially in chapters 2 and 5, for a recent approach to Nietzsche’s epistemology as a “Neuro-Epistemology” with a linguistic-biological base.

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We believe that when we speak of trees, colours, snow, and flowers, we have knowledge of the things themselves, and yet we possess only metaphors of things which in no way correspond to the original entities (TL 1, 144/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 879).

In the first two phases, which set the bases for the third, Nietzsche admits a pre-linguistic pictorial thought which is the ground for conceptual thought, such as he puts it in the following passage: Unconscious thinking must take place without concepts: that is, in intuitions. […] The philosopher then tries to replace thinking in images with a conceptual mode of thinking (KSA 7, 19[107] = WEN, 125).

This pictorial thought – or “thinking in images” (Bilderdenken) – is something in between the nervous stimulus, i.e. the sensitive activity, and language. However, as far as the relation Nietzsche tries to establish between language and physiology is concerned, what is important is that he identifies the production of images with an “artistic force” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[67] = WEN, 113). Nietzsche interprets this artistic force physiologically as an activity of the nervous system, and this already hints towards the “will to power”. In effect, it is the power of the image that acts and determines the character of the linguistic experience. For Nietzsche, thus, metaphorisation is a creative and artistic activity which is undertaken by the subject as a creator of language. And this is to the extent that the metaphor is able to produce a new world and rediscover reality. But most of all, it liberates man’s metaphorical instinct for creative activity, it enables him to pluralise his perspectives in the domains of art, myth etc. – domains the nihilistic and decadent will of the scientific spirit has devaluated. The artist, in contrast to scientists and philosophers, actualises things in their individual vitality, for the artist does not create dead concepts, but living images that establish an originary relationship with things. The metaphorical processes, also called intuitive processes, stem from a force which dares to go from one thing to another and, at the same time, is able to create the greatest fictions. Indeed it is an instinctive activity in as much as it is an originary activity of man and, because it is a creative activity it is also unconscious. The transformation of the world is possible through this activity. The fact that this is forgotten is, according to Nietzsche, one of the cornerstones in the architecture of metaphysics. We forget that man is “an artistically creative subject” (TL 1, 148/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 883) and that the “drive to form metaphors” is the “fundamental human drive” (TL 1, 150/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 887) which is at the origin of language. Here is where we find that originary artistic and poetical character of human language, which precedes the logical formation of the concept. This is the path Nietzsche has chosen to show that through the art of

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creating metaphors man can directly express, with the most genuine innocence, what is ultimately real.

3 The “New Language” of the Physiology of Art as an Expression of “True Realities” We have seen how, on the one hand, language is grounded on the human “instinct” to create metaphors. Language is thus grounded on that unknown interior which constitutes the human organism and where we find “true realities”, that is, the physiological and biological values which enable us to know about life. Upon this basis Nietzsche creates a “new language” that takes the physiology of art as a paradigmatic example. It is a clearly anti-metaphysical language that is announced within a program which could not be any other than the transvaluation of all values from the perspective of the will to power. According to Heidegger, in Nietzsche’s new proposal “the ultimate consequences of the aesthetical questioning of art are thought to the end”,24 that is, by reducing the “sentimental state” to nervous stimulations and other bodily reactions. In the end, we are confronting another way of approaching the problem of language – another Nietzschean strategy to explain the relation between language and reality. But this time, the explanation has a strong hermeneutical character and is anchored on physiology and biology, that is, on the inner world of human beings, on the organic complexity of their instincts and drives. This physiological perspective from which we believe we can approach the problem of language in Nietzsche does not exclude the fact that physiology should also have a “literary function”, as Pfotenhauer remarks,25 or indeed an aesthetic function in the sense that it carries out an artistic “metaphorical transposition”.26 Likewise, we cannot forget the ironic tone we find in many of Nietzsche’s “medicinal” sentences and which Blondel interprets as “burlesque”.27 But, in the end, it is just an alternative way of dealing with the problem of aesthetics – alternative to his metaphysical approach in The Birth of Tragedy. This new approach contains a radicalisation and auto-critical examination of the principles of his “artist’s metaphysics” (BT Attempt 7/GT Versuch 7), which had guided the first steps of his philosophy: “to look at art from the prism of life” (BT Attempt 2/GT Versuch 2). 24 25 26 27

Cf. Heidegger (1996), p. 91, editors’ translation. Cf. Pfotenhauer (1984). Pfotenhauer (1984), p. 407. Blondel (1986), p. 125. See also Winschester (1994), p. 62.

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Ever since Nietzsche was acquainted with Lange’s28 work, Geschichte des Materialismus, he searched for a new ground within the physiological and biological – and in aesthetics he searched for some kind of “superconstruction”. Nietzsche writes: “the aesthetic values are based on biological values, […] the aesthetic feelings of well-being on biological feelings of well-being” (NL 1888, KSA 13, 16[75], editors’ translation). This same idea is expressed more vividly in a retrospective text from Ecce Homo, where Nietzsche alludes to the period of Human, All Too Human: I was worried how thin and starved I had become: my knowledge was completely devoid of realities, and ‘idealities’ were not worth a damn! – I was seized with an almost burning thirst: and in fact, from that point on, I pursued nothing more than physiology, medicine, and the natural sciences (EH HH 3/EH MAM 3).29

But in order to express his philosophical thought from this new perspective, Nietzsche needed a new language, different and “vigorous”, “his own language”, as he claims in his An Attempt at Self-Criticism (BT Attempt/GT Versuch) from 1886. Only this could provide him with the appropriate instrument to release himself from the tutelage of Schopenhauer and Wagner. This new language which expresses organic and pulsional conditions, that is, the physiological becoming, is what determines the philosophical radicalisation of Nietzsche’s position. However, we cannot affirm that this new language is merely “metaphorical” or “ironic”,30 for this would mean to deny Nietzsche’s endeavour to find a way out of metaphysics – which is the basis of morality and aesthetics – , and it would also mean rejecting Nietzsche’s dedication to the study of the theories of biologists, physiologists and naturalists of his time, especially from 1881 onwards. His frequent readings of physiologists and naturalists such as Virchow, Roux,31 Haeckel, Darwin, or Boscovich, among others, and his literary incursions in such authors as Stendhal, Balzac or Baudelaire,32 played an immeasurable strategic role in relation to

28 On Lange’s influence in Nietzsche see George J. Stack (1983). It is important to note that Nietzsche studied the work of Friedrich Albert Lange (1866), Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart in 1866, shortly after becoming acquainted with the work of Schopenhauer, and therefore some years before reading Gustav Gerber. 29 On the influence of physiology in Nietzsche’s aesthetics, see Thorgeirsdottir (1996). 30 Blondel believes there might be something ironic in this and affirms that “the impact of many ‘medicinal’ phrases is less physiological than burlesque”. Cf. Blondel (1986), p. 125. 31 Wilhelm Roux (1881), Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus. Ein Beitrag zur Vervollständigung der mechanischen Zweckmässigkeitslehre, a book which is in the Nietzsche Library. 32 See Wotling (1995), especially pp. 155–184, where he addresses the topic of the “physiology of art” as an example of clinical analysis.

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the transformation his philosophy underwent during the last period and especially in relation to the deconstruction of the hegemony of human subjectivity, which had dominated right up to Kant. In fact, Nietzsche’s new ideas concerning the “will to power” and art need this new language in order to be able to talk about artistic creativity as the culmination of an indeterminate number of drives.33 It is therefore not surprising that Nietzsche should be aware of his new way of undertaking philosophy and that he should talk in methodological terms about following the “guiding thread of the body”, which is conceived as a hermeneutical imperative in our understanding of art. For this enables him to show that art as such is a “sublimation of the most primitive biological instincts” and also constitutes an appropriate point of reference to describe the symptoms of “the world seen from inside” (BGE 36/JGB 36), that is, of the “will to power”. This is also why it is not so much a question of justifying existence in aesthetic terms or of introducing an “artist’s metaphysics” as it was in his earlier works. The task now is to elaborate an aesthetical physiology as a provisional and regulative part of the investigation, which must help us understand and overcome such problems as nihilism, décadence, Wagner’s music and our own culture, – and most especially, it must enable us to achieve “the right idea of the nature of our subject-unity” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 40[21] = WLN, 43).34 This methodology is in fact a “regulative hypothesis” or “heuristic principle” (BGE 15/JGB 15) which allows us to express the tensions and forces that underlie all artistic activity, as well as to express the multiplicity of tendencies and drives implied in the idea of “will to power”. Nietzsche was convinced that this new “methodology”, sc. to follow the “the guiding thread of the body”, was the appropriate strategic instrument that could help us “free ourselves from the seduction of words” (BGE 16/JGB 16), i.e. of grammar. Along the guiding thread of the body we find a tremendous multiplicity; it is methodologically permissible to use the more easily studied, the richer phenomenon as a guiding thread to understand the poorer one (NL 1885, KSA 11, 2[91] = WLN, 77).35

Furthermore, this way of undertaking philosophy is also “crucial for the fate of individuals as well as peoples” – i.e. it is crucial for their fate “that culture begin in the right place” and “the right place is the body, gestures, diet, physi-

33 See Müller-Lauter (1998). 34 This posthumous note begins with the question “why” start from the body and physiology. On this topic see Stiegler (2001), pp. 17–44. 35 On the body as a radical starting point of all ontological interpretation, see Granier (1966), pp. 336 ff.

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ology, everything else follows from this…” (TI Skirmishes 47/GD Streifzüge 47). In addition, if one is after a methodological foundation or ground, “the phenomenon of the body is the richer, more distinct, more comprehensible phenomena” and, therefore, “methodological priority” must be given to it (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 5[56] = WLN, 113).36 Once again, following the body’s “great wisdom” as our starting point and radical foundation, we are able to deal with decadent ideals, because the truth is that the body holds the attributes that metaphysics had saved for the soul. That is, the body thinks, chooses, judges, interprets, creates values, feels, imagines, in such a way that all organic formations participate in our thought, our feelings and our will. In this sense the “higher functions of the spirit” are no more than “sublimated organic functions” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 25[356], editors’ translation), “a more or less fantastic commentary on an unknown, perhaps, unknowable, but felt text” (D 119/M 119). Thus, the status given to the body goes well beyond the mere functioning of organs. And because the body is a multiplicity of forces in continuous movement and permanent struggle, it is the least susceptible of being translated into a conceptual language. The body is a multiplicity of perspectives enabling a broader interpretation of the world which opens the way towards a non-metaphysical “conceptualisation”. Among the different states of the body, Nietzsche gives special relevance to the physiological state of intoxication (Rausch),37 which he considers to be the fundamental aesthetic state, “the feeling of fullness and increasing strength” (TI Skirmishes 8/GD Streifzüge 8), precisely because the creative power of art is the result of a biological excess: One physiological precondition is indispensable for there to be art or any sort of aesthetic action or vision: intoxication. Without intoxication to intensify the excitability of the whole machine, there can be no art (TI Skirmishes 8/GD Streifzüge 8).38

Here lies the difference between the artist and the “man of knowledge”. While the former is productive and transforms things, the latter tries to discover fix and stable norms concerning the nature of things, as if they were immobile 36 See Jaspers (1963), p. 47. 37 The figures of Apollo and Dionysos, which were metaphysical figures in the beginning, are now symbols of experimental life. Both artistic forces are conceptualised, in this context, as species of intoxication. See Lypp (1984). On the relation between both principles and their grounding on the body, see Remmert (1978), especially pp. 35–45. See also TI Skirmishes 10/GD Streifzüge 10. 38 In a posthumous note entitled “On the Physiology of Art” (“Zur Physiologie der Kunst”, NL 1888, KSA 13, 17[9], editors’ translation), Nietzsche lists a series of essential points – and in the 18th point he writes: “Art as intoxication, medically”.

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and independent from human action and interpretation. Indeed, the artists’ fundamental feature is to transform and to transfigure things so that they become the reflection of their own strength and power, that is, they become an expression of “perfection” (TI Skirmishes 9/GD Streifzüge 9). For Nietzsche this means that “in art, people enjoy themselves as perfection” (TI Skirmishes 9/GD Streifzüge 9). On the other hand, we must not think that, because intoxication is a state of pleasure, it means a chaotic increase in strength – on the contrary, the senses harmonise in a perfect equilibrium which becomes manifest in the simplificatio. Intoxication entails not a dispersion of energies, but a concentration of strength and power. Heidegger has quite rightly drawn our attention to Nietzsche’s definition of intoxication as a feeling – a feeling being “the way we find ourselves in relation to ourselves and, thus, also in relation to things”.39 So we “feel” intoxicated and transported to other worlds at the same time as, consciously, we feel that we are bodily beings, because to feel means to be alive as a body, in one way or another. But intoxication, as a feeling of “increasing strength”, makes us go beyond ourselves and experience ourselves as being whole, more translucent and, hence, it makes us feel especially open to everything, most particularly to beauty. That is why for the artist nothing is strange. Nietzsche’s statement that “aesthetics is inextricably linked to […] biological presuppositions” (CW Epilogue/WA Epilog)40 is clarified by the fact that the artistic force is described through the language and the connotations of the state of intoxication. But this can be better appreciated when he adds that “the beautiful belongs within the general category of the biological values” (NL 1887, KSA 12, 10[67] = WLN, 202), instead of evaluating it in terms of an aesthetic ideal. Hence, the experience of beauty does not refer to an inner contemplation of the spirit as a reference, but rather to a biological “aesthetic instinct”. Zarathustra asked: “Where is beauty?”, and he answered briskly: “Where I must will with my entire will; where I want to love and perish so that an image does not remain merely an image” (Z II Immaculate/ZA II Erkennntnis). Consequently, the criterion to distinguish between Dionysian and decadent art must be a biological and physiological criterion, or a feeling of strength: “If and where a judgement that something is ‘beautiful’ should be made is a question of strength (of an individual or a people’s strength)” (NL 1887, KSA 12, 10[67], editors’ translation).41 On the other hand, according to Nietzsche, ugly art is a decadent, nihilistic art, that is, an art that, although it represents the tragic aspects of life, limits 39 Heidegger (1996), p. 99, editors’ translation. 40 See Hillebrand (1966), p. 76. 41 See Rusticelli (1992), p. 192.

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itself to reproducing them, and lacks the transfiguring ability of true art, i.e. of the art of “great style”, which is the only art capable of transforming the ugly and making it beautiful. “Ugliness means the décadence of a type […], means a decline in organising strength, in ‘will’, to speak physiologically” (NL 1888, KSA 13, 14[117], editors’ translation),42 for man’s “feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride – these sink with ugliness and rise with beauty” (TI Skirmishes 20). Nietzsche sometimes takes this reduction of aesthetics to physiology so far as to say that the effect of the ugly and the beautiful can be measured “with a dynamometer”: confronted with the ugly, man loses strength and energy, to the extent that such a loss can be measured; and the same goes for the beautiful, which is quantifiable and measurable as a physiological phenomenon (TI Skirmishes 20/GD Streifzüge 20). Thus, the “aesthetic taste” and the “aesthetic judgements”, i.e. judgements saying that something is “beautiful” (cf. TI Skirmishes 20/GD Streifzüge 20), depend on the body and bodily states. Taste in particular depends on people’s “lifestyle, nutrition, digestion, maybe a deficit or excess of inorganic salts in their blood and brains – in short, in their physis” (GS 39/FW 39). That is why aesthetic judgements are nothing more than the “‘subtlest tones’ of the physis” (GS 39/ FW 39), which the artist listens to according to his needs. The body, hence, expands its influence to the realm of aesthetic pleasure. We have an example of this in Nietzsche’s judgement of Wagner’s music in his later works. Nietzsche rejects Wagner’s music for the harmful effects it produced; Nietzsche’s objections become “physiological objections” (e.g. NL 1888, KSA 13, 15[111]). Taking these physiological assumptions as our starting point, it is only logical that the judgement on the beauty of an object should not refer to a beautiful objective characteristic lying in the nature of things. The concept of “beauty in itself” is nothing more than an idealistic fiction of the imagination, for the value of an aesthetic judgement does not depend on intellectual reasons, but on physiological ones. Although we are used to finding beauty in things, Nietzsche maintains, as we have seen, that we are the ones who grant beauty to the world through our own evaluations. Therefore, in the same way we impose the stable categories of thought on the flux of becoming, we also impose our aesthetic valuations on the world. In aesthetics, like in epistemology, we only “discover” in nature what we already have put in it: Fundamentally, humanity is reflected in all things, people find beauty in everything that throws their image back at them: the judgment ‘beautiful’ is the vanity of their species… (TI Skirmishes 19/GD Streifzüge 19).

42 See also NL 1888, KSA 13, 16[40].

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Consequently, what really counts is who is pronouncing the judgement about the “beautiful”; for the beautiful as such is a valuation of the individual, different in each being, according to its perspective and power and ultimately expressed in a primary state of the organism. Moreover, the will to power is best expressed through these judgements, for they are related to biological values such as the conservation and autoaffirmation of the individual. These judgements also explain the artist’s own creativity, for they express a feeling of “fullness” and “accumulated strength”, a feeling of power. In aesthetic judgements we set ourselves as the norm of perfection – our own organism drives us to leave our imprint in everything that surrounds us. Hence, for Nietzsche, to make the world beautiful means to “humanise” the world. And this also explains why, according to Nietzsche, the scope of every aesthetic judgement is circumscribed by the first truth of aesthetics: “Nothing is beautiful, only people are beautiful: all aesthetics is based on this naïvité” (TI Skirmishes 20/GD Streifzüge 20).43

4 The Paradoxes of a Radical Criticism of Language. The “Lack of an Appropriate Language” and Linguistic Pragmatism as a Solution We have seen how the physiology of art enabled Nietzsche to deal with the paradoxes of conceptual language and, at the same time, enabled him to find a practical application of his fundamental idea, the will to power. However, Nietzsche’s strategy is once again confronted with the problem underlying his radical line of attack: the “lack of an appropriate language”. Can we really assert that aesthetical judgements are free from metaphysical corruption? And does not a physiological language still confuse linguistic conventions with the description of organic processes? The philosopher, as Nietzsche would say, is still “imprisoned in the nets of language” (NL 1872–73, KSA 7, 19[135], editors’ translation), because “our true experiences are completely taciturn” (TI Skirmishes 26/GD Streifzüge 26). In one way or another, Nietzsche is still sceptical about language because the prejudices of language, as he had already written in Daybreak, don’t allow us to “explain inner processes and drives” (D

43 Cf. also NL 1888, KSA 13, 16[40]. In BT Attempt 7/GT Versuch 7, Nietzsche also condemns sympathy on the grounds that it is a waste of energy.

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115/M 115), and we only have words to express “superlative degrees of these processes and drives” (D 115/M 115). In spite of his new solution, the socalled Sprachnot (“language-need”, or simply “the lack of an appropriate language”) seems to affect Nietzsche’s latest period as well. This is something he somehow foresaw in 1881, when he started to get interested in the study of physiological matters and natural sciences. At that time he already predicted in a pessimistic tone: Our natural science is now on its way to clarify the tiniest processes through our semiskilled affects and feelings, in short: it is on its way to create a type of language for those processes: very well! But it remains a pictorial language (NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[128], editors’ translation).

To be sure, the natural sciences have created their own language to describe and explain those organic processes, but for Nietzsche that language will still remain a “pictorial language” or “speech in images” (Bilderrede) – in images of that same “unknown, perhaps, unknowable, but felt text” (D 119/M 119) that we are. The subject’s inner world must remain fundamentally hidden from us, for “nothing […] can be more incomplete than his image of the totality of drives” (D 119/M 119).44 And the language we use to designate those unknown physiological processes is a conventional language, a language of fictions. By saying this, Nietzsche seems to be indicating that the language used by an anatomist like Roux to describe the cellular and organic world is still a “metaphorical” language, a “speech in images”. For in fact Roux speaks of struggles, triumphs, dominations, conflicts, defeats etc., thereby giving us only an “image” of the body and using a language that cannot be said to “correspond” to reality. This kind of linguistic anti-realism which Nietzsche, in the end, defends so passionately sometimes loses consistency and argumentative strength. Conway, for instance, considers Nietzsche to be an “anti-realist” who nevertheless sees the pragmatic advantages of realism.45 This means that, although he is proposing a radical perspectivism, always from a point of view strictly relative to human experience, he inevitably uses the metaphysical, realistic vocabulary when we he wants to talk about the world. It is difficult to dispossess language from its grounding in traditional metaphysical connotations; that is why he falls into inevitable lapses of realism and his writings are pervaded by passages where language is used realistically – because it is useful to do so and because there is no other alternative. As Conway says:

44 See Müller-Lauter (1998), p. 120 ff. 45 Conway (1990), p. 96.

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Because our grammar is metaphysically freighted, all attempts to formulate synthetic judgments about the world are vulnerable to metaphysical corruption. Metaphysics thus comprises a ‘crude fetishism’ that systematically mistakes linguistic conventions for accurate descriptions of the world.46

This is the reason why Nietzsche quite often accepts the occasional pragmatic necessity of the realistic discourse as something inexorable, or otherwise we would have to abandon the conventional categories and vocabulary that have nourished philosophy and science. However, the kind of relativism Nietzsche wants to introduce into language through metaphorisation may well be an efficient way of unmasking the absolute instances that emerge from conceptual language. There is no doubt that Nietzsche’s argumentation, or this kind of linguistic scepticism, is greatly charged with irony, as Rorty has noticed.47 On the one hand, Nietzsche tries to show the utterly illusory character of concepts, i.e. he tries to show that “the infinitely complicated cathedral of concepts” has been erected “on moving foundations, or even, one might say, on flowing water” (TL 1, 147/WL 1, KSA 1. 882). But on the other hand, far from eliminating the conceptual world, Nietzsche conceives a “free spirit” who, precisely because it recognises the illusory character of concepts, will be able to use them in an artistic and truly creative way. Nietzsche suggests that we use language in a way that forces language itself to say what it does not say, or says only unwillingly – and this is in order to decipher it according to other relations than the ones language itself tries to impose. That is why his method is the genealogy and he carries out his incursions within the sphere of physiology: he tries to make language say what it conceals and does not say. A last question is, however, unavoidable. What language does Nietzsche speak? If he talks, his language is metaphysical because of its grammar. In this sense, he does not seem to have overcome metaphysics. He just seems to go out with a bang after having cultivated and preserved what he is leaving behind. Such is the sense of the interpretations which turn Nietzsche into a mere émigré, presenting him as only a poet or underscoring his final madness. In as much as he speaks he necessarily produces a discourse of a metaphysical nature, for he cannot avoid using metaphysical concepts. It is, thus, not clear, how he can recognise the illusory character of concepts or metaphors, considering that this recognition needs language in order to be articulated as an illusion. Doesn’t this mean that Nietzsche’s radical criticism is no more than a declaration of good intentions? If it is not possible to get outside of language, 46 Conway (1990), p. 101. 47 See Rorty (1989), p. 26.

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what are the effective results of Nietzsche’s critique? Nietzsche has staked his Dionysian philosophy within the realm of language. It is possible that he was seeking something unsayable. Language as such is metaphysical and, as Nietzsche says, “crudely fetishistic” (TI Reason 5/GD Vernunft 5), for it everywhere posits agents and actions, substance, causality, will, being, etc. It is like being at a summary trial where objections are formulated, but where no evidence is submitted. His thoughts are deeper than the reasons he gives to prove them. Perhaps Derrida spotted Nietzsche’s limitations with clarity and saw a possible solution to his aporias and paradoxes. From his perspective, Nietzsche is not talking so much about destroying the conceptual world, but rather about its deconstruction, i.e. its transformation within the framework of illusion and aesthetic play. In this sense, Nietzsche’s critique should be understood as the effort of opening fissures from within – fissures that will enable him to see something beyond what has been established, something that he still is unable to “say”, because an appropriate language is lacking. Or as Eugen Fink has put it: Nietzsche’s way out towards an aesthetic theory is an inevitable consequence of that lack of an appropriate language, or of not having been able to give the proper expression to his new way of thinking.48 But is this to Nietzsche’s discredit or, on the contrary, is it his great achievement? In the history of philosophy it is not a novelty that philosophers should turn to aesthetics when they cannot find any other argumentative possibility. This could be Nietzsche’s case and, later, Heidegger’s too. But the truth is that we can only fight against conceptual language with concepts, and this conflict is an inevitable consequence of Nietzsche’s perspectivism. The grandeur of reason, as Derrida said, “is that one cannot speak out against it except by being for it, that one can protest it only from within it; and within its domain, Reason leaves us only the recourse to stratagems and strategies”.49 Thus, when Nietzsche tries to describe the metaphor as a “transposition” of meaning, he also affirms that that is only possible after having noticed a similarity. Now, to perceive a similarity involves the application of a conceptual scheme. Thus, all transposition is necessarily mediated by a pre-existing scheme and, as such, it is abstract and conceptual. Finally, Nietzsche was aware that the “cobweb” (D 117/M 117) of our language is consistent enough to pervade everything without disintegrating. Language still keeps us immersed in the illusion and the belief that each things exists in itself, independently of other things, precisely because words give us the possibility of naming things by isolating them from the totality of being.

48 Fink (1979), p. 25 ff. 49 Derrida (2005), p. 42.

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In this way, as Schajowicz50 points out, as we try to discover the essence of things through language (the very means by which we apprehend them), we are still introducing metaphysical images in our conception of the world. Language is ruled by certain laws which we, quite inevitably, end up applying also to reality. Something similar is what Heidegger must have experienced when he criticised the traditional language of philosophy for being an ontotheological conceptual language and when he felt, not without some perplexity, that thought was unable to transcend the limits of that very language, precisely because of the “lack of an appropriate language” (Sprachnot): That difficulty lies in language. Our Western languages are languages of metaphysical thinking, each in its own way. It must remain an open question whether the nature of Western languages is in itself marked with the exclusive brand of metaphysics, and thus marked permanently by onto-theo-logic, or whether these languages offer other possibilities of utterance – and that means at the same time of a telling silence.51

Bibliography Blondel, Éric (1986), Nietzsche, le corps et la culture, Paris: PUF. Böning, Thomas (1988), Metaphysik, Kunst und Sprache beim frühen Nietzsche, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Bornedal, Peter (2010), The Surface and the Abyss. Nietzsche as Philosopher of Mind and Knowledge, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Broc-Lapeyre, M. (1988), “La métaphore chez Nietzsche”, in: Recherches sur la philosophie et le langage 9, pp. 138–154. Conill, Jesús (1997), El poder de la mentira, Madrid: Tecnos. Conway, Daniel W. (1990), “Beyond realism: Nietzsche’s new infinite”, in: International Studies in Philosophy 22, pp. 93–109. Crescenzi, Luca (1994), “Verzeichnis der von Nietzsche aus der Universitätsbibliotek in Basel entliehenen Bücher [1869–1879]”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 23, pp. 388–442. Derrida, Jacques (2005), Writing and Difference, transl. by Allan Bass, London: Routledge. Fink, Eugen (1979), La filosofía de Nietzsche, Madrid: Alianza. Gerber, Gustav (1871), Die Sprache als Kunst. Vol. 1, Bromberg: Mittler. Granier, Jean (1966), Le problème de la vérité dans la philosophie de Nietzsche, Paris: Seuil. Guervós, Luis E. S. (1994), Nietzsche y la polémica sobre El nacimiento de la tragedia, Málaga: Ágora. Guervós, Luis E. S. (2000), F. Nietzsche. Escritos sobre retórica, Madrid: Trotta. Guervós, Luis E. S. (2004), Arte y poder. Aproximación a la estética de Nietzsche, Madrid: Trotta.

50 Schajowicz (1979), p. 137. 51 Martin Heidegger (2002), p. 73.

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Hartmann, E. von (1869), Philosophie des Unbewussten, Berlin: Caarl Duncker. Heidegger, Martin (1996), “Nietzsche I”, in: Heidegger, Martin, Gesamtausgabe. Band 6.1, Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, Martin (2002), Identity and difference, transl. by Joan Stambaugh, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hillebrand, Bruno (1966), Artistik und Auftrag. Zur Kunsttheorie von Benn und Nietzsche, Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung. Jaspers, Karl (1963), Nietzsche, Spanish translation by Emilio Estiú, Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. Kirchhoff, Jochen (1977), “Zum Problem der Erkenntnis bei Nietzsche”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 6, pp. 16–44. Kofman, Sarah (1972), Nietzsche et la métaphore, Paris: Galilée. Kofman, Sarah (1994), Nietzsche and Metaphor, transl. by Duncan Large, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kopperschmidt, J./Schanze, H. (eds.) (1994), Nietzsche oder “Die Sprache ist Rhetorik”, Munich: Fink. Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe (1971), “Le détour”, in: Poetique 5, Paris: Seuil. Lange, Friedrich Albert (1866), Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, Iserlohn: J. Baedecker. Lypp, B. (1984), “Dyonisisch-apollinisch: ein unhaltbarer Gegensatz”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 13, pp. 356–373. Meijers, A. (1988), “Gustav Gerber und F. Nietzsche. Zum historischen Hintergrund der sprachphilosophischen Auffassungen des frühen Nietzsche”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 17, pp. 368–390. Meijers, A./Stingelin, M. (1988), “Konkordanz zu den wörtlichen Abschriften und Übernahmen von Beispielen und Zitaten aus Gustav Gerber: Die Sprache als Kunst (Bromberg 1871) in Nietzsches Rhetorik Vorlesung und in ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne’”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 17, pp. 350–368. Mittasch, Alwin (1952), Nietzsche als Naturphilosoph, Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag. Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang (1998), Nietzsche. Physiologie de la Volonté de Puissance, ed. by P. Wotling, Paris: Éditions Allia. Orsucci, Andrea (1994), “Unbewusste, Schlüsse, Anticipationen, Übertragungen”, in: T. Borsche (ed.), “Centauren-Geburten”. Wissenschaft, Kunst und Philosophie beim Jungen Nietzsche, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Pfotenhauer, H. (1984), “Physiologie der Kunst als Kunst der Physiologie? Überlegungen zur literarischen und mythologischen Faktur der Texte”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 13, pp. 399– 411. Remmert, Günter (1978), Leiberleben als Ursprung der Kunst. Zur Ästhetik F. Nietzsches, Munich: Berchmans. Rorty, Richard (1989), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roux, Wilhem (1881), Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus. Ein Beitrag zur Vervollständigung der mechanischen Zweckmässigkeitslehre, Leipzig: Engelmann. Rusticelli, L. (1992), Profonditá della superficie. Senso del tragico e giustificazione estetica dell’esistenza in F. Nietzsche, Milan: Mursia. Schajowicz, L. (1979), Los nuevos sofistas. La subversión cultural de Nietzsche a Beckett, Puerto Rico: Ed. Universitaria.

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Schelling, F. W. J. (1979), Schellings Werke, vol. VI, 3rd edition, Munich: Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Schelling, F. W. J. (2008), Historical-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, transl. by Mason Richey/Marcus Zisselberger, New York: SUNY. Schlüpmann, Heide (1977), Friedrich Nietzsches ästhetische Opposition, Stuttgart: Metzler. Stack, George J. (1983), Lange and Nietzsche, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Stiegler, Barbara (2001), Nietzsche et la biologie, Paris: PUF. Thorgeirsdottir, Sigridur (1996), Vis creativa, Kunst und Wahrheit in der Philosophie Nietzsches, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Winschester, James J. (1994), Nietzsche’s Aesthetic Turn, New York: SUNY. Wotling, Patrick (1995), Nietzsche et le problème de la civilisation, Paris: PUF. Zöllner, J. C. F. (1872), Über die Natur der Cometen. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theorie der Erkenntnis, Leipzig: Staackmann. Zunjic, Slobodan (1987), “Begrifflichkeit und Metapher. Einige Bemerkungen zu Nietzsches Kritik der philosphischen Sprache”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 16, pp. 149–163.

II. On Language, Emotion, and Morality

Andrea Bertino

Discovering Moral Aspects of the Philosophical Discourse About Language and Consciousness With Nietzsche, Humboldt, and Levinas I There is a bond between language and consciousness which seems impossible to dissolve, because becoming conscious of one’s own thinking presupposes that one is able to speak about it. At least when we speak in the Indo-European languages about our being conscious we use the pronoun “I”, and by emphasising its position at the beginning of our sentences our will is manifested. Thus it is implausible that we should conceive of our consciousness as a sort of lighthouse isolated from language, as a transcendental, pre-linguistic dimension of thinking. If consciousness necessarily involves speaking about something which has already been said, the structures of one’s language are the limits of one’s own consciousness. Similarly, the possibilities provided by one’s vocabulary and grammar define the possibilities of one’s own reflected experience. Our vocabulary and grammar came to us not from heaven but from earth: they arise from communication with other human beings and express the need of being understood by others. The dialogue of our thinking with itself, i.e. our consciousness, stems from the incorporation of dialogues with other people. If consciousness relies on language, it is not possible to conceive of it as a substance. It should rather be conceived of as a process arising from the development of language. Therefore, one might ask what is the nature of language before the emergence of consciousness and whether any kind of communication between preconscious subjects was ever possible. The question concerning the “becoming conscious of something” (GS 354/FW 354) is therefore a question about the origin and the “becoming” of the subject, whose peculiar character is manifest in his consciousness. Because a conscious subject is also the condition of moral discourse – a discourse that presupposes reflection, freedom and responsibility – , a subject’s consciousness cannot be treated as a purely theoretical problem. In fact, without an identity-generating self to which actions and intentions can be ascribed, traditional moral discourse loses its meaning. The unity of a reflective personality is, above all, a semiotic expression of the communication

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between human beings – an expression that does not have ontological thickness, but only a pragmatic meaning. Self and consciousness are useful in life because they allow us to play some linguistic games – moral discourse is one of these games – that stabilise our social life. Although it is true that language makes consciousness usable in social life, it is still possible to call into question the utility of this moralising stabilisation of the Self, as well as of society. The idea that drives and unconscious powers are efficacious in determining our actions is the most important argument against a self-sufficient morality that claims to be grounded on an absolute foundation beyond the body and beyond becoming. Nietzsche considered this whole question and clearly recognised the link between language and consciousness, as well as its moral consequences. He did this in aphorism 354 of The Gay Science: On ‘the genius of the species’. – The problem of consciousness (or rather, of becoming conscious of something) first confronts us when we begin to realize how much we can do without it; and now we are brought to this initial realization by physiology and natural history (which have thus required two hundred years to catch up with Leibniz’s precocious suspicion). For we could think, feel, will, remember, and also ‘act’ in every sense of the term, and yet none of all this would have to ‘enter our consciousness’ (as one says figuratively). All of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in the mirror; and still today, the predominant part of our lives actually unfolds without this mirroring – of course also our thinking, feeling, and willing lives, insulting as it may sound to an older philosopher. To what end does consciousness exist at all when it is basically superfluous? If one is willing to hear my answer and its possibly extravagant conjecture, it seems to me that the subtlety and strength of consciousness is always related to a person’s (or animal’s) ability to communicate; and the ability to communicate, in turn, to the need to communicate (GS 354/FW 354).

It is worth noticing that Nietzsche’s discussion of the relationship between consciousness and communication focuses on the problem of “becoming conscious of something” and should not be confused with speculation about consciousness in general. The reification of self-referring mental processes could simply result, in fact, from the influence of language on philosophical thinking. The determination of our mental activity by grammatical structures of language,1 as well as the relationship between modern philosophical theories 1 Cf. BGE 20/JGB 20: “In fact, their thinking is not merely as much a discovery as at it a recognition, remembrance, a returning and homecoming into a distant, primordial, total economy of the soul, from which each concept once grew: – to this extent, philosophizing is a type of atavism of the highest order. The strange family resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German philosophizing speaks for itself clearly enough. Where there are linguistic affinities, then because of the common philosophy of grammar (I mean: due to the unconscious domination and direction through similar grammatical functions), it is obvious that everything lies ready from the very start for a similar development and sequence of

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of subjectivity and the naive belief in the ontological weight of our grammatical categories, are discussed by Nietzsche very clearly.2 It should be obvious that transforming consciousness into a substance prevents us from considering consciousness as a problem. Only if understood as a process does consciousness lose its self-evident character. For Nietzsche, physiology and natural history are crucial because they make philosophers aware of the phenomenon of “becoming conscious” and, thus, of the problematical nature of self-reflection. This problem is tackled by Nietzsche in GS 11/FW 11,3 where, instead of using the substantive “Bewusstsein”, he analyses the quality of intellectual activities calling them “Bewusstheit”. Hence, Nietzsche offers a history of consciousness as an evolutionary system. In this system, consciousness appears as a disease of the human organism – an organism which, according to Nietzsche, can

philosophical systems; on the other hand, the way seems as good as blocked for certain other possibilities of interpreting the world. Philosophers of the Ural-Altaic language group (where the concept of the subject is the most poorly developed) are more likely to ‘see the world’ differently, and to be found on paths different from those taken by the Indo-Germans or Muslims: the spell of particular grammatical functions is in the last analysis the spell of physiological value judgments and racial conditioning. – So much towards a rejection of Locke’s superficiality with regard to the origin of ideas”. 2 Cf. BGE 54/JGB 54: “People used to believe in ‘the soul’ as they believed in grammar and the grammatical subject: people said that ‘I’ was a condition and ‘think’ was a predicate and conditioned – thinking is an activity, and a subject must be thought of as its cause”. 3 Cf. GS 11/FW 11, translation modified: “Consciousness (Bewusstsein) – Consciousness (Bewusstheit) is the latest development of the organic, and hence also its most unfinished and unrobust feature. Consciousness (Bewusstheit) gives rise to countless mistakes that lead an animal or human being to perish sooner than necessary, ‘beyond destiny’, as Homer puts it. If the preserving alliance of the instincts were not so much more powerful, if it did not serve on the whole as a regulator, humanity would have to perish with open eyes of its misjudging and its fantasizing, of its lack of thoroughness and its incredulity – in short, of its consciousness; or rather, without the instincts, humanity would long have ceased to exist! Before a function is fully developed and mature, it constitutes a danger to the organism; it is a good thing for it to be properly tyrannized in the meantime! Thus, consciousness is properly tyrannized – and not least by one’s pride in it! One thinks it constitutes the kernel of man, what is abiding, eternal, ultimate, most original in him! One takes consciousness to be a given determinate magnitude! One denies its growth and intermittences! Sees it as ‘the unity of the organism’! This ridiculous overestimation and misapprehension of consciousness has the very useful consequence that an all-too-rapid development of consciousness was prevented. Since they thought they already possessed it, human beings did not take much trouble to acquire it – and things are no different today! The task of incorporating knowledge and making it instinctive is still quite new; it is only beginning to dawn on the human eye and is yet barely discernible – it is a task seen only by those who have understood that so far we have incorporated only our errors and that all of our consciousness refers to errors!”.

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easily find a useful and reliable regulation of its own life nearly by unconscious impulses only. The reason why Bewusstheit harms human beings is not just because – again according to GS 11/FW 11 – they, paradoxically, feel so proud of their “becoming conscious”. This pride may even set a limit to the dangerous development of human consciousness. Human beings who are proud in this sense (especially philosophers) rely on an image of consciousness which assures their specificity and their dignity as reflective beings. Therefore they forget the dynamic nature of consciousness as a mental state, i.e., they become unconscious of the real nature of consciousness. The effect of consciousness is limited insofar as a false image of consciousness limits self-reflection. So the ignorance of human beings about the dynamics of consciousness is a pre-condition for behaviour not exclusively ruled by self-reflection. Since life requires some forms of unconsciousness, Nietzsche introduces the idea of a dialectical shrewdness of the mind, a smartness that produces illusions and feelings that make human beings less conscious of the processual nature of their own Self. The function of the feeling of pride can be explained by reference to Nietzsche’s early works. Already in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense he affirms that men have taken the mistakes of the intellect seriously only because of their pride (“Hochmuth”) in their faculties, while these mistakes were in fact the very condition of their own conservation.4 This feeling of pride is a false evaluation about the nature and epistemic value of our mental forces and mental states, but at the same time a condition of life. This means that the task of the philosopher, as announced by Nietzsche at the end of GS 11/FW 11, may be very dangerous. By means of a critical discussion of philosophical theories concerning consciousness the task of philosophers is to prepare a new, deeper form of consciousness. By challenging the pride of philosophers as expressed in their theories of consciousness Nietzsche makes it possible to increase a kind of self-consciousness that is actually dangerous for life. Although he is aware of this dangerous consequence, Nietzsche deliberately seeks to reach the very same result that previous philosophers have reached involuntarily, that is to say, the limitation of the function of consciousness in (the conservation of) human life. The difference between the task identified by Nietzsche and the task of previous philosophers is that Nietzsche questions whether (the art of) limiting our consciousness is better or worse for (the conservation of) human life. Nietzsche suggests a dialectical development of consciousness which results in a partial negation of consciousness itself; this, in turn, entails

4 Cf. TL 1, 141–142/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 876.

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the legitimacy of instinctual behaviour, which has traditionally been understood as the opposite of consciousness. Nietzsche’s task presupposes an analysis of the mistakes made by previous philosophers. Their naive pride about consciousness may have included meaningful insights into the communication processes. The feeling of pride as such arises from the discourse about the specificity of human nature as well as about the destiny of man and his particular dignity as a self-reflective being. This explains why, in GS 354/FW 354, Nietzsche speaks of communication. In particular, he is interested in the process whereby consciousness, although potentially dangerous, becomes somehow useful for human life. According to Nietzsche, our linguistic ability is the condition of the development of consciousness as a particular form of internal dialogue. More precisely, it is under the pressure of communication that human beings become skilled in using their language in a more differentiated and finer way. Because of their consciousness they become able to reach a better understanding of their own needs and to satisfy such needs with the help provided by other people. It is very important to recognise that the same argumentative scheme had been already used in GS 11/FW 11, an aphorism where Nietzsche argues that the development of a specific form of consciousness is what limits the dangerous growth of self-reflection. In order to understand Nietzsche’s sketch of the original form of communication among unconscious individuals, one must hypothesise a Self that could be able to become aware of his needs without necessarily becoming consciously aware of his own becoming aware of his needs. These needs are then satisfied faster and more efficiently by conscious communication, because the individual becomes a Self, i.e., his needs become part of an organic representation of a good life and a concrete ideal of happiness. For the satisfaction of their needs articulated in this way human beings can now carry forward arguments. Through the construction of a Self, communication acquires not only efficacy, but also stability. Such a Self can acquire a character, too, and this makes its needs and actions not only predictable, but also justifiable. Indeed, by referring to the word “character” we try to clarify the behaviour of a person even when she cannot give us any rational motives for explaining her actions. Therefore, she becomes able to perform precisely the role of being a “morally responsible person” – not only in relation to actions, but also in relation to the character that brings these actions into existence. Via the idea of “responsibility” consciousness gives rise to “conscience” (Gewissen), and thus it is consciousness (or the use of the words of other human beings in communication) that makes morality possible. The “Verbindungsnetz” – the “net connecting one person with another”, which is consciousness (GS 354/FW 354) – is in fact the first step towards the existence

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of the net of duties which characterises every society of animals that are “able to promise” (GM II 1–2). According to Nietzsche, we have to deal with a self-organising system which is able to maintain its unity and functionality through semiotic operations. Under the pressure of communication human beings develop, according to Nietzsche, only a partial, superficial form of consciousness; they do not reach that deep form of consciousness which would be dangerous for their lives. Furthermore, in GS 354/FW 354 Nietzsche sketches the dialectical development of a new form of consciousness, which is capable of incorporating its opposite: unconsciousness, i.e. the instinctive. The problematic kind of consciousness that Nietzsche wants to overcome is the product of a “Herd-instinct” (Heerden-Trieb), which is what makes human beings find in other human beings the satisfaction of their own needs. In GS 354/FW 354 Nietzsche does not underline the simple loss of certain instincts as he does in GS 11/FW 11; he is rather concerned with the levelling down of individual differences. With the development of consciousness we lose our individual existence, precisely in the moment in which we gain a powerful instrument for our biological survival. Nietzsche’s critical remarks about the origin of consciousness assume that there is a philosophical difference between mere biological life and selfreflective existence. By deconstructing old conceptions of consciousness he achieves a (more conscious) liberation of our instincts – he indicates the possibility of a conscious work of selecting the instincts that we have to incorporate (e.g. education). This means that Nietzsche does not really break with the tradition that finds personal/individual dignity in self-reflection. Yet, Nietzsche affirms this proposition at a higher level, by conceiving of an individual capable of deciding consciously about the limits of his own consciousness. The purpose of Nietzsche’s critique of traditional theories of consciousness is, above all, to make people, and especially philosophers, pay attention to the importance, for our practical life, of reflecting on the constellation of incorporated drives, routines, habits, customs that constitute our second nature. Nietzsche’s work compels us to reflect about the leeways of an active modification of this second nature. Although in GS 354/FW 354 Nietzsche presents his anti-metaphysical and pragmatist theory about the origin of consciousness as hypothetical, the idea of a private language – a language that could designate our individual actions before their being levelled down in the realm of communication – seems to entail a great deal of metaphysical assumptions. Moreover, if it is sure that Nietzsche does not construct a reflective Self that could subsist independently of the interaction between body and language, it is also true, on the other hand, that he is forced to use the word “communication” (Mitteilung) in a very

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specific way in comparison to its use in ordinary language, where linguistic communication presupposes an already formed consciousness among linguistic agents. What kind of communication is possible without consciousness? What kind of beings might take part in this communication? Nietzsche’s deconstruction of the partial, gregarious conception of consciousness – as well as of its pride and morality – finds its main argument in the problematical idea of a form of consciousness which lacks an individual language because it is no more than a means to the end of communicating needs to other people in an understandable way. Consciousness, in this case, has to use words that are also common to other human beings, and this implies that consciousness and self-reflection cannot be totally private. Nietzsche’s dependence on the tradition that finds in the autonomous, sovereign individual the most important actor of a mature moral life becomes manifest with his paradoxical frustration with the loss of individuality supposedly caused by the development of consciousness – with a loss, that is, which is only conceivable if a private language is also conceivable. Nietzsche rejects the idea of a pure singularity of human actions after the birth of consciousness, even if this singularity is only a philosophical construction. He is thus compelled to hypostasise the idea of individuality, as well as, to some extent, to accept the idea of a private language that could give access to that individuality. This represents a strong metaphysical residuum in his account of language and consciousness. Nietzsche finds it difficult to clarify the nature of communication without a reference to consciousness and to the existence of a private language: this is certainly a sign that the tradition to which he belongs is still very active in his discussion of the problem of consciousness.

II Similar problems arise in Wilhelm von Humboldt’s philosophy of language.5 Like Nietzsche, he stresses the link between language and consciousness; yet, according to Humboldt, communication does not limit, but rather intensifies the individuality of human beings. Reflective thinking is definable, according to Humboldt, as “the activity that distinguishes the one who thinks from what is thought” (“ein Unterscheiden des Denkenden von dem Gedachten”).6 Con-

5 Humboldt’s works are cited from: Humboldt (1968), Gesammelte Schriften= GesS. All translations of the quotations from Humboldt’s writings by the author and the editors. 6 “Über Denken und Sprechen”, in: GesS 17, p. 581.

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sciousness, as a particular instance of thinking in general – namely, thinking about our own thinking – develops along with language and communication: Language begins, therefore, immediately and simultaneously with the first act of reflection, and as human beings awake from the numbness of the desires in which the subject engulfs the object and gain self-consciousness, so the word also comes to being – it is, so to speak, the first impulse that human beings give themselves in order to suddenly stand still, look around, and find orientation.7

Since language is not possible without reflection, Humboldt seems to exclude – unlike Nietzsche – the existence of any form of communication that might precede reflection. Actually, Humboldt, like Herder, posits the existence of a natural, sensible language that is supposed to have existed before the mature human language, i.e., when human beings still lived in the animal “numbness of the desires” (“Dumpfheit der Begierde”). Articulation of linguistic signs is the most important spiritual performance for the achievement of human language. This articulation has modified the first natural sounds that human beings were able to produced: “Insofar as spirit permeates animal sound, this sound becomes articulated”.8 According to Humboldt this articulation already needs consciousness: “Only the strength of self-consciousness forces our bodily nature to accommodate the sharp division and the fixed delimitation of sound which we call articulation”.9 Humboldt, therefore, still presupposes a typical human self-consciousness at the origin of human language. Human beings that live in the simple dimension of unconscious desire have already a kind of consciousness in potentia; nevertheless, consciousness alone is not enough for the development of language: […] society is the indispensable tool to the development of language, but it is also far from being the only end for which it works; its endpoint is rather the individual, in as much as the individual can be separated from mankind.10

7 “Über Denken und Sprechen”, in: GesS 17, 581–582: “Die Sprache beginnt daher unmittelbar und sogleich mit dem ersten Akt der Reflexion, und so wie der Mensch aus der Dumpfheit der Begierde, in welcher das Subjekt das Objekt verschlingt, zum Selbstbewußtsein erwacht, so ist auch das Wort da – gleichsam der erste Anstoß, den sich der Mensch selbst gibt, plötzlich stillzustehen, sich umzusehen und zu orientieren”. 8 “Über das vergleichendes Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenen Epochen der Sprachentwicklung”, in: GesS 4, p. 4: “Indem der Geist den thierischen Laut durchdringt, wird dieser zum articulierten”. 9 “Über das vergleichendes Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenen Epochen der Sprachentwicklung”, in: GesS 4, p. 4: “Nur die Stärke des Selbstbewusstseyns nöthigt der körperlichen Natur die scharfe Theilung, und feste Begränzung der Laute ab, die wir Articulation nennen”. 10 “Über den Dualis”, in: GesS 6, p. 25: “[…] die Geselligkeit ist das unentbehrliche Hülfsmittel zu ihrer Entfaltung [viz.zu der Entfaltung der Sprache], aber bei weitem nicht der

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Thus language must belong both to society and to the individual – and it “belongs in fact to all mankind”.11 If language has its own development, and if “in the phenomena the development of language is only social”,12 on the other hand there is for Humboldt a kind of language of consciousness which exists before social (linguistic) interactions, as well as a kind of language of the Self – the Self which speaks to other people and reflects as a social agent. A new quality of subjectivity is possible when we become able to develop a global view of the world. According to Humboldt, language is not only a “mere means of mutual understanding” (“ein bloßes Verständingungsmittel”), but also the “imprint of the spirit, as well as of the worldview of the speaker” (“der Abdruck des Geistes und der Weltansicht der Redenden”).13 However, Humboldt’s conclusions about the social nature of human individuality are only partially close to Nietzsche’s theory: […] the individuality of the human being pertains only conditionally to the individual […], his feeling requires a response, his knowledge requires confirmation by another’s conviction […], his whole existence requires a corresponding consciousness outside of himself, and the more his force expands, the wider become the circles in which he needs this approving contact14 .

For Humboldt, social life functions as the condition of the objectivity of our individual uses of language. Like Herder – and later Gerber and Nietzsche – , Humboldt is aware of the distance between language and the world (“eine so befremdende Kluft”, to borrow Humboldt’s own words). If our language is our world, we cannot be sure that our world is also the world of other individuals. It is only on account of communication – especially in the interaction between listening and replying – that our language gains an interpersonal validity. According to Humboldt, it is even impossible to use concepts if one cannot

einzige Zweck, auf den sie hinarbeitet, der vielmehr, seinen Endpunkt doch in dem einzelnen findet, insofern der einzelne von der Menschheit getrennt werden kann”. 11 “Über die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprachbaues”, in: GesS 6, p. 180: “und gehört in der That dem ganzen Menschengeschlecht an”. 12 “Über die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprachbaues”, in: GesS 6, p. 155: “in der Erscheinung entwickelt sich die Sprache nur gesellschaftlich”. 13 “Über den Dualis”, in: GesS 6, p. 23. 14 “Inwiefern lässt sich der ehemalige Kulturzustand der eingeborenen Völker Amerikas aus den Überresten ihrer Sprachen beurteilen?”, in: GesS 5, p. 29: “Dass die Individualität des Menschen nur auf sehr bedingte Weise bloss in den Einzelnen liegt […] das Gefühl in ihm fordert Erwiederung, die Erkenntniss Bestätigung durch fremde Überzeugung […] sein ganzes innerstes Daseyn das Bewusstseyn eines entsprechenden ausser ihm, und je mehr sich seine Kräfte erweitern, in desto weiteren Kreisen bedarf er dieser zustimmenden Berührung”.

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observe how other subjects use concepts: “in order just to think, the human being needs a You that corresponds to the I”.15 Hence, the very existence of our “I” can be corroborated only by the existence of a “You”; consciousness, reflection, and scientific knowledge could not exist without our linguistic exchange with others: But in human beings thinking is essentially bound with social existence, and in order just to think, the human being needs a You that corresponds to the I […]. The concept can only be determined and become clear through the reverberation coming from the thinking force of another human being.16

According to Humboldt, grasping the universal character of conceptual knowledge by means of language does not imply that human beings lose their individuality by communicating in society. The means of the mediation between subjects are at the same time the means of their individuation: language “connects by individualising” (“verbindet, indem sie vereinzelt”).17 According to Humboldt, language is an “individuating principle” (“ein individualisierendes Princip”),18 a principle that makes the at first abstractly self-conscious animal an increasingly differentiated individual. The Herd-instinct, which for Nietzsche implies the negation of the properly individual language and the individual inner spiritual life, is for Humboldt a more neutral “inclination to social existence” (“Neigung zu gesellschaftlichem Dasein”). For Humboldt, individuals never cease to have a force. Language for Humboldt is energeia – and hence it becomes more and more particular as different possibilities of expression develop. For Nietzsche, consciousness and language are above all functions of a Verbindungsnetz (a “net connecting one person with another”) whose junctions tend to become more and more similar, whereas for Humboldt the condition of a deeper individuality lies in the possibility of joining others and modifying one’s own point of view – a point of view which only becomes more complex through the incorporation of other points of view. For this reason, one could never find in Humboldt the tragic accent which characterises Nietzsche’s thesis that individuality is always in danger because we need a language to articulate it and yet human a language is fundamentally 15 “Von der grammatischen Baue der Sprachen”, in: GesS 6, p. 393: “der Mensch bedarf […] zum blossen Denken eines dem Ich entsprechenden Du”. 16 “Von der grammatischen Baue der Sprachen”, in: GesS 6, p. 160: “[…] Im Menschen aber ist das Denken wesentlich an gesellschaftliches Daseyn gebunden, und der Mensch bedarf […] zum blossen Denken eines dem Ich entsprechenden Du[…]. Der Begriff erreicht seine Bestimmtheit und Klarheit erst durch das Zurückstrahlen aus einer fremden Denkkraft”. 17 “Von der grammatischen Baue der Sprachen”, in: GesS 6, p. 125. 18 “Von der grammatischen Baue der Sprachen”, in: GesS 6, p. 183.

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non-individual. However, there is one aspect which remains common to Humboldt and Nietzsche: they both presuppose the unquestionable value of the autonomous individual and they both measure the utility of social life from this point of view, even if they draw different conclusions. For both thinkers, communication is the means by which human beings come into the world as subjects. Yet, for Humboldt social life represents a chance to be more individual: whereas for Nietzsche it is mainly an obstacle. Their approach to the problem of (the relationship between) consciousness and language contains, therefore, a normative core. For Humboldt the development of individuality gives meaning to the development of language and consciousness, i.e., the development of individuality makes language and consciousness valuable. For Nietzsche individuality is precisely what is lost by the development of language and consciousness in society. In order to make clear how Nietzsche’s and Humboldt’s philosophical discourses on language and consciousness are motivated by a moral interest, I now turn to Emmanuel Levinas.

III With his philosophy, Levinas wants to overcome idealism as a philosophical formulation of egoistical and narcissistic feelings. Even though Humboldt and Nietzsche are not idealist thinkers, they too can be seen as targets of Levinas’ critique. The production of an “I” that creates its own world through language is the starting point of Humboldt’s speculation. Similarly, Nietzsche retains this idea of the production of an “I”, even if he stresses the role of the body in the creation of the world and the Self. According to Nietzsche and Humboldt, culture and philosophy have the function of developing autonomous individuals (in Nietzsche’s words, “sovereign individuals”). It is precisely the autonomy of the individual, in its theoretical and practical sense, which becomes questionable for Levinas. According to Levinas, true philosophy, especially ethics as first philosophy, is the product of experience, i.e., of something that comes from a foreign dimension – that is, of something heteronomic and always dependent on other wills. The problem of Western philosophy is that philosophers, in their search for autonomy, have tried to reduce this foreign dimension to the Self – and in doing so they have lost the possibility of authentic experience. Levinas’ phenomenological account of the development of the Self in communication with others is more nuanced. Levinas distinguishes between an

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“Ego” (le moi) and a “Self” (le soi).19 Both represent possibilities of our selfconsciousness, but they have different ethical meanings. Since the Self is always one-for-the-other, it is incapable of autonomy. The Self cannot escape responsibility, even if in taking responsibility it finds no reciprocity (the Self is, in this sense, selfless). The construction of our Ego, by contrast, presupposes the kind of moral responsibility that implies the existence of an autonomous subject. The Ego may recognise a form of enlightened selfishness according to which it is rational to be respectful of others if this is useful for all. Yet, the Ego can also take a purely narcissistic, self-centred and self-interested form, striving above all for its own self-preservation. Nevertheless, it is possible to move from one kind of consciousness to the other; this is what Levinas calls the “recurrence of the Ego to the Self”,20 which becomes possible when the “active Ego reverts to the passivity of the Self” – a reversion which is especially meaningful for ethical life.21 This return to the Self should be seen as a going back to something original, insofar as “the Self does not begin in the autoaffection of a sovereign Ego”.22 We cannot analyse this dynamic in detail here, but it is important to note that the whole process is bound up with a particular form of language and communication. There is a specific language that belongs to the original Self, and that language is different from verbal language. As in Nietzsche, we find here the idea of a private language suited to our private actions, a language existing before the socialisation that generates our “I”. Like Humboldt and Nietzsche, for Levinas human language has a prehistory which does not yet include a mature Ego. There is an original, pre-conscious form of language, with a totally different ethical pathos, and this is the basis that allows one to “become a Self” which is able to assume unconditioned responsibility. But this is not the truly problematic idea of a private language – this is rather a “saying” (“le dire”) without a “said” (“le dit”), a speaking to the other before saying something. So the idea of a form of communication that precedes the formation of the conscious Ego is also found in Levinas, but as a living possibility for ethical agents and neither as an ideal private language nor as natural language of the animal man. It is difficult to describe this speaking to the other in terms of a traditional “subject” and, therefore, Levinas prefers to speak of a “who of the saying” (“le qui du dire”).23 With his “saying” he stays in relation to the other, in a “proximity of one to the other: involve-

19 20 21 22 23

For this distinction see Kleinberg-Levin (2005), pp. 199–236, pp. 210–219. Levinas (1981), p. 155–156. Levinas (1998), p. 147. Levinas (1981), p. 117. Levinas (1981), p. 60.

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ment of approximation, one for the other”.24 This form of communication before verbal communication is the kind of sensibility or contact in which a face expresses itself – it is not a site from which a sender delivers certain messages by means of linguistic tools. Whenever a face speaks to us, “the first content of expression is this expression itself”.25 This becomes particularly clear in the essay Language and Proximity,26 where Levinas shows how the dimension of ethics becomes open to a sensitive contact and, for a moment, suspends the objectification of the other that is peculiar to our intentionality. The active intentional consciousness experiences its own deep passivity in front of the face of the other: This relationship of proximity, this contact unconvertible into a noetico-noematic structure, in which every transmission of messages, whatever be those messages, is already established, is the original language, a language without words or propositions, pure communication.27

In this kind of communication the other calls one directly to responsibility, even before one has made a theme of him or given him an identity through (his) language. The kind of consciousness that takes place in this sensitive communication is more like a form of obsession. The distance from both Nietzsche’s and Humboldt’s description of the original contact that regulates the development of consciousness and language is also clear if we remember that, for Humboldt and Nietzsche, what determines this contact is first of all a Bedürfnis (a need) or a Begierde (a desire). Levinas has a well-known distinction between “need” (besoin) and “desire” (desire). Needs can be satisfied through the reduction of something foreign to the Self, through the incorporation of the Other in the Self in view of its self-preservation, whereas the “désir d’Autrui”, the desire for the Other, can never achieve a definitive satisfaction, because the experience of the Other is always the experience of a sign or “trace” (trace), something that cannot be reduced to a definitive knowable object. Levinas’“responsibility” is an obsession that results from the proximity to the face of the Other. The Self, the particular subject of this responsibility, is heteronomically determined and passive. Therefore Levinas’ concept of responsibility, which depends on his conception of original communication, 24 Levinas (1981), p. 6. 25 Levinas (1969), p. 51. 26 See Levinas (1998), p. 109–26, and Levinas (1988), pp. 217–236, p. 228. 27 Levinas (1998), p. 119; cf. Levinas (1988), p. 228. “Cette relation de proximité, ce contact inconvertible en structure noético-noématique et où s’installe déjà toute transmission de messages – et quels que soient ces messages – est le langage originel, langage sans mots ni propositions, pure comunication”.

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cannot be the same as Nietzsche’s.28 The responsibility of Nietzsche’s “sovereign individual” is the result of an autonomous decision and implies the active and conscious realisation of a philosophical and existential task: taking distance from the herd-like form of life. Thus philosophy, for Nietzsche, becomes something ambivalent, that prepares human beings for dangerous experiences through the development of a new form of consciousness. Becoming aware of the possibility of original communication can make individuals unsure, and the natural history of consciousness is also dangerous because it makes human beings more conscious. It endangers their routine representation of the Self – a Self that is made possible by illusions, pride, and communication. Nietzsche and Levinas seem to agree in recognising this danger as a possibility of a higher form of life, but the risk of an original communication takes on quite a different meaning for Nietzsche and Levinas. According to Nietzsche, the life of the new philosopher and his communication with the public are always problematic because they foster individuality and create the risk of a conflict with the community and its customs. From Levinas’ point of view, however, contact with the Other is dangerous too, but above all because it makes us more responsible, or, in other words, creates a new type of moral subject who is liable to be bound up with a strong and unpleasant dependence from the Other. But, despite their differences, Levinas and Nietzsche – and to some extent Humboldt too – have tried to reconstruct an originary form of communication that is much more than just a simple theoretical speculation about the nature of language. This reconstruction is an attempt to make plausible – not so much through argument as rather through a convincing contextual narrative – the possibility of new, and more profound, forms of ethical life.

28 Silvio Pfeuffer (2008) has convincingly shown that both Nietzsche and Levinas aim to question and challenge the traditional concept of “responsibility” in order to recapture a more profound ethical disposition that also involves a certain feeling of responsibility in relation to others. However, again according to Pfeuffer, Nietzsche’s ideal of a “sovereign individual” capable of assuming responsibility without feeling that his or her actions should be justified in terms of a universalist morality – this ideal is in many ways different from Levinas’ ethical conception. In fact, the idea that only exceptional human beings – and not all human beings as human beings – are able to experience an authentic, non-moral sense of responsibility is not at all involved in Levinas’ ethical conception [Pfeuffer (2008), p. 256]; but, above all, the sovereign individual’s consciousness of its own individuality and exceptionality is entirely foreign to the experience of feeling that one is a hostage in the face of the other, as described by Levinas.

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Bibliography Humboldt, Alexander von (1968), Gesammelte Schriften, 17 vols, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Kleinberg-Levin, David M. (2005), “Persecution: The Self at the Heart of Metaphysics”, in: Nelson, E. S./Kapust, A./Still, K. (eds.), Addressing Levinas, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, pp. 199–236. Levinas, Emmanuel (1969), Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. by Alphonso Lingis, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, Emmanuel (1981), Otherwise Than Being, or Beyond Essence, transl. by Alphonso Lingis, The Hague: Kluwer. Levinas, Emmanuel (1988), En découvrant l’existance avec Husserl et Heidegger, Paris: Vrin. Levinas, Emmanuel (1998) Collected Philosophical Papers, transl. by Alphonso Lingis, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Pfeuffer, Silvio (2008), Die Entgrenzung der Verantwortung. Nietzsche – Dostoejewskij – Levinas, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.

Tom Bailey

Vulnerabilities of Agency: Kant and Nietzsche on Political Community In both political philosophy and political discourse, a shared habitat, origin, status, history, practice or language is often considered sufficient to constitute a ‘community’ of individuals, whose identities as its members are supposed to justify their political obligations. Such claims raise worries about the identification, authority and demands of such a ‘community’, however, and it is often considered preferable to conceive of political obligations as determined independently of individuals’ membership of such a ‘community’. Membership of a ‘community’ is then, at most, considered a secondary, contingent and even voluntary, feature of an individual’s moral circumstances. However, these conceptions raise worries of their own, notably regarding their apparent commitment to a certain moral isolation of individuals. Hence the continuing debates between ‘communitarians’ and their ‘liberal’ or ‘individualist’ opponents and the echoes of these debates in political discussions of such highly-charged issues as euthanasia and abortion, immigration and multiculturalism and the international enforcement of human rights. The purpose of this paper is to argue that an alternative conception of political ‘community’ can be found in Immanuel Kant’s and Friedrich Nietzsche’s political philosophies and that this conception is a valuable one, not least because it avoids the worries raised by the common conception and its common rejection. Notably, by revealing this novel contribution to debates over the nature of political obligations, and the political ‘autonomy’, or selfdetermination, and ‘community’ involved, the paper also suggests that, notwithstanding his general criticisms of morality and politics, philosophy and language, and his caustic treatments of Kant, Nietzsche’s political philosophy is best understood in the context of such debates, and in the context of neglected aspects of Kant’s contribution to them in particular. The structure of the paper is as follows. The paper begins with an outline of the conceptions of moral goodness upon which Kant and Nietzsche base their political philosophies and a brief consideration of the ways in which they express their conception of ‘community’ when presenting these conceptions of moral goodness. The second part of the paper then provides an account of Kant’s and Nietzsche’s more elaborate employments of this conception of ‘community’ in their political philosophies. The third, and final, part of the paper turns to the critical consideration of this conception and argues that it offers substantial advantages over the prevailing options regarding ‘community’ in political thought.

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I Kant and Nietzsche on Autonomy and Moral Community Since Kant and Nietzsche base their accounts of our political obligations upon their conceptions of moral goodness in general, it is worth first sketching the basic elements of these conceptions and briefly considering how, in presenting these conceptions, they both also express their shared conception of ‘community’. I will suppose that the basic elements of Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conceptions of moral goodness are the following.1 Firstly, both Kant and Nietzsche conceive of moral goodness as a goodness distinguished from other goodnesses by being uniquely achievable by, and required of, an agent as such. This is what each means by calling moral goodness an expression of the agent’s ‘autonomy’. For instance, regarding his formula of autonomy Kant writes that ‘the will is not merely subject to the [moral] law, but so subject that it must be viewed as also giving law to itself’ and Nietzsche similarly equates ‘sovereign’, ‘autonomous’ agency with the ability to ‘affirm oneself’ as an agent.2 Secondly, both Kant and Nietzsche identify this ‘autonomy’ with action according to an attitude of respect for agency as such – rather than, say, action expressive of an agent’s natural ‘flourishing’ or action expected to maximally satisfy desires or needs. Kant expresses this attitude with his formula of ‘the end in itself’, according to which agency is to be treated as an ‘end’ and not merely a ‘means’, while Nietzsche expresses it in terms of the extension of the agent’s ‘self-affirmation’ to the affirmation of other agents.1 Thus, insofar as both Kant and Nietzsche conceive of moral goodness as ‘autonomy’ and of ‘autonomy’ as a practical attitude of respect for agency as such, they share the same conception of moral goodness. However, there are significant differences between Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conceptions of agency. Firstly, while Kant defines an agent as a being capable 1 The following claims are admittedly controversial and I cannot defend them here. I provide some grounds for accepting them elsewhere, in my “Nietzsche’s Kantian Ethics” (2003), “La filosofia come pratica di comunità: Leggere La Gaia Scienza II e Così Parlò Zarathustra IV” (2010a), “Analysing the Good Will: Kant’s Argument in the First Section of the Groundwork” (2010b), and “Nietzsche the Kantian?” (2012). 2 G 431, GM II 2–3. Translations of Kant’s and Nietzsche’s texts are my own and, with two exceptions, references are to page numbers in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, or to section numbers, or essay and section numbers, in Nietzsche’s texts. The two exceptions are Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft, the single reference to which is to page numbers in the second (‘B’) edition, and Nietzsche’s unpublished notebooks. For further details see the list of abbreviations at the beginning of this volume. 1 G 428–433, GM II 3.

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of acting according to reasons, Nietzsche understands an agent as a being capable of acting according to certain non-cognitive states, however cognitively-informed. For Kant, agency consists of a being’s ‘ability to be, through its representations, the cause of the objects of these representations’ and human agency is distinguished by the potentially rational character of these causal representations, their being instances of ‘practical reason’ and thus free from determination by ‘impulses’.3 Nietzsche, on the other hand, insists that, regarding any rational consideration, an agent can always ask, “what actually drives me to give a hearing to it?”, and that this motivation always consists of her ‘drives, inclinations, aversions’, rather than in the ‘belief’ of the judgement itself.4 More importantly for their conceptions of moral goodness, unlike Kant, Nietzsche also holds that the capacity of agency can vary across agents and over time. Consequently, while for Kant the duties required by an attitude of respect for agency depend only on the agent’s circumstances, Nietzsche also emphasises the need to ‘measure’ agents’ agency itself and to determine duties accordingly. Thus he writes of agency that the ‘self-affirming’ agent ‘has in this possession his measure of value: looking out from himself upon others, he honours or he despises’.5 In presenting these conceptions of moral goodness, Kant and Nietzsche also both provide brief expressions of their shared conception of ‘community’. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes that the conception of moral goodness as an attitude of respect for agency ‘leads to a very fruitful concept dependent on it, namely that of a realm of ends’.6 His brief discussion 3 MS 211, MS 213. For related remarks on ‘choice’ in general, see MAN 544, KpV 9n, KrV B IX-X, KU 177n, MS 356–357, MS 381 and MS 384–385, ApH 251 and EKU 206 and EKU 230n. 4 GS 335/FW 335. Similar claims can be found elsewhere in Nietzsche’s texts. In BGE 32/ JGB 32, for instance, he writes of the belief in ‘[t]he intention as the whole origin and prehistory of an action’ that, in fact, ‘the intention is only a sign and symptom that first needs interpretation, moreover a sign that means too many things and consequently almost nothing by itself’. In GS 360/FW 360, he similarly insists that, although ‘one is used, according to an ancient error, to seeing the driving force [of an action] precisely in the goals (purposes, professions, etc.)’, in fact these are ‘relatively discretionary, arbitrary, almost indifferent’. He again articulates this position in TI Errors/GD Irrthümer 3, where he treats the claim that actions are motivated by reasons as a supposed ‘inner fact’, according to which ‘all the antecedentia of an action, its causes, were to be sought in consciousness and could be discovered there, if one sought them – as “motives”: otherwise one would not have been free for it, not responsible for it’. This claim is simply an ‘error’, Nietzsche insists, because a reason is ‘[m]erely a surface phenomenon of consciousness, an accompaniment of the act, which conceals the antecedentia of an act rather than represents them’. 5 GM II 2. 6 G 433.

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indicates that this concept is ‘dependent’ on his conception of moral goodness in the sense that it makes explicit what his other expressions of moral goodness do not – namely, that, given a plurality of agents, the attitude of respect for agency must not concern merely the agency of an agent or some agents, to the exclusion of others’, but rather be an attitude of respect for the agency of every agent.7 Furthermore, in this discussion Kant also makes a claim which implies that, among a plurality of agents, the requirements of this attitude are determined only and precisely according to the mutual vulnerabilities of agents’ agencies. This claim concerns what he calls a ‘sovereign [Oberhaupt]’ in a realm of ends, the function of which is not explicitly stated, but is presumably to judge moral goodness among a plurality of agents.8 Crucially, Kant claims that, to fulfil this function, a sovereign must be an agent which is ‘not subject to the will of any other’, in the sense that he or she must be ‘a completely independent being[,] without need and limitation of abilities adequate to the will’.9 The significance of this claim lies not so much in its implications for a sovereign, but rather in its implication that other agents are not necessarily ‘independent beings’ in the sense defined and its suggestion that the lack of such independence is pertinent to determining the requirements of moral goodness among them. Furthermore, given that, for Kant, what is pertinent to determining these requirements can only be agency as such, the lack of such independence must be a matter of an agent’s agency being ‘subject to’ another agent’s agency – rather than, say, the achievement of an agent’s desires, needs or other particular goods being ‘subject to’ the achievement of another’s. In other words, Kant’s claim about a sovereign implies that what is pertinent to determining the requirements of moral goodness among a plurality of agents – and thus, indeed, what constitutes them as a ‘realm’ at all – is only and precisely the mutual vulnerabilities of their agencies. Nonetheless, Kant’s claim also identifies ‘need’ and ‘limitation of abilities’ as sources of such vulnerabilities and he consistently refers to human agents in general as 7 Kant expresses this by defining ‘a realm’ as ‘a systematic connection [or association, Verbindung] of various rational beings through common [or communal, gemeinschaftlich] laws’ and ‘a realm of ends’ as such a ‘connection’ insofar as its common laws are ‘objective’ – that is, insofar as it is governed by the requirements of the attitude of respect for agency (G 433). See also G 436. 8 This function is suggested at G 439, where Kant refers to a sovereign as a ‘lawgiver’ who ‘judges the worth of rational beings’. See also R 95–100 and compare the usages of the term, with which Kant was acquainted, in Leibniz, Discours de Métaphysique, §36, Leibniz, Principes de la nature et de la grace fondés en raison, §15 and Leibniz, Principes de la philosophie ou monadologie, §§85–90 and particularly Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, bk. 1, chs. 6–7. 9 G 433, G 434.

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having ‘needs’ and being limited in their practical abilities. Thus he allows, not that factors other than agencies as such are morally pertinent in themselves, but that they can be morally pertinent insofar as they are sources of mutual vulnerabilities of agency.10 In presenting his conception of moral goodness, Nietzsche too maintains that, among a plurality of agents, the requirements of respect for agency must be determined only and precisely according to the mutual vulnerabilities of their agencies. This is indicated particularly by the ‘noble’ character of his conception of moral goodness. For he describes as ‘noble’ any ethics that identifies ‘good’ or ‘bad’ actions with those performed by exemplary ‘good’ or ‘bad’ agents and that identifies ‘good’ and ‘bad’ agents by a distinguishing characteristic – such as their being ‘blond-headed’, a ‘warrior’ or ‘truthful’ – which is supposed to bestow ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ on their actions. With such an ethics, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actions are determined, and agents motivated to perform ‘good’ actions and not to perform ‘bad’ ones, by a constant, creative and mutual demonstrating and measuring of the relevant ‘goodness’-bestowing characteristic, a practice that Nietzsche often refers to as ‘requital [Vergeltung]’. The requirements of a ‘noble’ ethics are thus necessarily determined with reference to a certain community of ‘equals’ who ‘measure’ each others’ achievement of the relevant distinguishing characteristic. In a representative passage of Beyond Good and Evil, for instance, Nietzsche writes, egoism belongs to the essence of the noble soul, I mean the immovable faith that to a being such as ‘we are’ other beings must be subordinate by their nature and sacrifice themselves to us. […] Under circumstances which make it hesitate at first, it admits that there are equals-in-rights with it […] it honours itself in them and in the rights it concedes them, it does not doubt that the exchange of honours and rights, as the essence of intercourse, likewise belongs to the natural condition of things. The noble gives as it takes, out of the passionate and sensitive instinct of requital which lies in its ground. (BGE 265/ JGB 265)11

It is plausible to consider Nietzsche’s conception of moral goodness as a particular instance of such ‘noble’ ethics, according to which agency itself is a

10 On human ‘needs’ and limited abilities, see, for instance, G 413n and G 414. Of course, that human agents in general have ‘needs’ and limited abilities implies that no human agent could fulfil the sovereign’s function. But Kant does not emphasise this implication or take it up elsewhere and he apparently introduces the ‘sovereign’ here only to illuminate, by contrast, an aspect of his conception of the ‘realm of ends’. 11 For Nietzsche’s account of ‘noble’ ethics, see in particular BGE 259/JGB 259, BGE 262/ JGB 262, BGE 263/JGB 263, BGE 265/JGB 265, BGE 272/JGB 272 and BGE 287/JGB 287 and GM I 10 and GM I 11.

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goodness-bestowing characteristic that must be continually demonstrated in actions and judged to do so by others. If this is so, then, like Kant, Nietzsche holds not only that moral goodness consists of an attitude of respect for agency, but also that the determination of these requirements necessarily refers to a certain community of ‘equals’ in agency. He differs from Kant only in considering agency, and therefore the requirements of respect for it, to vary across agents and over time. The nature and role of this particular community of ‘equals’ is further illuminated by a section of Daybreak, in which Nietzsche describes agency as a ‘sphere of power’ in which other agents might ‘intervene’ and moral goodness as requiring that a ‘part’ of each agent’s ‘sphere’ of agency be ‘granted’ and ‘preserve[d]’ by others. As he puts it here, ‘The right [Recht] of others is the concession of our feeling of power to the feeling of power of those others’.12 For Nietzsche, then, rights and duties are determined not according to agents’ desires or needs or according to a notion of agents’ ‘flourishing’, but rather according to their varying degrees of agency, or ‘power’, and specifically the vulnerabilities of their agency to the ‘interventions’ of others. Thus for both Kant and Nietzsche agents constitute a morally salient community precisely insofar as their agencies are mutually vulnerable, since they both hold that among a plurality of agents the requirements of respect for agency as such must be determined only and precisely according to these vulnerabilities. Nietzsche differs from Kant only in considering agency to vary across agents and over time and therefore in considering the relative communities and requirements to vary correspondingly. In order to explore the possible employment of this conception of community in distinctively political contexts, I will now turn to Kant’s and Nietzsche’s own employments of this conception in their political philosophies.13 This will allow me then, in the final part of the paper, to offer some independent critical consideration of this conception and its implications for the role of ‘community’ in the determination of our political obligations.

12 D 112/M 112. Notably, of the ten sections of his earlier texts to which Nietzsche refers in GM Preface/Vorrede 4 as prefiguring claims made in GM, six present his notion of ‘requital’ in some detail and one of these is D 112/M 112, one of two successive sections of M which present lengthy analyses of ‘requital’ precisely in terms of agency. See HH 45/MA 45 and HH 92/MA 92, WS 22, WS 26 and WS 33 and D 112/M 112, and also HH 44/MA 44 and D 113/M 113. 13 I would also suggest that both Kant and Nietzsche employ this conception in determining non-political moral obligations, such as those concerning love and friendship. I provide some grounds for this in Nietzsche’s case in Bailey (2010a) and Bailey (forthcoming).

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II.1 ‘The Unity of All Places on the Earth’s Surface’: Kant on Political Community For Kant, an agent’s political obligations are obligations which other agents may coerce the agent to fulfil and are therefore obligations merely to do or refrain from certain kinds of actions, rather than to do so for certain kinds of reasons.14 According to Kant’s ‘Doctrine of Right [Recht]’, the first part of his Metaphysics of Morals, the basic principle of these obligations is the ‘Universal Principle of Right’: ‘Any action is right if it[,] or according to its maxim[,] the freedom of agency [Willkür] of each can exist together with everyone’s freedom according to a universal law’.15 The nature and grounds of this principle are subject to much scholarly controversy. It is variously claimed, for instance, that Kant’s principle expresses a voluntaristic, ‘social contract’ theory, a nonvoluntaristic, ‘natural law’ theory, an independent analysis of the concept of ‘right’ or a commitment to a substantive moral good presented by the formula of the end in itself.16 However, I will argue that the place of the principle in Kant’s derivation of the most substantial of our basic political obligations better supports an alternative interpretation – namely, that he intends this principle to express, with regard to coercible obligations, precisely the conception of a community of mutually vulnerable agents which he briefly expresses in the Groundwork.17 The relevant derivation is concerned with property rights. Kant conceives of possession in general as an agent’s right to use an external object – either a material thing or another’s agency – as she pleases and irrespective of whether she is physically ‘holding’ the object.18 He also argues that the possibility of such a right follows from the Universal Principle of Right because this principle concerns mere agency and agency requires the physical ability

14 See MS 214, MS 218–221, MS 231, MS 239, MS 375 and MS 382 and also R 95–96. Note that this part of MS is textually corrupt. I follow Ludwig’s (1988) reconstruction of the text. 15 MS 230. See also R 98, TP 290 and MS 231, MS 375, MS 382 and MS 396. 16 For examples of each of these different interpretative approaches, see, respectively, Murphy (1994), esp. ch. 4, and Rosen (1993); Mulholland (1991), esp. chs. 7–10, and Kersting (1993), both of which also flirt with ‘social contract’ interpretations; Willaschek (1997), pp. 205–227, and Willaschek (2002), pp. 67–69 and 75–85, Pogge (2002), pp. 136–146, Wood (1999), pp. 321–323, and Wood (2002), pp. 5–10; and Guyer (2002), especially pp. 23– 27. 17 This interpretation is also supported, I would suggest, by Kant’s presentation of his Universal Principle at MS 230, MS 232–233 and MS 237–238, but I will not consider these passages here. 18 MS 246. See also MS 247–249.

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to use its objects.19 However, Kant provides a more complex argument regarding the possibility of originally acquiring a material thing and it is with this argument that he appeals to, and illuminates, his conception of a community of mutually vulnerable agents. This argument proceeds from the Universal Principle and agency’s requirement of the physical ability to use its objects, along with a crucial further claim about the possession of a material thing – namely, that a movable material thing ‘is to be regarded as [an] inherence’ in its ‘place’, the habitable ground on which it rests. From these premises, Kant first argues that ‘damage is done’ to an agent’s ‘freedom’ not by another’s taking of an un-‘held’ material thing as such, but only insofar as this taking of the thing upsets its ‘place’. He claims that the possibility of originally acquiring a ‘place’, and so the material thing which rests on it, ‘is thus based on’ agency’s requirement of the physical ability to use its objects.20 Presumably, then, Kant’s argument here is that, although the physical ability to use a material thing is not upset by another agent’s taking the thing as such, it is upset by the thing’s thus not having a consistent ‘place’ and therefore that, since agency requires the physical ability to use its objects, the Universal Principle requires the possibility of originally acquiring a material thing along with the ‘place’ on which it rests. In the passages that follow Kant proceeds to further explain this possibility and to argue for a significant constraint on it. Specifically, he argues that a human agent can originally acquire a material thing ‘only through the united choice of all who possess it in common’. This is so, he maintains, ‘on account of the unity of all places on the earth’s surface as spherical surface: because, if it were an unending plane, human beings could be so dispersed on it that they would not come into any community with each other, [and] this [community] therefore would not be a necessary result of their existence on the earth’. He concludes that each ‘place’ on the earth must be considered to be, prior to any acquisition, possessed in common by human beings and that the original acquisition of a material thing, along with its ‘place’, is therefore both made possible and constrained by ‘the uniting of the choice of all who can come into a practical relation with each other’.21

19 See MS 246 and MS 257 and also MS 247, MS 249–250 and MS 255. Kant refers to the latter requirement of willing throughout his texts. See, for instance, his distinction of choice from mere ‘wish’ at G 394 and 435, MAM 122, KU 177n, MS 213, MS 230, MS 246, MS 356– 357 and MS 451–452, ApH 251 and EKU 230n. 20 MS 261, MS 262. Kant also appeals to this requirement in this regard at MS 263 and MS 267 and states his conclusion at MS 261, MS 263 and MS 269–270. 21 MS 262, MS 263. See also MS 264 and MS 267–268.

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Although admittedly far from unambiguous, I would suggest that these remarks can be taken to indicate the following. First, for Kant, it is the finitude of ‘places’ on the earth’s surface which explains the vulnerability of human agency to other agents’ taking of material things, in the sense that such taking upsets the consistency of things’ ‘places’ which the use of objects requires. Second, Kant takes this vulnerability to entail not only the possibility of originally acquiring a material thing, but also a substantial constraint on this possibility – namely, that an agent’s original acquisition of a material thing not upset the required consistency of thing’s ‘places’. In Kant’s terms, it is as if, precisely because they are vulnerable in this way, human agents constitute a ‘community’ which first possesses each ‘place’ in common and which can grant the private acquisition of a ‘place’, and thus the private acquisition of any material thing which rests on it, to a specific agent only if this ensures, rather than upsets, the required consistency of things’ ‘places’. Furthermore, Kant holds that human agents’ basic political obligations then follow from the possibility of possessing external things and originally acquiring material things, on the grounds that a civil condition is required to secure possession and to further determine the original acquisition of material things.22 This derivation thus appeals precisely to the conception of ‘realm’, or, better, ‘community’, which Kant briefly presents in the Groundwork – namely, the conception according to which other-regarding obligations among a plurality of agents must be determined precisely according to the mutual vulnerabilities of their agencies. Kant’s derivation also makes explicit that, according to this conception, a ‘community’ is constituted only and precisely according to a specific mutual vulnerability of agency and therefore extends only and precisely as far as this vulnerability extends. In the case of our basic political obligations, Kant identifies a vulnerability, and thus a ‘community’, which concerns the consistency of material things’ ‘places’ and which, given the ‘finitude’ of ‘places’ on the earth’s surface, extends across the earth’s surface. He explicitly denies, however, that human agency is generally vulnerable to agents’ taking of un-‘held’ material things as such and thus effectively denies that any other material constraint – such as material scarcity or material inequality – is pertinent to the determination of our basic political obligations.

22 See MS 255–257 and MS 264–267. The premise regarding the earth’s surface is similarly emphasised by Katrin Flikschuh and Kevin Thomson, although both – mistakenly, in my view – extend it to Kant’s argument for the mere possibility of possession in general. See Flikschuh (2000), chs. 4–5, and Thomson (2001), pp. 62–78.

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II.2 Power, Ressentiment and Equality: Nietzsche on Political Community Nietzsche provides his most extensive account of our political obligations in the second essay of his On the Genealogy of Morality. He introduces his account by presenting basic notions of obligation as originating in relationships of contractual exchange – indeed, he claims that the determination of prices, contracts and compensation constitutes ‘the oldest and most primitive relationship among persons that there is’ and ‘the most rudimentary form of personal rights’.23 He proceeds to claim that the ‘first stage’ of justice was reached when these basic notions of contractual obligation between individuals were ‘transferred’ onto communities and the relationships between them. He writes, the budding feeling of exchange, contract, guilt, right, obligation, balance [or compensation, Ausgleich] […] transferred itself onto the coarsest and earliest communal complexes (in their relationship to similar complexes), together with the habit of comparing, measuring, calculating power against power. […Thus] one arrived at the grand generalization, ‘every thing has a price; everything can be paid off’ – at the oldest and most naïve moral canon of justice, at the beginning of all ‘good-naturedness’, all ‘fairness’, all ‘good will’, all ‘objectivity’ on earth. Justice at this first stage is the good will among those of approximately equal power to come to terms with one another, to ‘understand’ each other through a balance [Ausgleich] – and, regarding those of lesser power, to force them to a balance among themselves (GM II 8).

Thus Nietzsche claims that ‘justice’ in its most primitive sense consists in the extension of basic contractual notions of obligation to relationships between communities, such that communities come to ‘balances’ or ‘contracts’ among themselves according to their relative levels of ‘power’. He then turns to the relationship between a community and its members and claims that this relationship too was originally conceived in contractual terms. In this case, he claims that members were considered to exchange obedience to the community for the benefits of living in it – for the benefits, that is, of living ‘sheltered, taken care of, in peace and trust, carefree with regard to certain harms and hostilities to which the human being outside, the “outlaw” [“Freidlose”], is exposed’. Here he also emphasises the ‘power’ of the community in claiming that the greater its ‘power’, the less harshly it will punish those who disobey it: while a less powerful community excludes the criminal from it, returning him or her to the status of ‘outlaw’, a more powerful one instead extracts a payment from the crime, thus allowing the criminal to remain within it.24 23 GM II 8. See also GM II 4–7. 24 GM II 9, GM II 10.

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It is perhaps tempting to read this account as reducing ‘justice’ to relations of forces and interests, such that political obligations are determined by ‘contractual’ exchanges between individuals and groups according to their relative forces and interests. Such a reading would explain Nietzsche’s deflationary aims – that is, his insistence that justice is not based on such things as responsibility, preventing harm, equality, retribution or deterrence. It would also chime well with many general interpretations of his political philosophy. Those that emphasise individual self-creation or a metaphysics of forces are often articulated in terms of forces and interests in this sense, while those that emphasise the cultivation of a higher humanity or culture generally conceive this, if not in terms of forces or interests, then as something to which the political realm of forces and interests is external and, at most, a mere means.25 However, Nietzsche introduces his accounts of contractual exchange and justice at the beginning of the second essay of the Genealogy with an equally extensive statement of his conception of moral goodness, in stating which he again refers to an agent’s agency as her ‘power’. He describes agency there as the ability to clear one’s consciousness of passing experiences and desires, to reason about actions and to determine one’s actions, even in the distant future – a ‘sovereign individual’, he writes, is thus able to ‘will’ or ‘promise’. And it is there that he insists that agency also provides an agent with her ultimate ‘measure of value’, such that she ‘affirm[s]’ herself and ‘honours’ her ‘equals’ in this ability and ‘despises’ those who are less able in this regard. Crucially, there Nietzsche also describes an agent’s consciousness of being able to will as ‘a true consciousness of power and freedom’ and a ‘consciousness of […] power over oneself and fate’ and presents this consciousness as explaining her consideration of this ability as her ultimate ‘measure of value’. Thus, as in the passage in Daybreak – to which he refers explicitly in the preface to the Genealogy as anticipating his account of ‘justice’ as ‘a balance between those 25 For examples of the former kind of interpretation, see Warren (1988) and Conway (1997), and for examples of the latter kind, see Bergmann (1987), Leiter (2002) and Shaw (2007). It is also perhaps tempting to consider Nietzsche’s account of justice as simply a description of the development of a primitive notion of ‘justice’, intended to deflate any normative pretensions whatsoever by revealing their very particular historical, social, or psychological origins. But, while Nietzsche’s ‘genealogical’ method may often have such radically deflationary aims, I suggest that his account of the origins of justice is also intended to have normative force. For at the beginning of GM II 9 he emphasises that the original conditions he describes are ‘at all times present or again possible’ and in distinguishing his account from others’ elsewhere in the essay – in particular, from those of the ‘English’ in GM II 4 and from that of Eugen Dühring in GM II 11 – he tends to use general, present-tense formulations and to echo those he criticises in treating the historical, social, or psychological origins of justice as significant for its normative ones.

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of approximately equal power’ – Nietzsche uses ‘power’ to refer, not to force or the capacity to secure interests, but to agency, or the ability to will, and to the particular conception of moral goodness that he associates with it.26 This strongly implies that the references to ‘power’ in the account of justice that follows may also be read in this way. Indeed, Nietzsche indicates that the following sections of the essay are intended to explain the development of the ‘sovereign individual’ introduced at the beginning of it and he uses the same German term for ‘power’, Macht or its derivatives, throughout.27 Rather than reducing ‘justice’ to relations of forces and interests, then, Nietzsche’s account of justice should be read as determining political communities and obligations precisely in terms of agents’ mutual vulnerabilities of agency. While he presents the relationship between a community and its members as a ‘contract’ regarding members’ obedience to the community and the benefits that they receive in return, insofar as it also involves affirming ‘power’ in the sense of agency as the ultimate value this ‘contract’ will determine members’ obligations precisely according to their mutual vulnerabilities of agency. That is, duties, rights and punishments are to be ascribed to members according to the ways in which their agencies are vulnerable to each others’. Furthermore, since Nietzsche considers agency, and therefore moral significance, to vary across agents and over time, obligations considered to demonstrate greater agency will be ascribed to members that are considered relatively more able to will, while lesser obligations are ascribed to members considered relatively less able. And these obligations are to be constantly revised through the mutual measurement of agency, such that, over time, those who exceed the obligations ascribed to them by demonstrating greater agency than that to which these obligations are supposed to correspond will be ascribed more demanding ones, while those who fail to uphold the obligations ascribed to them will be attributed with less demanding ones. Nietzsche’s account also includes communities themselves among the ‘agents’ involved in this determination of political obligations, such that a community’s obligations to its members or to other communities are determined according to the mutual vulnerabilities of agency between it, considered as an ‘agent’, and its members or other community-agents. This underlies, in particular, his claims that a community with more ‘power’ in this sense will require less of its members, since they will have less ‘power’ relative to it, and that communities of ‘approximately equal power’ will establish contractual ‘balances’ of obligations among

26 GM II 1–3, GM Preface/Vorrede 4. 27 See GM II 3 for Nietzsche’s indication of the explanatory role of the following sections.

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themselves by ‘comparing, measuring, calculating power against power’ in this sense.28 Like Kant, then, Nietzsche holds that agents constitute a political ‘community’ precisely insofar as their agencies are mutually vulnerable and that it is according to precisely such vulnerabilities that political obligations are to be determined. In other words, like Kant, he employs their shared conception of ‘community’ to account for the determination of political obligations. It is worth noting that this tells against interpreting his political philosophy as ultimately concerned with values that are substantial, rather than formal, with values that are not historically or socially informed or with values for which political institutions and activity can be only a mere means to a further moral end, rather than themselves a realization of such an end. It thus tells against interpreting Nietzsche’s political philosophy as ultimately concerned with such values as individual self-creation, force or a higher humanity or culture. For if Nietzsche conceives of justice as a form of respect for and demonstration of agency among agents, as I have argued, then he conceives of justice as a value of quite the opposite kind. That is, first, he conceives of justice as a value that is formal, rather than substantial, since it leaves to agents the (collective) determination of exactly how agency is to be respected and demonstrated among them. Second, he conceives of the value of justice as historically and socially informed, in that it develops in the particular historical and social conditions that he describes in accounting for it. And, finally, he conceives of 28 For Nietzsche’s account of ‘justice’, see also the three sections to which GM Preface/ Vorrede 4 refers in this regard, HH 92/MA 92, WS 26 and D 112/M 112, and also WS 22 and WS 33, BGE 259/JGB 259, GM II 4–7 and GM II 9–11 and KGW VIII/1, 5[82] (Summer 1886Autumn 1887). Admittedly, this reading might admit a subordinate role to the reductive one. For Nietzsche’s stated concern in the sections following those on the ‘sovereign individual’ is to explain this individual’s ability to will and associated conception of moral goodness – his explanation refers in particular in GM II 3 to the prohibitions, or ‘“I will nots”’, imposed by primitive societies and in GM II 5 to practices of contractual exchange. Crucially, however, when he refers to these primitive social relations in GM II 2, as what he calls ‘the morality of custom’, he emphasises that it is only when freed from them that the sovereign individual is able to evaluate agents and actions in terms of the ability to will. As he puts it there, a ‘sovereign individual’ is ‘free again from the morality of custom, autonomous and supermoral (for “autonomous” and “moral” are mutually exclusive)’ and, given this autonomy, ‘how could he not know what superiority he thus has over all else that may not promise and vouch for itself […] and how this mastery over himself also necessarily brings with it mastery over circumstances, over nature and all lesser-willed and more unreliable creatures?’. This suggests that Nietzsche may be read as giving a deliberately ambivalent, or two-tied, account of justice: that is, as reducing justice to forces and interests in the case of primitive societies, under which agency and its affirmation develops, but as conceiving of justice in terms of the affirmation of agency once agents are freed from primitive societies.

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justice as essentially political, in the sense that political institutions and activity are not considered a mere means to the achievement of a further moral good, but rather themselves express and realise the moral goodness of respect for and demonstration of agency. In these three formal ways, then, the account of the origins of justice in the second essay of the Genealogy stands in tension with prevailing general approaches to Nietzsche’s political philosophy. Nonetheless, while sharing with Kant this conception of political ‘community’, Nietzsche’s employment of it differs radically from Kant’s. In particular, having presented his account of justice in the second essay of the Genealogy he proceeds to identify two kinds of mutual vulnerability of agency which differ substantially from that regarding material things’ ‘places’ identified by Kant and the second of these kinds reflects his un-Kantian insistence on the variability of agency, and therefore moral significance, across agents and over time. The first kind of mutual vulnerability of agency that Nietzsche identifies derives from what he calls ‘ressentiment’, an individual’s basic feeling that the natural limits of, or threats to, his agency – ‘his enemies, his accidents, his misdeeds’, as Nietzsche puts it – ought not to be, such that the agent distinguishes and affirms himself against them.29 Nietzsche argues that, since this feeling directs an agent to seek revenge, rather than justice, for crimes, certain juridical strategies are required in order to secure justice – he claims, for instance, that juridical ‘objectivity’ can be protected by treating crimes as threats to ‘peace and order’ or as ‘wanton acts against the law, as rebellion against the highest power itself’, rather than as simply injuries against victims.30 The second kind of mutual vulnerability of agency identified by Nietzsche concerns a certain kind of ‘bad conscience’. He claims that modern agents’ ‘bad conscience’ derives precisely from the fulfilment of political obligations, since by prohibiting the outer satisfaction of our various and persistent

29 GM I 10. See also GM III 14–15. 30 GM II 11. Here Nietzsche emphasises his rejection of Eugen Dühring’s particular kind of retributivist theory, which bases justice precisely on ‘ressentiment’. Dühring’s theory is presented in, for instance, his Der Werth des Lebens: Eine philosophische Betrachtung, published in 1865, and his Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung, published in 1875. Nietzsche’s library includes both of these texts, along with a number of Dühring’s numerous other publications. In Nietzsche’s copy, the appendix of Der Werth des Lebens on ‘Die transcendente Befriedigung der Rache’ is particularly well-marked and he made an extensive critical summary of the book in 1875, to be found at KGW VI/1 9[1] (Summer 1875). For a helpful summary of Dühring’s theory, see Small (2001), pp. 172–174.

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instincts of cruelty these obligations make these instincts ‘turn themselves inwards’ instead. Each politically obedient agent thus becomes an object for his or her own instincts of cruelty – in Nietzsche’s terms, each such agent is forced to ‘create out of himself an adventure, a place of torture, an insecure and dangerous wilderness’.31 In the Genealogy Nietzsche gives non-political examples of this, such as ‘selflessness’ and the denial of natural instincts, but in the only section concerning ‘bad conscience’ in Beyond Good and Evil – the book of which he intends the Genealogy to provide ‘a supplement and clarification’, as he indicates on the latter’s title page – he refers to conceptions of political obligations as ‘unconditional’ in the sense of holding for any agent in relevantly similar circumstances.32 This implies that, for Nietzsche, the fulfilment of political obligations itself can lead to an egalitarian misconception of them, one that ignores the morally relevant differences between agents’ capacities of agency which he, unlike Kant, insists on. Indeed, this insistence on the variability of agency and therefore of moral significance provides a plausible explanation for his consistent objection to such unconditionally egalitarian senses of justice in the name of a relative sense of equality ‘among equals’. He expresses this objection in Twilight of the Idols, for instance, with the exclamation, ‘The doctrine of equality! … But there exists no more poisonous poison: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, whereas it is the end of justice … “Equal for equals, unequal for unequals” – that would be the true voice of justice: and what follows from it, “Never make unequals equal”’.33

III Vulnerabilities of Agency The precise meaning and ultimate success of Kant’s and Nietzsche’s arguments for these basic political obligations are, of course, far from obvious. In particular, the meaning of a material thing’s ‘place’ and its intended role in Kant’s argument, along with the nature and supposed implications of the two kinds of vulnerabilities which Nietzsche mentions, all require substantial further

31 GM II 16. See also GM II 17–18. 32 See GM II 18 and GM II 21 and GM III 20, BGE 199/JGB 199 and also GS 5/FW 5. 33 TI Skirmishes/ GD Streifzüge 48. See also Z II Tarantulas/ZA II Taranteln, BGE 202/JGB 202 and BGE 272/JGB 272, GM II 11, GS 356/FW 356 and GS 377/FW 377, TI Skirmishes/GD Streifzüge 37, A 43/AC 43 and A 57/AC 57 and KGW VIII/1, 3[13] and KGW VIII/1, 5[107] and KGW VIII/2, 9[173] and KGW VIII/2, 11[127], KGW VIII/2, 11[142], KGW VIII/2, 11[148] and KGW VIII/2, 11[156] and the remarks on Kant at KGW VII/2, 25[437].

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examination and support. However, my concern in this paper is not to provide a thorough critical account of these arguments. Rather, thus far I have been concerned simply to demonstrate that, and how, Kant and Nietzsche employ a particular conception of ‘community’ in these arguments. In this, final part of the paper, I will attempt to further illuminate this conception in its political aspect and to offer some, albeit speculative, critical consideration of it. According to Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conception of ‘community’, agents constitute a ‘community’ only and precisely insofar as their agencies are mutually vulnerable. Such a ‘community’ is considered to be morally salient on the grounds that moral goodness consists of a practical attitude of respect for agency as such and that only mutual vulnerabilities of agency are pertinent to the determination of the other-regarding requirements of this attitude – that is, other-regarding moral obligations and rights. This conception and its supposed moral salience are therefore ultimately concerned with the mutual vulnerability of agents’ agencies, rather than with, say, agents’ desires or needs or with a notion of agents’ ‘flourishing’. Clearly, the employment of this conception requires that one or more ‘mutual vulnerabilities’ of agency be identified and explained. Indeed, as Kant’s and Nietzsche’s different conclusions indicate, this is of crucial importance, insofar as different vulnerabilities have different implications. However, it might be suspected that the identification of ‘vulnerabilities’ is underdetermined, even arbitrary. After all, Kant and Nietzsche themselves provide little explanation of their choices of vulnerabilities. Kant, for instance, provides no explanation of his insistence that only a certain vulnerability regarding material thing’s ‘places’ is pertinent to the determination of our basic political obligations. He thus fails to explain why he denies the existence or pertinence of other vulnerabilities – such as vulnerabilities which might derive from material scarcity or material inequality or vulnerabilities of the kinds to which Nietzsche appeals. Without pretending to dispel these suspicions entirely, however, I would suggest that, according to Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conception of ‘community’, the identification of a ‘mutual vulnerability of agency’ is subject to three relatively substantial constraints. First, it must appeal to a conception of ‘agency’ which will guide, or at least limit, the identification of vulnerabilities. As I mentioned above, Kant conceives of ‘agency’ as an invariable ability to act according to reasons, while Nietzsche conceives of it as a variable ability to act according to certain non-cognitive states, however rationally-informed. This presumably explains why Kant claims that agency requires the physical ability to use its objects, since he consistently distinguishes practical reasoning from

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mere ‘wishing’ by this requirement.34 It might also explain Kant’s claim that, in requiring the physical ability to use its objects, agency also requires a certain consistency of material things’ ‘places’, were he to hold that the lack of such consistency somehow upsets or makes impossible practical reasoning.35 Nietzsche, on the other hand, need have no such particular concern for the requirements of practical reasoning, since he conceives of agency as an ability to act according to certain non-cognitive states. But he nonetheless considers such requirements insofar as he, unlike Kant, considers moral obligations themselves to be liable to misconception.36 Indeed, his conception of agency explains why he treats notions of ‘unconditional’ political obligations as such misconceptions, and thus as threats to the practice of justice. For he considers the variability of agency to entail that the requirements of respect for agency, and agents’ motivations in fulfilling them, be sensitive not only to circumstances, but also to agents’ variable agencies.37 It is also worth noting that although the identification of a ‘mutual vulnerability of agency’ must appeal to a conception of ‘agency’, it need not appeal to a substantial ideal or standard of ‘agency’, such as Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ or ‘Übermensch’ or Kant’s ‘good will’ or ‘pure’ moral practical reason is sometimes considered to express. Nor, furthermore, need it treat ‘agency’ as merely a given, negative limit on the pursuit of non-moral goodnesses or as a principle of rationality according to which moral rules are ‘constructed’, as Kant’s moral formulas have often been interpreted. Rather, the identification of a ‘mutual vulnerability of agency’ need only identify how a commonplace ability to act and the corresponding abilities of others are mutually vulnerable. It can thus avoid the controversies which attach to more substantial accounts of agency’s moral salience. Second, the identification of a ‘mutual vulnerability of agency’ is constrained by the level of generality of the obligations at issue. In his Metaphysics of Morals Kant is concerned to determine only the most general moral obliga-

34 See, for example, G 394 and MS 213. Notably, this distinction is implied by Kant’s argument for this requirement at MS 246, when he argues that to ‘deny the use of agency with regard to an object of agency […] annihilates these [objects] in a practical respect’. He also explicitly states and emphasises this distinction when he presents his Universal Principle of Right at MS 230. 35 This explanation finds some support in Kant’s crucial claim that ‘damage is done’ to an agent’s ‘freedom’ by the upsetting of a material thing’s ‘place’, at MS 262. For in MS Kant is concerned with ‘freedom’ as a quality of an agent’s practical reasoning. See, for example, MS 221, MS 226–227 and MS 230–231. 36 I discuss Kant’s consistent denial of this in Bailey (2004). 37 For some elaboration of this point, see Bailey (2003) and Bailey (forthcoming).

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tions of human agents and he thus admits only considerations applicable to every human agent.38 His argument for our basic political obligations is an important instance of this, since it concerns a mutual vulnerability of agency which, according to Kant, derives from the finitude of ‘places’ on the earth’s surface and therefore applies to, and entails obligations and rights of, every human agent. This explains why in this argument Kant does not appeal to more particular vulnerabilities. Nietzsche, on the other hand, considers the implications of one general mutual vulnerability of agency, namely, that regarding ‘ressentiment’, and of one more particular such vulnerability, namely, that regarding ‘bad conscience’. In considering the latter, he considers a vulnerability peculiar to modern agents, consequent on the peculiar degree to which certain of their instincts are externally suppressed. Thus the conclusions which he draws in Beyond Good and Evil about egalitarianism are explicitly restricted to modern agents.39 Finally, I would also suggest that the identification of a ‘mutual vulnerability of agency’ is constrained precisely by the requirement that a vulnerability be ‘mutual’. This has three aspects. First, it indicates that the determination of moral obligations does not concern agency’s vulnerability to anything other than agency. Agency’s vulnerability to disease or ignorance, for example, is considered to be pertinent to the determination of moral obligations only insofar as it is a condition or medium of agency’s vulnerability to agency. Thus Kant refers to the finitude of ‘places’ on the earth’s surface only as a condition of the vulnerability of an agent’s agency to others’ upsetting of these ‘places’. Second, the requirement that vulnerabilities be ‘mutual’ excludes the vulnerabilities of an agent’s agency to itself. Nietzsche does not, for instance, consider how ‘ressentiment’ might motivate an agent to damage her own agency. Correspondingly, this conception of ‘community’ is not concerned with the determination of self-regarding obligations. Third, unilateral vulnerabilities of one agent’s agency to another’s are excluded. That is, a vulnerability of one agent’s agency to another’s to which there is no corresponding vulnerability of the other’s agency is not pertinent to the determination of moral obligations between them. This is clearest in Nietzsche’s insistence on varying degrees of agency, and therefore moral significance, among agents, such that an agent which is not vulnerable to another has no obligations to the latter, although the latter might be vulnerable to him. These conceptions of community therefore need not be subject to substantial problems regarding the identification of ‘mutual vulnerabilities of agency’.

38 See MS 216–217 and MS 468–469. 39 See, again, BGE 199/JGB 199.

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More generally and in conclusion, I suggest that it also offers certain significant advantages for the treatment of ‘community’ in political thought. First, it avoids the worries raised by the common conception of ‘community’, that employed in ‘communitarian’ theories, and by its common ‘liberal’ or ‘individualist’ rejection. That is, it treats political obligations as determined neither by individuals’ membership of a ‘community’ constituted by a shared habitat, origin, status, history, practice, nor by the concerns of morally isolated individuals.40 Rather, it treats political obligations as possible only insofar as agents are not morally isolated, yet does so not by appealing to a shared communal identity, but by referring to the mutual vulnerabilities of their agencies and certain consequent requirements of respect for agency between them. The second substantial advantage offered by this conception of community is that it indicates how political obligations of extended scope might be admitted and explained. Political philosophy and political discourse often treat an individual’s political obligations as limited to the particular state of which she is a member and thus problematize political obligations between states and between individuals of different states. According to Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conception of ‘community’, however, an individual’s political obligations and rights extend precisely as far as her mutual vulnerabilities of agency with others extend and thus need not be restricted to a particular state. Indeed, Kant and Nietzsche both explicitly endorse certain basic political obligations of extended scope not only when appealing to this conception in explaining our general political obligations regarding property, ressentiment or equality, but also when affirming certain international and cosmopolitan obligations.41 Finally, I would suggest that this conception of ‘community’ is consonant with many common intuitions regarding our political obligations. This is so not only with respect to the differences between it, the common, ‘communitarian’ conception and the ‘liberal’ or ‘individualist’ alternative and with respect to its admittance of political obligations of extended scope. It also resonates with

40 For examples of the ‘communitarian’ and ‘liberal’, or ‘individualist’, options, see, on the one hand, MacIntyre (1981), Sandel (1982) and Taylor (1979), and Taylor (1985) and, on the other, Kymlicka (1989) and the articles by Rawls, Rorty and Raz in Mulhall/Swift (eds.) (1992). Note that Nietzsche effectively dismisses a version of the ‘communitarian’ option in favour of his own conception of ‘community’ at GM III 18 and makes some related remarks regarding the ‘contract’ version of the ‘individualist’ option at GM II 17. 41 See, for instance, Kant’s account of obligations between states and between individuals of different states at MS 311 and MS 343–353 and Nietzsche’s celebrations of a ‘European’ perspective over the perspectives of individual European states at, for example, BGE 208/ JGB 208, BGE 241/JGB 241, BGE 242/JGB 242 and BGE 256/JGB 256 and GM III 26.

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common intuitions regarding the flexibility and complexity of our political obligations, insofar as it admits that the vulnerabilities, and corresponding ‘communities’, which explain these obligations can be numerous, crosscutting, changeable, of differing levels of generality and of diverse origins. It thus offers the prospect of a richer and more dynamic approach to political communities than those articulated simply in terms of shared identities or individual choice. To conclude, I hope to have demonstrated that Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conception of ‘community’ is a potentially fruitful one for political thought. It offers resources for overcoming certain impasses in contemporary thought about political community as well as for resolving issues about the identification of its own central term, the mutual vulnerability of agency. I reserve a more thorough critical consideration of this conception and of Kant’s and Nietzsche’s particular employments of it for another occasion.

Bibliography Bailey, Tom (2003), “Nietzsche’s Kantian Ethics”, in: International Studies in Philosophy 35, no. 3, pp. 5–27. Bailey, Tom (2004), “Anthropology and Moral Judgement: Kant and Nietzsche on Human Evil”, in: Keen, Daniel E./Keen, P. R. (eds.), Considering Evil and Human Wickedness, Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp. 319–326. Bailey, Tom (2010a), “La filosofia come pratica di comunità: Leggere La Gaia Scienza II e Così Parlò Zarathustra IV”, in: Campioni, G./Piazzesi, C./Wotling, P. (eds.), Letture de La Gaia Scienza, Pisa: ETS, pp. 55–67. Bailey, Tom (2010b), “Analysing the Good Will: Kant’s Argument in the First Section of the Groundwork”, in: British Journal for the History of Philosophy 18, no. 4, pp. 635–662. Bailey, Tom (forthcoming), “Nietzsche the Kantian?”, in: Gemes, K./Richardson, J. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bergmann, Peter (1987), Nietzsche. ‘The Last Antipolitical German’, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Conway, Daniel (1997), Nietzsche and the Political, London: Routledge. Flikschuh, Katrin (2000), Kant and Modern Political Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guyer, Paul (2002), “Kant’s Deductions of the Principles of Right”, in: Timmons, M. (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 23–64. Kersting, Wolfgang (1993), Wohlgeordnete Freiheit, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Kymlicka, Will (1989), Liberalism, Community and Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leiter, Brian (2002), Nietzsche on Morality, London: Routledge. Ludwig, Bernd (1988), Kants Rechtslehre: Ein Analytischer Kommentar, Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Macintyre, Alasdair (1981), After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, London: Duckworth. Mulhall, Stephen/Swift, Adam (eds.) (1992), Liberals and Communitarians, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Mulholland, Leslie (1991), Kant’s System of Rights, New York: Columbia University Press. Murphy, Jeffrey (1994), Kant: The Philosophy of Right, Macon: Mercer University Press. Pogge, Thomas W. (2002), “Is Kant’s Rechtslehre a ‘Comprehensive Liberalism’?”, in: Timmons, M. (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 133–158. Rosen, Allen (1993), Kant’s Theory of Justice, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Sandel, Michael (1982), Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shaw, Tamsin (2007), Nietzsche’s Political Skepticism, Oxford: Princeton University Press. Small, Robin (2001), Nietzsche in Context, Aldershot: Ashgate. Taylor, Charles (1979), Hegel and Modern Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, Charles (ed.) (1985), Philosophy and the Human Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomson, Kevin (2001), “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of Political Authority”, in: KantStudien 92, no. 1, pp. 62–78. Timmons, Mark (ed.) (2002), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warren, Mark (1988), Nietzsche and Political Thought, London: MIT. Willaschek, Marcus (1997), “Why the Doctrine of Right Does Not Belong in the Metaphysics of Morals”, in: Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 5, pp. 205–227. Willaschek, Marcus (2002), “Which Imperatives for Right?”, in: Timmons, M. (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 65–87. Wood, Allen (1999), Kant’s Ethical Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Allen (2002), “The Final Form of Kant’s Practical Philosophy”, in: Timmons, M. (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–21.

Chiara Piazzesi

What We Talk About When We Talk About Emotions. Nietzsche’s Critique of Moral Language as the Shaping of a New Ethical Paradigm *

‘What do any of us really know about love?’ Mel said. ‘It seems to me we’re just beginners at love. […] I want to know. I mean, I don’t know anything, and I’m the first one to admit it.’ R. Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

The literary allusion contained in the title of this paper is not that difficult to decrypt. In Raymond Carver’s short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, four characters (two couples) discuss, in a lazy and alcoholic afternoon, their ideas, experiences, puzzlement, and deep misunderstandings about love and love relationships. Towards the end, the conversation is leading the four “competent speakers”, apparently able to use words in an appropriate way, to the even more confusing conclusion, that they don’t really know what they are talking about when they are talking about love (and expressing love to each others with words such as “love”).1 Nietzsche’s observations on love and language in aphorism 14 of The Gay Science derive from the same sort of perplexity (what are we talking about?). Indeed, Nietzsche argues that there is an invisible, mostly overlooked gap between the linguistic tools we use to indicate affects and the essential features of the real phenomena that we call by affect names. Although we do not probably have nor could reach any privileged access to those “real” features, the multiplicity of psychological dispositions and relational attitudes, which are called for example love, already puts the linguistic unity in a quite * This paper owes very much to several discussions and critical exchanges with scholars and colleagues of the international Nietzsche-Forschung. For their critical remarks and their observations I am particularly grateful to Pietro Gori, Jorge Viesenteiner, Antonio Edmilson Paschoal, Patrick Wotling, Diego Sanchez Meca, to the members of the Nietzsche Group at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná in Curitiba (Brazil), and to the participants to the XXIX Encontros Nietzsche (São Paulo, Brazil, Sept. 14–152010). Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald for making this research and this contribution possible by supporting me through the Käthe-KluthFellowship 2010, and to Martin Breaugh for helping me revise this paper. 1 The title of the original version of Carver’s story, before the heavy-handed intervention of his editor Gordon Lish on the manuscript, was even more eloquent: Beginners.

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critical light and leads to a methodological, heuristic suspicion towards language itself, as well as towards the psychology supported and structured by the latter. The main implication of such a claim – which Nietzsche reaches through a specific methodological turn in the inquiry on emotions and passions, as we will see – is, that the names of passions apply to psychological phenomena only in a restricted way: they do not denote what emotions or passions really are, rather only what and how we think about our emotions and passions. So they tell us something about our psychological features, but they do not have the necessary power to supply the scientific foundation of an epistemic theory of emotions or passions. A second implication is that these acts attributing a name to an emotional experience, take place in time, that is to say in history and in a specific culture/society: it is therefore possible to observe them from a historical, cultural, and comparative point of view. Nietzsche’s claim is, in this sense, that the history of the features of psychological language runs parallel to the history of our psychological features themselves: language provides the tools and the categories through which our reflection takes place, through which we are able to think about feelings, passions, psychological and physiological states, and to share that thinking of with others. Third, from a moral point of view such attributions are not neutral: they bear moral values and appraisals, which are reinforced at every occurrence of the reflective comprehension of an emotional experience. Psychological categories, thus, are moral categories. Finally, in dealing with such considerations, the Nietzschean philosopher aims at understanding whether it remains possible to transform, change, liberate human psychology and emotional experience from the moral burden, that is, to shape a new form of life by creatively “playing” with language and corresponding psychological experiences. Such questions are still at the core of the current philosophical debate on emotions, on the possibility of a general theory of emotions, on the connection between propositional attitudes regarding emotional experience (i.e. individual claims about emotions, feelings, passions) and “real” psychological phenomena, on the range of our control on (and responsibility for) passions, and so forth – a debate dealing with problems raised by psychology, the neurosciences as well as history, sociology, and history of culture. While some scholars accept our “common sense” understanding of emotions as a reliable source of knowledge about psychological phenomena, others manifest a certain scepticism concerning the possibility of such a generalization. By criticizing the program of an inclusive theory of emotions, Paul Griffiths argues that neither the concept we use to regroup emotions – i.e. “emo-

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tions” – nor the specific concepts indicating single occurrences of “emotions” – such as “fear”, “love”, “hate”, and so on – seem to have a proper referent. They seem, therefore, not to have any epistemic (scientific) value: far from being definitions describing and denoting real phenomena, they are categories belonging to folk psychology, structuring and hence reinforcing both the usual reflective interpretation tools corresponding to this psychology (i.e. the way we think about our thinking, feeling, imagining, acting and so on) and this psychology itself (the way we think, feel, imagine, act and so on). Thus, Griffiths argues, against the conceptual attitude theory, that the analysis of what we say when we talk about emotions does not provide knowledge of “what emotions really are”, but only knowledge of how we are inclined to talk about our emotional experiences and dispositions. Language contains and transmits a whole psychological theory, namely a human theory about human nature and psychology – about the way we feel and have emotions, about what emotions are, how emotions “tell” us something about ourselves, etc. In addition to this, as A. Rorty has shown (1980b), such a theory consists in value appraisals, as it contains some criteria to evaluate the appropriateness of an emotion in a specific situation: giving an emotion a name, and a “causal history”, we characterise a (present) experience, the context in which it takes place, the person who is having that experience, the object of the emotion, and this kind of evaluation cannot occur in a “private” way, especially in the case of “higher cognitive emotions” (which differ from basic “affect programs” in Griffiths classification of emotional phenomena), as love, hate, grief etc.: such an evaluation depends on and refers to a social and cultural context, i.e. to shared and stabilized criteria of appraising actions and behaviours, to the values governing that context. As long as they are a way of taking position and evaluating a certain (social) situation, higher cognitive emotions already occur in a way that conforms to embodied cultural criteria, providing individuals with several ways of connecting their feelings and psychical states to complex chains of actions, communication, meanings, relations and so forth. (That is also why Griffiths, as we will see, argues for an interpretation of our higher cognitive emotions as ways of performing social roles). Insofar as emotions are not only bodily feelings, but rather, as Goldie claims,2 a “feeling towards” (or “thinking of with feeling”), and hence a way of connecting feeling with thinking, imagining, remembering, acting, etc., they depend on several variable categories of perception and evaluation of situations, positions, persons, possibilities, margins of legitimacy, and so on. Higher cognitive emotions, as love, have paradigms of appropriateness 2 Goldie (2000), for example p. 58

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which differ from those, for instance, of fear: criteria of appropriateness for love, hate, grief etc. are strongly influenced by moral values and cultural features, especially because they perform a specific relational and social function, and they are not simply affective reactions.3 Emotional life is, in this sense, a system of high socialized and culturally articulated competences, rather than a “natural” human feature.4 Such a system of moral and social appraisals and related individual competences, can be found both “crystallized” and “living” in language and words denoting emotions, which bear cultural values and criteria of moral evaluation, defining margins of legitimate reference to this or that emotion in a particular context. By providing a certain quality and form of individual experience and reflexivity, words reinforce common-sense psychology connected to such values and criteria. This perspective provides an understanding of our emotional and psychical life that insists on its historical “contingency” (the fact that our psychological features could be or could have been different), its cultural and social relevance (culture and socialization are embodied in the form of emotional competences), its linguistic and narrative structure (our understanding of our psychical life depends on the way we think and we talk about it), its active character. In this paper I will argue that a closer consideration of Nietzsche’s psychological and genealogical inquiry on passions and specifically on love can provide us with a meaningful philosophical frame for dealing with some crucial challenges of the current debate on emotions and their features. (1) I will begin by shortly presenting the context and the claims of The Gay Science 14; then

3 In his unfinished novel La cognizione del dolore (Acquainted with Grief), Carlo Emilio Gadda gives an impressive representation of how complex and entangled in the individual biography our emotions are: their tendency to become dispositions does not only imply that individuals are inclined to have some specific feeling “reactions”, but also that their thoughts, reasoning, dealings with situations and people are already oriented by their emotional dispositions, and that the latter are themselves reinforced by thoughts and reasoning taking a specific direction, which is already conform to the Weltanschauung connected to such dispositions – and so on. So the basic disposition to anger and ressentiment of the main character Gonzalo leads him to suspect every worker in his house of stealing and trying to cheat him, and this suspicion excites his anger and rage even more, and so forth. For a discussion of the different aspects of emotional dispositions, see Rorty (1980b); on the connection between emotions, mood, and traits of character, see Goldie (2000), esp. ch. 6. 4 Such an account of a “participative” (felt) performance of social identities and roles could be integrated into Wollheim’s idea of emotional reflexivity and emotional memory as constitutive of personal identity and for the unity of a personal life (1980).

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(2) I will try to provide a deeper comprehension of its main questions by connecting them to the broader background of Nietzsche’s interest for the features and the history of passions; third (3), I will examine the specific case of love as passion, considered as a form of pratique de soi, characterizing Western European culture; finally (4) I will summarize and sketch some conclusions in order to examine Nietzsche’s claims with regard to the current philosophical debate on emotions.

1 Gay Science 14: A Critical Account of Our Understanding of Love 1.1 An Opening Terminological Clarification Let me first begin with a terminological distinction and clarification. Most philosophers and neuroscientists presently dealing with emotions use the term emotions to indicate a mental state, intentionally directed and focusing on an object (material, formal, intentional, etc.), in which the perception of bodily changes is accompanied by thoughts, representations, and judgments related to that object, including an appraisal and therefore characterizing or giving a peculiar nuance to the attitude of the subject regarding that particular object or state of affairs.5 So the current taxonomy generally tends to distinguish emotions from feelings (perceptions of bodily changes), as well as from other conscious mental states. Generally speaking, the term emotion has nowadays replaced the traditional terms passion (to be found, for instance, in Descartes)

5 For an exhaustive review of the different theories of emotions, see the entry Emotion by Ronald de Sousa (2003) in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. In this paper I will not discuss the specific differences between the several approaches to emotions and to their definition, rather I will only refer to questions that are relevant with regard to Nietzsche’s view of emotions and passions. As for the definition of the general features of emotions, about which most scholars agree, de Sousa summarizes as follows: “emotions are typically conscious phenomena; yet they typically involve more pervasive bodily manifestations than other conscious states; they vary along a number of dimensions: intensity, valence, type and range of intentional objects, etc.; they are reputed to be antagonists of rationality; but also they play an indispensable role in determining the quality of life; they contribute crucially to defining our ends and priorities; they play a crucial role in the regulation of social life; they protect us from an excessively slavish devotion to narrow conceptions of rationality; they have a central place in moral education and the moral life”.

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and affect (for instance in Spinoza).6 Still using passion and emotion as synonyms, scholars like Robert Solomon aim at rehabilitating passion from the traditional accusation of being a hindrance to rationality and fundamentally opposite to the latter. By contrast, since passions and emotions bear judgments and appraisals of the situation in which the subject finds himself, others – and not only philosophers: see for example the work of Antonio Damasio – regard them as indispensable complement to rationality and especially to rational decision making. As mentioned, problems arise as soon as one tries to go from a general definition of emotions as mental states to a more specific description of single emotions: it becomes obvious, then, that emotions such as fear or surprise have only a few features in common with emotions such as love, compassion, or envy. Trying to solve these kinds of difficulties within the framework of a scientific analysis of emotions, P. Griffiths (1997) strongly pleads in favour of a clear distinction between affect programs, consisting in more elementary and to some extent automatic responses to certain states of affairs, and higher cognitive mental states, that is, emotions bearing a more complex and comprehensive appraisal of the relational network connecting the subject to the environment in time and space. Moreover, the higher and wider the cognitive capacity of emotions is, the more strongly emotions depend on social constructed criteria, values, judgments, praxis – that is, on the evolution and the history of a certain society and culture. Although Nietzsche’s terminology is fluctuating, some stable distinctions can be made between the words he chooses to denote the psychic phenomena he refers to. The term “Affekt”, used primarily to indicate what the tradition called affectus or passio, is privileged by Nietzsche, especially in the later phase of his dealings with the notion of “will to power” (Wille zur Macht), to identify an affection having a bodily, physiological dimension, and, precisely as a physiological phenomenon, also an evaluative function. “Affekte” are in this sense the basis of interaction among living beings and between living beings and environment: they are evaluating appraisals of state of affairs, affirming specific values in a very characteristic way. In order to clarify such a feature, and providing, with his numerous considerations on the topic, the best understanding of affectivity in Nietzsche’s thought, Patrick Wotling insists on the difference between affective and representational value appraisals,

6 See Dixon (2003) for a reconstruction of the terminological shift between passion and emotion in the philosophical and psychological tradition. Dixon argues as well that the passions were always considered as somehow intelligent mental states and that their opposition to reason was never as strong as other scholars, like R. Solomon (1993), claim.

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claiming that the former imply a deeper adherence, in the form of a belief, to the value itself.7 Thus the affects elevate values to the rank of hinge beliefs – to use Wittgenstein’s formula – and confer them their importance with regard to individual and social life. According to Wotling, this role of the affects allows Nietzsche’s philosophy to overcome the primacy of representation.8 Daring a translation of Nietzsche’s account in a more current terminology, it could be claimed that “Affekte” focus in a sense on what is called a “formal object”, that is, they are performative reactions to a certain quality (or “value”) they attribute to the object they intend. Such a reaction is not only intentional, but also active, inasmuch as it is the operation of the evaluative activity that gives the object a “value”. Affekt becomes in this sense, within the process of gradual definition of Nietzsche’s psychological theory, the concept indicating the ground phenomena of our physiological and psychological life, the building element of every more complex and articulated evaluations, appraisals, cognition acts, and so forth.9 It is therefore not surprising that Nietzsche nevertheless uses the term 7 See Wotling (2008a), p. 298: “La notion de valeur est donc à penser par opposition à la représentation. Une valeur est plus qu’une simple représentation en ce qu’elle implique une adhésion ou une croyance, et même une croyance divinisée: investie d’une autorité absolue, rendue inattaquable, inquestionnable. Elle est en outre, une croyance qui se trouve investie d’une fonction régulatrice à l’égard de la vie humaine, c’est-à-dire une croyance capable d’exercer une contrainte, et même une contrainte tyrannique et d’orienter de manière impérative le rapport à la pratique des membres d’une communauté”. 8 See Wotling (2008a), p. 302: “c’est bien cette affectivité qualifiante qui transforme les appréciations fondamentales du vivant en véritables croyances, situation d’où résulte, pour l’enquête philosophique, le dépassement du primat de la représentation”. And Wotling adds this quite important observation: “l’affect produit de l’évaluation, mais cette dernière fixe ou modifie en retour le sentiment à l’égard des choses. S’il y a un primat de l’affectivité, c’est en tant qu’elle est évaluante; s’il y a primat de la valeur, c’est en tant qu’elle travaillée par l’affectivité, et il est significatif que Nietzsche, si soucieux de modifier nos manières de pensée, se refuse ici à construire un processus linéaire et univoque qui identifierait un pôlecause et un pôle-effet, pour souligner au contraire l’étrange interpénétration de l’axiologie et de l’affectif” [Wotling (2008a), p. 303]. As we shall see (§4), this continuous evaluation activity is the basis for the possibility of gradually transforming our form of life by leaving room for new value appraisals – therefore for a new language. A further, persuasive illustration of the difference between emotion and belief is given by Goldie – following Hume’s claims – with regard to the emotion of sympathy [Goldie (2000), p. 216 ff.]. 9 As is generally known, Nietzsche describes the mental phenomena of thinking and willing as affective processes, constituted by a multiplicity of instances and concurring forces coming to a synthesis and becoming conscious in such a form: see BGE 19/JGB 19, in which, moreover, the term used to indicate the perception of affective states in their physiological dimension as well is Gefühl. BGE 36/JGB 36 presents the hypothesis of the dynamism of Wille zur Macht as a basic process generating our primitive Triebleben as well as the world

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“Emotion” as well, mostly meaning the conscious perception of an affective phenomenon (always involving a physiological change as well),10 and as such working more or less as a synonym of “Affekt” (a later example can be found in GM III 15). This terminological variation doesn’t undermine the primacy of the latter term: “Emotion” is no terminus technicus within Nietzsche’s analysis of the human psyche, since “Affekt” already includes a reference to a conscious perception or at least to the awareness of a change occurring in the living being. The case of “Passion” (and “Leidenschaft”) is significantly different. In fact, this can be regarded as the main reason forcing us to the present clarification. I would argue that, referring to higher cognitive affects as, for instance, love, Passion has within Nietzsche’s analysis of psychology a meaning that is equivalent to the meaning of “emotion” in the current philosophical debate. When Nietzsche urges, in GS 7/FW 7, to an “Arbeit für Arbeitsame” (a job for “the industrious”), that is to retrace a history of all species of Passionen, he mentions for example love, greed (Habsucht), envy, piety (Pietät), cruelty and (moral) conscience (Gewissen). GS 14/FW 7, that we will discuss below, accomplishes a first step of this job, retracing not the history of love (which will be sketched later by Nietzsche, as I will show in § 3), but rather the linguistic simplification and falsification which provides consistence to our concept of love: pointing out such a falsification, Nietzsche not only casts a sceptical light on what we (believe to) know about love, but also affirms, from a “pragmatic” point of view, the necessity of the historical work of reconstructing the process from which such a mystification arises. In addition to this, as we shall see, love is the passion par excellence (that is, something considered as “natural”), and it has also been shaped and constructed as this peculiar form of relationship to the self and to the other which characterises European civilization: amour passion. The capacity of love to become a disposition, to last, to inform an entire life, is not a “natural” feature, but rather a cultural acquisition: a result of the moulding process through which passions “spiritualize” themselves.11

of our affects and mental states. Finally, BGE 117/JGB 117 summarize some claims of BGE 19/ JGB 19 and interprets the will to master an affect as the will of another, concurring affect. 10 See for example HH 103/MA 103, HH 108/MA 108, HH 138/MA 138, HH 140/MA 140, where the expression Lust der Emotion recurs. Some occurrences are in the notes classed as series 23 of the year 1876. For an occurrence somehow related to historical processes and cultural values, see AOM 324/VM 324. 11 See below, § 3. Nietzsche describes such a process in TI Anti-Nature/GD Widernatur (esp. §§ 1–3). See also D 27/M 27.

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Therefore I would suggest that the range of phenomena that the current philosophy of emotions indicates with the term “emotion” is denoted by Nietzsche, alternatively, by the term “Passion” and by the term “Affekt”. For the latter term does not only indicate affect programs, but higher cognitive emotions as well, that is more complex emotional, therefore evaluative and cognitive, dispositions, which can also include affective reactions and physiological changes: TI Improving 2/GD Verbesserer 2 refers to the affect of fear (Furcht), GM I 10 mentions the affect of contempt (Verachtung), and BGE 192 at once the affects of fear, love, hate – and laziness; BGE 260/JGB 260 the affects jealousy, irascibility (Streitsucht), and arrogance (Übermut); GM I 13 revenge and hate as affects; and EH Wise 6/EH weise 6 refers to a plurality of Ressentiments-Affekte – not to mention the unpublished texts. Notwithstanding this terminological oscillation, for the aims of the present paper we can restrain ourselves to pointing out the equivalence of the current use of “emotion” and the occurrences of “Passion” in Nietzsche’s works, especially in connection to love. It seems to me that this equivalence legitimates, in a very firm way, a discussion of Nietzsche’s contribution to the philosophy of emotions, and especially to the philosophy of love as a higher cognitive emotion. In addition, “Passion” sometimes also refers to a general state of psychophysiological excitation and exaltation (e.g. in the Dionysian state), not further specified or qualified, which can be reached for instance through love and devotion (D 403/M 403), or through art (D 217/M 217). However, such a condition is mostly indicated by Nietzsche with the word “Leidenschaft” (singular),12 further characterised by a use in the plural form to regroup all possible human passions, regarded as the non-logical, therefore essential components of human psychology, especially with reference to the tasks of knowledge, itself gradually viewed by Nietzsche as a passion, that is as a form of life implying a constant affective disposition and participation.13

12 Just to give a few examples: HH 148/MA 148, HH 227/MA 227, HH 487/MA 487, HH 597/ MA 597, HH 584/MA 584, HH 606/MA 606, HH 629/MA 629, WS 37, WS 222, D 502/M 502, etc. 13 Concerning the role of passion/passions within the framework of the practice of science, knowledge, or in connection to culture, see for example HH 31/MA 31, HH 477/MA 477, HH 629/MA 629, HH 637/MA 637. See also Piazzesi (2010a) for a discussion of the dialectics of passion and “spirit” or “mind” (Geist) within the process of acquiring knowledge and its ethical dimension in the form of the conflict between love and justice. References to the expression Leidenschaft der Erkenntnis can be found, for example, in D 197/M 197, D 482/M 482, GS 107/FW 107, GS 249/FW 249, GS 351/FW 351, BGE 210/JGB 210. M. Brusotti (1997) wrote a very exhaustive monograph on the origins and the formation of the concept Leidenschaft der Erkenntnis.

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1.2 The Gay Science 14: Sketching a Psychological Inquiry Through a Critique of Language As mentioned above, GS 14/FW 14 deals with a first representative case of the inquiry presented in GS 7/FW 7, summarizing most of the features of Daybreak and Human, All Too Human and introducing the main lines of the “psychologist’s” work in Beyond Good and Evil and of the genealogical inquiry in On the Genealogy of Morals: a reconstruction of the psychological features, as cultural and therefore moral features, which distinguish our form of life, our civilization. The leading question, asking how did we become what we are, serves as a theoretical assumption and practical precondition to formulate and carry out the pars construens of Nietzsche’s philosophical task – a liberation of our form of life from absolute moral values, metaphysical beliefs, which means a “soft” eradication (by shifting and re-shaping) of psychological categories of perception, appraisal, reflexivity, and self-comprehension coming from and reinforcing such values and beliefs. Thus, GS 14/FW 14 starts with the very articulated case of love. First of all, love is an ambiguous concept (Was Alles Liebe genannt wird), that is, it doesn’t have a clear referent. Secondly, the linguistic opposition between “love” (Liebe) and “greed” (Habsucht), reflected also by our different sensations related to each of these two words, is also confused, for it differentiates two states or phenomena that could actually be one. In fact, love could be nothing but greed (Habsucht), an “egoistic” and “interested” drive, a desire for possessing and mastering, for increasing the Machtgefühl, the “feeling of power” (as described in the previous aphorism, GS 13/FW 13): the only difference could then be perpetrated by language, reinforcing moral distinctions of appraisal, which are correspondently deep-rooted in the psychology of individuals using that language as competent speakers. Finally, language concentrates and reinforces an idealization process, “creating” something like “love” as a disinterested, altruistic emotion / disposition – love as an opposite of egoism. All these steps of Nietzsche’s criticism, questioning what we (believe to) know about love when we are talking about love, take place first of all on a linguistic ground, where the clarity of words/concepts, the (numeral) correspondence of words and facts, and the connection between words, ideas, perceptions of mental states, and reality are discussed. By challenging, through such a linguistic approach, what we (believe to) know about love, Nietzsche actually undertakes a dissolution of our categories of self-comprehension, selfappraisal, and reflexivity, just as he did in D 115/M 115, where he claimed that words like “love”, “compassion”, “joy”, and “pain” do not describe the

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nuances and the processes of our internal life. Moreover, such categories are grounded on a system of moral appraisals, normally remaining invisible (being normally non-problematic). By using the words Liebe or Habsucht to identify our emotions and our actions, we do not just give expression to an objective observation and recognition of a matter of fact, rather create the reality we are trying to identify by labeling an experience with specific categories of (moral) appraisal. Nietzsche’s main claim, within this context, is that such categories are not necessary, and therefore they could be or have been different. Through their history, it is possible to retrace the history of some crucial aspects of the civilization that affirmed and developed such values. As mentioned, Nietzsche, discussing such (moral) values as contingent systems of evaluation and appraisal connected to a specific form of culture and life, points out the alliance of language and psychology in reinforcing those values, which are consequently not accessible as such for individuals through an immediate act of cognition. I am normally not able to appreciate my image of the world as one possible image of the world: this image is the way I see the world, which is presupposed – as Wittgenstein claims in On Certainty – in every possibility of affirming or being sceptical about something. Moreover, by insisting on the specific sensation connected to each act of employing a certain expression, for instance “Liebe” or “Habsucht” (“wie verschieden empfinden wir bei jedem dieser Worte!”), and at the same time making the “natural” character of this sensation unsure by challenging the related value attribution (love as a moral, disinterested, altruistic drive), Nietzsche forces his reader to a peculiar form of suspicion: the reader is led to take distance from her own self-confidence as a competent speaker, from her trust in her appraisal of her own emotional experience, consequently to doubt her categories of self-comprehension and self-appraisal. Insofar as a whole psychology – in the sense of both a psychology and a psychological theory, an image of what being an individual means and implies – is challenged, the direct, practical participation of the reader bearing such a “psychological theory” about herself and human beings is also required. This kind of “inclusive” proceeding is typical of the genealogical method, of which, as I argued elsewhere,14 GS 14/FW 14 is a kind of pre-figuration. Let us briefly summarize the implications of Nietzsche’s critical claims in GS 14/FW 14: by criticizing the reliability of the words – that is, the concepts – we use to recognise and identify our emotions, understand and communicate

14 For a more exhaustive analysis of GS 14/FW 14, its features and its strategies, see Piazzesi (2010b) and Piazzesi (2011a). A Portuguese translation is published in: Cadernos Nietzsche 27, (2010); a condensed German version can be found in Piazzesi (2010c).

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our mental states, Nietzsche induces the reader to that act of self-doubt and self-suspicion, which is required to accomplish the philosophical task sketched in GS 7/FW 7: that of becoming aware of, and of interpreting, the history of the categories of self-comprehension and reflexivity we usually take for granted. Such categories are recognised as the embodied form of the moral values system of a specific historical community, that is, on the one hand, as “non-natural”, but instead as historical and conditioned; on the other hand, as non-neutral regarding power struggles and competitions in such a social frame. In GS 14/FW 14, for instance, the words Liebe and Habsucht are regarded as results of nomination acts coming from different self-affirmation strategies: those who desire (and not yet possess) give expression to an idealization of their drives (“love”) – in order to get what they want.15 So the linguistic usage (Sprachgebrauch) is shaped by such strategies, being their principal instrument of informing (“creating”) realities, and therefore supporting them.16 And we, though not able to notice it, are the principal actors of these strategies and “mystifications”, concerning first of all our ideas about our emotions, their meaning and our experience of them. So our psychology is moulded by such inherited, embodied beliefs about things and facts in the world, which are repeated and reinforced in linguistic usage: what we think about, say, love, is what we think about ourselves while feeling love, talking about love to identify our feelings, communicating love, desiring love, and so on. This means as well, that such concepts/beliefs shape our way of “thinking of”17 itself while feeling a certain feeling, where this latter is itself “labeled” by such a “thinking of” and therefore focuses in a certain way on a certain state of affairs: in this sense, if emotion (Passion for Nietzsche) is a “thinking of” connected to feelings of physiological changes, then the embodied categories of judgment and valuing, while informing our thinking about feelings (drives and perceptions in GS 14/FW 14), shape our emotions too. This is why, as we shall see in paragraph 4, according to Nietzsche we do need to change

15 FW 14, KSA 3, p. 386: “Habsucht und Liebe: wie verschieden empfinden wir bei jedem dieser Worte! – und doch könnte es der selbe Trieb sein, zweimal benannt, das eine Mal verunglimpft vom Standpuncte der bereits Habenden aus, in denen der Trieb etwas zur Ruhe gekommen ist und die nun für ihre «Habe» fürchten; das andere Mal vorn Standpuncte der Unbefriedigten, Durstigen aus, und daher verherrlicht als «gut» [GS 14: Greed and love: such different feelings these terms evoke! And yet it could be the same instinct, named twice: once disparaged by those who already have, in whom the instinct has somewhat calmed down and who now fear for what they ‘have’; the other time seen from the standpoint of the unsatisfied, the thirsty, and therefore glorified as ‘good’]”. 16 A further example can be found in WS 5, with the title Sprachgebrauch und Wirklichkeit. 17 Remember P. Goldie’s definition of emotion as thinking of with feeling.

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our ideas and way of talking about our emotions, in order to re-shape our sensibility and to overcome morality (that is, to overcome “moral sentiments”). Situated at the very crossing between language usage, history of cultural features, genealogy of moral evaluations, and related psychological experience (emotional dispositions transmitted and reinforced by language), the case of love, and especially of erotic / passionate love, reveals itself as particularly emblematic: as we shall see, Nietzsche will indeed constantly deal with it.

2 Emotions, Social Construction, and Individual Psychology As it is frequently the case in Nietzsche’s work, GS 14/FW 14 is a sort of philosophical therapeutic performance, by which the reader is led, better, forced into a form of self-suspicion and critical distance towards her own categories of self-understanding. Once the “naturalness” of the love emotion is dissolved, and once its constructed character is brought to the foreground and offered to conscious appraisal, the “subject” has to reposition herself towards emotional experience, that is self-experience, and its reliability. This repositioning takes place through a criticism of the “natural” language structuring his comprehension of every psychological state of affairs. Nietzsche does not aim, though, at reducing subjective “freedom”, at depriving the subject of self-comprehension, but rather at correcting the conditions of the possibility of “freedom” and self-experience, of cultivating creativity and self-empowerment. This kind of disappointing, shocking therapeutic procedure, performed by subtraction in the form of a language exercise, could provoke either a loving affirmation of liberation or a fit of ressentiment, hate and despair – that is, a (passive) nihilistic reaction. In this sense the linguistic psychological criticism is performed as a selecting philosophical praxis that could provide the reader with the tools and with room to create and affirm new values (that is, to practice new perceptions and affective evaluations). The conditional clause obviously depends on the reader himself and his capacities – that is, on the singularity of the reception of philosophical communication,18 a problem of which Nietzsche becomes more and more aware during his philosophical career. Nietzsche’s position has much in common with P. E. Griffiths’ discussion of the endurance of folk psychology and its categories. On the one hand, Griffiths 18 See Piazzesi (2009) for a further discussion of the individual relation to “truth” or knowledge, as well as of the practical and existential (in a word: therapeutical) effects of philosophical communication.

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considers the self-referential character of folk psychology as a major cause of such an endurance (as for every social construct): this implies however a form of subjective affective attachment as well, a psychological “investment” on the reliability of those categories and of the language providing reflective selfcomprehension. If the inertial nature of socially constructed psychological categories prevents disorientation and disappointment, the disclosure of the socially constructed features of emotions and self-comprehension categories can cause a strong affective reaction, a denial. Given that emotions are “covert social constructs”, that is, constructs for which “knowledge of the nature of the category by those who use the concept would disrupt the process by which the category is constructed”, it is very likely that “the suggestion that love and anger are not natural and inevitable parts of human being provokes anger and denial in a large part of the population”.19 On the other hand, Griffiths criticises the fundamental assumption on which the conceptual analysis of emotions is grounded: dealing strictly with propositional attitudes of competent speakers talking about their emotional experiences, such a philosophical method tends to reinforce the self-referential trend of folk psychology. Instead of focusing on what emotions are, conceptual analysis focuses on what people (“we”) think about emotions, on what “we” think emotions are (or a specific emotion is), on how “we” talk about what “we” think about emotions: it operates therefore with folk psychology categories without looking for a referent in order to provide a scientific appraisal of their reliability.20 One major consequence of Griffiths’ critique concerns the philosophical approach to language in dealing with emotions. Although their goal is not a sort of “correction” of language, the claims exposed above recommend a certain heuristic suspicion with regards to the “reality status” of concepts and words denoting emotions and emotional experiences. Such concepts and words are not clear and unambiguous enough to serve as ground for a scientific theory of emotions. Moreover, they do not provide individuals with a reliable knowledge about what emotions are, psychological reflexivity being in fact the presupposition (the pre-assumption) of what one aims to find through it. From the point of view of an “heterogeneous constructivism”,21 emotions are 19 Griffiths (1997), p. 147–148. 20 Cf. Griffiths (1997), p. 42: “In most cases there is no rationale for a propositional attitude analysis other than it is extensionally adequate to an existing folk category of emotion. The distinctions between one emotion and another are drawn in terms of their content, but content distinctions are taken notice of only when they happen to coincide with distinctions already present in the folk theory”. 21 That is a view according to which emotional phenomena have their basis in biological processes, reinforced by the local culture. In this context Griffiths follows Ekman’s idea of display rules “dictating when the effects of affect programs should be suppressed or

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seen as “transitory social roles that are interpreted as passions rather than as actions”,22 therefore words and concepts identifying emotions could be interpreted as comprehension and communication “tools”, believed to provide an objective access to psychic realities, but denoting in fact the more or less unconscious and non-reflected reference to patterns of social behaviour. Not only individual emotional experience depends on norms of social display reinforcing behavioural patterns, which are in conformity with the norms: those norms find also expression in the folk psychology categories, that is, in the language tools used by competent speakers in social contexts. In this sense, as Griffiths observes, two orders of causal explanation about emotional experience can be sketched: one connecting, within the framework of reflective individual narrative, an emotion to perceived properties of the situation or object; another focusing on the pattern of behaviour the emotion refers to. Whether or not common-sense psychology’s categories should be challenged, depends on the philosophical task one aims to accomplish.23 Another major point follows: at every occurrence, words and concepts denoting emotions do imply a specific prescriptive dimension, that is a moral appraisal of the situation hic et nunc, of the emotional experience and of the latter’s appropriateness in such a social context. Propositional attitudes concerning emotions are therefore not neutral with regard to moral appraisals and evaluations: the “choice” (the performance) of a certain pattern of behaviour, together with the corresponding denoting category of psychic experience, already expresses a selfpositioning of the competent speaker with regards to social norms, self-presentation strategies, recognition frames, power struggles, competitions, and so forth. Being emotional patterns and language socially and culturally shaped constructs, their occurrences reinforce a certain moral appraisal of the emotions selves, together with their criteria of appropriateness: nomination acts perform such evaluations, that is, the system of moral values governing every appraisal. By developing (and maybe forcing) Griffiths’ claims further, one could say that the solidity and the endurance of linguistic usages denoting emotions depend on the solidity of the system of (moral) norms governing social life – and therefore individual psychology too. As the works of Norbert Elias, Marcel Mauss, Pierre

accompanied by other displays”. Heterogeneous constructivism sees disposition not as being universal, but rather as being likely to be trans-cultural. See Griffiths (1997), p. 156. 22 Griffiths (1997), p. 148. 23 Discussing Griffiths’ account, for instance, P. Goldie (2000), esp. ch. 4, and R. C. Roberts (2003), esp. ch. 1, claim that common sense psychological categories should not be abandoned in favour of scientific definitions of emotions, the former being the ground for our self-understanding and for the understanding of other individuals in social contexts. I will discuss Nietzsche’s position on this point in paragraph 4.

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Bourdieu, Erving Goffman, Arlie R. Hochschild, and other scholars document, the incorporation of social norms of emotional display shapes emotional life itself: consequently, high cognitive emotions systematically imply a moral evaluation of the situation, of the self, of the relation between the two. It is in this sense that the critique of ordinary language, serving the purpose of dissolving the superficial reliability of words and concepts, both undermines the self-referential character of individually articulated folk psychology and of individual self-assurance. Consequently, philosophical attention is drawn to the conditions of possibility of a theory of emotions, philosophical positions in this field commonly being grounded on linguistic usage too (language providing an illusionary justification for generalization acts). Nietzsche’s observations about our common understanding of love focus precisely on this point and combine a general critical account of the scientific status of psychology with a therapeutic proceeding, involving the reader as subject and competent speaker bearing and performing the categories of such a psychology. Both the dimensions of philosophical and individual discourse on psychological experience are informed by social norms, consequently by morality. Given that language usage (Sprachgebrauch) affirms and reinforces a certain form of life, its status and its value are connected to the history of such a form of life and can be appreciated only through a historical observation of the latter’s development. That is why, in dealing with the exemplary case of love, Nietzsche does not restrict his critique to such a pars destruens, rather provides a specific inquiry on the history of love as passion, social praxis, and self-construction performance in Western European civilization. This second, more relevant undertaking is necessary in order to evaluate the value of (moral) evaluations performed by affects and reinforced by linguistic usage, and, eventually, to transvaluate them.

3 Love as Passion: Genealogy and Features of a Technique de Soi Nietzsche’s heuristic ambition of reconstructing the single history – although a fictive history, that is a genealogy as a model of hypothetical development – of every single “passion” is clearly based on the assumption that there could not be a single theory of passions (emotions) abstracting from the value of each of them in the frame of a specific culture, moral system, set of techniques of the self and so forth. I borrow Foucault’s notion of techniques de soi (which is particularly appropriate in the context of the present analysis of Nietzsche’s account of

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love) in order to focus on the active, constitutive reflexive dimension of emotional life, and to provide an understanding of emotional experience as bearing the traces of the history of Western subjectivity: hence, it is in reflectively dealing with its own desires, passions, emotions, etc., that Western subjectivity became what it was in every phase of its evolution, as well as what it presently is. Learning how to control desires and passions, how to “use pleasures” – as Foucault shows – , the Western subject constituted himself as subject of desire and passion: the subject became able to recognise himself as subject of his own psychic states, to control them and to exercise his own subjectivity in dealing with them. The history of sexuality as technique of the self is the history of “(1) the formation of sciences [savoirs] that refer to it, (2) the systems of power that regulate its practice, (3) the forms within which individuals are able, are obliged, to recognize themselves as subjects of this sexuality”.24 Focusing on this third aspect, Foucault explains that such a genealogy of subjective experience of sexuality does not mean “une histoire des conceptions successives du désir”: it is more about to analyse the practices by which individuals were led to focus their attention on themselves, to decipher, recognise, and acknowledge themselves as subjects of desire, bringing into play between themselves and themselves a certain relationship that allows them to discover, in desire, the truth of their being.25

The genealogy of historically shaped self-comprehension and self-government techniques and linguistic tools is therefore, at the same time, the genealogy of an entire psychology, of a moral system, of a theory about human nature and psychology. Consequently, a certain account of, say, amour passion in Western European civilization – as a regulated and subjectively governed praxis of desire – reveals to the historical inquiry the way an emotional experience constituted itself as a crossing between subjectivation processes, evolution of the individual Western psyche, evolution of social and moral norms, developing of knowledge and general tools of human self-comprehension in Western civilization.26 This account corresponds entirely to Nietzsche’s idea of a genealogy of Western subjectivity through the enquiry on moral sentiments, i.e. on incorporated appraisals and strategies of self-construction and self-presentation, per24 Foucault (1985), p. 4 25 Foucault (1985), p. 5. 26 This is also the point of view from which Niklas Luhmann [Luhmann (1982) and Luhmann (1986)] led his enquiry on Liebe als Passion in Western European society: not only does the evolution of love as generalized symbolic medium of communication run parallel to the individualization process, but both processes have for each other a fundamental constitutive function.

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forming social norms, these latter being constantly reinforced, vice versa, by language and by individual behaviour sets. We will now see in which sense, according to Nietzsche, love as passion became a specific emotional and ethical disposition, characterizing European subjectivity, by becoming a structured practice of the self and thus a specific social practice. When Nietzsche traces passionate (erotic) love back to a sexual drive (Geschlechtstrieb), he doesn’t simply aim, as Schopenhauer did, at discrediting and dissolving love and being in love as illusions, as self-deceptive frames, the powerful influence of which would vanish once sexual desire were satisfied.27 By clarifying the status of love as idealization (D 503/M 503; GS 14/FW 14) and sublimation (BGE 189/JGB 189; TI Morality 3/GD Moral 3) of the sexual drive, Nietzsche stresses much more the elaboration process, constitutive of Western subjectivity, through which individual subjects acquired the capacity of governing, controlling and orienting their own drives and desires. As BGE 189/JGB 189 points out, amour passion represents the main disciplining, shaping form developed in Western European civilization to control and inform the sexual drive: like many other regulation norms and customs (for instance, the sequence of workdays and holidays, or some ancient philosophical doctrine like the Stoa), amour passion rules the alternation of periods of satisfaction and periods of fasting, during which, Nietzsche observes, “a drive learns to cower and submit, but also to keep itself clean and sharp [ein Trieb sich ducken und niederwerfen, aber auch sich reinigen und schärfen lernt]” (BGE 189/JGB 189). It is therefore not surprising, according to Nietzsche, that amour passion affirmed itself exactly in the Christian epoch in Europe under the “pressure” of the latter’s moral doctrine. Moreover, the analogy between work regulation, (stoic) philosophical discipline, and amour passion tells us more about Nietzsche’s account of passionate love: the latter is experienced as passion, which is articulated, though, by a structured and recognizable set of prescriptions, more or less explicit emotional display rules, behaviour patterns, and therefore works as a socialized method of self-disciplining, providing room for reflective self-inquiry, self-knowledge, and selfgoverning. In a word, it is also an ethical framework, a technique of self-shaping and self-transformation (to borrow Foucault’s expression again, a set of techniques de soi). Such considerations are presented in the section on the “natural history of morals” of BGE. But Nietzsche goes even further in the section Was ist vornehm?:

27 In GS 14/FW 14 Nietzsche actually uses Schopenhauer’s claim about the dissolution of passionate love caused by sexual satisfaction to undermine the reliability of linguistic usage and common ideas, and not strictly to show that love is just sexual desire and doesn’t exist as such. For further analysis of this point, see Piazzesi (2010b).

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exposing the main differences – what Foucault would have called “determination of the ethical substance”, “mode of subjection”, “forms of ethical work”, and “telos”28 – between two ethical frameworks, “slave morality” and “master morality”, paragraph 260 counts “love as passion” (“Liebe als Passion”), among the ethical practices belonging to “master morality”. In amour passion “an artistry and enthusiasm in respect and devotion [die Kunst und Schwärmerei in der Ehrfurcht, in der Hingebung]”, “symptoms” of an aristocratic way of thinking and evaluating, find coherent expression. Nietzsche retraces the origins of Liebe als Passion back to the form of life of the troubadours, “those magnificent, inventive men of the ‘gai saber’” (BGE 260/JGB 260), to which Europe, Nietzsche writes, owes much, probably not less than itself. This reference to gai saber, by explicitly recalling the whole context of The Gay Science, opens a wider perspective for the interpretation of Nietzsche’s account of amour passion. In that context passion and love constituted the main paradigm of knowledge after the dissolution of metaphysical truth: given the impossibility of a final goal for knowledge such as a universal, absolute and eternal truth, the practice of knowledge converts itself into a passionate commitment to knowledge as a practice – in every respect analogous to the passionate commitment of amour passion.29 As Marco Brusotti has shown, it is very likely that a relevant model for Nietzsche’s “passion of knowledge” (“Leidenschaft der Erk-

28 Differences between moral systems may concern 1) the “determination of ethical substance; that is, the way in which the individual has to constitute this or that part of himself as the prime material of his moral conduct”; or 2) “the mode of subjection (mode d’assujettissement); that is […] the way in which the individual establishes his relation to the rule and recognizes himself as obliged to put it into practice”; or 3) “the forms of elaboration, of ethical work that one performs on oneself”; finally, they can concern 4) “the telos of the ethical subject: an action is not only moral in itself,in its singularity; it is also moral in its circumstancial integration and by virtue of the place it occupies in a pattern of conduct” [Foucault (1984), p. 27 f.]. 29 In a fascinating contribution on the position of love within Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially with regard to the problem of nihilism, Robert Pippin (2005) pointed out, following J. Lear’s account of Freudian psychoanalysis, the constitutive character of the fundamental disproportion between human desire and possibility of satisfaction. Besides all possible contingent and concrete dissatisfactions, there is in human life, according to Pippin, “a deeper, categorically different dissatisfaction and so a longing that is not just such a response to a lack” [Pippin (2005), p. 181]. Nietzsche’s philosophy would be, thus, the attempt to imagine and offer an alternative to the last man’s nihilistic response to such a desire: “here ‘alternative’ means not only an engagement we can care about, but one that also looks like some form of this-wordly dissatisfaction, provoked by some not-being that we strive to cancel, overcome, a form of self-overcoming without asceticism or transcendence. We need a picture of striving without the illusion of a determinate, natural lack that we can fill” [Pippin (2005), p. 187].

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enntnis”) as a new form of knowledge praxis is to be found in Stendhal’s idea of amour passion,30 which implies an ethical commitment as well as a specific form of imagination, imagery, representation (Stendhal’s cristallisation), and self-discipline in handling with the object of the passionate attachment, as well as with the frustration or deferment of desire. In this sense, passionate love and Leidenschaft der Erkenntnis can be seen not only as affective episodes, but rather as subjectivation and empowerment practices, as forms of active emotional selfshaping, of positive dealing with frustration,31 of self-challenge and self-disposition – within whose framework even the idea of the passivity (“being subjected to”) of the phenomenon one goes through has a constitutive function in the specific imagery belonging to it. The loving, passionate commitment requires therefore a positive ethical work, through which the individual recognises himself as subject of drives (on a lower level of articulation) and passions, undertakes a sort “self-government” by actively informing the own actions/reactions, shapes his own life as an expression of the responsible, conscious disposition to such a passionate commitment, and so forth. Nietzsche’s characterization of amour passion as a manifestation of a noble morality, as Selbstunterwerfung, Hingabe, reverence, devotion, is, thus, not surprising at all. On the contrary, we can see a continuity between GS 14/FW 14 and the aforementioned paragraphs of BGE/JGB and TI/GD, which constitute the sketch of the announced genealogy of passionate love as a typical Western European form of subjectivation and ethical self-construction: in a way, the later texts indirectly answer the question asked in GS 14/FW 14, where Nietzsche wonders how selfish and blind drives, aiming at possessing and ruling the object of “desire”, underwent a process of idealization and sublimation, becoming the divinized, moralized, “altruistic” emotion that we call love.32 Let us now consider this kind of genealogy of love as passion. GS 7/FW 7, as we have already seen, sets the task: not simply a history of passions, but rather a history of their rationality, of the way they “coloured” things and Dasein, of the way their evolution as behaviour sets shaped our psychology – a task based on the assumption of an intrinsic correspondence between history and psychology, shared by scholars such as Elias, Foucault, Bourdieu etc. In stating the conditions of such an inquiry, Nietzsche prescribes for every passion a singular history (neither a “natural” description, nor a

30 See Brusotti (1997), Piazzesi (2010b). 31 See for instance D 429/M 429, as well as GS Preface 3/FW Vorrede 3. 32 In my work on GS 14/FW 14 I have tried to provide an answer to Nietzsche’s heuristic question, although I only dealt with the text in GS/FW without considering later occurrences of the problematization of love. Cf. Piazzesi (2010b).

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general theory of emotions) through time, civilization, institutions, with regard to the moral and psychological effects of, say, day planning (work, rest, holiday), of shared life frameworks (like in a monastery), of specific forms of life (artist, scholar, businessman, and so forth). It is not only the case that every passion has its history: it is also the case that the history of its psychological features evokes its dependence on social, institutional, environmental conditions of possibility, every passion being the result of the interaction between human drives and the requirements of social and public life – an interaction which, being an articulation of subjectivity, is in both directions an active one. Consequently, GS 14/FW 14 deals with the case of love, which is seen, as already mentioned, as “room” for self-knowledge, self-government, development of reflexivity and imagination, thus generating a specific set of informing nomination acts and linguistic usages. Based on a rough and relatively myopic drive, the practice of love is, though, a framework for creativity, communication, cultural articulation, subjectivation, informed by a powerful display of value attributions. The articulation and the refinement of passions correspond in this sense to the refinement of the sensibility and intelligence of Machtgefühl (feeling of power, GS 13/FW 13). A further step is taken in BGE 189/JGB 189, which returns to some of the major points of GS 7/FW 7 (for example, the question of the alternation of work and rest), discussing – as Norbert Elias will do as well – what we could call the structures of social regulation of human drives, from which certain forms of interaction, reflexivity, communication, discourse, and self-comprehension (among them, passionate love) are derived. Then BGE 260/JGB 260 clarifies the functional (although not fully intentional) status of such a discipline of drives and desires: amour passion is a form of life devoted to certain values, a cultural and artistic practice, a commitment to a structured relation to the object, determining the rank (the value) of the latter, of the subject, and of their relation itself, as well as a “trajectory” for such a relation. In this sense, it is an ethical practice that provides a conscious, articulated reflexivity through “self-subjugation” – according to the criteria of noble morality. While developing the parallel between erotic love and knowledge, Nietzsche already considered, in the second book of Gay Science, the role of the (beloved) woman in men’s (creative) life, that is the role of providing room for idealization and quest for absolute self-empowerment (GS 59/FW 59, GS 60/FW 60, GS 68/FW 68), and he recommended that such a room be preserved by the careful restriction of the woman’s action to an actio in distans (GS 60/FW 60).33 Thus, the

33 For an accurate analysis of the philosophical context of the second book of GS/FW on this topic, see Marton (2010).

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aim is not the satisfaction of desire by reaching the desired object, but rather the cultivation of the self through the commitment to a self-imposed (although fictionally suffered, according to our representation of passion) pratique/technique de soi.34 A further example can be found in D 27/M 27, which discusses the transformation operated on passions by institutions (as, say, marriage) that elevate them to a higher rank by considering them capable of lasting: by changing the self-judgment of the individual experiencing a certain passion, such institutions change the passion as well, that is, the way individuals deal with (and work on) their emotional experiences. If the desire for possession that underlies love as binary relation unavoidably reaches its end by reaching possession, the idea, the conviction of not-having-reached-the-entire-possessionof-the-object-yet enables love to last even after the satisfaction of desire, which is supposed to dissolve the striving and the tension towards the object (GS 363/FW 363). I am inclined to claim that Nietzsche’s definitions of the amour passion, the troubadour’s form of life, and of the passion of knowledge as “masculine” attitudes, should be accounted for by the attribution of such a feature – the capability of lasting via the idea – to the masculine rather than the feminine form of love (GS 363/FW 363). Both BGE 189/JGB 189 and later TI Morality 1–3/GD Moral 1–3 point out the importance of Christian morality for the articulation of amour passion as an ethical frame and form of self-practice: moral restrictions to the satisfaction of drives and desires force self-examination and self-control, thereby increasing self-consciousness – as Foucault will say, subjectivation. In this sense, by dealing with moral prescriptions, individuals could gradually develop the capacity to overcome the “letter” of the moral prescription itself, and commit themselves to themselves – to a self-attributed form of self-government. From an alienated, “hetero-directed” form of control, aiming at eradicating and destroying the passions (TI Morality 1/GD Moral 1), Western civilization moved towards a conscious commitment to a sublimated, still active form of desire, within which intensity and affirmation are informed by respect, moral distance, praising and idealization: so that passionate love is the best example of the acquired power to autonomous self-government and self-empowerment. This is why, I believe, Nietzsche considers love, i.e. the “spiritualization of sensuality [Vergeistigung der Sinnlichkeit]”, as a great triumph over Christianity (TI Morality 3/GD Moral 3). Under the pressure of Christian morality, a typical

34 In this sense it could be argued that Nietzsche doesn’t consider passionate love as a relationship, rather as a frame of ethical self-government and self-definition. In my opinion, this is the case, and it is precisely why I have chosen to refer to Foucault’s definition of technique de soi to illustrate the features of passionate love.

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example of rough, “disastrous” and almost “stupid” passion gained intelligence, “spirit”, and keenness – and thus it was able to subtract itself from the contempt it was condemned to within the Christian moral discourse (see GS 76/FW 76). Since moral systems, as BGE 187/JGB 187 states, are fundamentally “Zeichensprachen der Affekte” (“sign-languages of the affects”), operating as an arbitrary tyranny against nature (mostly in the sense of “spontaneous” drives and affects), they gave birth to and “educated” the spirit (Geist): affects and instincts were moulded by morality, became aware of themselves and then able to shape themselves in a strategic, intelligent way. So obedience, constraint, coercion are the origin of every manifestation of beauty35 – and this is the “natural history” of passionate love as well: the history of morality goes beyond, so to say “exceeds” morality itself, in the sense that the effects of moral prescriptions exceed the letter of moral prescriptions themselves – and this “exceeding” is, one could say with a boutade, the subject, the richness of a sovereign, autonomous and informed emotional life and reflexivity.36 All these steps of the analysis of passionate love as a form of ethical selfshaping and self-government (rather than “natural” emotion) are then coherent with the task, the methodology and the aim set in GS 7/FW 7: to follow, in a “genealogical” way, the evolution of every single passion through “ages, people”, and depending on the “moral climate” (“nach dem verschiedenen moralischen Klima”). So, through the analysis of language usage (first of all, of the names given to psychic phenomena) and of the corresponding value attributions (embodied as affective patterns as well as propositional attitudes), Nietzsche aims at providing access to the history of the human psyche in West-

35 JGB 188, KSA 6, pp. 108–109: “Das Wesentliche, «im Himmel und auf Erden», wie es scheint, ist, nochmals gesagt, dass lange und in Einer Richtung gehorcht werde: dabei kommt und kam auf die Dauer immer Etwas heraus, dessentwillen es sich lohnt, auf Erden zu leben, zum Beispiel Tugend, Kunst, Musik, Tanz, Vernunft, Geistigkeit, – irgend etwas Verklärendes, Raffinirtes, Tolles und Göttliches [BGE 188: what seems to be essential «in heaven and on earth» is that there be obedience in one direction for a long time. In the long term, this always brings and has brought about something that makes life on earth worth living – for instance: virtue, art, music, dance, reason, intellect – something that transfigures, something refined, fantastic, and divine].” 36 In this sense Nietzsche affirms that “man hat auf das grosse Leben verzichtet, wenn man auf den Krieg verzichtet [you give up the great life when you give up war]” and that “das Giftigste gegen die Sinne ist nicht […] von den Asketen [gesagt], sondern von den unmöglichen Asketen, von Solchen, die es nöthig gehabt hätten, Asketen zu sein… [it is not the ascetics or the impotent who say the most poisonous things about the senses, it is the impossible ascetics, people who really should be ascetics…]” (GD Moral resp. 3 and 2/TI Morality 3 and 2).

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ern European civilization: a history of the becoming of the peculiar form of subjectivity we have at our disposal.

4 Closing Remarks: Ethical Self-Government and Emotional Work Il y a des moments dans la vie où la question de savoir si on peut penser autrement qu’on ne pense et percevoir autrement qu’on ne voit est indispensable pour continuer à regarder ou à réfléchir. (M. Foucault, Usage des plaisirs et techniques de soi)

By retracing the history of passions, especially of passionate love, and developing a critical account of linguistic usages connected to emotional experience, Nietzsche casts a sceptical light on folk psychology, which undermines its apparent naturalness. Folk psychology is structured by moral values, and emotions (passions) are social constructs, modi of self-presentation that shape corresponding affects – and vice versa. In GS 14/FW 14 he shows that, for instance, “love” does not have a single referent: the word cannot provide a reliable, scientific definition of what love is, it can only draw limits of acknowledgment for individual emotional display and relational behaviour. Language patterns and propositional attitudes (for example, being inclined to use the word “love” to define one’s emotional/psychical state) are not an objective recognition of states of affairs, but rather an active work of shaping self-comprehension, stating specific moral value attributions, setting a certain relation to oneself and to others, and so forth. These claims, as shown above, anticipate some of the main accounts of the current philosophical debate on emotions, especially regarding such questions as whether or not propositional attitudes of competent speakers constitute a reliable basis for establishing a scientific theory of emotions, and whether or not such a general theory is possible at all. By undertaking a genealogical critique, Nietzsche raises issues which otherwise could not be raised through the analysis of propositional attitudes of competent speakers about (their) emotions. Thus language itself, in its selfreferential character, ought to undergo a critical discussion in order to be regarded as historical product depending on and reinforcing moral value attributions. In this sense, on the one hand, every emotion’s name possesses a more prescriptive than descriptive function, setting acknowledgment limits,

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plausibility and appropriateness standards, and so on;37 and, on the other hand, the linguistic performance is accompanied by different emotional experiences, according to the evolution and the transformation of reference values.38 Folk (or common-sense) psychology is therefore significant for Nietzsche’s philosophical task in several ways. As Robert Solomon argues, focusing on the question of the role of different emotions in different cultures39 enables to switch from the traditional problem of the opposition between reason and passions to a more adequate inquiry on the connection between cultural (and social) values and appraisals of passions. Nietzsche stresses, though, a further aspect of the inquiry: by challenging and deconstructing the ordinary language game about passions, his analysis allows for a dissolution of the illusory ontological connection between the name of a passion (e.g. love) and a certain state of the human “soul”. The nomination acts, which are at the same time valuing acts, are, on the one hand, a social praxis, and consequently, on the other hand, a psychological experience. If in a certain social context, that is ours, selflessness (Selbstlosigkeit) is promoted and considered as “good”, love is considered as being selfless (selbstlos) and, hence, as a moral emotion, then such arbitrary, prescriptive attributions shape our individual psychology, our individual self-comprehension, as well as the psychology, communication and criteria of relationships based on love. It follows that, according to Nietzsche, every “passion” (or, in a more current terminology, emotion), as an affective and bodily change in the individual, has a specific cognitive power (just as every Affekt does), that is, it is an intelligent way of evaluating contexts. Such a cognitive power, being a social competence that depends on a specific socialization process, is specific as well: not “natural”, but rather context-bound – a cultural and evolutionary feature that develops out of a biological predisposition to affective evaluation (“drives”) and reinforces a system of moral values and arbitrary, though prescriptive, attributions. Through the concept of will(s)40 to power as an evaluative activity 37 It is noteworthy that contemporary philosophical accounts of love, although mostly working with propositional attitude analysis and therefore with materials requiring a carefully descriptive observation, are very often inclined to give normative, prescriptive definition of what love is, rather than to take into account how competent speakers talk about love. An exemplary case of such a prescriptive position is found in Harry Frankfurt (2006). 38 Nietzsche claims that “die moralischen Worte sind in den verschiedensten Zeiten eines Volkes dieselben: dagegen ist das Gefühl, welches sie begleitet, wenn sie ausgesprochen werden, immer im Wandel” (NL 1882, KSA 9, 20[3], my emphasis). 39 Cf. Solomon (1998), 286. 40 For a thorough discussion of the problem of an interpretation of “will to power” as singular or plural (multiple), see Müller-Lauter (1999), p. 25–88.

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informing life, Nietzsche aims at establishing, in his analysis of human psychology and institutions, a theoretical and practical continuity between the biological (physiological), the evolutionary (which is also civilizational), and the cultural/social levels. To this interpretation corresponds the main theoretical shift Nietzsche is exhorting to in this context: from a psychology of superficial repetition (and reinforcement) of moral prejudices, caught in the self-referential character of the latter and not able to become aware of their influence, to a deeper psychology as “morphology and the doctrine of the development of the will to power” (“Morphologie und Entwicklungslehre des Willens zur Macht”, BGE 23/JGB 23). Such a psychological inquiry, very close to an evolutionary psychology, is supposed to be able to cast light on the pre-moral basic feature of the will to power and consequently on the a-moral origin of every moral attitude, judgment, and emotion. It is in this sense that Nietzsche’s investigation on language and psychology of passions is a pillar of his philosophical task of overcoming traditional moral values: a task which doesn’t only consist in questioning moral values, rather in questioning the way of forming values and “valuing” them. I would like to conclude by highlighting this last fundamental aspect of Nietzsche’s critique of psychological language. The deconstruction of the latter’s (as well as of the corresponding psychology’s) self-referential solidity is indeed the main precondition of Nietzsche’s philosophical task of transvaluation of values. By challenging the common usage of language (Sprachgebrauch), Nietzsche aims at providing room for a practice of liberation, empowerment, and creativity. First, the critique forces the competent speaker to a self-distancing regarding his own psychological and linguistic habits; second, it reveals the interdependence of psychological categories and moral values; third, it shows the plasticity of language, words and corresponding attributions; fourth, it incites a new practice of the self, a creative way of dealing with such plasticity. Once the correspondence between language, moral and social value attributions, psychology, and reflexivity is stated, a creative play of shaping new language practices ensues, which implies shaping individual psychology as well, while training one’s sensibility for new nuances, affective experiences, and appraisals. If words are not “informative” about the nuances of our inner lives (D 115/M 115), undermining the common-sense attributions re-opens the range of the possibilia, both as linguistic and psychological potentialities. So new language games are required in order to open new horizons of emotional creativity and reflexivity; but, conversely, affective and psychological richness is required in order to create new language games; and a certain form of life, a certain strength and capacity, is necessary in order to destroy customary linguistic usages and the corresponding Weltanschauung and self-compre-

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hension. If creation and destruction belong to one another – as Nietzsche states in GS 58/FW 5841 – , the subject striving to transvaluate values must deal first of all with the traumatic experience of self-critique, of self-liberation from her own categories of self-comprehension, with disorientation and vulnerability. That is why Nietzsche’s epistemological position about the discourse on emotions is, in this respect, very close to Griffiths’. For the latter also argues in favour of the “corrective”, “ergonomic” effect of working with a scientific terminology and gradually abandoning the categories of folk psychology. Scholars like Roberts and Goldie claim that, even once the conventional and constructed character of our common sense categories of thinking and talking about emotions has been pointed out, “our confidence in our everyday thought and talk about the emotions need not to be unsettled”, since these concepts give us “the equipment with which to understand, explain, and predict what people think, feel, and do”.42 By contrast, the philosophical task Nietzsche is undertaking – that is, the transvaluation and consequently the transformation of our current form of life and culture – requires that we leave room for scientific knowledge to play an heuristic, “educational” function, thereby undermining our confidence in common-sense Wissen (although far from granting access to absolute metaphysical truth) and forcing us to a systematic self-scepticism with regard to our dealings with language, ideas, concepts, and values. Scientific knowledge provides, in this sense, some of the conditions of possibility of such a new approach to subjectivity and language. As we have seen, Nietzsche insists regularly on the performative power of value attribution and linguistic usages as informing human psychology. Thus, thinking (and speaking) about a passion or an emotion as bad and malicious means to make it bad and malicious (GS 76/FW 76); in the same way, the long-term repression of the expression (even of the linguistic expression) of the passions represses the passions themselves as well, that is, it modifies our affects and our psychology, and not only their outward forms (GS 47/FW 47). Nietzsche claims that the articulation and the discipline of emotional display and expression influence, in a very profound way, the character of emotions, and inculcate new psychological (ideas, representations, judgments, emotions on emotions) and physical (feelings) habits and dispositions.43 Consequently, it becomes clear that the transvaluation of values cannot be a pure theoretical 41 See also GS 301, where Nietzsche opposes the attitude of the “Denken-Empfindenden”, creating realities by shaping new felt evaluations, to the contemplative attitude, not able to abandon the conviction of discovering ‘realities’, that already exist as such. 42 Goldie (2000), p. 103 43 Nietzsche’s ideas in this respect correspond to the self-shaping practice that A. R. Hochschild has defined as emotion work. See Hochschild (1979) and (1983).

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operation, a form of intellectual representation of a new view on things: transvaluation is rather a self-transformation of a whole form of life, combining the emergence of new physiological needs and power with a practice of selfliberation, self-discipline, self-government. It is a creative capacity, a new disposition, meaning a new language practice as well, which struggles to open new possibilities for expression of affective states, hence for a new affectivity.

Bibliography Brusotti, Marco (1997), Die Leidenschaft der Erkenntnis, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Carver, Raymond (1992), What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, New York: Vintage. Dixon, Thomas (2003), From Passions to Emotions. The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foucault, Michel (1984), Histoire de la sexualité. Vol. II: L’usage des plaisirs, Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel (1985), The Use of Pleasure, transl. by R. Hurley, New York: Pantheon Books. Frankfurt, Harry G. (2006), The Reasons of Love, Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Goffman, Erving (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York: Anchor Books. Goldie, Peter (2000), The Emotions. A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Griffiths, Paul (1997), What Emotions Really Are, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hochschild, A. R. (1979), “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure”, in: American Journal of Sociology 85, no. 3, pp. 551–575. Hochschild, A. R. (1983), The Managed Heart. Commercialization of Human Feeling, Berkeley/London: University of California Press. Luhmann, Niklas (1982), Liebe als Passion, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (1986), Love as Passion, Cambridge: Polity Press. Marton, Scarlett (2010), “De la réalité au rêve. Nietzsche et les images de la femme”, in: Campioni, G./Piazzesi, C./Wotling, P. (eds.), Letture de La Gaia Scienza, Pisa: ETS, pp. 277–293. Mauss, Marcel (1936), “Les techniques du corps. «Journal de Psychologie», XXXII, 3–4, 15 mars – 15 avril”, in: Mauss, M. (ed.) (1999), Sociologie et anthropologie, Paris: PUF, p. 363–386. Also available at: http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/mauss_marcel/socio_ et_anthropo/6_Techniques_corps/techniques_corps.pdfhttp://classiques.uqac.ca/ classiques/mauss_marcel/socio_et_anthropo/6_Techniques_corps/techniques_ corps.pdf. Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang (1999), Über Werden und Wille zur Macht. Nietzsche-Interpretationen I, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Nussbaum, Martha (2001), Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piazzesi, Chiara (2009), La verità come trasformazione di sé. Terapie filosofiche in Pascal, Kierkegaard e Wittgenstein, Pisa: ETS. Piazzesi, Chiara (2010a), “Liebe und Gerechtigkeit: eine Ethik der Erkenntnis”, in: NietzscheStudien 39, pp. 352–381.

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Piazzesi, Chiara (2010b), “Was Alles Liebe genannt wird. Amore, idealizzazione e uso linguistico in Fröhliche Wissenschaft § 14 come esempio de esercizio pre-genealogico”, in: EuroPhilosophie, Éditions d’Ariane, http://www.europhilosophie-editions.eu/fr/spip. php?article32http://www.europhilosophie-editions.eu/fr/spip.php?article32. Piazzesi, Chiara (2010c), “‘Was Alles Liebe genannt wird’: FW 14 als pre-genealogische Übung”, in: Campioni, G./Piazzesi, C./Wotling, P. (eds.), Letture de La Gaia Scienza, Pisa: ETS, pp. 359–374. Piazzesi, Chiara (2011), “Greed and Love: Genealogy, Dissolution, and Therapeutical Effects of a Linguistic Distinction in FW 14”, in: Constâncio, J./Branco, M. J. M. (eds.), Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, Berlin/Boston, de Gruyter, pp. 117–163. Pippin, Robert (2005), “The Erotic Nietzsche: Philosophers without Philosophy”, in: Bartsch, S./Bartscherer, T. (eds.), Erotikon. Essays on Eros, Ancient and Modern, Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 172–191. Roberts, Robert C. (2003), Emotions. An Essay in Aid of Moral Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, Amélie O. (ed.) (1980a), Explaining Emotions, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. Rorty, Amélie O. (1980b), “Explaining Emotions”, in: Rorty, A. O. (ed.), Explaining Emotions, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, pp. 103–126. Schacht, Richard (1985), Nietzsche, London: Routledge. Schacht, Richard (1995), Making Sense of Nietzsche, Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Solomon, Robert (1998), “Philosophy of Emotion”, in: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. Craig, London: Routledge, pp. 285–290. Solomon, Robert (1993), The Passions. Emotions and the Meaning of Life, Indianapolis/ Cambridge: Hackett. Sousa, Ronald de (2003), “Emotion”, in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato. stanford.edu/entries/emotion/ (consulted on July 29, 2011). Wollheim, Richard (1980), “On Persons and Their Lives”, in: A. O. Rorty (ed.), Explaining Emotions, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, p. 299–321. Wollheim, Richard (1999), On the Emotions, New Haven: Yale University Press. Wotling, Patrick (2008a), “Les passions”, in: Wotling, P., La philosophie de l’esprit libre. Introduction à Nietzsche, Paris: Flammarion, pp. 284–313. Wotling, Patrick (2008b), La philosophie de l’esprit libre. Introduction à Nietzsche, Paris: Flammarion.

III. On Language, Self-Expression, and Consciousness

Jaanus Sooväli

The Absence and the Other. Nietzsche and Derrida Against Husserl 1

I Introduction In this paper, I would like to focus on a “possibly extravagant conjecture” (GS 354/FW 354) – namely on Nietzsche’s conjecture with regard to the origin of consciousness, or, as it is specified by Nietzsche in brackets, of what it means “becoming conscious of something”.2 At first, it is only a conjecture, even a “possibly extravagant conjecture” which may have something in itself that could sound insulting “to an older philosopher” (GS 354/FW 354). Indeed, insults are quite unavoidable here – and first of all I have to be somewhat insulted. Who or what is this I – who am I? – this “I” in the beginning of the paper? It is obviously a word with which “whoever is speaker designates himself”.3 Does this conceptual idea constitute the whole meaning of it or is it, as Husserl emphasises in his Logical Investigations, only a “function of a meaning” which, as a function, may indeed contribute something to the meaning itself, but only so that the real and normal meaning of it remains elsewhere? Husserl writes that the meaning of the I “can be gleaned only from the living utterance and from the intuitive circumstances which surround it”.4 If we don’t know who has written this word “I”, then “it is estranged from its normal sense”.5 Is it really so? Do we not understand the word when we have no idea who has written it? But Husserl goes even further than that – the meaning of this word can only be found in solitary speech and it consists in an immediate idea of one’s own personality.6 What would this mean in regard

1 This paper is a thoroughly revised, altered and improved version of my paper published in German in Campioni/Piazzesi/Wotling (eds.) (2010) under the title “Die Abwesenheit des Ich und das Fremde des Bewusstseins: Nietzsche und Derrida gegen Husserl”: Sooväli (2010). 2 It seems that the late Nietzsche is constantly getting more suspicious about the concept of consciousness, perhaps, among other things, because the German word sein‚ ‘to be’, is found in the word Bewusstsein, which is translated as “consciousness”. The title of aphorism 11 of The Gay Science, for example, is also das Bewusstsein, but already there Nietzsche speaks about Bewusstheit, which could perhaps be translated as “awareness’”. Cf. NL 1884–85, KSA 11, 30[10], cf. also Kupin (2010). 3 Husserl (2001), p. 219. 4 Husserl (2001), p. 218. 5 Husserl (2001), p. 219. 6 Husserl (2001), p. 219.

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to communication? How does the meaning of the I function in communication? For the particular speaker, the meaning of this personal pronoun would consist, also here, in the immediate idea of one’s own personality, but this idea, for certain reasons which we are going to address in a moment, cannot probably be so immediate any more. For the others though, the I has in communication only an indicative function – it indicates to the hearer that the speaker means or intends himself, that he is the immediate object of his own speech.7 The particular I-presentation, that is to say, the normal sense or meaning of this word, is concealed or hidden from the hearer. Consequently, the meaning of the I could only be found in solitary speech where this kind of dialogue situation is totally interrupted.8 One could still add that in Husserl’s view, all personal pronouns as well as demonstratives function exactly as the word “I”. But what is it all about here and what does it have to do with Nietzsche’s “possibly extravagant conjecture” with regard to consciousness? We would like to understand this conjecture against a certain background, we would like to take heed of the “possibly extravagant” in this conjecture; and we are obviously concerned here with the communication – and with the death of the I. To be more precise, I want to see how Nietzsche with his extravagant conjecture and Derrida with his criticism of Husserl deconstruct that which is usually called “subjectivity”, understood as a kind of self-presence of the subject. But first we have to follow Husserl still a bit further in order to comprehend Derrida’s criticism of Husserl (and of subjectivity) in his book Speech and Phenomena and understand the background or backdrop against which the extravagance of Nietzsche’s conjecture first of all may stand out and strike us.

II Presentation and Re-Presentation In the first of the Logical Investigations (Expression and Meaning) Husserl points out that the concept of sign includes in itself two quite distinct notions. He distinguishes between meaningful sign, expression, and an indicative sign, indication. Indications function in such a way that certain objects or states of affairs of whose reality someone has actual knowledge are experienced by him (“though not at all evidently,” as Husserl adds) as motives for surmising or 7 Husserl (2001), p. 219. 8 For Husserl, it is indeed the case that the dialogue – and that is to say also the dialogue within the I – has to be interrupted in order to make the pure meaning of expression possible.

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believing in the reality of other objects or states of affairs.9 It is important in that regard that signs in the sense of indications do not normally express anything, that they have neither meaning nor sense,10 “unless they happen to fulfill a significant as well as an indicative function”.11 Concerning expressions as meaningful signs, as signs which intentionally want to say something and are loaded with meaning, Husserl states that every speech or part of speech is actually an expression, though it isn’t at all important whether the speech is really spoken or expressed. For Husserl, communication isn’t essential for expressions since in communication all expressions would always have to function as indications.12 In communicative speech, expressions as indications indicate something to the hearer – “they serve the hearer as signs of the ‘thoughts’ of the speaker”13 – but on the basis of these indications the latter can only non-evidently and indirectly suppose that the speaker has such and such sense-giving inner experiences and intentions. Husserl calls this function of linguistic expressions their intimating function.14 But one has to radically break with this kind of intimation if one wants to discover the real and genuine sphere of expressions as meaningful signs. This sphere is solitary life (das einsame Seelenleben).15 Husserl insists first on the idea that

9 Husserl (2001), p. 184. 10 In Logical Investigations, Husserl doesn’t distinguish between meaning (Bedeutung) and sense (Sinn): “‘Meaning’ is further used by us as synonymous with ‘sense’” [Husserl (2001), p. 201]; In Ideas I, though, as Derrida also points out, a certain distinction is made: Bedeutung refers there above all to expressive (linguistic) meaning; Sinn covers even the pre-expressive stratum of sense. – At this point, we should ask what does “meaning” mean according to Husserl? First of all, it is something that speech wants to say – what is meant in speech. Husserl further differentiates between meaning-conferring acts and meaning. Only through these intentional acts does an expression become meaningful; meaning can only be constituted in these acts, but cannot be identified with them. Meaning is rather an ideal and objective content of an expression. 11 Husserl (2001), p. 183. 12 One may notice here that although there is a quite intimate relation between expressions and intimations, it still has to remain only extrinsic only. 13 Husserl (2001), p. 189. 14 Husserl (2001), p. 189. 15 In relation to “the solitary life”, Derrida (1973) is referring to a certain paradox that affects phenomenology as a whole: “By a strange paradox, meaning would isolate the concentrated purity of its ex-pressiveness just at that moment when the relation to a certain outside is suspended” [Derrida (1973), p. 22]. – However, in relation to this reduction to solitary life, we must keep in mind that for Husserl, meaning doesn’t belong only to a private sphere of a subject; according to him, meanings are not something subjective. His theory of ideality and objectivity of meanings says precisely the contrary – every subject should be able to reach in his solitary life a pure and objective meaning of a particular expression.

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in solitary life we don’t use actual words but only imagined ones which in reality do not exist at all, for we are not allowed to confuse imaginative presentations with their imagined objects.16 The words’ non-existence in the imagination is meant to show that in solitary mental life there can be no indication, since indication has to be perceived as an existent. Hence, it involves the reduction of the signifier; what remains is only the ideal form of the latter. In solitary life, the unity of the word owes nothing to any empirical existence, “it needs no empirical body but only the ideal and identical form of this body”,17 and only this form will be animated by a meaning. That amounts to another important distinction for Husserl – a distinction between imagined or represented (vorgestellte) speech and real communicative speech. Here, as Derrida claims, one can already recognise a certain “bracketing” of the world, the first stage of what will later be the phenomenological reduction. One cannot fail to notice also that this has to do with the identity of the I (of the “subject” or “subjectivity”), more precisely with the reduction of alterity to the identity of the I – and therefore also with the problem of metaphysics in general.18 Hence, in order to reach this identity of the I in solitary life, the Other in communication has to be excluded and the empirical side of the sign has to be reduced. In real communication, the intentions and mental acts are not present to the hearer since there one is constantly dependent on a twofold contaminating mediation, that is, on the physical and empirical side of the speech, which are the signifier and the realities which this kind of speech supposedly indicates. Some existing and real signs indicate in the most mediated way other realities which are only probable realities. The presence of the mental acts, the purity of the meaning-intention cannot be really spoken out (to the other). But in solitary life, all of this has been eliminated; the telos and essence of language, as it seems, is purely realised – and that telos, according to Derrida, is for Husserl precisely the voluntary consciousness as meaning.19 Thus what eventually distinguishes the expression as a meaningful sign from the indication is precisely the immediate presence of the living present. But is there no dialogue or communication at all in the solitary mental life? Husserl of course concedes that even in soliloquy it is possible to conceive of oneself as speaking and communicating to oneself, for instance if somebody says “you have gone wrong, you can’t go on like that”. But this is only an imaginary communication – one only represents oneself as communicating, in

16 17 18 19

Husserl (2001), p. 191. Derrida (1973), p. 41. Tewes (1994), p. 1. Derrida (1973), p. 36.

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reality one does not communicate anything – and so it cannot function as indication of mental acts. For, as Husserl claims, “such indication would there be quite purposeless. For the acts in question are themselves experienced by us at that very moment”.20 In solitary speech, the subject communicates nothing to himself, he learns nothing about himself, the mental acts are immediately experienced – the subject is momentarily, in the blink of an eye, identical with himself. This discourse is obviously about the punctual self-presence of the mental acts and their contents. The essential distinctions that Husserl establishes in the beginning of his first Logical Investigation, particularly the distinction between expression and indication, control and condition, contain, in Derrida’s view, all the subsequent analysis by Husserl. Even in his late work, for instance in The Crisis of European Sciences (1936), the conceptual presuppositions made in the Investigations are still said to be present and active. So these distinctions concern the whole phenomenology of Husserl which in spite of all its critical approaches and renewals still carries on in a very deep and original way the metaphysical tradition of European philosophy of the presence. Hence, the whole phenomenological project would in a sense be affected by the deconstruction of the aforementioned essential distinctions. From the perspective of a theory of signs, such a deconstruction has been rigorously carried out by Derrida in his early work Speech and Phenomena; and this criticism somewhat reminds us of early Wittgenstein’s criticism of later Wittgenstein, of the latter’s argument against the possibility of a private language. At this point, Nietzsche’s possibly extravagant conjecture obtrudes itself upon us once again; it is becoming all the more difficult to hold it back. There are certainly similarities between Nietzsche’s conjecture and Derrida’s criticism of Husserl, and perhaps they are not completely accidental since Derrida was already from an early age well acquainted with Nietzsche’s work. But let us firstly see how Derrida proceeds in his criticism. First he writes: The whole theory of signification introduced in this first chapter devoted to essential distinctions would collapse if the Kundgabe/Kundnahme function could not be reduced in the sphere of my own lived experiences – in short, if the ideal or absolute solitude of subjectivity “proper” still needed indications to constitute its own relation to itself.21

The question or problem would consequently be whether the solitary life breaks with or only internalises the dialogue situation. Or to put it somewhat differently: Since each person, in speaking of herself, says “I”, the word has

20 Husserl (2001), p. 191. 21 Derrida (1973), p. 42.

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the character of a universally operative indication of this fact.22 Now, does the word somehow have a different character in solitary speech than in communication? We have indeed already seen that for Husserl the meaning of the I “as an immediate idea of one’s own personality” is essentially realised only in solitary life. Or do things stand differently after all, namely, in the sense of Derrida’s explanations in Speech and Phenomena “that my death is structurally necessary to the pronouncing of the I”?23 I – am I dead or still alive? According to Derrida, even in solitary life (or in other words, in the I) where the subject is content with imagined or represented (vorgestellt) words a certain kind of dialogue still goes on. He tries to prove it above all through the concept of representation. I cannot go into Derrida’s whole criticism of Husserl; I am just going to emphasise some of the most important points. Firstly, the distinction between imagined speech and real communicative speech seems to be somehow suspicious for Derrida. In Husserl’s solitary life, as we have already seen, the subject doesn’t use real words, real speech, but only imagined or represented words, imagination of the speech, which doesn’t exist in reality, he uses only the ideal form of the signifier; and he doesn’t really speak to himself, he only represents himself (stellt sich vor) as speaking and communicating. For Derrida, it would follow that for Husserl only the expression belongs to the order of representation and not the real or spoken speech or signification in general.24 Obviously, that cannot be the case for Derrida. The ideality of the form – first according to Husserl – is the name for the permanence of the same and the possibility of its eternal repetition. A sign is never something like a unique event; it has to be always repeatable or iterable – through all the possible deformations by empirical usages it still has to remain repeatable and recognizable as the same.25 A sign has to be on the one hand an empirical event and on the other hand formal identity.26 Only in this way can every sign and every speech function at all. Now this repeatability inevitably implies representations, namely in the sense of Vorstellung as the locus of ideality in general; in the sense of Vergegenwärtigung as the possibility of reproductive repetition in general; and finally in the sense of Repräsentation as substitution (every signifying event is the substitute for the signified as well as for the ideal form of the signifier).27 Hence, not only the solitary life in which imagined words are used, but the whole phenomenon of language as 22 23 24 25 26 27

Husserl (2001), p. 219. Derrida (1973), p. 96. Derrida (1973), p. 50. Derrida (1973), p. 55. Lawlor (2002), p. 181. Derrida (1973), p. 50.

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such always already presupposes infinite representations. But if that is the case, if the basic structure of language is indeed repeatability, then it is no longer possible to distinguish between effective (real) and imaginary use of language. To put it simply, when I really or actually use words, I necessarily have to make use of the same idealities, the same formal identities as in the soliloquy. As Derrida emphasises, every sign is originally wrought by fiction.28 Discourse is only the representation of itself.29 For this reason, there is no criterion on the basis of which one could differentiate between “imaginary” (as in soliloquy) and real communication (which alludes to indication). But such a criterion is certainly necessary if one wants to distinguish indication from expression. And that would ultimately mean that imagined or fictive30 speech is as “real” as real communicative speech – and also the other way round. So to the basic structure of the sign belongs the possibility of repetition. Because of this possibility, “the present presentation of meaning by expression is haunted by its repetition”.31 Its representation is always possible. But this possibility of repetition already expropriates the meaning from me, it implies my absence, even my death. Thus, the meaning is already inscribed into the field of representation. And that would make impossible any kind of simple presentation. “As soon as there is a sign,” Bennington writes, “the difference between first time and repetition, and therefore between presence and nonpresence, has already begun to blur”.32 As we mentioned earlier also Husserl speaks of repetition and ideality. The progress for Husserl depends on the constitution of ideal truths which can be repeated infinitely as the same in the presence. Husserl wanted to reconcile the possibility of repetition and the pure presence of meaning before our eyes33 But precisely repetition, which introduces non-presence and absence, excludes the simple presentation. This presentation is dependent on re-presentation, return and re-petition, which rules out the purity Husserl looked for.34 Derrida 28 Derrida (1973), p. 56. 29 Derrida (1973), p. 57. 30 Actually also according to Husserl’s own conception of fantasy or imagination, the imagined words should refer to real words and real speech. So the difference between imagined speech and real speech seems to disappear anyway. In relation to that, J.N. Mohanty (2008), p. 88, writes: “[…] phantasy is a parasitical act – a modified act pointing back to perception, actual seeing or hearing. Phantasized speaking then, by its essence, refers back to actual speaking.” 31 Bennington (1999), p. 66. 32 Bennington (1999), p. 68. 33 Cf. Bennington (1999), p. 69. 34 Derrida (1973), p. 52, writes: “We thus come – against Husserl’s express intention – to make the Vorstellung itself, and as such, depend on the possibility of re-presentation

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also calls this repeatability iterability, implying that repetition is not the repetition of the same: “The “same” word is always “other” according to the always different intentional acts which thereby make a word significative”.35

III Auto-Affection and Subjectivity So the presence of meaning “in the blink of an eye” has been cast into doubt. But let us ask now what constitutes this self-present subject or subjectivity in the first place. In solitary mental life I use imagined speech to express myself to myself; this internal speech is a medium that should retain both the presence of the meaning intended and the self-presence of the subject. This kind of internal speech is auto-affection (where the self affects the self); a very unique kind of auto-affection, because one has the impression that one hears oneself at the same time when one speaks without having to make use of anything worldly. This hearing-myself-speak at the moment of speaking seems to retain my identity with myself; there seems to be an absolute self-proximity. But since, as Husserl’s own analyses of temporalization imply, the “living now is constituted only in the state of continuity with retention taken as non-perception”,36 a pure temporal difference comes to divide the subject. Thus when I speak to myself in my solitary mental life, there is necessarily a gap that differentiates me into speaker and hearer; differentiates me from myself. But it is not that auto-affection comes to divide a self-identical subject that has already been there – on the contrary, it produces the subject as such: “Autoaffection is not a modality of experience that characterises a being that would already be itself (autos). It produces sameness as self-relation within self-difference; it produces sameness as the nonidentical”.37 Thus, auto-affection produces the subject (sameness) as non-identity. There is no identical conscious subject that precedes the non-identity; they appear or are produced at the same time, with one stroke. Marika Enwald has described it so: “Identity (the area of sameness) is produced such that auto-affection produces the state where the same separates from itself and produces separation and non-identity”.38 In short, in auto-affection the “same” (of which we know nothing)

(Vergegenwärtigung). The presence-of-the-present is derived from repetition and not the reverse.” 35 Derrida (1989), p. 104. 36 Derrida (1973), p. 67. 37 Derrida (1973), p. 82. 38 Enwald (2004), p. 239.

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separates itself from itself to become the identical subject as non-identical (of which we are conscious). This auto-affection is essentially an operation of différance which introduces a pure difference into self-presence: différance produces a subject as a “duplicate” of something which has already disappeared: “When I hear myself speak, the hearing is the repetition of speaking that has already disappeared; representation (Vergegenwärtigung) has intervened”.39 And this pure difference includes the possibility of everything Husserl wanted to exclude: “space, the outside, world, the body”.40 Derrida also calls this subject that has been produced in auto-affection a “trace”,41 the subject is trace of a “subject” that has already disappeared; it refers to the past which is already gone (and has never been present). In this sense, subject is always divided, it cannot encounter itself. And for that reason this something can never be present in consciousness, one can never reflect about it, one is always already too late to oneself. This trace is also called protowriting which implies that even on that pre-expressive level which Husserl wanted to separate from the order of language, everything belonging to language (repetition, representation etc.) is already at work. Hence, that which precedes auto-affection is obviously “outside of consciousness and knowledge”.42

IV The Possibly Extravagant Conjecture At this point, we have to turn to Nietzsche’s possibly extravagant conjecture.43 The aphorism where this conjecture appears is called “On the genius of the species” (“Genius der Gattung”). It is certainly a reference to Schopenhauer who understands by this term some kind of guardian spirit which brings people together for reproduction in the interest of the species.44 In other words, it is a certain unegoistic motivating force which watches over the species by bringing people together for reproduction. For Nietzsche, what brings human

39 Lawlor (2002), p. 194. 40 Derrida (1973), p. 82. 41 Cf. Derrida (1973), p. 85. 42 Enwald (2004), p. 240. 43 One should take all these words, “possibly” (vielleicht), “extravagant” (ausschweifende) and “conjecture” (Vermutung), well into account. – There can be something in each of these words that is (and must remain) foreign to Husserl’s phenomenology. 44 Cf. WWR II, p. 549.

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beings together and unites them is of course not such a metaphysical “guardian spirit” but, as we will see in a moment, consciousness.45 So what does this possibly extravagant conjecture precisely consist in? According to Nietzsche, we are brought (particularly by physiology and natural history) to a new beginning of realisation with regard to consciousness. At this new beginning, one has understood at last that one can “think, feel, will” and “act” without consciousness; the sort of thinking which is a “becoming conscious” is only the smallest part of that what one thinks. And precisely for that reason one is compelled to ask a question which may even sound insulting to an older philosopher. The question is: “To what end does consciousness exist at all when it is basically superfluous?” (GS 354/FW 354). Nietzsche’s extravagant conjecture, which we have already mentioned several times, consists exactly in the answer to this delicate question. This answer is divided into at least two parts and in such a way that it seems as if Nietzsche is unable to pronounce the whole conjecture at once, as if he had thought that the reader would need some time to ruminate on the first part and thus gather some understanding for the second one. So let us turn to the first part of the conjecture: If one is willing to hear my answer and its possibly extravagant conjecture, it seems to me that the subtlety and strength of consciousness is always related to a person’s (or animal’s) ability to communicate; and the ability to communicate, in turn, to the need to communicate (GS 354/FW 354).46

The question that first arises is: what does this “subtlety and strength of consciousness” consist in? Nietzsche himself doesn’t say it explicitly, but he does give some illuminating hints when he for instance writes that as the most endangered animal the human being needed help and protection; to get help, he had to be able to express his neediness; and to express his needs, he first required consciousness in order “to ‘know’ what distressed him, to ‘know’ what he felt, to ‘know’ what he thought” (GS 354/FW 354). Therefore one could perhaps say that “the subtlety and strength” refers to the grades in which one can become conscious of one’s needs, to one’s skillfulness in observing and knowing the needs of the self. What does Nietzsche’s conjecture that “the subtlety and strength” of this knowing and observing is related to the ability to communicate and this in turn to the need to communicate imply? In the first place, it probably implies the idea that the increase and improve-

45 Cf. Garcia (2010). 46 Cf. NL 1884–85, KSA 11, 30[10], my translation: “The urge to think, the whole awareness (Bewusstheit), has first occurred on the basis of the urge to communicate oneself”.

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ment in the self’s self-knowledge with regard to its needs comes about by way of mediation through the other. One would like to know oneself better for the sole reason that one would thus be able to communicate oneself better to the other; one learns to know oneself better only insofar as one wants to communicate and reveal one’s needs to the other. For reasons that we are going to address below, one might be led to believe that precisely this wanting to know oneself necessarily excludes the knowing of the self, the encounter with oneself. In any case, Nietzsche’s statement might already entail some damaging consequences for the whole of Husserl’s phenomenology, in which the purity of meaning was sought precisely in solitary life, where all kind of communication has been completely interrupted. But let us read further and approach the other part of the conjecture, where everything is considerably intensified: Assuming this observation is correct, I may go on to conjecture that consciousness in general has developed only under the pressure of the need to communicate; that at the outset, consciousness was necessary, was useful, only between persons (particularly between those who commanded and those who obeyed); and that it has developed only in proportion to that usefulness (GS 354/FW 354).

As we can see, Nietzsche’s point of view seems to be precisely the opposite of Husserl’s – pure consciousness and the complete self-presence in solitary life is not only constantly contaminated by communication – somewhat like Derrida had demonstrated in his criticism of Husserl – , but consciousness in general, that is, solitary life, could only develop “under the pressure of the need to communicate”. The development of consciousness is accordingly clearly traced back to the needs, and particularly – and that would probably be even worse from Husserl’s point of view – to the needs of communication. The sole purpose of consciousness would be to connect persons. And this function did not belong only to one stage of the development of consciousness; as becomes clear from the aphorism – it is the “essence” of consciousness: “Consciousness is really just a net connecting one person with another – only in this capacity did it have to develop; the solitary and predatory person would not have needed it” (GS 354/FW 354). It seems to be a quite radical reversal of perspectives in the tradition of philosophy. Thus consciousness is from the beginning something social. The human being needed help and protection, and in order to express himself to others, in order to make himself understandable as well and easily as possible, he first had to know himself, to have consciousness of himself.47 Further, Nietz47 Cf. Nietzsche’s words from Beyond Good and Evil: “Now, assuming that needs have only ever brought people together when they could somehow indicate similar requirements and similar experiences with similar signs, then it follows, on the whole, that the easy communi-

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sche writes that only “conscious thinking takes place in words, that is, in communication symbols; and this fact discloses the origin of consciousness. […] the development of language and the development of consciousness go hand in hand” (GS 354/FW 354). Hence, the origin of consciousness is language. At least in some sense a similar insight appeared from Derrida’s analysis, although he probably would not put it in terms of origin; but he would say that consciousness is already from the beginning contaminated by what he calls protowriting. Nietzsche goes on to say that conscious thinking is only “the shallowest, worst part” of thinking, “that consciousness actually belongs not to man’s existence as an individual but rather to the community- and herd-aspects of his nature […].” And although all our actions are at bottom “incomparably and utterly personal, unique and boundlessly individual”, as soon as we try to know ourselves, we “will always bring to consciousness precisely that in ourselves which is ‘non-individual’, that which is ‘average’ […]” (GS 354/FW 354). This “incomparably and utterly personal” could probably be related to the “unconscious virtues”, which Nietzsche believes to be possible (GS 8/FW 8), and which could threaten the whole treatment of decision in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. But let us ask ourselves whether there is a certain contradiction here. If it really is physiology that compels us to ask to what end there is consciousness, and that draws our attention to the fact that conscious thinking and conscious actions are only a part of thinking and acting and that they are even the worst, shallowest part of this, how could one, then, understand this boundless individuality and uniqueness of unconscious actions? Doesn’t physiology precisely dissolve individuality? Are we not, physiologically, quite similar to each other? But that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case; even on the physiological level the differences may be considerable. Nevertheless, physiology is a science which, as every science, operates with general concepts and cability of needs (which ultimately means having only average and base experiences) must have been the most forceful of the forces that have controlled people so far” (BGE 268/JGB 268). Interestingly enough, in this aphorism, which is obviously very similar to ours, words like “consciousness” or “awareness” (Bewusstheit) are completely absent. But even more important is the fact that since Nietzsche speaks here of “average and base experiences“ as a prerequisite of understanding, and since “the easy communicability of needs“ is identified with “having only average and base experiences”, the meaning of words is “reduced” to psychical acts or experiences in a more or less Husserlian sense. But in aphorism 354 from The Gay Science, Nietzsche seems rather to say that our experiences (although he doesn’t use that word there) are at bottom totally individual, and only at the moment when they become conscious (that is, signs), does generalisation take place. So in this aphorism (which was written later than the one from BGE/JGB) the psychical acts, experiences, intentions and so on do not control, at least not exclusively, the meanings of words.

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generalisations, and so it cannot possibly discover the boundless individuality of every person of which Nietzsche speaks. Physiology is a conscious scientific practice, but precisely in consciousness individuality evaporates. But the point just seems to be that physiology and natural history only suggest to us the importance of unconscious activity. The second claim, that this activity is “incomparably and utterly personal” and boundlessly individual, does not probably have anything to do with physiology. That is Nietzsche’s own claim. So Nietzsche states that as soon as we try consciously to understand and know ourselves, as soon as we reflect upon ourselves, we never really reach ourselves; what we reach is only the “non-individual”. But is there any other way to know oneself than through consciousness? Consciousness is already there as soon as one reflects upon oneself, as soon as one tries to know “what one is”; consciousness is hidden in every type of self-knowledge; there can be no self-knowledge without consciousness. Which in turn means that a human being can never know himself or herself, and this not-knowing-oneself is a necessity that cannot be eliminated. The human being is always already late to himself. Trying to understand “myself” (my uniqueness), which really means reflecting and mirroring myself to myself, produces a copy of me (a reflection of me) which is already different from my “unique and individual” self. In Derrida’s terms, one could even say that precisely this reflection of oneself produces the subjectivity as such. But if the only way to know oneself is through consciousness, how do we know anything about one’s “boundless individuality”, how do we know that it exists at all? And what does Nietzsche mean by that, is it some kind of pre-reflective stage of life? At any rate, we see also here this crack and gap at work which comes to divide the subject. The subject is never present to itself; in a certain sense, it is constantly the other of itself. This crack obviously contests the traditional philosophical idea of the subject as “a spiritual substance who can study itself in the self-reflection, and in doing so the subject would always encounter himself”.48 On the contrary, due to this gap, one never encounters oneself. And this crack would be there even if there were a kind of self-knowledge without language: this crack would come to divide the subject as soon as one admits that there is temporalization in every self-relation. For Nietzsche, though, there is no consciousness without language (at least not the degree of consciousness available to human beings; we shall approach this problem in a moment); and it is precisely language which robs us of our individuality. Also in relation to Derrida we saw above that the possibility of repetition of a sign necessarily presupposes the possibil-

48 Enwald (2004), p. 238.

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ity of my (individual) absence. Of course once again Nietzsche does not put it in these terms: This is what I consider to be true phenomenalism and perspectivism: that due to the nature of animal consciousness, the world of which we can become conscious is merely a surface- and sign-world, a world turned into generalities […] that everything which enters consciousness thereby becomes shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, a sign […] (GS 354/FW 354).

How should the “nature of animal consciousness” be understood? Does Nietzsche, like Schopenhauer, ascribe consciousness to animals? But that can be tantamount to a certain contradiction. For he said earlier that only conscious thinking takes place in words and communication symbols, and this fact was supposed to “disclose the origin of consciousness”. Do animals have language too, then? At least they do not have it in the rigorous sense of language based on the use of words and linguistic signs. Is it a contradiction, then? Not necessarily. At the beginning of the aphorism Nietzsche admitted that animals have at least the ability to communicate (which was in turn related to the need to communicate) and he related that ability to the subtlety and strength of consciousness. But the ability to communicate might, perhaps, presuppose already some kind of pre-language (understood perhaps as “looks, touches and gestures”, GS 354/FW 354). Human beings, as Nietzsche said, were the most endangered animals and for that reason they had to develop a better and higher ability to communicate themselves, that is, they needed a language in a rigorous sense of the word. So we can understand it in terms of degrees: animals had a lower ability (and a lower need) to communicate and therefore also a lower degree of consciousness. Thus when Nietzsche said that the origin of consciousness can be found in words and communication symbols, then he perhaps just forgot to add that in this passage he means consciousness in the high degree which is common to humans as the most endangered animals. But there is another complexity with regard to this “animal consciousness”. At the beginning of the aphorism Nietzsche said that it is physiology and natural history (Thiergeschichte) which bring us to the initial realisation that one can feel, will and act without consciousness. But if in addition to physiology it is also Thiergeschichte that brings us to this realisation, does this not indirectly imply that animals do not have consciousness? Did not Nietzsche just use the expression “animal consciousness” and even emphasised a certain continuity between animal and “human” consciousness? In spite of that, I do not see a real contradiction here either. Even if animals in general have, according to Nietzsche, something like consciousness, there still might be – that is how Nietzsche might have thought – types of animals (perhaps in the

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history and formation of animals) who lacked that which could be rigorously called consciousness. Or there might be animals that have consciousness in such a low degree that they can still convince us of, and give us insight into, the importance of unconscious activities (and the superfluousness of consciousness).49

V Re-turn to the I But let us go back to the I with which we began this article. In the beginning of the above quotation, Nietzsche emphasises the word I (“this is what I consider”). First, this is – supposedly – an expression and stressing of individuality in comparison to others: “I, Friedrich Nietzsche, am the only one to consider phenomenalism and perspectivism so and so”; “I am the one who I am. Above all, do not mistake me for anyone else!” (EH Preface 1/EH Vorrede 1). At first, according to Husserl, this “I” is an indication, that is, it has no real meaning since, according to him, as we have seen, the complete meaning of the “I” can only be found in solitary life. Hence, when Nietzsche said it to himself in his solitary life before writing it down, this word would have had its full meaning as an immediate idea of his own personality. Is this really so? Reading this word at the present moment, we do understand it, it is quite meaningful for us; and the reason for that lies in the simple fact that this “I” has little to do with the person who has written it down or pronounced it. Or, in Derrida’s own words: “My death is structurally necessary to the pronouncing of the I”.50 Only on the basis of the ideality of meaning of the I can one account for the fact that we understand the word “I” not only when its author is dead, but also when he is completely fictitious.51 Nietzsche obviously knows quite well that the possibility of his death is implied as soon as he, wanting to designate himself, says or writes the word “I”. He is conscious of the fact that there is no consciousness without common language, and that a subject, as soon as he tries to understand himself as individually as possible, as soon as he tries to express his individuality, always brings to consciousness precisely the “non-individual”. From Nietzsche’s point

49 There is still one more question to be asked: why is it due to the nature of animal consciousness that the world we can become conscious of is merely a surface- and sign-world? I cannot go into this problem here but one possible answer has been given by Constâncio (2011a) in his article “On Consciousness: Nietzsche’s Departure from Schopenhauer”. 50 Derrida (1973), p. 96. 51 Derrida (1973), p. 96.

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of view, the Husserlian conception of the immediate presence of psychical acts in consciousness would certainly be quite untenable. But, in spite of this, he does consciously emphasise the I in the sentence “this is what I consider to be (…)” Does he attempt to underline his individuality with this emphasis? But that would be tantamount to a paradox. Or – and this would probably fit better into the context – does this mean the death of his “I”, of his individuality? This is of course not the only time he emphasises this word, and one can find the same emphasis particularly in Ecce Homo where he wants to say: “who I am” (EH Preface 1/EH Vorrede 1). The possibility of saying “who I am” presupposes, as we have seen, the possibility of my death, of my non-being. Does Nietzsche mean with this emphasis an extreme form of amor fati, that is, of an eternally recurring affirmation of the death of one’s innermost personality as soon as one utters the word “I”? However, there is obviously more to it than that. In Nietzsche’s time, it was not very common and usual to emphasise this word, just as little as it was common to tell “why I write such good books” or “why I am so wise” (in philosophy, it will probably never become common). As he, Friedrich Nietzsche, used this word in a new and novel way, he could, in spite of everything, leave a trace of his individuality or personality into the “system” of language. Hence, this emphasised “I” is nothing less than a paradox: an affirmation and emphasis of the death of the proper, as well as an expression of a certain “individuality” of Nietzsche.

Bibliography Bennington, Geoffrey (1999), “Derridabase”, in: Bennington, G./Derrida, J., Jacques Derrida, trans. by G. Bennington, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. Constâncio, João (2011a), “On Consciousness: Nietzsche’s Departure from Schopenhauer”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 40, pp. 1–42. Derrida, Jacques (1973), Speech and Phenomena. And Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, tranls. by David A. Allison, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1989), Edmund Husserl’s “Origin of Geometry”: An Introduction, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Enwald, Marika (2004), Displacements of Deconstruction: The Deconstruction of Metaphysics of Presence, Meaning, Subject and Method, Diss., Tampere: Tampereen yliopistopaino Oy Juvenes Print. Garcia, André Muniz (2010,), “Nietzsche’s Umdeutung von Schopenhauers ‘Genius der Gattung’ in Jenseits von Gut und Böse 268 und Fröhliche Wissenschaft 354”, in: Campioni, G./Piazzesi, C./Wotling, P. (eds.), Letture de La Gaia Scienza, Pisa: ETS, pp. 143–156. Husserl, Edmund (2001), Logical Investigations. Vol. I, ed. by Dermot Moran, transl. by J. N. Findlay, New York: Routledge.

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Kupin, Alexander (2010), “Die Gefahr des Bewusstseins. Nietzsche über ‘Bewusstheit’ und ‘Sich-Bewusst-Werden’ in FW 11 und FW 354”, in: Campioni, G./Piazzesi, C./Wotling, P. (eds.), Letture de La Gaia Scienza, Pisa: ETS, pp. 131–142. Lawlor, Leonard (2002), Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Mohanty, Jitendra N. (2008), The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl, New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Sooväli, Jaanus (2010), “Die Abwesenheit des Ich und das Fremde des Bewusstseins: Nietzsche und Derrida gegen Husserl”, in: Campioni, G./Piazzesi, C./Wotling, P. (eds.), Letture de La Gaia Scienza, Pisa: ETS, pp. 173–186. Tewes, Ulrich (1994), Schrift und Metaphysik, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.

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Drives, Instincts, Language, and Consciousness in Daybreak 119: ‘Erleben und Erdichten’ I In a few aphorisms from Book II of Daybreak, Nietzsche constructs a psychology that aims to reinforce and consolidate his critique of moral prejudices. The hypotheses that he sketches in these aphorisms will remain unchanged till the end of his theoretical activity, although he sometimes formulates and modulates them in a different way. Put very simply, those hypotheses can be stated as follows. There is really no such thing as an “I” or “ego”. The “ego” is just a construction and an abstract entity (D 105/M 105). If an ego exists at all, its complexity escapes our understanding and it can hardly be expressed by language. The “so-called ‘ego’” is a multiplicity of processes and drives about which we can have no more than a delusion of real knowledge (D 115/M 115).1 The language and the sensorial organisation that constitute our consciousness are rough “nets” or “webs” that imprison us and are unable to filter, at the level of consciousness, the processes and drives that actually occur. Such processes and drives are, therefore, unknowable (D 115/M 115, D 117/M 117). The actions that are usually attributed to a “subject” are unknown and unknowable (D 116/M 116), and the motives that determine them are obscure. We know that we act but we do not know the motives of our actions – motives which are in constant conflict amongst themselves below the level of consciousness. This is tantamount to saying that we systematically act without knowing why we are acting. But if we do not know the motives of our actions, how can we be entirely responsible for them and say that we act intentionally (D 129/M 129)? Such questions problematise the concepts of “will”, “intention”, and “responsibility”, which thereby become radically questionable. As an alternative to the theoretical idols that are thus made to fall, Nietzsche proposes the primacy of “chance” (Zufall) as the source of what happens at a variety of levels (D 119/M 119, D 130/M 130).

1 For an extensive discussion of Nietzsche’s conception of “drive” (Trieb), I allow myself to refer the reader to my book, Lupo (2006), Le colombe dello scettico, Chapter I. The text that follows resumes what I have written in Chapters II and III of my book. I dedicate this article to the memory of Sergio Franzese (1963–2010)

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The whole edifice of morality – conceived of as a science about the actions of a subject of willing – becomes problematic if one asserts that (i) the “I” does not exist except in the sense of a complex configuration of drives (D 115/ M 115, D 119/M 119); (ii) the will does not exist and should be substituted by a pulsional determinism which is psychophysiological in nature; (iii) action cannot be known because the net of pulsional motives that determine it are imponderable and incommensurable, so that any efforts to domesticate our drives are illusory (D 109/M 109). Aphorism 119 is at the centre of this whole web of aphorisms. I shall try, first, to give a brief account of its content, and then focus on a few of its most important points. The essence (Wesen) of the individual consists in a connected multiplicity of drives. Due to its extreme complexity this pulsional configuration can only be known by approximation. Only the roughest, most extreme drives can be expressed by language. Already in D 115/M 115 Nietzsche had pointed out how difficult it is to describe the drives in linguistic terms. Nietzsche does not explain clearly what the drives are supposed to be, although he makes some efforts to this effect in the notebooks. But here in D 119/M 119 he suddenly focuses on a property that characterises them. Whatever they really are, one can at least say that they are something that seeks nutriment (Ernährung). And they find nutriment in the experiences an individual goes through (i.e., in his or her “lived” experiences, in his or her Erlebnisse) – an individual, let us not forget, whose essence consists precisely in the whole multiplicity of those same drives. “Chance” is here presented as the determining factor that gives nutriment to the drives. However, chance promotes an unequal development of the drives, so that some will effectively find nutriment while others will languish. Nietzsche compares the pulsional configuration resulting from chance processes of nutrition to a polyp. The drives’ nourishment is “a work of chance” (D 119/M 119): “every moment of our lives sees some of the polyp-arms of our being grow and others of them wither” – and “as a consequence of this chance nourishment of the parts, the whole, fully grown polyp will be something just as accidental as its growth has been” (D 119/M 119). Nietzsche now puts forward the hypothesis that when the drives cannot find nutriment they seek to satisfy their needs by means of imaginary or virtual gratification. The drives now tend to imagine or invent (erdichten) a substitute form of gratification. They invent the lived experience (Erlebniss) that they were unable to find in reality. Hence the compensating function of the oneiric activity that is carried out by what Nietzsche calls our “inventive reason” (dichtende Vernunft): the activ-

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ity whereby the drives “interpret” nervous stimuli and “posit their ‘causes’”, always “according to their [own] needs” (D 119/M 119, translation modified).2 Nietzsche then ventures the hypothesis that such a tendency to fabricate or construct imaginary causes in relation to particular nervous stimuli – a construction that aims at the virtual gratification of the drives – does not occur only in dreams or during sleep, but also in our “waking life” (D 119/M 119). And so he asks whether there is any “essential difference between waking and dreaming?” (D 119/M 119). In both psychic states the main activity of the drives seems indeed to be the fabrication, construction, or “poetical” invention (Erdichtung) of experiences (Erlebnisse) that nourish them. Since the available experiences or stimuli are a matter of chance and cannot satisfy the needs of nourishment of all the drives, the latter cannot but interpret the stimuli so as to make them offer gratification, reelaborating and adjusting them in ways that go well beyond their original capacity or adequacy to respond to particular needs and pulsional demands. If a drive does not manage to make the stimulus/ experience able to satisfy its own need of nourishment, then that drive interprets the incoming stimulus as if it were adequate to its needs. In other words, the drive constructs, invents at will, an adequate stimulus. From this follows the last, and most decisive, hypothesis about the nature of consciousness – the hypothesis towards which the whole aphorism converges. It is presented together with other hypotheses in the form of a question, as the climax of a crescendo effect. The formulation of hypotheses in the form of questions – I shall come back to this – seems to be part of Nietzsche’s scepticism, an extreme expansion of the conjectural nature of his thought. It expresses the intention to leave the philosophical research open to the possibility of finding new horizons of development, in accordance with Nietzsche’s conception of knowledge as a relentless activity of experimentation. He writes: […] but do I have to add that when we are awake our drives likewise do nothing but interpret nervous stimuli and, according to their needs, posit their ‘causes’? that there is no essential difference between waking and dreaming? that when we compare very different stages of culture we even find that freedom of waking interpretation in the one is in no way inferior to the freedom exercised in the other while dreaming? that our moral judgements and evaluations too are only images and fantasies based on a physiological process unknown to us, a kind of acquired language for designating certain nervous stimuli? that all our so-called consciousness is a more or less fantastic commentary on an unknown, perhaps unknowable, but felt text? (D 119/M 119, translation modified).

2 Cf. M 119: “[…] muss ich aber ausführen, dass unsere Triebe im Wachen ebenfalls nichts Anderes thun, als die Nervenreize interpretiren und nach ihrem Bedürfnisse deren ‘Ursachen’ ansetzen?”.

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This definition of consciousness marks a break between the most “theoretical” part of the aphorism and the final part, in which Nietzsche gives two concrete examples that aim to support the arguments presented in the first part. The first example, which shows how the same experience can be lived in many different ways depending on the individual that goes through it, aims to make clear that there actually is an “inventive reason” as described above. We shall consider the second example more extensively below. Towards the end of the aphorism, Nietzsche asks rhetorically, “What then are our experiences (Erlebnisse)?” (D 119/M 119). In view of the arguments developed along the aphorism, the answer can only confirm the equivalence between “to live an experience” (Erleben) and “to invent” (Erdichten). This answer is quite pregnant with implications for the very concept of “reality” as a whole. For it adumbrates the hypothesis that human beings invent or construct themselves and their world – and that, in fact, this applies not only to human beings but to all living organisms, in which a creative force is always at work. This is a hypothesis that Nietzsche will develop and deepen later, especially in the notebooks. Thus a paradoxical circularity is sanctioned: a circularity between what it means “to live an experience” (Erleben) and “to invent” (Erdichten), such that “to invent” is tantamount to inventing experiences (Erlebnisse) and “to live an experience” consists in going through an experience that has been invented. To this one must add that the author of the experience, the conscious subject, is in turn an invention that also results from the creative process. And the inevitable outcome of these acrobatic and dizzying hypotheses put forward by Nietzsche is an ontological collapse that dissolves all categories of interiority and exteriority – as for instance subject and object, or author and action. In the end, it seems, only the concept of creative activity remains standing.

II An important aspect that emerges from Nietzsche’s reflections in D 119/M 119 concerns the “inventive reason’s” activity. Let us consider how he describes such an activity. The inventive reason is committed to produce “inventions, which give scope and discharge to our drives” (D 119/M 119). Such inventions are further described as “interpretations” of our nervous stimuli. The inventive reason “imagines today a cause for the nervous stimuli so very different from the cause it imagined yesterday, though the stimuli are the same” (D 119/M 119). But this “inventive reason” (or “the inventive reasoning faculty”, according

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to Hollingdale’s translation) is nothing more than a name for a specific and fundamental activity of the drives. A little bit further in the text, Nietzsche directly attributes to the drives this activity of interpreting the stimuli and constructing causes. In fact, the drives “do nothing but interpret nervous stimuli and, according to their requirements, posit their ‘causes’” (D 119/M 119). Judgements and evaluations are just an example of causes that the inventive reason creates in order to explain certain nervous stimuli: Nietzsche describes such judgements and evaluations as “only images and fantasies based on a physiological process unknown to us, a kind of acquired language for designating certain nervous stimuli” (D 119/M 119).3 Images, fantasies, and “causes” constructed by the pulsional activity of our inventive reason finally converge in “consciousness”, an outcome which, as we saw, Nietzsche describes as “a more or less fantastic commentary on an unknown, perhaps unknowable, but felt text” (D 119/M 119).4 If we try to schematise all the stages of the process whereby the inventive reason produces this outcome, we find that at its basis is the nervous stimulus. This nervous stimulus, which belongs to the physiological sphere, is then transformed into – or we could say “translated into” – an image, a fantasy, a representation or a linguistic expression. Put differently, the stimulus is subject to a process of metamorphosis. Nietzsche does not explain how this transition or translation occurs – he just presents it as a hypothesis. His idea is that the fundamental operation that the inventive reason must accomplish is that of translating – or, in other words, the operation of providing linguistic mediation. And the essential problem this mediation must solve is how to interpret the stimulus and enable a transition from the physiological to the fully psychological sphere of representation. Thus the “language” spoken by the nervous stimulus becomes a verbal or representative language, an image or a word. The inventive reason deals with hermeneutical problems, and it does this by undertaking a sort of philology of stimuli in the service of the drives and their gratification. However, the inventive reason is always confronted with a problem. This is the irreducibility between the two spheres that it is supposed to bridge, the physiological and the logico-representative spheres, which, according to Nietzsche, are linguistically – but not ontologically – irreducible to one 3 Cf. M 119: “[…] dass auch unsere moralischen Urtheile und Werthschätzungen nur Bilder und Phantasien über einen uns unbekannten physiologischen Vorgang sind, eine Art angewöhnter Sprache, gewisse Nervenreize zu bezeichnen […]?”. 4 Cf. M 119: “[…] dass all unser sogenanntes Bewusstsein ein mehr oder weniger phantastischer Commentar über einen ungewussten, vielleicht unwissbaren, aber gefühlten Text ist?”.

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another. The only possible way to comment on a text one does not know or which is inaccessible or which is written in a language we do not know is literally to invent (Erdichten) a commentary. The inventive reason has no alternative but to invent the translation of a language it actually does not know. Hence the paradoxical definition of consciousness as a commentary on an unknown text. Like the ignorant protagonist of Searle’s Chinese room experiment – who by merely assembling ideograms gives the false impression of understanding their meaning5 – , thus our consciousness expresses itself through words and images whose origin it ignores, and whose ultimate meaning has been established elsewhere.

III D 119/M 119 is dominated by the use of hermeneutical, philological and linguistic images: the oneiric inventions are interpretations of stimuli, judgements and moral evaluations are a language that designates or uses signs to express (bezeichnen) certain nervous stimuli, and consciousness is defined as a commentary on an unknown text. The philological and exegetical metaphor of consciousness as “a more or less fantastic commentary on an unknown, perhaps, unknowable, but felt text” (D 119/M 119) has a very precise theoretical value. It underlines the crucial intertwinement between consciousness and language, which Nietzsche had already anticipated in D 115/M 115 by using the text metaphor and writing that “we misread ourselves in this apparently most intelligible of handwriting on the nature of our self (scheinbar deutlichsten Buchstabenschrift unseres Selbst)” (D 115/M 115). In addition to highlighting this firm link between consciousness and language, D 115/M 115 also emphasises that there is a line of demarcation – which is irreducible from the viewpoint of consciousness – between our linguistic conscious experience and the ultimately unknown universe of the drives: “We are none of us that which we appear to be in accordance with the states for which alone we have consciousness and words” (D 115/M 115). In defining the unconscious as a “text” and consciousness as a “commentary” – and thus in comparing our whole psycho-physiological activity to specific linguistic practices – Nietzsche interprets the whole psycho-physiological, or psycho-physical, universe as a linguistic fact. His view includes the hypoth-

5 Cf. Searle (1981).

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esis that also in the unconscious part of this universe there is a specific linguistic activity at work, although one which cannot be translated into conscious terms. But if on the one hand the two languages – the conscious and the unconscious – are irreducible to one another, on the other hand one should see all conscious activity as a sign or symptom of unconscious activity, i.e., as a projection of unconscious activity. Therefore, consciousness and the unconscious are irreducible to one another, but they are also united by the fact that both should be described as some sort of “linguistic” activity. I have tried to sketch above the process of metaphorisation that our inventive reason carries out. At the root of this process, there is a nervous stimulus which is transformed or “translated” into images or words. Once the process is described in these terms, it becomes clear that what is being described should not be a novelty to Nietzsche’s readers. For Nietzsche had already described it in the unpublished essay On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense. There, Nietzsche uses the same explanatory scheme – borrowed from G. Gerber – to describe the process in which language originates.6 A well-known passage reads as follows: “What is a word? The copy of a nervous stimulation in sounds” (TL 1, 144/WL 1). And more specifically: “The stimulation of a nerve is first translated into an image: first metaphor! This image is then imitated by a sound: second metaphor! And each time there is a complete leap from one sphere into the heart of another, new sphere” (TL 1, 144/WL 1). Elsewhere Nietzsche speaks of concepts as “the left-over residue of a metaphor” (TL 1, 147/WL 1), and describes “the illusion produced by the artistic translation of a nervous stimulus into images” as “if not the mother, at least the

6 In TL, Nietzsche explores the thesis on the origin of words and concepts developed by Gustav Gerber (1871) in his Die Sprache als Kunst. According to Gerber, words emerge from the translation of nervous stimuli into images and then into sounds. As a few posthumous notes from 1884 testify, Nietzsche will come back to this thesis: “First, images – to explain how images emerge in our spirit. Then, words applied to images. Finally, concepts, which only become possible when there are words – a subsumption of many images under something which is not intuitive, but audible (word)” (NL 1884, KSA 11, 25[168], editors’ translation). In addition, Nietzsche also considers the problem of the origin of language from an evolutionary perspective: “We were already creators of forms long before we created concepts. The concept emerged only when we subsumed many images by means of a sound: therefore, when we rubricated the inner optical phenomena with our ear” (NL 1884, KSA 11, 25[463], editors’ translation). Every transition from the stimuli to the images and from the images to the sounds involves a qualitative leap that makes the successive stages incommensurable with each other. The outcome of any given stage is an interpretation and, precisely on account of that, a misunderstanding of the previous stage: the word does not replicate the images and the images do not replicate the nervous stimuli. On this theme, see Borsche/Gerratana/Venturelli (1994), Meijers (1988), Crawford (1988).

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grandmother of each and every concept” (TL 1, 147/WL 1). A little bit further in the text, Nietzsche underlines the decisive fact that “the relation of a nervous stimulus to the image produced thereby is inherently not a necessary relationship” and the relation of the former to the latter is not “a relation of strict causality” (TL 1, 149/WL 1). This confirms the semantic independence of the interpretive activity from the stimulus which occasions it, as well as the primacy of a “drive to form metaphors” (TL 2, 150/WL 2). And this is highly evocative of the inventive reason of D 119/M 119: “That drive to form metaphors, that fundamental human drive which cannot be left out of consideration for even a second without also leaving out human beings themselves, is in truth not defeated, indeed hardly even tamed, by the process whereby a regular and rigid new world is built from its own sublimated products – concepts – in order to imprison it in a fortress” (TL 2, 150–151/WL 2). While in TL the conceptual world is the effect of a free interpretation of nervous stimuli carried out by the fundamental human drive to create metaphors, in D 119/M 119 the whole reality perceived by consciousness both in dreams and in waking life becomes a construction built by an inventive reason which is driven by our pulsional life to produce causes on the basis of the interpretation of nervous stimuli. There is another aspect that confirms that this is not just a casual assonance between two texts written so far apart in time. In both texts Nietzsche uses the term “nervous stimulus” (Nervenreiz), and this indicates that we should in fact establish a more than hypothetical link between D 119/M 119 and TL.7 Moreover, a lexical research confirms that Nietzsche uses the term Nervenreiz only in these two texts.8 The question of the problematic relationship between sleep and vigil and the question of consciousness are other themes common to D 119/M 119 and TL/WL, and these correlations make clear that Nietzsche must have had the text of TL/WL under his eyes when he wrote D 119/M 119. In TL/WL, the metaphorical image of consciousness as a Bewusstseinszimmer (“a chamber of consciousness”) resting on “the pitiless, the greedy, the insatiable, the murderous”, of consciousness as a place where man is locked in, “clinging in dreams, as it were, to the back of a tiger” (TL 1, 142–143/WL 1)9 – this metaphorical image expresses quite well the relationship, which is

7 This link becomes quite clear in Daybreak’s critical apparatus: KGW V/3, p. 680. 8 Or, more precisely still, apart from its occurrence in these two texts, it only seems to occur in Nietzsche’s notes to his “Lectures on Ancient Rhetoric”, cf. KGW II/4, p. 426. 9 This imagery, with just a few variations, is in fact taken from one of the Five Prefaces to Five Unwritten Books, cf. KSA 1, p. 760.

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more analytically described in D 119/M 119, between the illusoriness of the world of consciousness (a world consisting of dreams that are created both with closed and open eyes inside the “chamber of consciousness”) and the underlying life of the drives, upon which that world of consciousness is dependent. The wild tiger of TL/WL becomes in D 119/M 119 the polyp at the mercy of chance. And the metaphorical image of the “chamber of consciousness” in TL/WL recalls another aphorism from Book II of Daybreak, a fact which confirms again that Nietzsche had his old unpublished text well in mind while he was working on his new one. I am, of course, referring to D 117/M 117 and its claustrophobic description of man locked within the realm of his own senses like in a prison. Towards the end of this aphorism another animal is added to the Nietzschean bestiary, namely when Nietzsche compares the situation of human beings – who are unable to free themselves from their own sensorial apparatus – to that of spiders, which are prisoners (but also, let us not forget, creators) of their own cobwebs: “there is absolutely no escape, no backway or bypath into the real world! We sit within our net, we spiders, and whatever we can catch in it, we can catch nothing at all except that which allows itself to be caught in precisely our net” (D 117/M 117). While in D 117/ M 117 our senses are the threads of the nets that imprison us, in TL these threads are our representations of space and time: “[…] these we produce within ourselves and from ourselves with the same necessity as a spider spins; if we are forced to comprehend all things under these forms alone, then it is no longer wonderful that what we comprehend in all these things is actually nothing other than these very forms” (TL 1, 150/WL 1).

IV Let us now go back to the concept of “inventive reason”. It is no wonder that Nietzsche will develop and progressively expand his reflection on this concept – and thus in his notebooks from the period 1884–1886 the “inventive reason” appears as the “creative force” which is the fundamental trait of all living things, human and non-human. “The whole of the organic world is the threading together of beings (die Aneinanderfädelung von Wesen)” whose “fundamental capacity” (Grundfähigkeit) is “the capacity to create (fashion, fabricate, invent)” (die Fähigkeit zum Schaffen (Gestalten Erfinden Erdichten), NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[247] = WLN, 14–15). All organisms fabricate their own world around them. They create “little fabricated worlds” (erdichteten kleinen Welten) because they project “their strength, their desires, their habits outside themselves, as their external world” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[247] = WLN, 14–

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15) – in the guise of valuations and signs. In their external world organisms do not deal directly with the originary “chaos” or “hubbub” (Wirrwarr) of the stimuli, but always already with the simplified elaboration of such a chaos, that is to say, with valuations and signs: we “filtrate, as it were, what actually happens (das thatsächliche Geschehen) through a simplifying-apparatus (Simplifications-Apparat)” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[249], editors’ translation). There is something in us which “is so strong that it governs among all the activities of our senses, and reduces, regulates, assimilates, etc., for us the abundance of real perceptions (unconscious ones –), presenting them to our consciousness only in this trimmed form (Gestalt). This ‘logical’, this ‘artistic’ element is our continual occupation” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[49] = WLN, 3). We know already “what made this force (Kraft) so sovereign”: “Obviously the fact that without it, for sheer hubbub (Wirrwarr) of impressions, no living being would live” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[49] = WLN, 3). There is a creative force “in us” and “in fact the existing world that is relevant to us is created by ourselves (von uns geschaffen)” (NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[203], editors’ translation) – and Nietzsche, after writing this, repeats the expression “by ourselves” (von uns), as if he had suddenly realised that the use of that pronoun is problematic and had asked himself: “but to whom does this ‘us’ refer to?”. After this hesitation Nietzsche resumes his thought and explains: “ – by us, i.e. by all organic beings”. Then he finally decides to confirm that the world is “a product of the organic process that appears [in all organic beings] as productively form-giving (produktiv-gestaltend)” (NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[203], editors’ translation). “The capacity to live promotes this inventive force (diese dichtende Kraft)”, i.e., an inventive or “poetic” (dichtende) force that is able to “posit an image, make it ready, on the basis of just a few indications”, and so that it is also able to “posit something as permanent (bleibend)” (NL 1884, KSA 11, 25[116], editors’ translation) precisely where the relentless flux of the impressions would otherwise never allow a perception of something stable. Due to this creative drive everything organic is able to judge and act “like an artist”. And the product of the creative force at work in living beings is reality itself, the world of conscious experience: “Our ‘external world’ is a product of fantasy, for the construction of which previous fantasies were used again as habitual and well-practised activities. Colours, sounds are fantasies, they do not correspond exactly to the mechanistic, real process, but rather to individual states” (NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[13], editors’ translation). Therefore, “the genesis of ‘things’ is wholly the work of the imaginers, thinkers, willers, inventors – the very concept of ‘thing’ (Ding) as well as all qualities” (NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 2[152] = WLN, 91). Sensitive beings as “authors” of these processes are also

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included among their own creations: “Even the ‘subject’ is something created in this way, is a ‘thing’ like all the others: a simplification to designate as such the force which posits, invents, thinks, as distinct from all individual positing, inventing, thinking. Thus, the capacity is designated, as distinct from all individual cases” (NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 2[152] = WLN, 91). The creative process emerges here as a form of autopoiesis, whose particular way of experiencing consists, as we saw, in inventing the experience itself. It is a form of autopoiesis that is supplied with the peculiar property of perceiving itself as separated from itself – a property we usually designate with the word “consciousness”.

V The autobiographical episode that Nietzsche recounts in the final part of D 119/M 119 exemplifies two kinds of judgements: instinctive and intellectual judgements. The drives’ intelligence manifests itself in the activity of judgement. Judgement concerns, first of all, the dynamics of the physiological and organic. The processes and operations that must occur in order for the organs to function, i.e. the succession of operations that an organ must accomplish in order for a particular function to work, depend on a continual activity of judging. In a certain sense, one can say that when an organ, a kidney for example, performs its function, it makes operative a whole series of judgements. The “judgements” thus made operative in the organ’s functioning are not propositional, but they are part of all the chemical processes involved in the very activity of the organ. The organ’s functionality depends in fact on its capacity to give an adequate reaction to environmental stimuli, and such a capacity hinges upon a “judgement”, which Nietzsche defines precisely as “an interpretation of the stimulus” (Auslegung des Reizes, NL 1880–81, KSA 9, 10[F100], editors’ translation). We can conceive of first order judgements, i.e., of judgements resulting from simple organic processes, by analogy with the judgements of the linguistic, propositional and conscious kind – which, however, are strictly related to the “organic”, “bodily” judgements. Both kinds of judgement carry out semiotic processes of interpretation, both when these processes occur through a chemical “language” and when they occur through a representative language, i.e. through language proper. In the light of this conception of judgement, one can then understand Nietzsche’s conception of “instinct”.

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As Nietzsche writes in one of the few definitions that can be found in the notebooks: I speak of instinct when a certain judgement (taste at its lowest level) is incorporated, so that now it stimulates itself spontaneously and no longer needs to wait for stimul” (NL 1881, KSA 19, 11[164], editors’ translation).10

The activity of judgement becomes spontaneous because it “no longer needs to wait for stimuli”, and this is possible on account of the incorporation of the judgement itself. The memory that results from this process of incorporation contributes in a decisive way to the formation of the instinct. We can speak of instinct as judgement plus memory, for in fact […] memory is the multitude of experiences (Erlebnisse) of all organic life, experiences that have life, organise themselves, give form to each other, fight among themselves, simplify themselves, condensate themselves and transform themselves into multiple unities. There must be an inner process that takes place in the same way as the formation of concepts out of particular instances: the ground-schema is made to stand out in relief and underscored over and over again, while the secondary traits are omitted. – So long as something can still be reversed into a particular fact, it has not yet been melted down: the most recent experiences are still swimming at the surface. Feelings of sympathy, antipathy etc. are symptoms which show that unities have already been formed; our socalled ‘instincts’ are such formations (NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[94], editors’ translation).

Thus, instinct is something that emerges from the stratification, incorporation and organisation of judgements on the basis of memory. The judgements which are memorised and from which the instincts are derived are, in their turn, a product of the drives and their experiences. Hence, instinct seems to be the progressive consolidation of the drives’ capacity to interact with the external world and respond to certain pressures exerted by this external world in an adequate, and apparently automatic, way. In fact, the automatic nature of instinct and the apparently miraculous quickness with which our instincts react to stimuli in the most disparate environmental situations depend precisely on the consolidated stability of longterm connections among judgements, and these could only have been made possible by memory. Our instincts – which manifest themselves as if they were

10 The original text is as follows: “Ich rede von Instinkt, wenn irgend ein Urtheil (Geschmack in seiner untersten Stufe) einverleibt ist, so daß es jetzt selber spontan sich regt und nicht mehr auf Reize zu warten braucht”. And it continues as follows: “Es hat sein Wachsthum für sich und folglich auch seinen nach außen stoßenden Thätigkeits-Sinn. Zwischenstufe: der Halbinstinkt, der nur auf Reize reagirt und sonst todt ist” (NL 1881, KSA 19, 11[164]).

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no more than an immediate capacity to (re)act – owe their immediacy to a very elaborate activity of incorporation and memorisation of kinds of adequate response to disparate environmental situations. Against all appearances, every so-called instinctive judgement is in reality the most elaborated and mediated type of judgement, because it is an outcome of the experience that results from the interaction between the organism and the external world within the deep time of evolution. In a certain sense, paradoxically instinctive judgements are much more cautious and mediated than linguistic, representative judgements arising from rational reflection. In instinctive judgements, what decides and chooses in a given contingent situation is not the ontogenetic rationality of the single individual – which is acquired through a linguistic, representative education – but rather the phylogenetic “wisdom” accumulated along the long-term evolutionary development. Precisely in this sense Nietzsche speaks of the “unconscious cunning” (unbewusste Verschlagenheit) that is peculiar to gregarious spirits (BGE 218/JGB 218), and he is able to assert that “instinct is the most intelligent type of intelligence discovered so far” (BGE 218/JGB 218). However, although the wisdom of our instincts comes from afar and is quite ancient, its efficacy is expressed in the immediacy of contingent situations, whereas our intellectual, conscious, linguistic rationality tends to represent the situation it has to face – and so it tends to create a distance, a separation, between the stimulus and the adequate response. The life or reality of our drives is always unique and is always organised as a unity, and yet it has a dual capacity. This dual capacity is precisely what the autobiographical episode recounted by Nietzsche allows us to see at work. On the one hand, we see instinct working as the capacity to react immediately to an unexpected situation; and on the other hand, “reason” working as the capacity to articulate a “discourse” about an episode which is represented in our imagination: One day recently at eleven o’clock in the morning a man suddenly collapsed right in front of me as if struck by lightning, and all the women in the vicinity screamed aloud; I myself raised him to his feet and attended to him until he had recovered his speech – during this time not a muscle of my face moved and I felt nothing, neither fear nor sympathy, but I did what needed doing and went coolly on my way. Suppose someone had told me the day before that tomorrow at eleven o’clock in the morning a man would fall down beside me in this fashion – I would have suffered every kind of anticipatory torment, would have spent a sleepless night, and at the decisive moment instead of helping the man would perhaps have done what he did. For in the meantime all possible drives would have had time to imagine the experience and to comment on it (das Erlebniss sich vorzustellen und zu commentiren) (D 119/M 119).

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The difference between the two types of judgement, the instinctive and the intellectual, lies in the fact that “all the judgements of instinct are short-sighted with regard to the chain of consequences: they counsel on what’s to be done first”, whereas “the intellect is essentially an apparatus for inhibiting the immediate reaction to the judgement of instinct: it reins in, it considers, it sees the chain of consequences for longer and further” (NL 1887, KSA 12, 10[167] = WLN, 202). Instinct allows the organism to establish occasional and intermittent operative strategies, in case of need and according to what must be done in the present moment, whereas the intellect tends to elaborate and make plans for the future. Intellect and instinct operate, as it were, “in parallel”, although also in contrast, as we just saw. And this is due to their different timings of action. While the intellect tends to elaborate a judgement that considers the long-term effects of an action, instinct, by contrast, functions as a sort of “working memory”, a sort of organiser of different categories of judgements that allow the organism to work out short-term strategies for interacting with the external world. What intellect and instinct have in common is that they both work “in the service of the drives”. But, on the other hand, while they are certainly connected to the drives and work in their service, they are also functionally (albeit not ontologically) distinct from the drives: each one of them operates as an articulated and well-structured form of expression.

VI More than ever, the problem of consciousness remains for Nietzsche an open question. Scepticism and suspicion seem to prevail, as is testified by the dubitative formulations that recurrently accompany his efforts to clarify the problem. In D 119/M 119, as we recall, Nietzsche’s hypotheses regarding consciousness are put forward in the form of questions, and he even speaks of consciousness as the “so-called consciousness” – as if to express his scepticism right from the start and, at the same time, make clear that he is now moving on shaky ground. As we saw, Nietzsche asks whether he must conclude that “all our so-called consciousness is a more or less fantastic commentary on an unknown, perhaps unknowable, but felt text?” (D 119/M 119). The same kind of prudence implied in this question can also be seen, for example, in a note from the Winter of 1883–1884, where Nietzsche asks: “Is the whole of con-

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scious life perhaps only a reflected image (Spiegelbild)?” (NL 1883–84, KSA 10, 24[16] = WP 676). Likewise, in a note from 1885, after having asserted that “our conscious willing, feeling, thinking is in the service of a much more comprehensive willing feeling thinking”, he asks: “ – Really?” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[124] = WLN, 9). In GS 354/FW 354 – which is the most extensive treatment of the problem of consciousness in Nietzsche’s published works – the progress of his argumentation is characterised by the recurrent insertion of preambles that cautiously formulate hypotheses, and not so much by the use of explicitly dubitative expressions. For example: “If one is willing to hear my answer and its possibly extravagant conjecture […]” (GS 354/FW 354); or: “Assuming this observation is correct, I may go on to conjecture […]” (GS 354/FW 354). In the examples given so far, there is a sort of submissive caution, which in a posthumous note written in preparation for a few aphorisms of Beyond Good and Evil becomes an explicit admission of helplessness and failure in regard to the problem: How is this consciousness possible? I am very far from devising answers to such questions (i.e. words and nothing more than that!); just at the right time I come to think of the old Kant, who once asked the question: ‘How are synthetic judgements a priori possible?’ In the end, he answered with such a wonderful German profundity: ‘By means of a faculty’. – How does opium cause sleep? The doctor in Molière answered: on account of the vis soporifica. There is opium in Kant’s answer about the ‘faculty’ as well, or at least vis soporifica: how many German ‘philosophers’ have fallen asleep by means of this faculty! (NL 1884–85, KSA 11, 30[10], editors’ translation).11

Among other things, what emerges from this fragment is that the insurmountable linguisticity of consciousness is the obstacle that prevents Nietzsche from solving the problem. Every explanation of what consciousness is must occur through language, i.e. through the pure mirroring of “words and nothing more than that!”. But Nietzsche’s caution in regard to consciousness goes well beyond the mere use of dubitative formulations. In two important fragments he uses literary artifices to express it. In the first one – which is a posthumous note from 1881 – , Nietzsche inserts his hypotheses in a sort of narrative frame, in a fantasy which opens and seals the fragment with the image of a flight of doves:

11 The reference to Molière is repeated in BGE 11/JGB 11, which suggests that the note quoted above was in fact written in preparation for this aphorism.

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As proof that a sceptic occasionally needs to indulge in the unbridled enthusiasm of fantasy (Schwärmerei), only to recover his calm and come back to the land of the “Perhaps-and-then-again-Perhaps-not”, I want to narrate the propositions that my doves have recently brought from the clouds to my home. First: the most usual form of knowledge (Wissen) is the one that lacks consciousness (Bewußtheit). Consciousness (Bewußtheit) means ‘knowledge about knowledge’ (Wissen um ein Wissen). Sensation and consciousness (Bewußtheit) have everything in common and may be the same thing (KSA 9. 438, 10[F101], editors’ translation).

Once the theoretical exposition is over, the doves resume their flight: “Well! Now fly back, dear doves, and give to the clouds what belongs to the clouds!” (NL 1880–81, KSA 9, 10[F101], editors’ translation). The second case is the famous fragment from 1885 entitled “Morality and physiology”, in which Nietzsche presents the hypothesis that the body may consist of a system of multiple consciousnesses. Here he makes use of mythology and actually closes the text with a very peculiar dialogue between Dionysos and Ariadne.12 He retrieves the myth of Ariadne in Naxos and imagines that after having explained his whole theory Dionysos concludes his exposition by talking with Ariadne: Prattling in this way, I gave myself up dissolutely to my pedagogic drive, for I was overjoyed to have someone who could bear to listen to me. However, it was just then that Ariadne – for this all took place during my first stay on Naxos – could actually bear it no more: ‘But, sir’, she said, ‘You’re talking pigswill German!‘ – ‘German,’ I answered untroubled, ‘Simply German! Leave aside the pigswill, my goddess! You underestimate the difficulty of saying subtle things in German!‘ – ‘Subtle things!’ cried Ariadne, horrified, ‘But that was just positivism! Philosophy of the snout! Conceptual muck and mishmash from a hundred philosophies! Whatever next!‘ – all the while toying impatiently with the famous thread that once guided her Theseus through the labyrinth. – Thus it came to light that Ariadne was two thousand years behindhand in her philosophical training (NL 1885, KSA 11, 37[4] = WLN, 30–31).

In this brief banter, Ariadne represents the metaphysical tradition: it is emblematic, in fact, that the god’s lover is “two thousand years behindhand in her philosophical training” and objects to the importance the philosopher gives to the effort of taking into account the results of science, especially of physiology, i.e., of engaging in a critical examination of them and then using them to form his own ideas. The exponent of a new philosophical orientation is indeed Dionysos, who intends to dispense with the guiding thread with which Ariadne is impatiently toying (sc. the soul) and replace it with the guiding thread of the body. 12 Among the posthumous notes written between 1885 and 1888, there are several sketches of dialogues in which the characters Ariadne and Dionysos return.

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From D 119/M 119 onwards Nietzsche opens up the road to a series of hypotheses concerning consciousness which he always presents either in cautious and dubitative formulations or in literary frames and mythological references in order to avoid falling into the trap of making dogmatic assertions. As an alternative to dogmatic assertions, he by far prefers prudent conjectures, especially in dealing with a concept such as consciousness, which is so difficult to define – all the more so because it has been greatly idealised and overloaded with meaning by the metaphysical tradition.

Bibliography Borsche, T./Gerratana, F./Venturelli, A. (eds.) (1994), “Centauren-Geburten”. Wissenschaft, Kunst und Philosophie beim jungen Nietzsche, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Crawford, Claudia (1988), The Beginnings of Nietzsche’s Theory of Language, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Gerber, Gustav (1871), Die Sprache als Kunst. Vol. 1, Bromberg: Mittler. Lupo, Luca (2006), Le colombe dello scettico. Riflessioni di Nietzsche sulla coscienza negli anni 1880–1888, Pisa: ETS. Meijers, A. (1988), “Gustav Gerber und F. Nietzsche. Zum historischen Hintergrund der sprachphilosophischen Auffassungen des frühen Nietzsche”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 17, pp. 368–390. Searle, J.R. (1981), “Minds, Brains, and Programs”, in: Dennett, D./Hofstadter, D.R. (eds.), The Mind’s I. Fantasies and reflections on Self and Soul, New York: Basic Books.

João Constâncio

Consciousness, Communication, and Self-Expression. Towards an Interpretation of Aphorism 354 of Nietzsche’s The Gay Science

1 Introduction My aim in this essay is not to present a complete interpretation of aphorism 354 of The Gay Science. Far from it. I shall focus only on what seems to me to be essential in that aphorism and try to make it as clear as possible. My first task will be to establish both what the word “consciousness” (Bewusstsein) means for Nietzsche and what he has to say about what he means by “consciousness” (section 2). To accomplish this task I shall have to consider several possible meanings of the word “consciousness” (in contemporary terms, these are “phenomenal consciousness”, “access consciousness”, “self-consciousness”, “monitoring consciousness”), and briefly analyse Nietzsche’s views on such difficult themes as language, conceptualisation, intentionality, and self-reflection. I shall try to show that Nietzsche’s conception of “communication” and “communication-signs” allows him to develop a very original – and, I think, very important – view of “consciousness”. My second task will be to show how Nietzsche tries to describe the unconscious processes that produce consciousness (section 3). Nietzsche’s reflections and conjectures on this topic are so complicated – and they evolve in such a complex way in his notebooks – that a whole book should be written about them. I shall attempt to present no more than a very brief summary of how Nietzsche sees the unconscious work of our “sensations”, “drives”, “affects”, and “instincts” in the complex process of producing consciousness. One of my aims here is to emphasise the role of “schemata” (Schemata) in that process, because this seems to me to be a very important aspect of Nietzsche’s views, which is nevertheless usually neglected. Finally, my third main task will be to discuss Nietzsche’s views on consciousness, unconsciousness, communication, and especially language in view of what we may call the problem of self-expression (section 4). This will allow

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me to make a final – and, I think, important – point about what Nietzsche calls his “new language” (BGE 4/JGB 4).1

2 Consciousness 2.1 Conceptualisation and Communication-Signs The main ideas of GS 354/FW 354 are well known, but they are also much more subtle than they appear to be at first glance, and even on a second and third glance. Let us consider first the meaning that Nietzsche gives to the very word “consciousness” (Bewusstsein) in the aphorism. In an important parenthesis he starts by pointing out that “the problem of consciousness” is more precisely the problem of “becoming conscious”. “Consciousness” is not an entity, but a process that occurs within living organisms, or rather to living organisms. Moreover, he says this by using a reflexive form (Sich-Bewusst-Werden) that suggests the he understands “consciousness” as tantamount to “self-consciousness”, i.e. to the process of becoming consciously aware of oneself. This seems to be confirmed by the metaphorical image that he then uses to indicate what he means by “consciousness”: the metaphorical image of the “mirror”. He famously writes that “physiology and evolutionary biology (Thiergeschichte)” have confirmed “Leibniz’s precocious suspicion” that we can “do without” consciousness, and that the reason why we can do this is the following: […] we could think, feel, will, remember, and also ‘act’ in every sense of the term, and yet none of all this would have to ‘enter our consciousness’ (as one says figuratively). All

1 Let me note that I have recently published two long articles which deal with the same topics that are at stake in the present essay: see Constâncio (2011a), “On Consciousness: Nietzsche’s Departure from Schopenhauer”, and Constâncio (2011b), “Instinct and Language in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil”. Here I shall, in part, summarise what I have written before – but I shall essentially complement it by developing and clarifying my interpretation of GS 354/FW 354. The need to write the additions and clarifications that will follow has mostly arisen from very fruitful discussions with Mattia Riccardi and Herman Siemens, whose excellent articles on these matters have come to my attention only after I had written my own articles. See Siemens (2006), Riccardi (2011) and Riccardi (2012). That need has also been fostered by further discussions with Luca Lupo (whose book on Nietzsche’s conception of consciousness remains, in my view, the best thing that has been written about this subject), with John Richardson (whose conference on the Self in Nietzsche and Heidegger, delivered in Lisbon in 2011, has prompted me to delve deeper into Nietzsche’s views on selfconsciousness and self-reference), and with Werner Stegmaier (who has kindly let me read the chapter on GS 354/FW 354 that will appear in his forthcoming book on Book V of the The Gay Science). See Lupo (2006) and Stegmaier (2012).

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of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in the mirror; and still today, the predominant part of our lives actually unfolds without this mirroring – of course all our thinking, feeling, and willing lives, insulting as it may sound to an older philosopher” (GS 354/FW 354).2

Thus Nietzsche’s idea seems to be that all animals think, feel, and will, but only the human animal is able to become aware of the very fact that it thinks, feels, and wills. Its “consciousness” seems indeed to be identical with its “selfconsciousness”, i.e. with its ability to become aware of its own inner states and hence of itself – or, in other words, to see itself in the “mirror”. However, if we take heed of what Nietzsche writes later in the aphorism, I believe that we must call this interpretation into question. For Nietzsche, consciousness is not the same as self-consciousness, or at least not the same as what we usually mean by “self-consciousness”. The main idea of GS 354/ FW 354 is that consciousness has developed out of – and in fact consists in – a particular type of communication (Mittheilung), or a particular “ability to communicate” (Mittheilungs-Fähigkeit), and Nietzsche’s conception of this particular type of communication or ability to communicate is incompatible with our usual understanding of “self-consciousness”. I think that this should begin to become clear if we consider the meaning of the following passage: […] our becoming conscious of our sense impressions (Sinneseindrücke) in ourselves, our power to fix them and as it were place them outside of ourselves, has increased in proportion to the need to convey them to others by means of signs (GS 354/FW 354, translation modified).

The first sentence seems to confirm that “consciousness” means “self-consciousness”. For it describes the process of becoming conscious as a process of becoming aware of “inner states”, of “sense impressions in ourselves (bei uns selbst)”. However, Nietzsche immediately explains this as a power to “fix” those sense impressions and “as it were place them outside of ourselves” (my emphasis). Thus the first crucial point here is that Nietzsche does not understand consciousness as an immediate or direct process of becoming aware of oneself and one’s inner states. If by “self-consciousness” we mean a sort of

2 I have used Josefine Nauckhoff’s translation of the The Gay Science throughout this paper, but I modified it in several crucial passages. She translates, for example, “Thiergeschichte” (literally “history of animals”) by “natural history”. “Evolutionary biology” is a rather free translation, but one which, I think, gives the modern reader a much better idea of what Nietzsche means by “Thiergeschichte”. See Lupo (2006), p. 185–187. On the metaphorical image of the “mirror” in Nietzsche (and Schopenhauer), see Constâncio (2011a).

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“direct access” to our inner states, an “immediate certainty” of oneself, a Cartesian presence of ourselves to ourselves, then Nietzsche is precisely saying that consciousness is not “self-consciousness” – because there is no “self-consciousness” in this sense (cf. BGE 16/JGB 16, BGE 19/JGB 19). Our conscious access to so-called “inner states” is always mediated – mediated by a process whereby our organism develops more or less fixed interpretations of certain “sense impressions” or “sensations” (Empfindungen) and thus transforms their insideness into outsideness. This is supposedly a very complex process, of which Nietzsche tries to make sense of to a considerable length in the Nachlass and more sketchily in the published writings. I shall deal with this theme in section 2. The point that we have to consider now is that, according to GS 354/FW 354, the mediation involved in our conscious access to our sensations is provided, first and foremost, by the development, acquisition and use of “communication-signs” (Mittheilungszeichen). By making us feel, will, think, remember and act, our sensations make us be aware of ourselves and aware of a world (and this is also the case with other animals). But we only become conscious in the proper (i.e. properly human) sense of the term when our awareness is supplemented by the use of “communication-signs”. This is not to say that consciousness is the same as every type of communication, nor is Nietzsche defending the clearly false thesis that other animals do not communicate or that animal awareness (i.e., non-conscious awareness) is insufficient for communication. What he asserts is rather that when a very specific animal – the animal man – is able “to convey [its sense impressions] to others by means of signs” (my emphasis), a new type of communication and a new type of awareness arise, namely the type of communicative awareness which we should call “consciousness”. Put differently, consciousness, as Nietzsche asserts many times (e.g. D 125/M 125, GS 354/FW 354, EH Clever 9/EH klug 9), is just the “surface” of our organism’s activity as a sensitive and interpretative organism, and this surface consists in communication through signs. Nietzsche writes: […] man, like every living creature, is constantly thinking but does not know it; the thinking that becomes conscious is only the smallest part of it, let’s say the shallowest, worst part – for only conscious thinking takes place in words, that is, in communication-signs (GS 354/FW 354, translation modified).

This very important passage suggests that Nietzsche thinks that all “communication-signs” are “words”, and that consciousness is in fact the same as language. As he puts it, “the development of language and the development of consciousness (not of reason but strictly of the way in which we become conscious of reason) go hand in hand” (GS 354/FW 354). However, in the next sentence he immediately makes clear that his view is subtler than that. He

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writes: “One might add that not only language serves as a bridge between persons, but also look, touch, and gesture” (GS 354/FW 354). Certain looks, touches, and gestures can also function as “communicationsigns”. Again, this is not to say that all looks, touches, and gestures are “signs”, but only that, like words, certain looks, touches, and gestures enable a type of communication that hinges upon the human ability to “fix” sense impressions and “place them outside of ourselves”. But what exactly is this ability? What is a “sign” and why does the use of signs mark the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness (or simple awareness)? As I have tried to show in my previous work on this subject, the key for understanding Nietzsche’s concept of “sign” is to see it as part of Nietzsche’s views on conceptualisation. For Nietzsche, “signs” (Zeichen) are, first of all, abbreviations. A sign represents or stands for something else although not as a copy of something else – and least of all as an adequate copy of it – , but rather as a simplified, abridged, abbreviated stand-in for it. This abbreviated stand-in functions as a sort of fixed tool that allows us to quickly refer to or designate that which it stands for (zu be-zeichnen). Thus in speaking of words in terms of “signs” Nietzsche writes that “the history of language is the history of a process of abbreviation” (BGE 268/JGB 286). Most importantly, Nietzsche believes that concepts emerge from signs, and what we usually call “reason” (for instance, what Schopenhauer calls “reason”) is essentially our ability to develop abstract thoughts on the basis of signs and concepts. As Nietzsche explicitly writes in a posthumous note from 1884–1885: “First signs (Zeichen), then concepts (Begriffe), finally ‘reason’ (Vernunft) in the usual sense” (NL 1884–85, KSA 11, 30[10], my translation). Very much like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche conceives of concepts as generalisations or general representations, i.e. representations that differ from “intuitions” (Anschauungen) because they do not represent particulars or singularities, but rather a feature or mark that can be thought of as applicable to particulars or, more precisely, as suitable to multiple sensations. As Nietzsche had already argued in On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (1873), “every concept comes into being by making equivalent that which is non-equivalent” (TL, 145/WL 1), that is, by representing different sensations in terms of the same, general feature or mark. Already in Leibniz and Kant conceptualisation is described as a process of selecting “marks” (notae, Merkmale) which are then transformed into general representations (notiones communes). Like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche emphasises the fact that this process is always a process of simplification – of “nondetermination of the particular” (Nichtbestimmung des Einzelnen, WWR I §9, 42 and WWV I §9, 50), as Schopenhauer puts it. To form a concept is to form a representation which is based upon our sensations, but which abbreviates their con-

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tents, that is, a representation which is abstracted from our sensations, but which no longer contains their richness and uniqueness. As a general and abstract representation, a “concept” allows us to refer to or to designate our sensations without experiencing them again and, particularly, without having to take heed of their richness and uniqueness.3 Thus we see that, for Nietzsche, our concepts – our thoughts as conceptual representations – are themselves “signs”. He writes in the Nachlass: “A thought, no less than a word, is only a sign: we cannot speak of a congruence between a thought and the real (NL 1880, KSA 9, 6[253], my translation)”.4 Nietzsche’s idea is that such empirical “signs” as words, looks, touches, and gestures are the means by which we form abstract “signs” – i.e. “concepts”. But if signs are abbreviations that merely indicate or designate something without copying it, and if, moreover, all our conscious thoughts consist in signs and sign-relations, then it is indeed true that “we cannot speak of a congruence between a thought and the real”. In the realm of conscious thought, our so-called “representation” of reality – or the “world” as it “enters our consciousness” – is no more than a simplified, abbreviated, abridged version of our sensations, and not an “adequate” representation or copy of a hypothetical “thing-in-itself” (see the end of GS 354/FW 354). This is what Nietzsche calls his “true phenomenalism and perspectivism” – namely, the conception of “the world of which we can become conscious” as being “merely a surface- and sign-world, a world turned into generalities” (GS 354/FW 354). However, there is still a lot to be explained about this “true phenomenalism and perspectivism”. First, we still have to understand why Nietzsche suggests in GS 354/FW 354 that all “signs” are “communication-signs”. In my view, there are two explanations for this. The first one is the evolutionary story that Nietzsche recounts in GS 354/FW 354. Put simply, even if we could not exclude in principle that there might be non-communicational signs (let us call them solipsistic- or private-language-signs), the fact is that human signs have been naturally selected for their value as tools or vehicles for communication – so that within the deep time of evolution all signs produced by human organisms have become communication-signs. Human organisms can neither create nor use other types of signs than communication-signs, and consequently words, concepts, and other signs (e.g. gestural signs) are always communication-signs. 3 Cf., for example, BGE 268/JGB 268. For a more extensive analysis of Nietzsche’s views on concepts and their relation to Leibniz, Kant and especially Schopenhauer’s views, see Constâncio (2011a). 4 On this topic, see the ground-breaking article by Stegmaier (2000), p. 50 ff.; see also Simon (1972), Simon (1984), Stingelin (1993), Constâncio (2011a), p. 31 ff.

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The second explanation is based on the idea, as I have put it elsewhere, that “for a concept to have meaning, it must differentiate itself from other concepts, and therefore understanding a concept is tantamount to understanding its relation to other concepts”.5 If concepts emerge from signs – and if concepts are in fact signs expressed by other signs – , then every sign presupposes a context. A sign is impossible outside of a multiplicity or constellation of other signs. But the contexts where human signs occur are always already social contexts. Human signs belong to the social milieu of communication and the Cartesian tradition is utterly wrong in speaking of words and concepts as emerging from a sort of solipsistic cocoon. Consequently, all human signs are produced by man as a “social animal” (GS 354/FW 354) – they are indeed “communication-signs”. Both explanations allow us to see that although Nietzsche does not reduce consciousness to language and recognises the existence of empirical signs that are not words, it is also the case that he emphasises the role of language. As we saw, he does write that “the development of language and the development of consciousness (not of reason but strictly of the way in which we become conscious of reason) go hand in hand”. In a posthumous note from 1886– 1887, he adds: we cease to think when we no longer want to think within the constraints of language, we just manage to reach the suspicion that there might be a boundary here. Thinking rationally is interpreting according to a schema we cannot cast away (NL 1886– 87, KSA 12, 5[22] = WLN, 110, translation modified).

This “schema” is of course the structure of language, to which Nietzsche usually calls “grammar”. We shall see below that such a “schema” is not at all the only “schema” involved in the activity of thinking, and I shall also try to briefly indicate what Nietzsche means when he distinguishes “reason” from “the way in which we become conscious of reason”. But at this point, what is important to underline is that the social milieu of communication – the realm of human consciousness and conscious reasoning – is essentially linguistic.6 By saying “essentially” I intend to suggest that there are at least three qualifications that should be made to the assertion that according to Nietzsche the “surface- and sign-world” of human consciousness is linguistic. The first one

5 Constâncio (2011a), pp. 30–31. See also Simon (1984) pp. 20 and 26, Abel (2001), pp. 22– 27, Katsafanas (2005), pp. 2–4. Nietzsche indicates that concepts have this sort of “systemic” nature, for example, in BGE 20/JGB 20. 6 See Abel (2001), p. 22 ff.

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has just been mentioned: not all empirical signs are linguistic – even if, as we now see, all non-linguistic signs belong in a way to the social and linguistic milieu of conceptual communication. The second qualification is that when Nietzsche writes that “rational thinking” ceases when we abandon “the constraints of language”, he is also suggesting that many times we abandon the “constraints of language”. Not all conscious thinking is “rational” and not all conscious thinking is clearly articulated in propositions. Many of our conceptualisations are so indeterminate that we cannot find words for them, and often we do not need words for them. Such conceptualisations are not truly independent from language as a communicational phenomenon, and they never belong to a truly “private language”. But they should perhaps be described as the fringes that extend beyond the more or less determinate concepts and conceptions that are fixed by words and propositions.7 The third qualification is that, to a great extent, philosophy is for Nietzsche a fight against the “constraints of language” – an attempt to think beyond the most ingrained, and essentially metaphysical, structure of language. That is not to say that he wants to make a leap to an impossible realm of conscious thinking outside of language. His aim is rather to create a “new language” (BGE 4/JGB 4) that enlarges the horizons of our common way of thinking and frees us from metaphysics.8 With this, we are now in a position to answer the decisive questions raised above: what does it mean that consciousness should be defined as the human ability to “fix” sense impressions and “place them outside of ourselves”? Why does the use communication-signs enable the transition from unconsciousness (or simple awareness) to consciousness? Why is consciousness, in the end, the same as communication through signs?

2.2 Intentionality, Self-Consciousness, and Communality The human organism’s ability to transform the insideness of its sensations into an outsideness is usually called intentionality. When, for example, my retina is affected by a new sense impression, my brain allows me to see not the retina being affected by a new sense impression, but an object outside of myself. My “consciousness” is first of all this ability to extend beyond myself, to orient myself towards the horizon or circle of my sensations (e.g. towards the visual horizon produced by my retina) in such a way that that horizon appears to me

7 See Constâncio (2011b), p. 99. 8 See section 4 below. See Constâncio (2011b), pp. 82, 91, 110–114, a (2011), pp. 195–199. See also Céline Denat’s essay in this volume.

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as if it were independent of my sense organs, as if it stood outside my body and had nothing to do with an inner state of my body. Although, as Nietzsche explains in Daybreak, I cannot but live imprisoned within my sensations – within a “concentric circle” which is “peculiar” to my body and has my body as its “mid-point” (D 117/M 117) – , my consciousness makes me experience such a “concentric circle” as an “outside”. Furthermore, we need concepts in order to become conscious of something outside of ourselves. I need the concept “bird” in order to see a bird as a bird; I need the concept “office” in order to see the space around me as an office. Otherwise I shall be merely aware of sense impressions – or, to put it differently, merely aware of an “image” (Bild) which I do not really differentiate from myself, or which I place neither inside nor outside of myself. My awareness rises to the level of consciousness only when I manage to use general representations (or “generalities”) to “fix” an interpretation of my sense impressions, e.g. when I manage to interpret an image within my visual horizon as “a bird”, or conceptualise the sensorial horizon where I am now moving as “an office”. This is because (as Schopenhauer had already tried to show) conceiving of generalities is tantamount to rising to the level of abstraction. By becoming able to interpret my sense impressions in terms of (more or less determinate and more or less linguistic) concepts, I immediately become able to gain distance from my sense impressions. This distance – the distance of abstraction – is also called “reflection” (e.g. by Schopenhauer). The ability to think abstractly or in terms of concepts is not just the ability to develop one’s thoughts further without having to wait for new stimuli. It is first of all the ability to “reflect” on stimuli or sense impressions by relating them to concepts or subsuming them under concepts. As Nietzsche clearly saw, such an ability is that which allows us to overcome our (otherwise absolute) immersion in our sense impressions and “place them outside of ourselves”. In fact, it allows us to become conscious not only of such things as birds and offices, but also of those sense impressions that are (or can be described as being) inner states of our bodies in the strictest sense of the word “inner”.9

9 However, it should be noted that Nietzsche deliberately avoids making a clear distinction between affections or sensations that, as it were, create a circle or horizon around our body (e.g. the visual horizon, where a sensation of “green” is given) and such affections or sensations as pleasure and pain, i.e. he rejects the Kantian distinction between “objective” and “subjective” sensation (KU §3). The stimulus or sense impression of which we become conscious by means of the concept “green” (i.e., the allegedly “objective sensation” of green) is always part of an all-encompassing affection (or a being-affected) which should be described as a “feeling” and a phenomenal state of awareness. Every sensation (Empfindung) is an inner state or part of an inner state which is fundamentally affective.

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I only become properly conscious, for example, of my pain when I interpret a certain feeling in terms of the (more or less determinate) concept “pain”, i.e. when a minimal distance of abstraction allows me to feel what I feel as being “pain”. Nietzsche writes, for example, in The Gay Science 127, “that a violent stimulus is experienced as pleasure or pain is a matter of the interpreting intellect, which, to be sure, generally works without our being conscious of it (uns unbewußt); and one and the same stimulus can be interpreted as pleasure or pain” (GS 127/FW 127). The activity of the “interpreting intellect” is mostly unconscious (uns unbewußt), but it creates consciousness: its outcome is the emergence of the concepts in terms of which we become conscious of our feelings.10 But if, as we saw, every concept (or “generality” or “abstraction”) emerges from and depends on the development of empirical signs, and if every empirical sign is in fact a communication-sign – so that every concept is in fact a communication-concept – , then what Nietzsche is saying is that consciousness results from the use of communication-signs and consists in awareness supplemented by the kind of conceptualisation that can only occur within the social and linguistic milieu of communication. When he writes that consciousness “has increased in proportion to the need to convey [our sense impressions] to others by means of signs”, he is not just saying that communication has fostered the development of subtler and more complex concepts. He is saying that, but he is also making the much more radical point that “reflection” is immanent to communication or, in other words, that there is an inescapably public dimension in human “intentionality”. No matter how isolated we are or feel, our conscious thinking is always based on our immersion in the milieu of communication, all our concepts refer back to social contexts and public meanings, all our conscious thoughts are implicitly related to a drive to communicate and in fact they all keep us more or less implicitly connected to others at all times.11 Quite often, Nietzsche suggests that the feeling (Empfindung) that encompasses perceptual fields is always either one of pleasure or pain: cf. Siemens (2006), p. 147. 10 As Nietzsche explains in Daybreak 115 and elsewhere, this also implies that we never become conscious of the greatest part of our feelings – but only of the most “extreme outbursts” of feeling – , and even when a feeling is intense and “crude” enough to become conscious, we only become conscious of its “surface” and hence our interpretation of it in terms of a word and a concept is actually a falsification and a misunderstanding of what it “truly” is. See also D 119/M 119 and Luca Lupo’s essay in this volume. 11 According to Nietzsche, we should recognise that even at the highest levels of abstraction (e.g. in mathematics or in any other science) every new thought is driven by a drive to simplify reality and make it familiar and understandable – and hence a drive that implicitly aims at more efficient communication: cf., for example, NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[227] with BGE 21/JGB 21 and Stegmaier (2000), pp. 61–62, Constâncio (2011a), p. 34.

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Thus Nietzsche’s definition of “consciousness” in GS 354/FW 354 should not come as a surprise: “Consciousness is really just a net connecting one person with another” (GS 354/FW 354). For Nietzsche “consciousness” in the proper or human sense of the word is not something that individual human organisms produce, so to speak, spontaneously by themselves alone. As a “connecting-net” (Verbindungsnetz), consciousness is fundamentally relational and communal. Put differently, Nietzsche’s view of consciousness implies a radical “connectivism” according to which consciousness is a “systemic” event that only arises within social spaces. It emerges from a multiplicity of connections that are social, and not merely organic and individual. Or, to put it in yet another way, conscious thoughts that occur within an individual human organism are really just part of – or a link within – a social milieu of sign-communication, and this milieu is, in turn, just part of – or a link within – an even larger milieu of communication which includes non-conscious communication. This primacy that Nietzsche gives to communication implies that although he sees conceptualisation and intentionality as part of what we should mean by consciousness, he also modifies the traditional understanding of conceptualisation and intentionality by conceiving of them as elements of the broader phenomenon of sign-communication. But what to say about “self-consciousness”? Is it not another element of what we should mean by “consciousness”? The conceptions of “abstraction” and “reflection” presented above suggest that there should be some connection between self-consciousness and what Nietzsche calls “consciousness”. If, as I have argued, there is a similarity between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer’s understanding of conceptualisation, we should also consider the fact that the latter’s conception of “reflection” implies that as a human being I differ from other animals because I have the ability to interpret myself in terms of the concept “I” and thus distinguish myself from all of that which I interpret as “not-I” (e.g. “bird” or “office”). For Schopenhauer, human consciousness (which he distinguishes from the simpler “animal consciousness” or awareness) is self-consciousness. He suggests that we must always think first of ourselves in terms of the concept “I” – i.e. become self-conscious – in order to become conscious of something else (or someone else). This applies to feelings also. I only become truly conscious of pain when I am able to feel it as “mine” or, to put it differently, when the distance of abstraction allows me to feel my pain as belonging to that which I understand conceptually as being “I”.12 In a forthcoming paper Mattia Riccardi claims that in GS 354/FW 354 (but not always) “consciousness” also means “self-consciousness”.13 The first point 12 See, for example, WWR I §8, §18, WWR II §20–22. 13 Cf. Riccardi (2012).

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of his argument is that in GS 354/FW 354 Nietzsche uses the word “consciousness” to designate an exclusively human phenomenon (a point with which I am entirely in agreement). The second point is that Nietzsche believes that becoming conscious is the same as becoming able to articulate reflexive propositions of the type “I think that p”, “I want that p” and “I feel that p”. Such propositions make each of us self-conscious as an “I” – an “I” which is then (falsely) supposed to be the “bearer” and the “authentic originator” of our beliefs, intentions, and volitions. However, it seems to me that Nietzsche clearly denies that this is the case. In BGE 17/JGB 17 and BGE 54/JGB 54, he argues that it is only our “grammar” that deceives us into thinking that every thought must have an “I” as its condition. He famously writes that “a thought comes when ‘it’ wants, and not when ‘I’ want” (BGE 17/JGB 17), i.e. thoughts emerge from the depths of our organisms to their surfaces without being “conditioned” by an “I”.14 Thus, as Kant was the first to argue (or at least Nietzsche believes that Kant argued), “‘think’ is the condition and ‘I’ is the conditioned” (BGE 54/FW 54), that is, the activity of thinking precedes and causes the concept “I”, and not the reverse. For Riccardi’s claim to hold, Nietzsche’s idea would have to be that every thought to come to the surface before the emergence of the concept “I” would have to be unconscious or, which is the same, that the first concept to be produced by the activity of thinking would have to be the concept “I”. But this is clearly not what he means. First, because when Nietzsche speaks of thoughts that “come” to us without being conditioned by an “I” he is obviously referring to thoughts that emerge to the surface of consciousness. Second, because he explicitly writes that the concept “I” is just a “synthetic concept” (BGE 19/FW 19). The “I” is a concept that connects other concepts to each other, i.e. a concept that emerges at the surface of consciousness just like any other concept, but then connects all our conscious thoughts to each other as if they belonged to the same entity (or to the same “bearer” and “authentic originator”). Therefore, Nietzsche believes that it is possible for a person to become truly conscious of something before becoming conscious of herself as an “I”. It happens all the time that I place a sense impression outside of myself without thinking of myself as an “I” (e.g. I say “there is a fire out there” without thinking or saying “I believe that there is a fire out there”). And children, for 14 Wittgenstein seems to express the same idea in a very graphic and interesting way: “Thoughts rise to the surface slowly, like bubbles” [Wittgenstein (1998), 72e]. On the metaphorical image of consciousness as a surface in Nietzsche, see Constâncio (2011a), and GS 354/FW 354, D 125/M 125, EH Clever 9/EH klug 9, and also, for example, NL 1883, KSA 10, 12[33], NL 1883–84, KSA 10, 24[16], NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[92] and 26[94], NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 1[61].

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example, seem to recognise lots of objects in terms of concepts (e.g. they point with their fingers and say “ball”, “bird”, “car”) before they develop a “theory of mind” and acquire the concept “I”. On the other hand, the reference to Kant is very important in this context, and it shows that self-consciousness is in some sense involved in what Nietzsche calls “consciousness”. For it is at least very likely that when Nietzsche refers to Kant in BGE 54/JGB 54 he is alluding to the famous paragraph of the Critique of Pure Reason where Kant asserts that, “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations” (CPR §16, B 131–132). This can be interpreted (and Nietzsche seems to interpret it) as meaning that it is not the case that every conscious thought is a proposition where I say “I”, but it is indeed the case that every conscious thought is at least implicitly self-reflexive. When I consciously think that “there is a fire out there” I usually do not consciously think or say (unless I have doubts) that “I believe that there is a fire out there”, but I am certainly aware that I am now seeing that there is a fire out there, I am also certainly aware (without necessarily becoming conscious of it) that my body is at some distance from the fire, and I may be also very well aware that the fire is dangerous to me. In other words, my conscious thoughts and the proposition that I utter are really just a surface of what I am unconsciously thinking, feeling, willing, remembering and doing – and hence they will always implicitly refer back to what I am unconsciously thinking, feeling, willing, remembering and doing. Therefore, if I have already acquired the concept “I”, all of my conscious thoughts will involve an at least potential self-consciousness. Whenever I am conscious that “there is a fire out there”, I am also able to think of myself by means of the concept “I” and say something like “I think I am in danger now and I think I should get out of here”. Becoming conscious of something does not necessarily imply self-consciousness, but it necessarily implies an at least potential self-consciousness based upon an actual self-awareness. Thus Nietzsche’s views on human consciousness (or consciousness in the proper sense of the word) differ from Schopenhauer’s. First because, as we just saw, he believes that conceptualisation and intentionality – or reflection and the distance of abstraction – do not necessarily imply self-consciousness (or only a pre-conscious self-awareness). Second, and most importantly, because he thinks that self-consciousness, no less than conceptualisation and intentionality, is immanent to sign-communication. It occurs as just one more element of (and in fact just a potential element of) the “connecting-net” which is “consciousness” in the proper sense of the word. However, it could perhaps still be objected to all this that so far I have omitted a great deal of what Nietzsche writes in GS 354/FW 354, and that I

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have, above all, omitted a particular passage that suggest that he actually gives a sort of primacy to self-consciousness. As is well known, Nietzsche puts forward a “extravagant conjecture” in order to answer the question: “To what end does consciousness exist at all when it is basically superfluous?”, and that conjecture is that “consciousness in general has developed under the pressure of the need to communicate” (GS 354/FW 354). He explains this by writing the following: […] as the most endangered animal, [man] needed help and protection, he needed his equals; he had to express his neediness and be able to make himself understood – and to do so, he first needed ‘consciousness’, i.e. even to ‘know’ what distressed him, to ‘know’ how he felt, to ‘know’ what he thought (GS 354/FW 354).

This important passage accords with the metaphorical image of consciousness as a “mirror”, as well as with a posthumous note where Nietzsche defines “consciousness” (Bewußtheit) as a “Wissen um ein Wissen” (NL 1880, KSA 9, 10[F101]), i.e. as a reflexive “knowledge” (Wissen) about what one already “knows” unconsciously.15 But the novelty in the passage just quoted seems to be that consciousness is, more specifically, our reflexive knowledge about our needs – a “mirroring” of our needs that is tantamount to “knowledge” about ourselves. Should we not reconsider the thesis that for Nietzsche consciousness is simply the same as self-consciousness? Isn’t the whole point of GS 354/FW 354 that consciousness is not really “superfluous” – and has instead been naturally selected and preserved in the evolution of our species – because it has allowed human beings to communicate their needs through communication-signs and this has been possible because consciousness is self-consciousness? Or, put differently, isn’t the whole point of GS 354/FW 354 that consciousness has satisfied man’s need to communicate because consciousness is self-consciousness and self-consciousness allows human beings to know about their everyday needs and thus to coordinate their behaviour and live safely in society?

15 In explaining this definition Nietzsche explicitly states that “the most usual form of knowing [Wissen] is the one without consciousness (Bewußtheit)” (NL 1880, KSA 9, 10[F101]). It should also be mentioned that in this posthumous note Nietzsche uses the term Empfindung in the sense of conscious perception, and not in the sense which is, I believe, most common in his writings, i.e. that of an at first unconscious feeling or sensation. As Herman Siemens explains in Siemens (2006), p. 148: “There is a striking equivocation in Nietzsche’s use of the term [Empfindung]. Often it is used for a conscious state or feature of consciousness, as in common usage; but it can also be used for the unconscious operations and activities, which precede and condition our conscious states”.

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In view of what we saw before, this is only half-true, and several clarifying remarks are needed here. The first remark is that Nietzsche’s point is indeed that the evolutionary value of consciousness lies in the fact that it “has allowed human beings to communicate their needs through communication-signs” – but this does not entail that all communication through communication-signs is communication of “needs”. Nietzsche explicitly makes the point that in the course of human evolution and history the development of the ability to communicate social needs by means of signs has eventually produced a “surplus” (ein Ueberschuss). He writes: “where need and distress have for a long time forced people to communicate, to understand each other swiftly and subtly, there finally exists a surplus of this power and art of expression, a faculty, so to speak, which has slowly accumulated and now waits for an heir to spend it lavishly” (GS 354/FW 354). Moreover, the fact that the evolutionary value of sign-communication resides in a better and swifter communication of needs does not even entail that whenever a person communicates her needs she is driven by the aim of fostering her social bonds with others by communicating social needs. Nietzsche explicitly points out that “the individual who is a master at expressing his needs” (for example, an artist, “as well as the orators, preachers, writers”) will usually be the one who is less “dependent on others in his needs” (GS 354/FW 354). Most importantly, if we take heed of what I tried to show above, I believe that it will quickly become apparent that Nietzsche does not think that “selfconsciousness” is a necessary condition (and even less a sufficient condition) for the communication of needs by means of signs. In order to communicate a need by means of a sign, I have to be able to see myself “in the mirror” – but what this means is only that I have to be able to develop an intentional state by conceptualising part of what I am unconsciously thinking, feeling, willing, remembering, and doing. As we saw, I must be aware of myself (or have a “sense of self”) in order to do this (and perhaps I shall become more aware of myself by doing it), but I do not have to be conscious of myself in order to do it. The reflexivity involved in “knowing that we know” (“Wissen um ein Wissen”) depends on a process of conceptualisation which does not necessarily imply that I conceptualise myself as an “I”. It only implies that I conceptualise a (usually very small) part of what I am unconsciously thinking, feeling, willing, remembering and doing.16 And this allows me to introduce a whole series of new, and very important, points. 16 As Nietzsche puts it in a note from 1885: “Ultimately we have a double brain: we encompass in the word ‘consciousness’ our capacity itself to will, feel and think something of our own willing, feeling and thinking” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[87] = WLN, 6). See also, for

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The first one results from the anti-Cartesian nature of Nietzsche’s conception of self-consciousness. As mentioned above, self-consciousness is always mediated by concepts and since concepts originate in communication-signs, they always have a public dimension. Hence even when I conceptualise myself as an “I”, it is not necessarily the case that I conceptualise myself as a “mind”, or as a “conscious I” inside my body, or even as “a body with inner states”. In most cases, when I become truly conscious of myself, I conceptualise myself as “professor”, “son”, “friend”, or any other social role (or “mask”, in Nietzsche’s language). In such moments, I usually become conscious of myself as having my own thoughts, perceptions, feelings, etc., and this certainly implies that I distinguish these thoughts, perceptions, feelings, etc. from those of other people. A so-called “theory of mind” is indeed involved in my self-understanding when I become self-conscious. But this happens in different degrees of clarity – and, above all, in no way does it imply that I necessarily interpret my innermost identity as that of a “thinking being” or “mind”. In fact, the more I interpret myself as a conscious “I”, or as a “subject”, an “atomon” and a “substance” with direct and even absolute causal power over my thoughts and actions – and, additionally, the more I project this conception of the alleged causal power of my consciousness onto the world and interpret the world in terms of mechanistic causal relations – , the more I simplify and falsify my representation of myself and the world, that is, the more I live in a “surface- and sign-world”, in a world which is essentially the product of a “vast and thorough corruption, falsification, superficialisation, and generalisation” (GS 354/FW 354).17 I cannot pursue this specific point here, and I shall only add – lest unnecessary doubts and worries be raised – that Nietzsche rejects the mechanistic picture of the world for being based on metaphysical assumptions that should be replaced with the richer and more complex “hypothesis” of the “will to power” (BGE 36/JGB 36), and not because he favours any sort of magical or superstitious picture of the world.18 example, NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[46] =WLN, 2 for the idea that our conscious “willing, feeling and thinking” is just an “outcome”(Endphänomenon) of unconscious processes and in fact just the “surface” and a partial view of an unconscious “willing, feeling and thinking”. Nietzsche reaffirms this idea quite often in his notebooks: cf., for example, NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[86], NL 1885, 11, 34[124], NL 1885, 11, 37[4], NL 1885, 11, 38[8], NL 1885, 11, 40[37]. 17 One of the most interesting aspects of Mattia Riccardi’s forthcoming paper on consciousness is precisely the thesis that according to Nietzsche consciousness (as self-consciousness) falsifies by creating the idea that every person is a conscious “I” with causal power over her thoughts and body. See Riccardi (2012,). 18 On Nietzsche’s rejection of mechanicism, see Abel (1998), pp. 82–95 and pp. 129–132. On the “simplifying”, “fictitious” and “falsifying” nature of such metaphysical assumptions

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What must be emphasised in the present context is that in defending the view that consciousness promotes our self-understanding in terms of a false conception of an “I” – or that our propositional self-consciousness depends on a fictitious metaphysical structure or grammar which prompts us to understand ourselves as (free) “subjects” – Nietzsche does not by any means wish to suggest that, at the level of consciousness, we are forever sentenced to interpret ourselves in terms of that conception of an “I” or “subject”. To a great extent, this is because human consciousness is “reflexive” in a double sense. It enables us to “know” about what we at first “know” only unconsciously – but it also enables us to “know” about what we “know” consciously. Human consciousness involves the ability to become conscious of consciousness and, most importantly, the ability to criticise my conscious ways of interpreting what I am – particularly, to criticise my self-understanding as a “mind” or a conscious “I”. A considerable part of Nietzsche’s conjectures and reflections on the problem of consciousness are precisely an effort – a conscious effort – to criticise our self-understanding as Cartesian “subjects”, as the “I” that is designated in such self-conscious propositions as “I want that p”, “I think that p”, “I feel that p”, and so on. In fact, Nietzsche’s critique of the “overestimation and misapprehension of consciousness” (GS 11/FW 11)19 should be seen as being not only an effort to do away with the idea that a person is essentially an “I” (or that consciousness is the “kernel of man” and the “unity of the organism”, GS 11/FW 11), but also – and more radically – to do away with the metaphysical conception of consciousness as a “substance”. This is why he asserts that we should recognise that there are different degrees of consciousness (e.g. D 115/M 115) and that consciousness is merely an intermittent phenomenon (e.g. GS 11/FW 11).20 But, most importantly, that is also the reason why he tries to develop an “adualistic” conception of consciousness, a “continuum model” which describes the emergence of consciousness as the final outcome and surface of a dynamic multiplicity of organic processes, or, in other words, of dynamic

or “categories” as “substance”, “cause”, “effect”, “unity”, “identity” etc., see Constâncio (2011b), pp. 83–85and pp.88–95. 19 See also NL 1883–84, KSA 10, 24[2], NL 1888, KSA 13, 14[146]. 20 Werner Stegmaier argues that by using the term Bewußtheit (instead of the more common term Bewußtsein) in several passages (e.g. in GS 11/FW 11), Nietzsche wants to emphasise that consciousness is just a state and process – and in fact an intermittent state and a process that comes in different degrees – , instead of a substance. See Stegmaier (2012, forthcoming), Constâncio (2011a), p. 4 ff., and also Jaanus Sooväli and Andrea Bertino’s essays in this volume.

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relations among drives, affects, and instincts (e.g. GS 333/FW 333, BGE 36/ JGB 36).21 Before moving on to the next section, it may be helpful for many readers that I try to sum up what we have seen so far about Nietzsche’s views on consciousness by expressing them in the terms of contemporary philosophy of mind. First, Nietzsche recognises that there is what people nowadays call “phenomenal consciousness”, i.e. that our first-personal experience of perceiving a certain property or feeling what it is like to be in a given embodied state is an event – a “fact” which no third-personal description (even if it be a scientific description) is able to describe satisfactorily (i.e., at best the third-personal description complements the first-personal experience, but the latter cannot be simply reduced to the former, as Schopenhauer had already argued).22 However, if my interpretation of GS 354/FW 354 is correct, then Nietzsche also believes that “phenomenal consciousness” is not yet “consciousness” in the proper sense of the word (or is not yet “consciousness” as exclusively experienced by humans). By itself, “phenomenal consciousness” is no more than simple “awareness” or merely animal perception, and hence it is no more than the un-conscious “knowledge” (Wissen) that allows us to “think, feel, will, remember and even act” without being conscious of any of that. Consciousness in the proper sense of the word happens when we humans develop communication-signs that allow us to interpret sense impressions (i.e. phenomenal states) in terms of concepts. Hence, “consciousness” is always “access consciousness” – but “access consciousness” as a becoming conscious of phenomenal states by means of conceptualisation. In opposition to most views on “access consciousness”, I think Nietzsche would argue, against many contemporary philosophers (and against the dominant use of the expression “access consciousness”), that there is no “access consciousness” which is not a development and a surface of pre-conscious or un-conscious phenomenal states. Or, in other words, he would argue that “access consciousness” is always firstpersonal and continuous with first-personal affective states (which is a point to be developed in the next section). Further, this type of “access consciousness” is fundamentally self-reflexive. “Access consciousness” is not necessarily a form of “self-consciousness”, but it is always an at least potential form of “self-consciousness” and an actual form of self-awareness. In addition, it is always an at least potential form of “monitoring consciousness”. It allows for

21 On Nietzsche’s “adualism” and his “continuum model”, see Abel (2001), Lupo (2006) and Constâncio (2011a). 22 Cf. Constâncio (2011a), p. 5 and p. 10.

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“higher order” thoughts (i.e. thoughts about thoughts), and particularly for higher order thoughts which are critical of our first order thoughts (e.g. of our self-understanding as being essentially a conscious “I”). However, the most distinctive feature of Nietzsche’s view of consciousness is the idea that “access consciousness”, “self-consciousness”, and “monitoring consciousness” are never merely individual events. Instead, they are always functions of a “connecting-net” (Verbindungsnetz) which binds a community together within a social space of “communication”. This explains the un-substantial and intermittent nature of consciousness. Although we are constantly thinking, feeling, willing, remembering and acting – although our “phenomenal awareness” is always active – , we are not always exposed to contexts that give rise to “access consciousness”, “self-consciousness”, and “monitoring consciousness”. One more note on this. Nietzsche certainly tries to clarify what we mean and should mean by the word and the concept “consciousness”. But he sees “consciousness” as precisely just a word and a concept that have arisen within the realm of consciousness. Most likely, he would see today’s effort to determine what consciousness is as a meaningless pre-critical (or pre-Kantian) effort to speak of consciousness as a “thing-in-itself”. In other words, although Nietzsche could play (and I think he should play) an important role in our contemporary debate about what we mean by the word “consciousness”, he is totally opposed to the idea that we should try to answer metaphysical questions about consciousness (e.g. whether the fact that there is phenomenal consciousness implies that there are “mental properties” which can never be explained by science, or whether, on the contrary, we should reduce all “mental properties” to “physical properties”). Like Schopenhauer, he sees physiology as a relevant third-personal description of what we mean by such words as consciousness and unconsciousness, and like Schopenhauer, he thinks that that description should be complemented by a first-personal description of what it means to become conscious of something. But, unlike Schopenhauer, he does not believe that it makes sense to expect a metaphysics to arise from our best account of what we mean by the word “consciousness”. His “positive” views on consciousness have the status of conjectures and reflections that aim at debunking our metaphysical discourse on consciousness as a “substance” (either as a physical or a non-physical “substance”), and in fact they imply that it is senseless to expect any argument to reach a decision about the ontological status of “mental properties”. 23

23 Cf. Constâncio (2011a), pp. 19, pp. 25–27 and pp. 40–41. See more on Nietzsche’s rejection of metaphysics and ontology below.

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3 Sensations, Schemata, and Our ‘Triebleben’ In this section I shall try to delve into Nietzsche’s conjectures and reflections on how language, conceptualisation, and consciousness emerge from the unconscious life of our drives, affects, and instincts. The need to do this arises when we think again about what Nietzsche means by “sign” (Zeichen). So far I have spoken of signs as abbreviations and simplifications that stand in for something by merely indicating its presence and not by copying or adequately representing it. Two points should now be emphasised. The first one is that, according to Nietzsche, the realm of consciousness is through and through a realm of “signs”. When he writes that the world as we apprehend it through our consciousness is “merely a surface- and sign-world”, he means that at the level of consciousness all we know about reality – including our own reality – amounts to no more than “signs” (i.e. “abbreviations”, “simplifications”, “indications”) of what there is (including what we are). The second point is that “signs” are always “surfaces” and “symptoms” of unconscious processes. For example, the communication-sign “bird” is a “surface” and a “symptom” of unconscious processes that have ultimately led to the formation of that sign, i.e., that have made me interpret certain sense impressions in terms of the word and the concept “bird” and then use that word and that concept “abstractly” or without necessarily applying them to particular sense impressions. Nietzsche describes such unconscious processes as our “Triebleben”, our “pulsional” life, the subterranean life of our drives, affects, and instincts. The communicationsign “I”, for example, is just a “surface” and a “symptom” of unconscious, subterranean movements of my pulsional life that have led me to understand myself in terms of what is merely indicated or designated by the “vast and thorough corruption, falsification, superficialization and generalization” which is involved in the word and the concept “I”. When Nietzsche writes that our conscious thoughts are “only a certain behaviour of the drives towards one another” (GS 333/FW 333), and that “thinking is only a relation between these drives” (BGE 36/JGB 36), he is saying that all our conscious thoughts are signs, surfaces, or symptoms of dynamic relations that occur in the unconscious depths of our pulsional life. Within Nietzsche’s mature and published writings, the main place to look for his views on this topic is in Beyond Good and Evil. In aphorism 268, Nietzsche writes: Words are acoustic signs [or “sound-signs”, Tonzeichen] for concepts; concepts, though, are more or less determinate pictorial signs [or “image-signs”, Bildzeichen] for sensations that occur together and recur frequently, for groups of sensations (BGE 268/JGB 286).

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To a great extent, this only repeats what we already know. But it adds something new: the assertion that a concept is a sign which in some way involves an “image” (Bild). As Mattia Riccardi has rightly pointed out,24 this should be interpreted in connection with aphorism 192 of Beyond Good and Evil: [we never] see a tree precisely and completely, with respect to leaves, branches, colours, and shape. We find it so much easier to imagine [zu phantasieren] an approximate tree instead. Even in the middle of the strangest experiences we do the same thing: we invent [wir erdichten uns] most of the experience and can barely be forced not to assume the role of ‘inventors‘ [Erfinder] when we look into any sort of event. What all this amounts to is: we are, from the bottom up and across the ages, used to lying. Or, to put the point more virtuously, more hypocritically and, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist [Künstler] than one knows” (BGE 192/JGB 192, translation modified).25

The main idea that we need to emphasise here is that for Nietzsche our concepts are “image-signs” (BGE 268/JGB 286) because they are always based on a particular type of un-conscious or pre-conscious “images”. “Images” of this type are simplifications of our sense impressions and, most importantly, they are already generalisations, “general” representations. Our concept “tree” is not simply based on certain sense impressions and “groups of sensations”, but also on how our organism manages to elaborate and simplify those sensations (or even one single sensation) by imagining or fantasising “an approximate tree”, i.e. by creating a not yet conscious image of “a tree in general”. It is at least very likely that in defending this idea Nietzsche is taking sides with Kant against Schopenhauer. According to Schopenhauer, all representations are either “intuitions” (Anschauungen), i.e. immediate representations of particulars, or “concepts” (Begriffe), i.e. abstract or general representations (e.g. WWR I §3). Accordingly, he denies that Kant has any right to speak of “schemata” as if there could be a third type of representations “midway between” our intuitions and our concepts.26 A “schema” (Schema) is for Kant a representation which is secretly, unconsciously formed by our “productive imagination” and which “provides a concept with its image” (CPR B 180/A 140), or, as Hannah Arendt has so simply put it, it is a “general image”.27 This image is “intuitive” because it is built upon certain intuitions – and thus it is still precisely just an “image” (Bild), an immediate and singular representation which depends on our sensibility – but it is also, in a way, “conceptual”,

24 Riccardi (2012). 25 I have made use of Kaufmann’s translation to help me correct several imprecisions in Judith Norman’s translation. 26 For Schopenhauer’s dismissal of Kantian schematism, cf. WWR I Appendix, 449 ff. 27 Cf. Arendt (1992), p. 81.

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because it is already a sort of “sketch” of a concept. The schema “tree” is exactly what Nietzsche calls the image of “an approximate tree”, that is, no longer just an image of a particular tree, but rather an image of the very “rule” that we apply when we use (or that we will apply when we get to use) the general representation or concept “tree”. A concept is meaningful – and not “empty” – if it refers to such an image, i.e. if it refers to intuitions via such an image. This image is what allows the concept to function as a mark or feature that we, as it were, project onto our sensations and then perceive as if it were an intrinsic, real mark or feature of what is given in our sensations (e.g., according to Kant, we are able to perceive causal relations in space and time not only because we organise our sensations in terms of space- and timerelations, but also because we project the concept of causality onto our sensations by first building a “schema” of causality on the basis of our “pure intuitions” of space and time).28 In the Nachlass Nietzsche speaks freely of “schemata” in this Kantian sense, i.e. in the sense of unconscious pre-conditions of the formation of concepts.29 He writes, for example, that “we cannot do anything without first sketching a free image of it” and “this image is very general, a schema (Schema)” (NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[18], my translation). This does not mean that we always form conscious thoughts before acting, but rather that we always form unconscious “general images” before acting and before transforming those “general images” into proper “sound-signs” and “image-signs”, i.e. before fixing them by developing words and concepts that allow us to have conscious thoughts (e.g. so-called “intentions”). Thus we first have “sensations” and “sense impressions”, then we build “schemata” or “general-images”, and only on that basis do we begin to cross the threshold into the realm of consciousness by developing or acquiring “communication-signs” – mostly “words” as “sound-signs” (BGE 268/JGB 286), but also other communication-signs based on “look, touch, and gesture” (GS 354/ FW 354). These communication-signs stabilise our reference to schemata and 28 See the whole schematism chapter in the CPR: B 176/A 137 – B 187 / A 147. 29 E.g. NL 1881, KSA 9, 11[18], NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[94], Nl 1885, KSA 11, 34[249], NL 1995, 11, 36[26], NL 1885, 11, 38[2], NL 1885, 11, 41[11], NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 5[22], NL 1887, 12, 9[97], NL 1887–88, KSA 13, 11[113], NL 1888, KSA 13, 14[152], NL 1888, KSA 13, 14[153], NL 1888, KSA 13, 15[90]. In regard to this point, the difference between Mattia Riccardi’s interpretation and mine is only terminological. Instead of characterising the approximate image of a tree mentioned in BGE 192/JGB 192 as a “schema”, Riccardi describes it as an “unconscious concept”. This makes the same substantial point that I have tried to make. But the terminological point is also important. I cannot find any instance of Nietzsche using the word “concept” (Begriff) in the sense of a non-conscious representation, whereas his use of the words “schema” and “schemata” usually implies that he is referring to products of unconscious or pre-conscious processes upon which our conscious concepts are based.

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they immediately give rise to “image-signs” or “concepts” that “fix” certain interpretations of our sense impressions and “place them outside of ourselves”. The abstract use of concepts finally gives rise to “‘reason’ in the usual sense” (NL 1884–85, KSA 11, 30[10]), i.e. to full propositions and arguments. This is fundamentally the same view that Nietzsche expresses already in the unpublished essay from 1873, On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense. Here Nietzsche claims that what we call “knowledge” starts with a “nerve stimulation” which is “translated into an image: first metaphor! The image is then imitated by a sound: second metaphor” (TL, 144/WL). Concepts arise because “each word immediately becomes a concept” (TL, 145/WL), i.e. because the “sound”, the “second metaphor” – the second transposition from one “sphere” to another – immediately creates a general representation or “concept”. Thus the “chamber of consciousness” (TL, 142/WL) comes into being, and it “distinguishes human beings from animals” (TL, 146/WL), only because the two “metaphors” provide concepts with schemata, i.e. because we have “the ability to sublimate sensuous metaphors into a schema, in other words, to dissolve an image into a concept” (TL, 146/WL).30 However, it should also be made clear that Nietzsche’s “schematism” is radically opposed to Kant’s in at least one very important point – one which is clearly stated in the passage from BGE 192/JGB 192 quoted above. Against Kant, Nietzsche stresses the arbitrary, entirely contingent nature of our schemata, as well as the conventional nature of the linguistic concepts and signs to which they eventually give rise. Or, put differently, Nietzsche draws the natural consequence from Kant’s thesis that schemata are products of the subterranean activities of the imagination. Schemata and then words and concepts are something which our organisms unconsciously and involuntarily invent, create, fabulate, fictionalise in their social interaction – something which springs, first, from the “artistic” imagination of our physiology and, second, from our spirit’s ability to create signs within the social milieu of communication. Thus, Nietzsche writes: “we are, from the bottom up and across the ages, used to lying”, and “one is much more of an artist [Künstler] than one knows” (BGE 192/JGB 192). Human beings and peoples that invent schemata, signs, and concepts are “Abstraktions-Künstler”, “artists of abstraction” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 6[11] = WLN, 124). In fact, as Nietzsche makes very clear, we are all “inventors” (Erfinder) – unconscious and involuntary inventors of our own experiences (Erlebnisse).31

30 Cf. Céline Denat, Luis Santiago Guervós, Luís Sousa and Luca Lupo’s essays in this volume. 31 On this topic, see Luca Lupo’s essay in this volume.

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But if this is so – if this is “unconscious and involuntary” – , then we must conclude that we are driven to invent our own experiences or, to put it differently, that our un-conscious thinking, feeling, willing, remembering and acting is at least to some extent dominated by a drive to invent, an “artistic” drive to elaborate on or “lie” about our sensations and sense impressions. In Daybreak Nietzsche calls this “force” or drive a dichtende Vernunft, a “poetic”, “inventing reason”, that is, a “reason” which is not “reason in the usual sense”, but rather an unconscious “reason” which explains the “intelligence” or “smartness” (Klugheit) of our drives, affects, and instincts.32 In a note from 1885 Nietzsche even describes that force or drive as a “sense” (Sinn). He writes: before something being ‘thought’, it must have already been invented [or fabulated, erdichtet]; the form-giving sense is more original than the ‘thinking’ sense (NL 1885, KSA 11, 40[17], my translation).

And so we arrive at two fundamental ideas. Firstly, the idea that the “form” that the world has for us is primarily the “form” that results from a whole series of unconscious processes whereby we elaborate on our sensory stimuli and invent “general images” or “schemata”. These “schemata” are then the basis upon which we elaborate and invent our concepts and create the “surface- and sign-world” of consciousness. Secondly, all this unconscious activity that produces consciousness is an activity of our drives. In order to support this second idea, Nietzsche tries to identify a multiplicity of fundamental drives: for example, a “selecting drive” or a “drive for simplification” which is active from the most elemental level of sensation to the level of consciousness and reason; a “causal drive” (Ursachentrieb) which makes our experiences appear as if they were the causes of our conscious thoughts and not as what they are, i.e. not as effects of our unconscious elabo-

32 On this “inventing force” and “inventive reason”, see Luca Lupo’s essay in this volume, and see also Lupo (2006), pp. 141–149, Constâncio (2011a), pp. 32–36, Constâncio (2011b), pp. 94–95. As early as 1874 Nietzsche speaks of a “Kunstkraft”, an “artistic force”, which is at work in us below the level of consciousness: cf. KSA 7, 19[49], KSA 7, 19[67]. In TL/WL, this “artistic force” is called the “drive to form metaphors, that fundamental drive which cannot be left out of consideration for even a second without also leaving our human beings themselves” (TL, 150–151/WL). Cf. Schlimgen (1999), pp. 70–76, Constâncio (2011a), p. 33. On the “intelligence” of our drives, affects, and instincts, see for example BGE 218 and Constâncio (2011a), p. 19 ff. Note also that now it should be clear why in GS 354/FW 354 Nietzsche distinguishes between “reason” and “the way in which we become conscious of reason”. “Reason” is first of all an unconscious activity – namely, the “smart” activity of the drives – and “reason in the usual sense” is just the conscious surface of that activity, its “becoming conscious”.

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ration of stimuli; thirdly, a drive to make familiar and understandable that which is at first unfamiliar and frighteningly incomprehensible; and finally, the very drive to communicate, which fosters the creation of schemata, communication-signs and concepts as tools for a more efficacious communication within a community.33 These fundamental drives (or instincts) are never truly independent from other drives (or instincts), like the sexual drive, the herd-instinct, the drive for security, the drive for compassion, or the instinct of cruelty. Moreover, all of those fundamental drives should be described as organic, instinctive responses to the ways in which we are affected by stimuli, which means that they are affections or affects. Hence, Nietzsche writes in Beyond Good and Evil 192: “[…] affects like fear, love, and hate, as well as passive affects of laziness, will be dominant during even the ‘simplest’ processes of sensibility” (BGE 192/JGB 192). Even the activities of our senses – “even the ‘simplest’ processes of sensibility” – are affective. But the point here is not only that all our sensations (Empfindungen) are “feelings” (e.g. that the sensation “green” is always already part of what it feels like to perceive something green in a given context). The point is also that all our sensations, as Herman Siemens has put it, are themselves “creative or poetic (‘erdichtend’)”.34 Firstly, because our senses, far from being simply passive, are a “simplifying apparatus” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[46] = WLN, 2) – and so even the “simplest” sensorial stimuli are always already products of processes of simplification. Secondly, and most importantly, as affective responses to stimuli, the drives are part of the very event to which we call “sensation” (Empfindung). They create the contents of our sensation by elaborating further on nervous stimuli, they invent the schemata upon which we build not only our concepts but actually our whole “experience” (Erlebnis, Erfahrung) of an event. Let us consider, for example, the activity of our “drive for causality” (Ursachentrieb).35 According to Nietzsche, our dreaming is a seeking and positing of the causes or grounds of the stimuli that affect our nervous system while we sleep (HH 13/MA 13, D 119/M 119, TI Errors 4–5/GD Irrthümer 4–5). Hence, if we analyse our dreams, we realise that a “drive for causality” is always at work in them. But we realise more than that. In our dreams we take certain effects of our dreaming activity for causes of the contents of our dreams. For example, a sound that is affecting our ears while we sleep causes us to

33 Constâncio (2011a), pp. 32–35. 34 Siemens (2006), p. 152. 35 See Lupo (2006), pp. 28–29, pp. 42–54 and p. 59, Constâncio (2011a), pp. 32–34.

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dream of a cannon firing a cannon ball. In the dream we interpret this “story” (sc. “there is a cannon firing a cannon ball”) not as an effect of the original stimulus but rather as if it were the cause of that stimulus, i.e. the cause of our hearing that which we take to be the sound of a cannon ball being fired. The original stimulus may have been an actual sound of a cannon ball being fired, but the point is that we have in any case transformed an effect into a cause – because we are, as it were, programmed to seek for “causes”. Likewise, the so-called “external world” as apprehended by consciousness is in fact just an effect that we take for a cause because we are driven to look for causes. Nietzsche writes: The inversion of time: we believe that the external world is the cause of its effect upon us, but we are the ones who have transformed its actual and unconscious effect into an external world: the world as it stands before us is already our work, and this work is now affecting us back. Such a work needs time before it is ready, but this time is very short (NL 1884, KSA 11, 26[44], my translation).

Nietzsche’s idea is, of course, that our “work” in creating an external world is so quick that our conscious thoughts are never on time to realise that (a) before they happen our senses create a “concentric circle” around our body (which in fact includes our body as an object of perception, an object that we can see, touch, etc.), (b) that that “concentric circle” is already a “simplification” worked out by our senses, (c) that that “simplification” is further simplified by our invention of “schemata”, (d) that consciousness, just like our senses (and our imagination), is a “simplifying apparatus” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[46] = WLN, 2, BGE 24/JGB 24, BGE 230/JGB 230) and so the world “out there” is just a “world of generalities” based upon our schemata, “merely a surface- and sign-world” (GS 354/FW 354). Consciousness does not catch either the senses, or the imagination, or itself in the act of creating a world. Thus the “drive for causality” has time to contribute to the whole process of “placing our senses impressions outside of ourselves”, i.e., of making us think of the “little fabricated worlds around us” (cf. NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[247] = WLN, 14–15) as if they were not effects of sensations, perceptions, imaginings, and conscious thoughts, but simply the cause of our sensations, perceptions, imaginings, and conscious thoughts.36 36 Note that when Nietzsche explains the whole point about the “drive for causality”, he tends to blur the distinction between waking and dreaming (cf. HH 13/MA 13, D 119/M 119, TI Errors 4/GD Irrthümer 4). In fact, he seems to distinguish waking and dreaming by no more than two criteria, which may seem quite weak for many of us: (a) while dreaming, we are, so to speak, less open to new stimuli, so that we are affected by a lesser number of stimuli than while awake; (b) while dreaming, we experience a lesser degree of consciousness, that is, we may be unconscious for most of our sleep, but we are not totally

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Moreover, since this whole process is pulsional and affective, it is also evaluative. We are not driven to find “causes” because we need to “know” how things are “in themselves”, but rather because we need to see them as “familiar”, as “known”, as “understandable” for us – ultimately because we need to not be frightened by things (TI Errors 5/GD Irrthümer 5). Thus the “drive for causality”, together with other drives, creates values and, most importantly, projects them onto the “world”. Or, more precisely, all our schemata, communication-signs and concepts are fundamentally evaluative, and hence our “surface- and sign-world” is through and through a world of evaluations – of evaluations that refer back to our “sensations” (Empfindungen). The latter are irrevocably individual, but they also have a cultural and historic dimension: they are both “idiosyncratic” and, at least to some extent, “inherited”.37 This being so, it is no wonder that Nietzsche admits that he has his own kind of “idealism” (“Meine Art von ‘Idealismus’”, NL 1882, KSA 9, 21[3]), an “idealism” (in quotation marks) which results from the belief that every sensation “contains an evaluation (Werthschätzung)” and every evaluation “fantasises and invents (phantasirt und erfindet)”.38 But is it not common knowledge that Nietzsche is an anti-idealist (e.g. BGE 15/JGB 15, BGE 39/JGB 39, BGE 210/JGB 210, GS 372/FW 372, TI Ancients 2/GD Alten 2)? Or is Nietzsche an “idealist” after all? This is not an easy question. However, I shall content myself with pointing out that Nietzsche has at least two very good reasons to put his “idealism” in quotation marks. The first one is that – as we saw – he completely rejects the solipsistic point of view. Consciousness has a public dimension, it can only occur in communication-contexts. A third-personal (e.g. scientific) description of what we are is as valid – and as imperfect – as our first-personal description

unconscious while dreaming. If there is an unconscious, it lies behind the surface or screen which is the dream as such – just like when we are awake. Given Nietzsche’s conception of consciousness in GS 354/FW 354, this entails that even while dreaming we are still “communicating” in some sense or in some degree (we are still under the influence of our “need to communicate” and we are still part of the “net” that “connects one person with another”). 37 See Siemens (2006), pp. 149–151. Cf., for example, KSA 9, 11[242], my translation: “but sensation (Empfindung) is idiosyncrasy”, and KSA 9, 14[8], my translation: “As a language is the primordial poem of a people, so is the whole intuitive world of sensation the primordial poem of mankind, and also the animals have already begun to poetise. We inherit all of that at once, as if it were reality itself”. For the individual, idiosyncratic nature of sensation, Siemens refers further to KSA 12, 6[14], and see also KSA 9, 21[3]; for their cultural and historical dimension, he refers further to AOM 223/VM 223 and GS 54/FW 54. 38 See Siemens (2006), p. 153.

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of ourselves. It does not make sense to say that we are truly “imprisoned” in the “chamber of consciousness”, as if we could only speak of ourselves. The second reason is that Nietzsche also rejects the fundamental distinction which defines, for example, Kant and Schopenhauer’s philosophies as “idealistic”, namely the distinction between “phenomena” and a “thing-initself”, or between a “phenomenal world” and a “true world” (e.g. BGE 16/ JGB 16, GS 354/FW 354, GM III. 12, TI Fable/GD Fabel). As he writes in a posthumous note from 1887: the opposite of this phenomenal world is not the ‘true world’ but the formless, unformulatable world of the chaos of sensations – thus, a different kind of phenomenal world, one not ‘knowable’ by us (NL 1887, KSA 12, 9[106] = WLN, 161).39

The phenomenal world is the “surface- and sign-world” of consciousness – it is always already, as Nietzsche stresses in this same posthumous note, the “trimmed” and “logicised” world, the “world of generalities”, that emerges within the social milieu of communication (NL 1887, KSA 12, 9[106] = WLN, 161) – , and this world is indeed a “falsification” of the real (e.g. GS 354/FW 354, BGE 24/JGB 24, BGE 34/JGB 34). However, it is not a “falsification” of a “true world” beyond itself, but only a “falsification” of the “chaos of sensations”. The “real” that is “falsified” is this “chaos of sensations”. Put differently, the phenomenal world, as a “surface” and a “sign”, is a “falsification” only because it is a “simplification” of the activities of our senses, our drives, and our imagination. Hence it is a “fiction”, but it is not an “illusion” in the Platonic or Schopenhauerian sense of the word, that is, it is not a false copy of intrinsic properties that things might have in themselves. That idea – the idea of “illusion”, of the world as a “cave” or a “veil of Maya”, as well as the very idea of “intrinsic properties” (and unconditional, absolute “intelligibility”) – presupposes that we have the right to speak of “things” and then of a “thing-in-itself” as if that were more than a human conceptualisation, more than a “reification” of concepts that we have created from within the social milieu of communication. As Nietzsche writes, “It was we who created ‘thingness’ in the first place” (NL 1887, KSA 12, 9[106] = WLN, 161). This thesis (or, perhaps, this hypothesis) allows Nietzsche to take two very important steps: (a) first, to assert that the very activity of our senses, drives, and thoughts – all our unconscious and conscious “thinking, feeling, willing, remembering, acting”, or our “creating, logicising, trimming, falsifying” – is “the best guaranteed reality” (NL 188, KSA 12, 9[106] = WLN, 161); (b) second, to assert that such a reality is continuous with, or simply a part of, “nature”, i.e. part of the 39 See Mattia Riccardi’s excellent handling of this point: Riccardi (2012).

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whole “chaos” of possible sensations – and not a “copy” or “image” cut off from a “true reality” with intrinsic properties.40

4 Self-Expression I have argued above that in GS 354/FW 354 Nietzsche does not mean to say that every case of communication by means of signs is communication of “needs”, because the development of that kind of communication over time has by itself created the possibility of expressing more than just “needs”. It has produced a “surplus” (ein Ueberschuss). I have also argued that Nietzsche does also not mean to say that every case of communication of needs by means of signs occurs for the sake of strengthening social bonds. Artists, for example, will tend to use language, as well as other forms of sign-communication, to express more individual needs, different needs – and to express them “lavishly”, i.e. simply in order to express themselves and not necessarily in order to seek support or help from others or to achieve a feeling of “belonging”. It is easy to see the problems that these assertions raise, and very difficult to solve them. The whole theme of Nietzsche’s views on communication as self-expression remains, to a great extent, open and unexplored. In this respect I shall also content myself with sketching a few remarks. The first problem to be considered is that since all our words and concepts should be traced back to the unconscious drives and affects that invent our experiences, it is very hard to escape the conclusion that all our conscious thoughts express needs. Does this mean that we are back to the thesis that all 40 Thus the posthumous note NL 1887, KSA 12, 9[106] = WLN, 161 ends with the “hypothesis that there are only subjects – that ‘object’ is only a kind of effect of subject upon subject… a mode of the subject”. This is entirely different from the hypothesis that there is only one subject, and in fact it means that (a) “subjectivity” is real, (b) reality is a “chaos” with no intrinsic properties, i.e. a “chaos” where “things” or “objects” only come into being as a result of conceptualisations that arise from relations among “subjects”. But two further remarks should be added to this. Firstly, in spite of such posthumous notes as this one, Nietzsche tends to avoid speaking in terms of “subjects” and “objects”, so that he writes in The Gay Science 354 that he is never concerned with “the opposition between subject and object”: “I leave that distinction to those epistemologists who have got tangled up in the snares of grammar (of folk metaphysics)” (GS 354/FW 354). Secondly, the “hypothesis of the will to power” (cf. BGE 36/JGB 36) is precisely Nietzsche’s attempt to express the “hypothesis that there are only subjects” in a critical, non-metaphysical (non“grammatical”) way. But I cannot go into these points here. For the critical and nonmetaphysical status of Nietzsche’s hypothesis of the will to power, as well as for his conception of reality as “chaos”, see Stegmaier (1992), pp. 306–330.

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our conscious thoughts are a becoming conscious of our needs and hence of ourselves? Was my interpretation of Nietzsche’s mention of a “surplus” too rash? On the other hand, what could support, for example, the assertion that a mathematical proposition like “7+5=12” expresses a “need”? Here I think we have to distinguish between direct and indirect expression of needs. When I say, for example, “give me water!”, I directly express a need. When I say “7+5=12” I express the (mathematical) fact that if I add 7 to 5 the result is 12. However, by saying this I also express a need, or even a multiplicity of needs, indirectly. The whole of mathematics, according to Nietzsche, results from human needs and hence from human drives: from a need and a drive to simplify the chaos of sensations, a need and a drive to make the world we live in understandable and familiar, a need and a drive to speed up and facilitate communication among humans.41 When I say “7+5=12”, I do not become conscious of any of those needs, nor do I communicate those needs to myself or to others – but my saying it expresses those needs, that is, my saying it is “a sign and a symptom” of those needs, just like, for example, my conscious intention of acting in a certain way is always “a sign and a symptom” of unconscious needs, drives, affects, and instincts – and thus it involuntarily expresses these unconscious motivations even when it is no more than a rationalisation which actually hides their actual meaning from me (cf. BGE 32/JGB 32, BGE 187/JGB 187). But there is a second, more fundamental problem – one which Nietzsche himself presents as fundamental in GS 354/FW 354, and to which he alludes in the very title of GS 354/FW 354 (“On ‘the genius of the species’”).42 Given that consciousness depends on concepts, and given that our concepts are “generalities” which have an intrinsic public dimension because they emerge from communication-signs, it seems that whenever we try to become conscious of our individual needs and understand what we are as individuals by means of conscious thoughts, we cannot avoid failing. Put differently, it seems that by using language even great artists and philosophers cannot achieve more than a social “interpretation of their states” – an interpretation which is “the work of others” or which they have “learnt” from others (KSA 9, 6[350], my translation). Nietzsche writes in GS 354/FW 354: My idea is clearly that consciousness actually belongs not to man’s existence as an individual but rather to the community- and herd-aspects of his nature; that accordingly, it

41 See footnote 11 above. 42 The “genius of the species” is, of course, the term Schopenhauer uses to describe the sexual instinct as an instinct that works in the service of the species and not in the best interest of its specimen: cf. WWR II §44.

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is finely developed only in relation to its usefulness to community or herd; and that consequently each of us, even with the best will in the world to understand ourselves as individually as possible, ‘to know ourselves’, will always bring to consciousness precisely that in ourselves which is ‘non-individual’, that which is ‘average’; that due to the nature of consciousness – to the ‘genius of the species’ governing it – our thoughts themselves are continually as it were outvoted and translated back into the herd perspective (GS 354/ FW 354).43

Consciousness (particularly in its linguistic dimension) is the true “genius of the species” – the “genius” that makes us act as no more than “specimens”, the “blind force” that deprives us of our individuality and transforms us into “functions of the herd” (GS 116/FW 116). In trying to “know myself” I shall tend to find new ways of conceptualising myself, and I shall tend to become more and more conscious of myself, but no matter how subtle, non-condescending and complex my new ways of conceptualising myself will be, my selfconsciousness will unavoidably remain a misunderstanding of myself. It will always remain a social, non-individual interpretation of myself, a “herd perspective” about myself. Nietzsche writes: The sign-inventing person is also the one who becomes ever more acutely conscious of himself; only as a social animal did man learn to become conscious of himself – he is still doing it, and he is doing it more and more (GS 354/FW 354, translation modified).

Thus Nietzsche seems to be saying that we should try to become less and less conscious of ourselves in order to achieve a better understanding of ourselves. But is this a meaningful assertion? And, most importantly, is that what Nietzsche himself does as a writer and a philosopher? Is that what Nietzsche is doing while writing about consciousness and language in GS 354/FW 354? Nietzsche writes about consciousness and language from a critical point of view: he uses his consciousness and language to monitor his consciousness and language, to criticise the metaphysical prejudices embedded in consciousness and language, to investigate whether all conscious thoughts and words are in the end just “signs and symptoms” of the unconscious needs, drives, affects, and instincts that play the most decisive role in the “invention” of our experiences. This is part of his way of philosophising, part of his “psychology” and “genealogy”, particularly of his self-genealogy. Moreover, his critical stance is not simply destructive. His “revaluation of all values” creates “new values”. It forces him to create new schemata, new words and new concepts which posit a new understanding of himself and the human being. He is like

43 BGE 268/JGB 268 expresses the same idea, although mostly about language and not about consciousness in general; see also BGE 296/JGB 296.

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a spider that in deconstructing an old cobweb is already constructing a new one, or cannot avoid constructing a new one. More than anyone else, Nietzsche is a “sign-inventing person” who has become very “acutely conscious of himself” – to the point of claiming that he has developed “a new language” (BGE 4/JGB 4). The key for understanding what Nietzsche is trying to say in GS 354/FW 354 is, I think, precisely his conception of this “new language”. Nietzsche’s “new language” – which is fundamentally the language of “genealogy” – is, first of all, a language that assumes that words “may be the horizons of our knowledge, but they are not ‘truths’” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 5[3] = WLN, 106). It is, so to speak, a monitoring language that sees words and concepts as just words and concepts – so that it avoids any ontological or metaphysical assertions about realities designated by words and concepts, i.e. any assertion about “truths” in either the ontological or the metaphysical sense of the term.44 As Nietzsche himself explains in a posthumous note, his new language never asserts anything about what something “is”, only about what a word and a concept “mean”, and thus it is in fact just a “critique of concepts” – one which assumes that the “meaning” of our concepts (and words) lies in the history of their use and hence is tantamount to “a real ‘history of the genesis of thinking’” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 40[27] = WLN, 44; cf. GM II 12–13). There is no doubt that in abandoning the assumption of a “congruence between a thought and the real” and in conceiving of words and concepts as “signs” of our unconscious needs, drives, affects, and instincts, Nietzsche is still forced to speak of “the real”: “The real is some sort of movement of the drives (Triebbewegung)” (NL 1880, KSA 9, 6[253]). But he is fully aware that such words and concepts as “drive”, “affect”, “sign” or “real” are no more than words and concepts and that the “meanings” those words and concepts have in his writings are just the end-result of a long history of public uses within different contexts of signcommunication. The point that I want to make on this basis is that it is indeed the case that Nietzsche believes that every form of consciousness, including self-consciousness, is always a way of misunderstanding oneself in terms of social and non-individual words and concepts – but, on the other hand, he also believes (a) that all forms of conscious communication are forms of indirect self-expres44 See Nietzsche’s rejection of the whole idea of an adequatio intellectus et rei, for example, in the following posthumous note: “The demand for an adequate mode of expression is nonsensical: it’s of the essence of a language, of a means of expression, to express only a relation… The concept of ‘truth’ is absurd… the whole realm of ‘true’, ‘false’ refers only to relations between entities, not to the ‘in-itself’” (NL 1888, KSA 13, 14[122] = WLN, 258). Cf. Stegmaier (1985), Wotling (2006), Constâncio (2011b), p. 110 ff.

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sion – and, most importantly, (b) that there are forms of self-expression which are better than others. This is perhaps easier to understand if we recall that in his Zarathustra Nietzsche distinguishes between the “I” (Ich) – i.e. the “I of consciousness”, the synthetic concept of an “I” – and the “Self” (Selbst) – i.e. the “body” as a multiplicity of unconscious needs, drives, affects, and instincts (Z I Despisers/ZA I Verächtern). All my conscious thoughts are self-expressive because they express “the real”, the “movement of the drives”, my “Self” (and not just my “I”). When I say “7+5=12”, or “there is a fire out there”, or when I communicate a need by saying, for example, “I need to get out of here” or “give me water!”, or when I become properly self-conscious by saying, for example, “I think I am in danger now”, or when I self-consciously define myself by saying, for example, “I think that I am a conscious mind” – in all these cases I “falsify” my experience, but I also express something of my experience. What I say is part of an action that shows or expresses my being (or my “Self”) at a deeper level than just that of consciousness, even if involuntarily or unintentionally (cf. BGE 32/JGB 32, BGE 187/JGB 187). Nietzsche’s new language allows him to become conscious of this. His consciousness of the superficiality and falsity of consciousness, and especially his consciousness of the radical inadequacy of consciousness for expressing his individuality, prompts him to use his new language as a means of finding better forms of self-expression. In order to achieve this end Nietzsche obviously needs to develop better descriptions of himself and the human being. But he needs much more than that, and he aims at much more than that. First, he needs to “incorporate” his knowledge, his “truths” (e.g. GS 11/FW 11, GS 110/FW 110) – and he needs to do this in a way that expands his “Self” by creating new, different, more individual “needs” (e.g. a “bodily” or “instinctive” need to “affirm life”, or to “overcome nihilism”, or to get rid of the “herd perspective”). Secondly, and most importantly, he needs to act in ways that show or express better his new “Self”. And this he does. For he acts by writing – and in writing he uses his new language as a means of showing or performatively expressing his new needs, drives, affects, and instincts in ways that go well beyond a conscious and linguistic self-description. For many of his readers, this is an end to which he has undoubtedly succeeded in achieving.

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Bibliography Abel, Günter (1998), Nietzsche. Die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr, 2nd edition, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Abel, Günter (2001), “Bewußtsein-Sprache-Natur: Nietzsches Philosophie des Geistes”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 30, pp. 1–43. Arendt, Hannah (1992), Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, ed. and with an interpretative Essay by Ronald Beiner, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Constâncio, João (2011a), “On Consciousness: Nietzsche’s Departure from Schopenhauer”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 40, pp. 1–42. Constâncio, João (2011b), “Instinct and Language in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil”, in: Constâncio, J./Branco, M. J. M. (eds.), Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, Berlin/ Boston: de Gruyter. Katsafanas, Paul (2005), “Nietzsche’s Theory of Mind: Consciousness and Conceptualization”, in: European Journal of Philosophy 13, pp. 1–31. Lupo, Luca (2006), Le colombe dello scettico. Riflessioni di Nietzsche sulla coscienza negli anni 1880–1888, Pisa: ETS. Nehamas, Alexander (1985), Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. Riccardi, Mattia (2011), “Nietzsche’s Sensualism”, in: European Journal of Philosophy 19, pp. 1–39. Riccardi, Mattia (2012), “Nietzsche on the Superficiality of Consciousness”, in: Dries, Manuel (ed.), Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. Schlimgen, Erwin (1999), Nietzsches Theorie des Bewußtseins, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Simon, Josef (1972), “Grammatik und Wahrheit. Über das Verhältnis Nietzsches zur spekulativen Satzgrammatik der metaphysischen Tradition”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 1, pp. 1–26. Simon, Josef (1984), “Das Problem des Bewusstseins bei Nietzsche und der traditionelle Bewusstseinsbegriff”, in: Djurić, Mihailo/Simon, Josef (eds.), Nietzsche in der Diskussion. Zur Aktualität Nietzsches, vol. 2, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neuman, pp. 17–33. Siemens, Herman (2006), “Nietzsche and the Empirical: through the eyes of the term ‘Empfindung’”, in: South African Journal of Philosophy 25, no. 2, pp. 146–158. Stegmaier, Werner (1985), “Nietzsches Neubestimmung der Wahrheit”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 14, pp. 69–95. Stegmaier, Werner (1992), Philosophie der Fluktuanz. Dilthey und Nietzsche, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Stegmaier, Werner (2000), “Nietzsches Zeichen”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 29, pp. 41–69. Stegmaier, Werner (2011a), “Fearless Findings. Instinct and Language in Book V of The Gay Science”, in: Constâncio, J./Branco, M. J. M. (eds.), Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, pp. 185–200. Stegmaier, Werner (2012), Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie. Kontextuelle Interpretation des V. Buchs der Fröhlichen Wissenschaft, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. Stingelin, Martin (1993), “Historie als ‘Versuch das Heraklitische Werden […] in Zeichen abzukürzen’. Zeichen und Geschichte in Nietzsches Spätwerk”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 22, pp. 28–41.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998), Culture and Value, Oxford: Blackwell. Wotling, Patrick (2006), “L’ultime scepticisme. La vérité comme régime d’interprétation”, in: Revue philosophique 4, p. 479–496.

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The Spinning of Masks. Nietzsche’s Praise of Language To Hugo and all our hats. The things we have words for are also the things we have already left behind. There is a grain of contempt in all speech. Language, it seems, was invented only for average, mediocre, communicable things. People vulgarize themselves when they speak a language. – Excerpts from a morality for the deaf-mutes and other philosophers. Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Skirmishes of an Untimely Man 26

Throughout his work, Nietzsche never ceased to express his distrust of language, which he sometimes classified as a lie, falsity, error or illusion. This view suggests a scorn for words and their inadequacy in relation to what they intend to say. Stating that language “vulgarizes” (TI Skirmishes 26/GD Streifzüge 26), that it only “immortalises” “tired and worn-out things” (BGE 296/ JGB 296), that words “lie in our way” (D 47/M 47), Nietzsche seems to indicate that language is only an impediment, a “hindrance” (D 47/M 47) from which we must free ourselves. What I will attempt to show here is that this is not the case. Nietzsche’s philosophy does not seek merely to indicate the limits of language, let alone to serve as an incitement to silence. In arguing that language possesses “dangers to spiritual freedom” (WS 55) which must be confronted rather than avoided, Nietzsche recognised the existence of a power in words and analysed the exerting of this power on human beings. Moreover, in his philosophy this dangerous power is transformed into a problem to which silence cannot provide a response, since to remain silent would be to succumb to fear. What I will therefore argue is that Nietzsche’s distrust of language is not an apology for silence but a warning, an imperative addressed to all philosophers, particularly the new philosophers (BGE 2/JGB 2), the philosophers of the future whom he calls the “fearless ones” (GS V/FW V). In effect, for Nietzsche the philosopher is the creator of a “new language” (BGE 4/JGB 4) and is the one for whom “all of being’s words and word shrines burst open” because “all being wants to become word” (Z III The Homecoming/ZA III Heimkehr). However, this neither means that everything is language nor that silence is impossible. On the contrary, what should become clear is the sense in which it can be considered, as Nietzsche considered, that everything speaks (NL 1883, KSA 10, 7[62]), that even the stillest hours speak and tell us that we have to speak (Z II Hour/ZA II Stunde). I will begin by stating the series of difficulties raised by language so that I may then put forward the hypothesis that philosophy has a sort of positive

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relationship with it. Since it must incorporate the criticisms that Nietzsche makes of language, this hypothesis could be stated as follows: to be suspicious of words involves a way of loving them.

I. “Where Words are Lacking” Nietzsche identified several problems raised by language. The first of them is that words are abusive generalisations that do not restore singularities. Nietzsche analysed this difficulty, which he called an “overlooking what is individual (das Uebersehen des Individuellen)” (TL 1/WL 1, KSA 1, p. 880) in the essay On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense, demonstrating that words fix in general abstractions the incommensurable (and ultimately inexpressible) multiplicity of what exists, taking what is different to be identical. By unifying distinct and irreducible things in identical terms, language “lies” because it fails to do justice to each singularity. In other words, language does violence to the individual to the extent that it suppresses it while naming it with words that apply to several cases, i.e. that are general. Nietzsche kept insisting that “words really exist only for superlative degrees” of things (D 115/M 115) and that the unity of the word does not ensure the unity of the thing that it denotes (HH I 14/MA I 14 and BGE 19/JGB 19). However, taken in its “extra-moral” sense, the thesis that we lie when we speak implies that it could be no other way. The lie consists not in failing to tell the truth out of self-interest but in the inevitable and unintentional omission of the infinite multiplicity that does not fit into any linguistic term. To lie is, thus, to forget what is left out. Moreover, Nietzsche believes that this forgetting is not a weakness but a strength, a “power of forgetting (die Kraft zu vergessen)” or “plastic power (die plastische Kraft)” (UM II 1/UB II 1) that makes it possible to abstract from perception a multiplicity which is not only incommensurable but also in a continual state of becoming. The power of forgetting is therefore not the power that negates that multiplicity-in-a-state-of-becoming which is reality, but a “horizon” (UM II 1/UB II 1), a limit from which we can contemplate this multiplicity without also being devoured by it but also without being able to conclusively define it. Forgetting is the condition of utterability. And its price is the lie, the inadequacy, the lack of coincidence between what is said and that which cannot to be fixed.1

1 For Nietzsche’s rejection of the thesis that the relationship between language and reality is one of “adequacy” or “correspondence”, see Céline Denat’s essay in this volume.

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Thus, according to Nietzsche, the relationship between language and reality is not a relationship of adequacy but a creative relationship, involving the creation of “errors” or “falsities”. Words do not restore things and, if they are “hindrances”, obstacles, they are also deviations, transferences, the noncoincidence between what is and what is said. For Nietzsche, however, this must not be understood only as a failure, as the impossibility of language to express things or as a declaration of the ultimate unutterability of what is. In fact, what Nietzsche’s philosophy shows us is that there is no “truth” beyond linguistic articulation. What exists are precisely the deviations, errors or lies that we create and truth is just another instance of them, that is, just another word, another abstraction that, by “overlooking what is individual”, does violence to the multiplicity of singularities which compose the world. Moreover, the word “truth” has done violence to philosophy, condemning it to a “dogmatic” way of thinking (BGE Preface/JGB Vorrede), with extreme consequences. I will return to this point later. Let us consider the second difficulty. Language does not only prevent the apprehension of what is singular, the unique aspect of each individual, but also makes it difficult or impossible for human individuality to express itself. Nietzsche argues that it was the need to communicate quickly in dangerous situations that led to the development of language among human beings (GS 354/FW 354, BGE 268/JGB 286). But although this same need stimulates communication, it also prevents the expression of what is unique because in moments of danger words serve “the easy communicability”, i.e. a quick “understanding” that presupposes “similar experiences” in different individuals (BGE 268/JGB 286). In other words, by expressing what is “similar” or “common” (“base”, gemein – JGB 268), words “falsify and corrupt” what Nietzsche refers to as the most “personal” aspect of ourselves (NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 1[202], my translation). Thus, to the extent that words only denote what is common (since they are born from the need to “communicate” and make “understandable” man’s states of need as a gregarious, social, communitarian being – GS 354/FW 354), what is singular is “left behind” (TI Skirmishes 26/ GD Streifzüge 26). This applies to individual experiences, as well as to the possibility of expressing them, and Nietzsche calls the process by which the individual is turned into a generality a “making average” or “base”: […] all communication by words is shameless; words dilute and make stupid; words depersonalise (entpersönlicht); words make the exceptional (das Ungemeine) base (gemein) (NL 1887, KSA 12, 10[60] = WP 810, modified).

Since “all our actions are incomparably and utterly personal, unique, and boundlessly individual”, their linguistic translation always consists in a falsifi-

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cation that generalises them and allows us to know only that “which is ‘nonindividual’”, only that “which is ‘average’” or ordinary (GS 354/FW 354). This difficulty is faced by “each of us” (GS 354/FW 354) and, in a very particular way, by the philosopher. What thereby emerges is a tension between the general (the “vulgar”, or “base”) and the singular which is not resolved by shifting backwards to a point before or behind language. It seems that this shift backwards is characteristic of the “morality for the deaf-mutes and other philosophers” from which Nietzsche excludes himself, but not without identifying a third difficulty to be added to those already mentioned. Language is not just a moving away or deviation from things. By corrupting singularities and falsifying what is unique it creates reality, or rather, it creates illusions which are later taken to be truths. Insisting on the discrepancy between language and reality, between language and truth, Nietzsche highlights the absence of neutrality that is characteristic of it: words are human creations with a history and a context and prejudices are inexplicitly sedimented in them to which we cease to be alert with the passing of time. Since “every word” is “a prejudice” (WS 55), we forget that we invented words on the basis of particular experiences and perspectives and use them as if language restored things to us in a neutral way. For Nietzsche, however, recognising this fallacy is not a question of rejecting words but of creating a new relationship with them, a type of approximation that, as I will try to show, paradoxically involves distance. In Daybreak 115, Nietzsche argues that “language and the prejudices upon which language is based are a manifold hindrance to us” because “where words are lacking, we are accustomed to abandon exact observation”. We live in the reality created by language; we live in the linguistic illusions that we no longer perceive as such because we cling to them, because they allow us to abstract and thereby deal with the incommensurable and unstable movement of things. However, this supposed mastery of the world becomes a habit and comes to entangle us, Nietzsche says, in a “net”. The fact that we are immersed in language means that the words form a net which traps us and limits “exact observation”, that is to say, which limits thought and knowledge. Words therefore give us one power just as they take another away from us and, in this respect, language is effectively analogous to habit, which also entangles us in a “net” that we have created and from which it is difficult to escape (D 117/M 117). To illustrate this situation and the dangers that it involves, Nietzsche resorts to the following image: the linguistic net is like the web of a spider which has got stuck in the threads that it has woven itself. If “everything habitual draws around us an ever firmer net of spider-webs” and “we ourselves are sitting in the middle as the spider who has caught himself and has to live

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on his own blood” (HH I 427/MA I 427), it represents a mortal danger for us. And this is the same danger that is represented by words: that of being trapped and devoured by something that we ourselves have created. The problem is thus to know how can we protect ourselves from it given that we need language and habits in order to live. How is human life possible without communication and without the stability that habit provides, the stability that allows us to predict our experiences and make them calculable?

II. The Tear The danger that Nietzsche alludes to with the image of the spider’s web is that of a type of stability that becomes definitive and progressively comes to resemble rigor mortis. This risk was described in TL as a process of petrification, fixation or paralysation of instinctive vitality: “the rigid and regular web of concepts” (TL 2, 151/WL 2) becomes “the burial site of perceptions” (TL 2, 150/WL 2). The consequence of the need to forget that is required for the creation of words can be a paralysation of the creative force (which is the instinct for metaphor) when this force is fixed in rigid forms that are taken to be definitive. On the other hand, the image of the spider-web indicates, right from the start, an empty lifeless space occupied by an animal that feeds itself by killing others. But the fact that the spider ends up eating its own blood implies something even worse: that living beings are no longer attracted to its web and that the spider ends up feeding only on itself, that is to say, on its own death. Nietzsche considered philosophy to be both a favoured victim of this danger and a potential liberator from it. The former case is discussed in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, in which Nietzsche characterises Parmenidean philosophy and its concept of being as a way of thinking that emerges from a “total lack of blood” (PTAG 11, p. 81/PHG 11). Parmenides represents the philosopher who is a victim of his own conceptual creation, or rather, of a concept that is so general and so abstract that its creator ceases to be “an investigator into any of the world’s parts”, i.e. an investigator into the singularities I mentioned earlier, and comes to believe that truth lives “only in the palest, most abstracted generalities, in the empty husks of the most indeterminate terms, as though in a house of cobwebs” (PTAG 10, p. 80/PHG 10). The result is an aberrant and devastating scenario: And beside such truth now sits our philosopher, likewise as bloodless as his abstractions, in the spun out fabric of his formulas. A spider at least wants blood from its victims. The

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Parmenidean philosopher hates most of all the blood of his victims, the blood of the empirical reality which was sacrificed and shed by him (PTAG 10, p. 80/PHG 10).

This is the danger against which Nietzsche’s philosophy seeks to fight. It is not a question of rejecting language and the webs of habit but of preventing the philosopher from becoming trapped in them, risking his life and “spiritual freedom” (WS 55). As a “free spirit”, the philosopher “hates all habituation and rules, everything enduring and definitive, that is why he sorrowfully again and again rends apart the net that surrounds him” (HH I 427/MA I 427). But just as tearing apart the web of language does not correspond to a life of silence, tearing apart the web of habit does not mean seeking “a life entirely without habits, a life that continually demanded improvisation” which would be “intolerable, truly terrible” as an “exile” and a “Siberia” (GS 295/FW 295). Tearing apart the web of habit means finding a point of view from within it, which is not possible when we are completely entangled. It is a question of being able to see what envelops us and to do this it is necessary to create a space, a point on the web from which it becomes visible. This point does not lie outside what we aim to see because outside of it there is nothing (since, as Nietzsche writes, in the world there is no inside and no outside – HH I 15/MA I 15). Or rather, in this tear other threads will inevitably grow and the web will never disappear. The point of view that liberates from being trapped is therefore immanent in what traps it but somehow manages to break free and see. For Nietzsche, this breaking free occurs as a result of an estrangement from what is familiar, a distancing, a force that goes against what we are used to and also against what is habitual among philosophers. The latter have always sought to familiarise “something unfamiliar” because it “is comforting, reassuring, satisfying, and produces a feeling of power as well. Unfamiliar things are dangerous, anxiety-provoking, upsetting, – the primary instinct is to get rid of these painful states” (TI Errors 5/GD Irrthümer 5). Nietzsche’s proposal therefore involves recognising that what is most habitual is “what we are used to, and what we are used to is the most difficult to ‘know’ – that is, to view as a problem, to see as strange, as distant, as ‘outside us’” (GS 355/FW 355).2 In other words, it is a question of establishing a distance from the habit that “makes […] our hand more witty and our wit less handy” (GS 247/FW 247). This distance, however, does not absolutely dispense with habits. On the contrary, it enables the creation of another kind of habits, to which Nietzsche calls “brief” (GS 295/FW 295). Nietzsche explains that such brief habits, while possessing a

2 With regard to the problem of habit and this text in particular, see Stegmaier (2011a).

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“faith in eternity”, emerge, “nourish” the philosopher’s days and then “one day [their] time is up”: they part from him “not as something that now disgusts me but peacefully and sated with me, as I with it”. However, their departure is not followed by an absence of habits because in their place “already the new waits at the door” (GS 295/FW 295). Brief habits are those which Nietzsche claims to “love”, indicating the possibility of transforming a hindrance to the freedom of spirit into something benevolent and favourable, i.e. valuable and worthy of our appreciation. However, in order for this love to exist it is necessary to maintain a degree of estrangement and separation of the sort that prevents total adhesion, a familiarity or proximity that could turn us into its victims. In other words, the condition for this love is a certain degree of distance, a distance that Nietzsche believes to be a condition of vitality (which applies as much to habit as it does to words) to the extent that identification, coincidence, paralyses the relationship and deforms the parts of which it is composed, as shown by the image of the spider that feeds on itself. Such an identification leads to atrophy rather than to expansion, growth or broadening. For Nietzsche, this atrophy is an aberration corresponding to that represented in a sinister variation of the image of the spider devouring itself, the figure of “the conscientious of spirit” in Z IV Leech/ZA IV Blutegel.

III. Skin, Mask and Individuation We can now begin to understand that the process of distancing, the tearing of the web of language that creates “grammatical habits” (BGE 17/JGB 17) and traps thought is not a simple destruction of what is enveloping us. Just as brief habits emerge and allow us to live, sating themselves and sating us without destroying us, and giving rise to other habits without becoming fixed (or fixing us) definitively, the tearing of the linguistic web can also only happen because another “waits at the door”, or, as Nietzsche writes, “grows” (GS 58/FW 58). Nietzsche illustrates this idea with the image of a change of skin, a change that obeys a logic of regeneration and not of simple destruction (or silencing). It is a logic of “critique” in which the negation or breaking free occurs due to the affirmation of something else: When we criticize (…) it is, at least very often, proof that there are living, active forces within us shedding skin. We negate and have to negate because something in us wants to live and affirm itself, something we might not yet know or see (GS 307/FW 307).

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The skin that is continually regenerated makes itself in its continual differentiation, in that process to which philosophy has given the name of becoming. It is in its incessant becoming, in the continual growth and continual separation from itself that the skin becomes what it is. To change skin is therefore to be, which means that the being is not a hidden essence that lies inert at the bottom of, or behind, the surface. Rather, that permanence or sameness to which philosophy is used to call “being” or “essence” is the surface itself, skin deep. Skin is appearance, “a product of we know not what forces and drives, a sort of sedimentation (Ablagerung) which is constantly dissolving itself bit by bit and then reconstructing itself again” (NL 1880, KSA 9, 6[339], my translation). In other words, we do not know its origin, and, in a certain sense, we cannot consider ourselves to be its origin unless we transform ourselves into the spider that eats itself. Words also belong to the plane of the surface, and to this extent they are appearances rather than essences. And since Nietzsche’s philosophy proposes that this is the only domain to which we have access – our reality – we can then understand what it means to say that we are entangled in language and that to destroy language would be to destroy the entire world (TI Fable/GD Fabel). As with the skin, we are not the origin or the cause of words. As we have seen above, they are never individual and express only what is common, what is communicable, what is understood by many and born from many experiences over time (BGE 268/JGB 286). Nietzsche stresses that even unique philosophical concepts “do not grow up on their own, but rather grow in reference and relation to each other” (BGE 20/JGB 20). And since words do not merely have multiple origins but also always denote “something complicated” (BGE 19/JGB 19) that cannot be reduced to any type of simple and atomic ultimate reality (BGE 12/JGB 12), we return to the problem of individuality that has already been mentioned.3 In fact, the belief that everything is multiple or non-identical may call into question the notion of “individual” as an irreducible singularity that no word can restore.4 But if this is the case, Nietzsche seems to have fallen into the trap that he criticises, because “individual” corresponds to a generic word that applies to the most varied cases, to an “Uebersehen” (an “overlooking”) of that which it aims to denote. The use of the term “individual” shows precisely that it is not possible to escape from the net of words that entraps us and, at the same time, to continue to want to express singularities. And Nietzsche’s solu-

3 On language and individuation (in Nietzsche and Humboldt), see Jaanus Sooväli and Andrea Bertino’s essays in this volume. 4 See Simon (1999).

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tion to this problem is analogous to that which he proposes as a way of resolving our entanglement in webs of habit, namely, to seek a point of view in which the familiar becomes strange or distant and to apply it to the notion of individual. An unusual, not yet vulgarised, view of this concept would allow a new understanding of individuality, a strange understanding that would invert the common meaning of the notion of individual and consider it as its opposite, that is to say, as a multiplicity. The same goes for the term “soul”. Nietzsche suggests that this word, previously understood as an atomic entity, should express a “subject-multiplicity” (BGE 12/JGB 12). Such a suggestion implies that a distanced view of the philosophical notion of soul does not eliminate it, but rather allows for a new understanding to emerge or grow which is, however, not an absolute novelty. It does not reject the point from which it sets out. Just as the concept of “brief habits” does not definitively reject the notion of habit and the criticism of language does not lead to silence, Nietzsche also argues that “there is absolutely no need to give up ‘the soul’ itself, and relinquish one of the oldest and most venerable hypotheses” (BGE 12/JGB 12) in order to allow “new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis” (BGE 12/JGB 12). It is thus that Nietzsche considers that the hypothesis of what we call individual corresponds to the opposite of what we usually understand by this word, that is to say, to an inversion of the meaning that has become fixed for the notion of individual. Accordingly, the “individual” is understood as an equivalent, not to a unit that is identical to itself, but to a multiplicity of differences.5 The novelty therefore lies in an understanding of individuality as a non-coincidence with itself and a non-permanence, that is to say, as what Nietzsche described as a constant change of skin, or, keeping with the terms surface and appearance, a constant growth of “masks”. Like skin, the mask “grows” around each profound spirit, and grows “constantly” (BGE 40/JGB 40). Moreover, the growth of the mask is the “growth” of the spirit, which, rather than being reduced to a unity, is a “multiplicity of masks” (BGE 230/JGB 230). On the other hand, if “every word is a prejudice” (WS 55), “every word is also a mask”, as Nietzsche argues in BGE 289, where he discusses hiding and dissimulation. The mask disguises and protects because it separates (BGE 270/JGB 270, BGE 284/JGB 284) and he who masks himself distances himself by erecting a boundary around himself which separates him from others, from what is common. But since the mask, like the word, is not neutral and transparent, in separating, in becoming individualised, it communicates, it speaks.6 Language also hides (and forgets) but does 5 On difference and identity, see the discussion of the concept of “I” in Sooväli’s contribution to this volume. 6 See Hamacher (1986).

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not hide anything particular or essential that could be reached by means of a non-linguistic form of communication (by means, that is, of some kind of silent adequacy or authenticity). Language hides what it reveals, that which only it can show, because it is a medium, something which impedes direct access but, at the same time, connects (a “net”). In this respect, language separates what it binds together, i.e. each individual from others and the individual from himself. If the individual is that which is not common, that which is distinct and separate, his relation to himself, his self-knowledge, is possible only as a particular kind of linguistically mediated knowledge, i.e. as knowledge of “a surface- and sign-world” (GS 354/FW 354). Therefore, self-knowledge is not access to the complete set of determinations that define us, it does not restore a unicum out of a sum of identifiable parts. If something like self-knowledge could ever be constituted, it would consist of the plurality of masks in which the individual and his spirit “grow”, that is to say, in which they live and appear. For this reason, Nietzsche responds to the problem of how it is possible to know something that can only appear when it is hidden by stating that behind each mask there is another mask (BGE 279/JGB 279) that no knowledge can anticipate. A new comprehension of the notion of individuation would understand it to be a process of becoming, a continual differentiation that escapes being fixed and escapes the determinations which it nevertheless cannot fail to generate. Hence Nietzsche’s distrust of the possibility of consummate self-knowledge, the “unconquerable distrust in the possibility of self-knowledge” and “a kind of revulsion against believing anything definite about myself” (BGE 281/ JGB 281): And, ultimately, what do we know about ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants to be called? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we are hiding? (BGE 227/JGB 227).

But if the individual differentiates himself in order to become what he is, if he does not correspond to a particular and inexpressible essence or substance, then what is individual in an individual is precisely his indetermination, that which is not yet fixed (BGE 62/JGB 62) and which not even he can completely determine. This is why Nietzsche underlines the importance of the only thing that breaks down determination, rules and the stability of habits, namely the importance of chance, whose hand “tears through” the “spider-web” of our life, through the predictability of our experiences (D 130/M 130). Chance is indetermination, something that is neither deliberated, nor chosen, nor predictable. And if the mask is the individual’s way of being – of his becoming – it is because the mask is not something that someone chooses to wear, but is

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free not to, but something that “grows” around him whether he likes it or not. This is why Nietzsche writes that “the best mask that we wear is our own face” (NL 1883, KSA 10, 13[3], my translation). The mask grows because it is impossible for each of us to conclusively define himself, the individual therefore being that which takes place between the masks and not a sum of determinations that could be the object of discursive knowledge, of some kind of Wissen. Furthermore, masks are what permits the individual’s relationship with himself, a relationship that is not one of identity, unity or coincidence but a movement of continual separation and estrangement. So, if “each is furthest from himself” (GM Preface 1/GM Vorrede 1), each is also continually experiencing his own becoming, i.e. continually being affected by his becoming. In other words, individuation happens by means of an affection, by an experience of being touched or moved that presupposes, to some extent, a lack of control, a lack of knowledge over what exerts its power over us. Nietzsche calls this experience “pathos of distance” (BGE 257/JGB 257).

IV. Pereat Ego. “Our Redlichkeit” The pathos of distance is not a form of knowledge, but an “affect”. Differing from the modern concept of “consciousness” (Bewusstsein),7 it consists not of a Wissen, but of a new kind of “conscience” (Gewissen). According to Nietzsche, just as there is another mask behind the mask, there is also another “conscience behind your ‘conscience’”: an “intellectual conscience” (intellectualles Gewissen) or “honesty” (Redlichkeit) (GS 335/FW 335).8 With these terms, Nietzsche does not intend to indicate a sense of self in which identity and unity are reified. What is at stake is not so much the determination of the contents of a self-limited subjectivity than the movement or tear mentioned above, by virtue of which a space is opened up that regenerates (Nietzsche’s term is “overcomes”) the determinations. Following what has been said, his understanding of conscience could be defined as a knowledge without a subject,9 or as the requirement for the possibility of individuation. Nietzsche calls it “new expansions of distance within the soul itself” (BGE 257/JGB 257) or the ability to recognise differences “inside the same person even within a single soul” (BGE 260/JGB 260). 7 On consciousness (Bewusstsein), see Luca Lupo and João Constâncio’s essays in this volume. 8 See Wotling (2002). 9 See Nancy (1990).

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Considered as a sign of nobility, i.e. as the opposite of “vulgarity”, Redlichkeit is a virtue for Nietzsche. And as a virtue it is still very young, lacking in awareness of itself, still poorly understood, “still in process of becoming” (D 456/M 456). Redlichkeit is the virtue that characterises free spirits (BGE 227/ JGB 227), and it is the name of the “thinker’s innermost experience” (AOM 26/VM 26), the pathos of distance. Nietzsche argues that this virtue must be exercised against an old vice, the “‘vice of the intellectual’ (Wissenden)”, which is the “immeasurable pride”, the “arrogance” present in the old “demand for truth” (AOM 26/VM 26). This vice is particularly evident in modern philosophers and is revealed in the fact that, in the “secret struggle with idea-persons” (heimlichen Kampfe mit Gedanken-Personen) in which thoughts are like “individuals” (Individuen) they prefer “the true to the untrue” because “in the realm of thought, power and fame are hard to maintain if erected on the basis of error or lies” (AOM 26/VM 26). Nietzsche’s idea is that, in aspiring to the truth, what was in play for the thinker was a desire not to spoil his reputation, since “the feeling that such a building could at some time or other fall down is humiliating to the self-conceit (Selbstbewusstsein) of its architect” (AOM 26/ VM 26). The vice of arrogance is defined by Nietzsche as taking oneself “more seriously than the rest of the world” and its motto is “pereat mundus, dum ego salvus sum!” (AOM 26/VM 26). In transforming his work into “his ego” (AOM 26/VM 26), the proud thinker falls into his own trap: the mask stops growing, becomes a “mortuary mask” (GS 54/FW 54), and the world is threatened. Unlike the intellectual conscience, modern self-consciousness is more bound to the lie that it created (i.e. more bound to itself) than to the freedom of shedding skin and of affirming reality as multiplicity and change. By contrast, the new virtue of Redlichkeit (which Nietzsche describes as a “strange phenomenon”, that is, as something with which we are not yet familiar with, as something which is still unusual) allows the thinker to relate to his own thoughts and words, not as things of his with which he identifies, but as if they were “persons”, “individuals with whom one has to struggle, to whom one has to ally oneself, whom one has to tend, protect and nourish”, in other words, as masks that grow, with their own life, without having been chosen. At the root of the intellectual conscience is therefore a degree of strangeness, a distance that allows us to be “afraid of our own ideas (Gedanken), concepts, words, but also [to] honour ourselves in them”. Moreover, it also allows us to “involuntarily ascribe to them the capacity to instruct, despise, praise and censure us, that we thus traffic with them as with free intelligent persons, with independent powers, as equals with equals” (AOM 26/VM 26). On the other hand, in spite of being “intellectual”, Nietzsche’s Redlichkeit is born of a pathos, an affect that should be active “every day”:

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To what extent the thinker loves his enemy. – Never keep back or bury in silence that which can be thought against your thoughts! Give it praise! It is among the foremost requirements of honesty of thought. Every day you must conduct your campaign also against yourself. A victory and a conquered fortress are no longer your concern, your concern is truth – but your defeat is no longer your concern, either! (D 370/M 370).

Intellectual honesty is thus a sort of auto-affection, the virtue of the free spirit who carries out a campaign against himself and that is the “extent [to which] the thinker loves his enemy”, that is to say, the extent to which he loves himself (D 370/M 370). But even more decisively Redlichkeit is the name for “the exercise of recognising more properties in one thing”, which makes possible “the knowledge of things in their multiplicity” (NL 1880, KSA 9, 6[235], my translation). Nevertheless, this virtue does not drag us towards the unstable whirlpool of becoming, since in it “the perception of what is strange goes very far and yet is still accompanied by pleasure (Genuß)” (NL 1880, KSA 9, 6[67], my translation). Put differently, it allows us not to fear what is unknown, what is strange and unfamiliar, and to take pleasure in it. Only distance, the pathos of distance, makes it possible to take pleasure in appearances, to feel “respect for ‘masks’” (BGE 270/JGB 270), to love the errors or illusions of which the human universe is woven (and which are effectively its truth). However, only “the most spiritual man”, the only one who “has seen now and then behind the masks and knows how to see”, is able to understand “how much everything is a mask” – and to do so “in high spirits (in bester Laune)” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[180], my translation). The most spiritual man, the free spirit, is the one who is able to consider the problem of truth arising from appearances and from the becoming of appearances without this reality of continuous change leading him to despair. The most spiritual point of view is the most redlich point of view, for which everything is a mask or appearance. According to Nietzsche, it allows us to be “in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and the whole marvellous uncertainty and ambiguity (Vieldeutigkeit) of existence” and tremble “with the craving and rapture of questioning” (GS 2/FW 2). So habit is brief, the individual is multiple, truth is appearance, becoming is lasting, the word is a mask. It is in this context that Nietzsche’s philosophy, while being suspicious of language, opens up to the possibility of loving words. This possibility belongs to the “highly spiritual, spiritualized people”, for whom “the great suspicion” transforms life into a “problem” (GS Preface 3/FW Vorrede 3). However, such men do not necessarily become “sullen” because, as Nietzsche writes, “love of life is still possible”. The suspicion therefore does not necessarily negate either the possibility of love or that of “a new happiness” (GS Preface 3/FW Vorrede 3). In fact, it is a question of loving “differently”, as in “the love for a woman who gives us doubts” (GS Preface 3/FW

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Vorrede 3). How then does this suspicion operate, and what type of love and pleasure can arouse the “attraction of everything problematic” (GS Preface 3/ FW Vorrede 3)? In other words, how can that which delights us raise suspicions? What type of positive response can be given to a distrust, a problem, a difficulty or an obstacle that blocks our path? Does the delight not envelop us in a friendly, benevolent atmosphere? Does it not suspend our reservations, inspiring our attachment?

V. Idolatry and Ideophilia. The Case of Plato I initially discussed the power that language exerts on men and I described it as an act of violence, bound to the process of corruption and injustice that words carry out on what is most singular and on the impossibility of their restoring the truth. The image of the web and the spider that eats itself has shown the dangers that language poses for the philosopher, dangers that threaten the very life of philosophy. Nietzsche makes use of another term to describe the dangerous and even mortal power that words exert on philosophers and to which Parmenides succumbed: he calls it a power of “seduction” (BGE, Preface/JGB Vorrede and BGE 16/JGB 16). In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche returns to the example of the Eleatics and discusses the “seduction” exerted by the concept of being on its creators (TI Reason 5/GD Vernunft 5). Words seduce philosophers with such force that “an invisible spell” takes them prisoner: “they will each start out anew, only to end up revolving in the same orbit once again” (BGE 20/JGB 20). This reasoning is the inverse of that of the change of skin described above: here there is no regeneration, no space for novelty and growth because the action is centripetal and exerts an attraction towards a single and always identical centre that devours everything around it. The seducer captures the seduced and comes to be the whole of his world, annihilating everything else and making it invisible. Caught in the net of fascination, in the web in which the word entangles him, it is as if the philosopher were hypnotised, paralysed, left without any freedom of movement, with no space between him and that which seduces him. The violence of this action prevents any resistance and the executioner is treated as an idol to which the philosopher sacrifices himself. But Nietzsche teaches us that sacrifice can also be understood in an unusual way, from an extra-moral point of view. Accordingly, he inverts the usual meaning of this word and reveals that it indicates the opposite of the meaning that has become common. By sacrificing himself, the victim, wants something in return and gets it: “he gave up here in order to have more there, perhaps in order to be

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more in general, or just to feel like ‘more’” (BGE 220/JGB 220). Thus, contrary to what we have become used to thinking, sacrificial acts are in fact linked to the growth of a feeling of strength, the intensification of power, that which Nietzsche describes as “intoxication” (Rausch), through which the sacrificed feels joined to the powerful being to which he sacrifices himself, whether it be a man or a god (D 215/M 215). From this perspective, the logic of sacrifice consists of identifying with the power that the executioner exerts over the victim, and this seems to be what is in play in the philosopher’s unredlich, idolatrous and dishonest relationship with language. But when this is the case, the victim will himself be transformed into the executioner and the roles will be reversed: sharing in the fascination that has captured him and sacrificing himself, he also sacrifices his abductor. In other words, the difference and distance between the seducer and the seduced, between the sacrificer and the sacrificed, ceases to exist, and both dissolve their individuality in a common whole, in a net that does not tear. It can therefore be understood that as “lords of concept idolatry”, philosophers “kill and stuff the things they worship” and “become mortal dangers to everything they worship” (TI Reason 1/GD Vernunft 1). When he sacrifices himself to the words that he creates, the philosopher’s gain stems from the vice which Nietzsche calls pride and which is the search for a reification of the self and of a self that is not an intellectual conscience but an “I” (TI Reason 5/GD Vernunft 5). The seduction is therefore turned against the seducer, which loses its power of attraction. Once this point has been reached, the power is extinguished since there is no more nourishment: the spider is forced to feed on its own blood and goes from being powerful and seductive to being a “mummy”, a “mummified concept” (TI Reason 1/GD Vernunft 1). The web withers instead of growing, the power wanes and the conditions no longer exist for the continuation of the intoxication of the erotic game. The opposite of this vicious process was found by Nietzsche in Platonic philosophy, to which, as he did to the word “individual”, he gives a strange meaning, very different from what we are used to associating with the name of Plato. In Twilight of the Idols, Plato represents the philosopher whose “erotic rapture” gave rise to the birth of a “philosophical erotics”, “an erotic contest” which is in every respect the opposite of the “hermit’s conceptual cobwebweaving”, such as that of Spinoza (TI Skirmishes 23/GD Streifzüge 23). In Daybreak, Nietzsche described the “drunkenness” (Rausch) that took over the souls of the Greek philosophers when they played “at the rigorous and sober game of concept, generalisation, refutation, limitation” comparing it to the musical inebriation of the “ancient rigorous and sober contrapuntal compos-

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ers”.10 The intoxication was then due to a “new taste” that stood out to the extent that “they sang and stammered of dialectics, the ‘divine art’, as though in a delirium of love” (D 544/M 544). Among the Greeks, and particularly in Platonic thought, multiplicity delighted, seduced and awoke in the philosopher the desire to dominate the plurality of things, the vitality of appearances.11 Hence, if Plato taught moderation and limits, it was precisely because in them the individual found a unique expression of what defined him and because in this way appearances were “saved”. In other words, the search for the generic, the typical (idea or form) as the cause of multiplicity and change regenerated them, imbuing them with more life and value. By contrast, Nietzsche adds, moderns are “accustomed” (D 544/M 544) to the logical, abstract, and conceptual thought that, for the Greeks, and particularly Plato, constituted a novelty and an adventure of the spirit. Transformed into habit, into custom, dialectics – once a living form of thought – lost its seductive power, its charm, and now became familiar and ordinary. If “the drive that takes its pleasure and force in grasping the typical”, the drive that contains “an overwhelming of the abundance of what lives”, was “the Greek taste of the best period”, “real modernity” is distinguished, Nietzsche writes, by the “sense of and pleasure in nuance (…), in what is not general” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 7[7] = WLN, 132). Already sated, already used to generic and abstract concepts of thought, the moderns must therefore create a new relationship between type and nuance, between the generic and the singular, between words and reality in a state of becoming. Nietzsche’s philosophy describes precisely the possibility of this new relationship with language in which the impulse that seduces is not the creation of the typical, the identification of different cases, but the distinction of differences, singularities, and the infinite possibilities of differentiation. According to Nietzsche, only this will allow thought to regain the vitality that the Platonic dialectic possessed. And that is the meaning of Nietzsche’s “inversion of Platonism”: the “goal” is no longer “true being”, i.e. the idea or essence, but rather “appearance”, i.e. the nuance (cf. NL 1870–71, KSA 7, 7[156], my translation).12 Thus a posthumous note from 1886–87 speaks of an inversion of the

10 I cannot develop here the relation between the notions of “intoxication” (Rausch) and “sobriety” (Nüchternheit) and so I limit myself to recall Nietzsche’s words in GS 57 on this topic. On the relationship between intoxication and the “profound affinity of thought with love”, as well as with the “most distant” and “most strange” in Plato and Nietzsche, see Stiegler (2005), p. 149 ff. 11 This interpretation of the relationship between Nietzsche and Plato is proposed by Günter Figal (2001), in particular, chap. 5, “Neue Erfindung des vernünftigen Denken”, pp. 140–158. 12 See Figal (2001), pp. 157–158.

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inversion by which Plato overturned the values of reality and appearance. Nietzsche begins by defining Plato as an “artist” who believes that “the more a thing, a man, is sublimated, diluted, evaporated, the more valuable it becomes. This is Platonism” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 7[2], my translation). However, Plato “was capable of one more audacity in his inversion: he measured the degree of reality by the degree of value and said: the more ‘idea’, the more being. He inverted the concept of ‘reality’ and said: ‘what you take for real, is an error, and the closer we come to the ‘idea’, truth’” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 7[2], my translation). Nietzsche calls this inversion “the greatest rechristening” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 7[2], my translation), thereby indicating that a “new language” also arose from Platonic philosophy. Plato transformed what was most ordinary, widely known and familiar – appearances – into what was strangest, most remote and most distant – ideas: “In the end Plato, as the artist that he was, preferred appearance to being: therefore the lie and invention to truth, the unreal to the real” (NL 1886–87, KSA 12, 7[2], my translation). For Nietzsche, the philosopher is an artist to the extent that he lives in a “world turned upside down (eine verkehrte Welt)” and “feels what all nonartists call ‘form’ to be content, to be ‘the matter itself’”: content therefore becomes “something merely formal – including our life” (NL 1887–88, KSA 13, 11[3] = WLN, 207). Forms, appearances, masks and surfaces, the skin that continually regenerates itself, all of this is “certainly not the opposite of some essence”, but “the active and living itself, which goes so far in its self-mockery that it makes me feel that here there is appearance (…) and nothing else” (GS 54/FW 54). For this reason, it is much more important to know “the name, and appearance” of things than to know what they are, since everything that is an “error” has “slowly grown onto and into the thing”: “what started as appearance in the end nearly always becomes essence and effectively acts as its essence” (GS 58/FW 58). So content is form, the name is the thing, the error or lie is the truth: Nietzsche inverts Platonism out of love for life (and philosophy), arguing that “whoever cannot lie does not know what truth is” because “powerlessness to lie is by no means love for the truth” (Z IV Men/ZA IV Menschen).

VI. Actio in Distans What, then, will the new philosopher’s love be like? What amorous relationship does he establish with “all great problems” (which demand “great love”, die grosse Liebe – GS 345/FW 354)? What type of lover could he be if he

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demands suspicion and distance from the loved one? And how is this love manifested in relation to language? Suspicion and distance do not imply abandonment; they do not imply a definitive distancing or absence. They still presume conviviality, watchfulness, care, perhaps even a certain type of intimacy, although it can never be fusional, sacrificial. The love that Nietzsche has in mind is therefore neither a demand for asceticism, deprivation and silence, nor that tyrannical, dogmatic violence that negates the relationship by aiming to consummate it. In The Gay Science Nietzsche also refers to another variation of this latter type of love, and defines it as the adolescent love that is typical of “Egyptian youths” (GS Preface 4/FW Vorrede 4). In it Nietzsche sees a “will to truth, to ‘truth at any price’” that acts in accordance with the idea that in nudity, in the stripping away all of the veils, the loved object is reached (GS Preface 4/FW Vorrede 4).13 Nietzsche counters this idea and the logic of fusing with and searching for a hidden essence, concealed behind the masks, with another concept of love that does not “seek to abolish”, that does not “deny” the parts involved, but rejoices “at the fact that another lives, feels and acts in a way different from and opposite to ours” (AOM 75/VM 75).14 It is a love that presupposes an “unblendable multiplicity in one person”, which it stimulates “even in the same person”, “even”, Nietzsche states, in “self-love” (AOM 75/VM 75). Such distance is what allows the lover to become his opposite, that is to say, to become a “seducer” (Versucher), and this is precisely the “name not lacking in dangers” with which Nietzsche risks “christening” the “new philosophers” (BGE 42/JGB 42). Being “seducers” their relationship with words proves to be decisive. In fact, if “it is not enough to prove something” and “one has also to seduce or elevate people to it” (D 330/M 330), a mask is needed “also in order to seduce” (NL 1882–83, KSA 10, 1[20]). And since, as seen before, words are masks, the relation of the new philosophers with them must be of the type described in AOM 75/VM 75. It must involve not only the dynamic of opposites between

13 This idea is analogous to Roland Barthes’s description of strip-tease as a “rêve de collègien”, a dream where there is no “tear” (“déchirure”), but only a “hope to see” and a “progressive discloser” (“dévoilement progréssif”). Its opposite is “l’intermittence”: “c’est l’intermittence (…) qui est érotique: celle de la peau que scintille entre deux pièces, entre deux bords (…) c’est ce scintillement même qui séduit, ou encore: la mise en scêne d’une apparition-disparition”. Barthes (1973), pp. 19–20. 14 On Nietzsche’s understanding of love, especially on his interpretation of “l’amour passion” and its relationship with distance, suspicion and doubt, see Piazzesi’s essay in this volume as well as her “Greed and Love: Genealogy, Dissolution, and Therapeutical Effects of a Linguistic Distinction in FW 14” see Piazzesi (2011).

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the different parts, between lover and beloved, but also the growth of that dynamic through a continuous expansion whose condition of possibility is the regeneration and becoming of those parts. In this form of love there is neither an identification nor a total inversion of roles. Rather, there is a reciprocal and continued action that supposes that the differences in the poles of the relationship will be maintained and even enhanced. For this reason, the new philosophers will be seducers to the extent that they will not provoke any unconditional adhesion, i.e. sacrifice, violence or idolatry. If, in Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche speaks again of “Egypticity” to characterise the type of idolatrous relationship that philosophers have with words (TI Reason 1/GD Vernunft 1), in The Gay Science he declares that “one will hardly find us again on the paths of those Egyptian youths” (GS Preface 4/FW Vorrede 4). If “truth is a woman” (GS Preface 4/FW Vorrede 4, BGE Preface/JGB Vorrede, BGE 220/JGB 220), “we should not do violence to her” because “we no longer believe that truth remains truth when one pulls off the veil” and “we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked” (BGE 220/JGB 220). What seems, then, to be at stake here is a kind of love that stops “bravely at the surface, the fold, the skin” (GS Preface 4/FW Vorrede 4) instead of identifying with them. By understanding their words as masks that seduce, neither fusing with them nor dispensing with them, the new philosophers must be able to keep a distance from them while at the same time they feel their seductive power. Put differently, their intellectual conscience requires that they engage with their words “as with free intelligent persons, with independent powers, as equals with equals” (AOM 26/VS 26). We could perhaps state their motto to be: “pereat ego, dum mundum salvus est”. And after what has been said, this “pereat” must not be understood as a sacrificial death but as something of the order of a petite mort, i.e. of the pleasure taken in words (and texts, to keep in mind Barthes’s essay). A philosophical love of words would then become the salvation of the world understood as appearances in a state of becoming, that is to say, understood as the growth of masks and skins which are never crystallised, never definitive, in a lavish squandering that continues to shed skin. As thoughts “grow” in philosophers (GM Preface 2/GM Vorrede 2), so words keep growing from them inasmuch as they continue to be loved, allowing the thinker to continue to be alive. None of his words absolutely determines or fixes him and his thoughts (BGE 296/JGB 296) because none of them is absolutely “his”. The free spirit is not an ego but an “open well (offnen Brunnen)” (GS 378/FW 378) that is renewed at each instant. If philosophers wish to “remain riddles in some respect” (BGE 42/JGB 42) and assume the risk of “being misunderstood, misjudged, misidentified, defamed, misheard, and ignored” (GS 371/FW 371), it is because, instead of

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paralysing the reader and withering away, victims of an idolatrous love, they wish to “keep growing, changing, shedding old hides” (GS 371/FW 371). Such growth presupposes keeping alive the seductive power, exerting it without exhausting it, maintaining it active by extending the web as far as possible and promoting the life of what constantly nourishes it. Nietzsche calls this action an “action at a distance”, which is what defines “the magic and the most powerful effect of women” (GS 60/FW 60) and also “the fundamental fact”, the new name that he gives to reality, “the will to power” (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[247] = WLN, 15). By resisting idolatry, the “incomprehensible ones” (GS 371/FW 371) will seduce men with a “new language”, one which will “sound most foreign” (BGE 4/JGB 4) because in it distance will be the creator of the affect. Therefore, in spite of the criticisms that he makes of language, Nietzsche does not defend mutism, the impotent silence that rejects words and refuses to speak (and to write). The fact that words seduce means that they obey the “law of double relation (Gesetz der doppelten Relation)” (NL 1882, KSA 10, 1[109], my translation);15 put differently, it means that, as a lover and a seducer, the free spirit does not write for himself. Acting at a distance, his words grow from love – from love in relation to “the person with whom [they] wish to communicate”, for only then will their style “live” (NL 1882, KSA 10, 1[109], my translation).16 The new philosophers will therefore be “worshippers of shapes, tones, words” (GS Preface 4/FW Vorrede 4).

Bibliography Barthes, R. (1973), Le plaisir du texte, Paris: Seuil. Figal, Günter (2001), Nietzsche. Eine philosophische Einführung, Stuttgart: Reclam. Haar, Michel (1999), “Nietzsche und die Sprache”, in: Riedel, M. (ed.), “Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil”. Philologie und Philosophie in Nietzsches Denken, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau, pp. 63–75. Hamacher, Werner (1986), “Disaggregation des Willens. Nietzsche über Individuum und Individualität”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 15, pp. 306–336 Nancy, Jean-Luc (1990), “‘Our Probity!’ On Truth in the Moral Sense in Nietzsche”, in: Rickers, L.A. (ed.), Looking after Nietzsche, New York: SUNY, pp. 67–87.

15 On this posthumous note, titled “Zum Lehre vom Stil” and written for Lou AndreasSalomé, see Fornari’s essay in this volume. 16 On the relationship between style and seduction in Nietzsche, see Simonis (2002), and also Stegmaier (2011b), pp. 98–113.

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Piazzesi, Chiara (2011), “Greed and Love: Genealogy, Dissolution, and Therapeutical Effects of a Linguistic Distinction in FW 14”, in: Constâncio, J./Branco, M. J. M. (eds.), Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, pp. 117–163. Simon, Josef (1999), “Der Name ‘Wahrheit’. Zu Nietzsches früher Schrift ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne’”, in: Riedel, M. (ed.), “Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil”, Philologie und Philosophie in Nietzsches Denken, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau, pp. 77–93. Simonis, Linda (2002), “Der Stil als Verführer. Nietzsche und die Sprache des Performativen”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 31, pp. 57–74. Stegmaier, Werner (2011a), “Fearless Findings. Instinct and Language in Book V of The Gay Science”, in: Constâncio, J./Branco, M. J. M. (eds.), Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, pp. 185–200. Stegmaier, Werner (2011b), Friedrich Nietzsche zur Einführung, Hamburg: Junius Verlag. Stiegler, Barbara (2005), Nietzsche et la critique de la chair. Dionysos, Ariadne, le Christ, Paris: PUF. Wotling, Patrick (2002), “Les questions que les philosophes ne posent pas. L’éthique de la pensée chez Nietzsche”, in: Lignes 7, pp. 250–262.

IV. On Language, Self-Expression, and Style

Bartholomew Ryan

The Rise and Fall of Zarathustra’s Star “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star” Z I, Prologue 5/ZA I Vorrede 5 “[…] of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality ever moving wanderers from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity”1

Given that Zarathustra is after all the prophet for the ‘religion of light’ Zoroastrianism, it is the star at a first glance that is his beacon and guide. The star has been the beacon and guide in many key moments in our Western cultural memory from finding the birthplace of Christ to the science of Copernicus and Galileo, for venturous sailors on the vast ocean of space, time and the imagination from Homer’s Odysseus to Melville’s Ishmael, to the great poetic visions from Dante to Trakl. So why should such an iconoclast as Nietzsche be interested in such a heavy-laden word and over-used symbol for divinity and truth? And in what ways does he use the word in his published works, and does he manage to transform not only the word but how we, as readers, today might understand it? These are questions that I will attempt to answer. Remarkably, very little has been written explicitly on the subject of the stars and Nietzsche.2 Stepping out into the forbidding space of the stars in connection with Nietzsche’s writing, most specifically Thus Spoke Zarathustra and its winking curtain raiser and closer The Gay Science, I divide this paper into three parts. Firstly, I explore what a star might be for us and for Nietzsche and how it connects to both chaos and cosmos; secondly, I introduce briefly how, for

1 Joyce, Ulysses (2008), p. 651. 2 Many writings on Nietzsche on various subjects implicitly refer to the stars and astronomy, but do not solely engage with stars and Nietzsche. There are a few exceptions. So far, I have found Wolfram Groddeck’s (1989) article “‘Oh Himmel über Mir’: Zur kosmischen Wendung in Nietzsches Poetologie”. Javier Ibáñez-Noé (1999) also comes close to the problem of the stars in Nietzsche’s work in his article: “World and Creation: On Nietzsche’s Perspectivism”. Martin Heidegger in volume three of his published lectures on Nietzsche (1936–1940) delves into the concept of chaos in Nietzsche’s work, and the word “star” appears in his later “poetic” writing, but this inspiration and Kehre can also have been initiated by his lifelong reading of poets such as Hölderlin, Rilke, Goethe and especially Georg Trakl whose use of the word Stern is abundant throughout his visionary poetry.

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Nietzsche, a renewed way of thinking, new use of language and new ways of interpreting and seeing words such as “star” is striven for by going through all the places where star is mentioned in his writings outside the Zarathustra text; and finally, I point to how Thus Spoke Zarathustra – a book obsessed with the stars – approaches, appropriates and deconstructs the language of the stars, which, like ourselves, are not fixed but ever-changing. On a final note before we begin, it is cautiously hoped that this paper acts as a prelude and humble opening to potential further exploration of Nietzsche in his use of the word star.

I. What Is a Star? “If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare”3

A star contains such a wide variety of connotations and allusions that still leave us gasping for more despite our excessive use of the word over the last few thousand years. Stars are, from one aspect, luminous cosmic bodies, massive balls of plasma held together by gravity. The star that affects us most is the Sun. Without the Sun everything on this planet dies. Nietzsche begins his early radical critique of language and truth in his 1873 essay “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” by dramatically opening with an image of our utter dependence on the great star – the Sun: In some remote corner of the universe, flickering in the light of the countless solar systems into which it had been poured, there was once a planet [Gestirn] on which clever animals invented cognition. It was the most arrogant and most mendacious minute in the ‘history of the world’; but a minute was all it was. After nature had drawn just a few more breaths the planet [Gestirn] froze and the clever animals had to die (TL, 141/WL).4

3 This quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first book called Nature published in 1836. See: Emerson (2000), p. 5. 4 It might be interesting to compare this opening passage with Schopenhauer’s opening sentence in Volume II of his magnum opus: “In endless space countless luminous spheres, round each of which some dozen smaller illuminated ones revolve, hot at the core and covered over with a hard cold crust; on this crust a mouldy film has produced living and knowing things: this is empirical truth, the real, the world. Yet for a being who thinks, it is a precarious position to stand on one of those numberless spheres freely floating in boundless space, without knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar beings that throng, press, and toil, restlessly and rapidly arising and passing away in beginningless and endless time. Here there is nothing permanent but matter alone, and the recurrence of the same varied organic forms by means of certain ways and channels that

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This is the first significant and one of the most memorable moments where Nietzsche situates us in the solar system and presents the Earth as a celestial body – a Gestirn. And before we become too optimistic of our intellectual powers, Nietzsche here highlights how fleeting our existence is. It is also the most famous moment on which Nietzsche reflects on the vastness of space and uses it as a terrifying image to show how conceited we humans can be in our self-congratulatory stance on knowledge and consciousness. He is also moving beyond Schopenhauer at this moment because the former still has hope in modern philosophy in Berkeley and Kant to take us out of this conundrum and reliance on ancient Indian texts to find a much earlier and alternative metaphysics. Of course, Nietzsche is using the frame of the fable, and the thesis of the essay itself is to present the truth in its many forms as a fable. Nietzsche reminds the reader that the “truth” of what we know very often becomes petrified and we forget very quickly that this “truth” might have been an idea, a story or a creative moment that turned into a doctrine. Beginning the essay in the storytelling tradition with “In some remote corner of the universe” and “there once was a”, Nietzsche very quickly invites to us our fragile place in the larger scheme of things. This particular planet, Earth, on which we reside, revolves around the great star, our energy, the Sun. Following Nietzsche the philologist, we must remind ourselves that the word planet comes from the Greek word planetai meaning “wandering stars”, from planasthai (“to wander”). As wanderers and only having ever lived (that we are aware of) on this particular wandering star, we humans are still very young and short-sighted. The German word for star is Stern, which traces back to either Old English or Old German in its metamorphosis from steorra to stjarne to stjerne to star to ster to Stern. Dante called them stelle5 and each of the three great parts of his Divine Comedy ended with the word star.6 These were the fixed stars that guided him to Paradise, the source of his desire and love of the muse of poetry, of Beatrice, and ultimately of God. These are no longer the stars that Nietzsche is seeking though he will sometimes present

inevitably exist as they do. All that empirical science can teach is only the more precise nature and rule of these events” (WWR II §1, p. 3). 5 The etymological relation between stars and desire come from Latin. Stars in Latin is “sidera” and the verb to desire in Latin is “desidĕro”, “de-siderare” means literally “to be away or separated from the stars”. My thanks to Laura Scuriatti and Gianfranco Ravasi for disclosing this point to me. 6 Dante, Inferno XXXIV: “e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stele” (and we emerged to see – once more- the stars); Purgatorio XXXIII: “puro e disposto a salire alle stelle” (pure and prepared to clime unto the stars); Paradiso XXXIII: “l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle” (“the Love that moves the sun and the other stars”).

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the star as Dante wrote of them, sometimes with irreverence, sometimes with sentimentality and nostalgia, and sometimes with merciless parody. We will see examples of these different approaches in part three of this investigation. In German, Stern is distinguished from Gestirn, which can be translated as “heavenly body”, so it is Stern to which we will remain focused. In the opening passage of “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”, Nietzsche refers to the Sun as a Gestirn, perhaps both showing that it is a special star but also parodying what we consider special in this biting opening paragraph. The wandering star itself can be a dying planet, a new planet or something that is yet to come. It is also the last visible thing for us, and thus representing the final reach of our capacities and the limits of our knowledge. Stars are born and stars die, and they pour light into the black void. Perhaps, for Nietzsche, God is metaphorically simply a star whose light has gone out, as well as being the conjecture that has had its day.7 Unlike the Platonic or Judeo-Christian conception and belief, Nietzsche’s star combines cosmos with chaos – not only as creator and destroyer, but as utter indifference and endlessness also. As John D. Caputo puts it: “His is a philosophy of stars dancing in endless cosmic nights without a care for us care-filled beings below, of stars twinkling in a void indifferent to the fate of us mortals below”.8 Where then can we find evidence of this combination of cosmos and chaos? There are indications of this throughout his writing and there is already one example from the opening of “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”. Always with Nietzsche’s stars, they allude not only to cosmology and universe, or more appropriately the ‘multiverse’ (multiple possible universes) or simply cosmos, but also to our very use of language and intellect, such that we are always, like the stars, creators and destroyers. This is Caputo’s fear in that everything around us, in the cosmos of stars, is accompanied by indifference and endlessness. But this fear overlooks that fact that in this humbling thought, we are always striving and, even more significantly, we want to live. This is also Zarathustra’s message and own revelation in the face of dried-up ideas. As one scientist wrote, “Many passengers would rather have stayed at home” on discovering the increasing possibility of an infinity of stars.9 The connection between star and chaos comes to light in Zarathustra’s Prologue: “One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star”. Here we 7 Z II Isles/ZA II Inseln: “God is a conjecture […]”. Paul S. Loeb in his excellent book on Zarathustra emphasises that Zarathustra’s attack on the idea of an unmoving, permanent God is vital because this idea goes against Zarathustra’s striving towards revealing circular time and joyous transience. Loeb (2010), p. 174. 8 Caputo (1993), p. 16. 9 Sagan (1994), p. 19.

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have a number of Nietzschean motifs in a single line, and with the chaos and cosmos combined.10 Although Nietzsche has tried to leave Schopenhauer behind, his influence is still strong as they are both attracted to the same source. Schopenhauer begins the second book of The World as Will and Representation with the motto: “He dwells in us, not in the nether world, not in the starry heaven. The spirit living within us fashions all this”.11 In the twentieth century, Heidegger describes Nietzsche’s chaos as “the name for bodying life, life as bodying writ large […] chaos is what urges, flows, and is animated, whose order is concealed, whose law we do not decry straightaway”.12 Heidegger rightly connects Nietzsche’s understanding of art and understanding of chaos by quoting from Nietzsche’s notebooks: “An excess and overflow of blossoming bodily being into the world of images and desires”.13 Chaos is, as Heidegger writes, “the concealment of unmastered richness”.14 However, the dancing star, or our creation and activity of creation, is the mastered richness. Added to this prelude and postscript to Nietzsche, it also makes it easier to understand the statement of chaos within us giving birth to a dancing star from Zarathustra by quoting one of the last paragraphs from The Gay Science leading up to the first mention of Zarathustra in Nietzsche’s published works: Parable. – Those thinkers in whom all stars move in cyclic orbits are not the most profound. Whoever looks into himself as into vast space and carries galaxies in himself, also knows how irregular all galaxies are; they lead into the chaos and labyrinth of existence (GS 322/FW 322).15

What we can see here is Nietzsche’s contempt for those who toil to create an all-encompassing system in philosophy or history, and he ultimately carries a disdain for order for the sake of order. Like his predecessor Heinrich von Kleist,

10 Another writer who appropriated, destroyed and recreated symbols from Western culture, history and religion and in doing so revolutionised the literary novel was James Joyce. Most especially in his two last works Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, he comes close to Nietzsche in his celebration of cyclic time, truth as forms of illusion and metaphor, forms of eternal recurrence in reference to metempsychosis and repetition as transformation, ending Ulysses with the word “Yes”, and melting chaos into cosmos. At one point in Finnegans Wake, Joyce writes: “the chaosmos of Alle” (Joyce (1992), p. 118). 11 WWR I, p. 93. The quote is from Agrippa von Nettescheim (Epist. V, 14.): “Non habitat, non tartara, sed nec sidera coeli: Spiritus in nobis qui viget, illa facit.” 12 Heidegger (1984b), p. 80. 13 Heidegger (1984a), p. 81. The Nietzsche quote is from the posthumous compilation The Will to Power, note 802: see NL 1887, KSA 12, 9[102]. 14 Heidegger (1984a), p. 80. 15 I have used Kaufmann’s translations of The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, throughout this paper.

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Nietzsche does not want to shy away from the gebrechliche Einrichtung der Welt16 that he believes to be concealed by our man-made systems. Instead we must learn and strive to become more honest and dignified human beings entering, confronting and continually surviving the “chaos and labyrinth of existence”. The chaos is also found within rather than in external concepts that have been given or taught to us. It is this chaos with which we can potentially transform into an honest, passionate, outward existence or to be creative – which “giving birth to a dancing star” encompasses both. Again despite Caputo’s fear of the merciless nihilism of Nietzsche’s starry void, the latter again uses metaphor to show that one need not be consumed by the chaos but, on the contrary, Nietzsche warns himself and the reader of maintaining one’s honesty and dignity.17 The two references to chaos and stars in The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra are clothed in the parable, and the star in both cases represents that which is both the creative force and also the result of acknowledging and struggling through the chaos. One long passage called “Let us beware” (Hüten wir uns!, GS 109/FW 109) at the beginning of Book Three of The Gay Science reveals Nietzsche’s view of the world as chaos, our interpretation of the stars, and a pointer to the eternal recurrence in – what I call – the “book of stars” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) that follows. He warns very clearly before Zarathustra takes the stage of “positing generally and everywhere anything as elegant as the cyclical movements of neighbouring stars”. In the same passage, he declares that “the total character of the world […] is in all eternity chaos”, and that “there are no purposes” and “there is no accident”. There is neither one nor the other, but only necessities. He goes further to write: “[…] there is nobody who commands, nobody who obeys, nobody who trespasses.” What we can do, however, with this chaos is give birth to the elusive dancing star. Zarathustra’s “Speeches” (Reden) “The Dancing Song” and “The Other Dancing Song” are an encouragement for the heavy Zarathustra to withstand the “spirit of gravity” that is the devil18 and instead “dance”, which is an invitation to vitality and power – that is Life. In the second dancing speech, it is here that Zarathustra, through speaking with “Life”, first expresses his eleven lines that

16 “[…] the fragile structure of the world” from Heinrich von Kleist’s The Marquise of O--, see Kleist (1978), p. 93. See also GS 109/FW 109: “a lack of order” (der fehlenden Ordnung). 17 In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche writes in a famous aphorism: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you” (BGE 146/JGB 146). I have used Douglas Smith’s translation of Beyond Good and Evil throughout this paper. 18 Z II Song/ZA II Tanzlied: “[…] the devil is the spirit of gravity […]”

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climaxes with all joy wanting deep, deep eternity19 and which is repeated in the penultimate speech of Book Four. Again in The Gay Science, Nietzsche has already expressed that we dance in the face of the “abysmal thought”: “Let us dance like troubadours / between holy men and whores / between god and world beneath” (GS To the Mistral/PV Mistral).20 Saying yes to Life is to dance. As mentioned briefly above already, the star is strongly connected to our muse of creativity, the impulse and result of inspiration. As massive balls of plasma, the star is like the great flame, and the flame is something that rises, is immune to gravity, and although this is slightly different to an actual star there is a connection when Nietzsche passionately but with a sense of humour declares in Ecce Homo that he does not speak with words but instead fires lightning bolts,21 he is revealing the creative power, and the star itself is a manifestation of this as burning brightly in the dark void of space. The last two poems before Book One of The Gay Science depict the flame of creativity and the star respectively. The first, “Ecce Homo”,22 treats the flame as creativity, and as one who consumes oneself and thereby glows, like the containing of the chaos in oneself to give birth to the dancing star. This is not a fixed star, but a star that is moving and, in Nietzsche’s case, not only that which moves but which dances implying a form of delight and affirmation for the universe.23 Also, in connection to creativity, there is a similar metaphor that also helps confirm this interpretation when Zarathustra writes: “My wisdom has long gathered like a cloud; it is becoming stiller and darker. Thus does every wisdom that is yet to give birth to lightning bolts”.24 The final poem, “Star Morals” (Sternen-moral),25 leads us to more ambiguous territory pointing the way to the second part of this exploration. 19 Z III Song/ZA III Tanzlied. 20 There is even the possibility or at least attempt to “dance star-dances” in the speech that follows “The Other Dancing Song”. See Z III Seals 3/ZA III Siegel. 21 EH UM 3/EH UB: “What I am today, where I am today – at a height where I have stopped speaking with words and now speak with lightning-bolts [Blitzen]” (translation modified). 22 GS Joke, Cunning, and Revenge/FWS 62, KSA 6, p. 367: “Yes, I know from where I came! / Ever hungry like a flame / I consume myself and glow. / Light grows all that I conceive, / Ashes everything I leave: / Flame I am assuredly.” (“Ja! Ich weiss, woher ich stamme! / Ungesättigt gleich der Flamme / Glühe und versehr ich mich / Licht wird alles, was ich fasse, / Kohle alles, was ich lasse: / Flamme bin ich sicherlich!”) 23 There are also echoes of Heraclitus in Nietzsche’s thought but this will not be dealt with here: “Heraclitus says, you know, that all things move and nothing remains still, and he likens the universe to the current of a river” (Plato, Cratylus 402a). 24 Z IV Men 7/ZA IV Menschen 7. 25 GS Joke, Cunning, and Revenge/FWS 63, KSA 6, p. 367: “Called a star’s orbit to pursue, / What is the darkness, star, to you? / Roll on in bliss, traverse this age – / Its misery far from you and strange. / Let farthest world your light secure./ Pity is sin you must abjure. / But one command is yours: be pure!”

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This can be confusing, to have a star moral after wading through reminding ourselves what a star is literally, to it being represented as the power within the cosmos, and its direct connection to chaos. But this also indicates Nietzsche’s ambiguous and ironic treatment of the stars that runs alongside his most passionate and serious moments in trying to reveal the idea of the eternal recurrence. This is something that Nietzsche scholars still to this day overlook or dismiss – that it is the double entendre of Zarathustra’s stars and the visionary story of Zarathustra as a whole in that it is Nietzsche’s most serious and yet most comic and ironic moment at one and the same time, and this is vital to the whole performance of the text. The opening three lines from “Star Morals” reveal Nietzsche’s question and answer: “Called a star’s orbit to pursue, / What is the darkness, star, to you? / Roll on in bliss, traverse this age – ”. This typical Nietzsche motif that is presented in Zarathustra that once one accepts the void and rejects the concept of all systems and of all truths, and one can still be affirmative and embrace one’s existence, then one has triumphed. This is what allows Nietzsche to dramatically imply that before him all great thinkers failed to embrace this realisation. Of course, we can very easily question this standpoint and declaration and give examples from some thinkers before Nietzsche who have also embraced this thought, but what is important here is that its meaning is to embrace one’s star which will then burn brightly and will also inevitably burn out. If there is to be a morality in the traditional meaning of the word it is to be self-giving without evaluation in every direction like a light from a star. The final words of Book Five of The Gay Science (written and published after Thus Spoke Zarathustra) attend to this moral in “To the Mistral. A Dancing Song”: “And forever to attest / such great joy, take its bequest, take this wreath with you up there! / Toss it higher, further, gladder, / storm up on the heavens’ ladder, / hang it up – upon a star” (GS Mistral/PV Mistral).

II. Transforming the Language of Philosophy “Such works are mirrors: when an ape looks in, no apostle looks out”26

After part one, we might be lured into thinking with justification that this conception and placing of the stars in Nietzsche’s writing allows for only an aesthetic existence in the Kierkegaardian sense of the term: living life accord-

26 Lichtenberg (1800–06), p. 479 (translated from: “Solche Werke sind Spiegel: wenn ein Affe hinein guckt, kann kein Apostel heraus sehen”).

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ing to one’s impulse, ceasing and embracing only possibility without any consequences, celebrating the solitude and superiority over everything and becoming a divine being shifting through this short, bittersweet experience of the world. This also is Caputo’s worry, and he concludes his very Kierkegaardian text, in some ways a transformed version of Fear and Trembling, by paraphrasing a line from The Birth of Tragedy: “Life is justified not as an aesthetic phenomenon but as a quasi-ethical one”.27 Whether or not Caputo intends it, this is still in line with a Nietzschean approach to life. And this approach might be found in the use of the word Stern to redeem philosophy and to continue to transform our approach to language.28 I propose, in this investigation of the stars, that Nietzsche does this in two ways. First, Nietzsche subverts Kant’s comment on stars and a whole host of modern philosophers to transform what we take for granted when using the word “star”; and second, he creates an example of this subversion and a new form by the performance of Zarathustra and the language that is created around this “star book”. Zarathustra thus becomes that star through his creation and his subversion of language. One of the most quoted sentences of Western philosophy is from Kant’s conclusion in the Critique of Practical Reason and it goes as follows: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity or in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence (CPrR A 289).29

27 Caputo (1993), p. 248. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche writes, “[…] for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified” (BT 5/GT 5). In fairness to Caputo, he does combine Nietzsche and Kierkegaard’s careful and deconstructive use of language in his excellent book Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, cf. Caputo (1987). 28 This is different from Martin Heidegger’s quest to reboot philosophy by asking the question of what Being is, attempting to find a way to think in the age of technology, and to let language “speak” again. Although Heidegger is heavily indebted to Nietzsche on these three projects that are all interlinked, the former does move in a different direction especially in his use of the word Stern in his own attempt to write a kind of poetry. Heidegger (1975), p. 4, writes: “To head towards a star – this only” and “To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world’s sky”. This star is static and external in contrast to Nietzsche’s all-dancing, shifting, deceptive star born out of chaos. 29 See also Groddeck (1989), p. 490, where he begins his article with this passage by Kant and points to the cosmic turn in Nietzsche’s writing or “Poetologie” as Groddeck calls it.

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While the first half of this passage is the more famous, it is the second half which offers us the key to Kant’s project here which we philosophers have been taught and studied since – through our own consciousness we see and associate the “starry heavens” and the “moral law”. It is fitting for this investigation that Kant calls his project a Copernican revolution by assuming that the objects conform to our subjective cognition.30 For Nietzsche, this might be anthropomorphic folly, but he also does not refrain from showing his ambiguous regard for Copernicus who has led us rolling “faster and faster away from the centre […] towards nothingness”.31 The Marxist critic, Georg Lukács also comes to this conclusion in the wake of Kant by writing: “Kant’s starry firmament now shines only in the dark night of pure cognition, it no longer lights any solitary wanderer’s path (for to be a man in the new world is to be solitary)”.32 Kant’s “starry heavens” above him still hold an ambiguity but nonetheless still contains a hope for the transcendental realm, while in making his Copernican move leads us to darkness which propels both Nietzsche and Lukács to strive to find new meaning in the modern world. Lukács, shortly after his statement above, joins the Bolsheviks; Nietzsche chooses a path of ruthless critique of all forms of truth and the possibility of the mystical eternal recurrence through Zarathustra. Is then Nietzsche’s star a very different star than Kant’s – who would be frightened by the mystery of the eternal recurrence, hints of Eastern philosophy, the darkness of Tao, and Heidegger’s later Gelassenheit? That said, Kant also makes it clear that the limits of the mind lead to our limited perception of the world and things in the world.33 Nietzsche, taking up the destructive element of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and encouraged by Schopenhauer’s development of Kant’s noumenon into the Will, writes this aphorism in Beyond Good and Evil: “The sage as astronomer. – As long as you still feel the stars as being something ‘over you’ you still lack the eye of the man of knowledge” (BGE 71/JGB 71).

30 Kant, CPrR, Preface to the second edition, B xvi: “Hence let us once try whether we do not get further with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition […] This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and let the stars at rest.” 31 GM III 25. I have used Douglas Smith’s translation of the Genealogy of Morals throughout this paper. 32 Lukács (1971), p. 36. 33 See, for example, Kant, CPR A 256-B 312.

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In the wake of Kant and the history of philosophy,34 Nietzsche presents this “star” as something within us, and as already said above, that something within in us is chaos, and this chaos is confirmed also in the cosmos. This has been read as a very dangerous idea – ethically – for a long time, but what is most important here is that Nietzsche in bringing up the star in the various places (especially in Thus Spoke Zarathustra) in his writing, in order to transform this word, literally in the wake of Kant, and to create an affirmative philosophy after Schopenhauer who saw himself as completing Kant’s project, and pursuing life while ignoring morality. The enlightenment of Kant and the ‘wild years of philosophy’35 have ultimately led to Lukács’“dark night of cognition” and this is the impetus for Nietzsche to transform the language of the stars through use of irony, fable, performance, creative philology, psychology and back again to philosophy which embraces seeking, critique and wisdom and not some academic career. A generation before Lukács, Nietzsche was always interested in the wanderers of the night, starting with Dionysus in The Birth of Tragedy and soon after with his ominous image in the opening paragraph in “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” quoted above. A very vivid passage from Nietzsche’s notes in 1885 (and which was also published as the last passage in the controversial Will to Power publication by his sister) returns to the very ominous picture of the world and the universe without light and without guidance (NL 1885, KSA 11, 38[12]).36 Thus begins Zarathustra’s Untergang.37 But before beginning the final part of this paper, let us look at the different places where the word “star” appears and how this might help to support the 34 See TI Fable/GD Fabel to see Nietzsche’s fascinating history of philosophy in one page where he describes Plato’s idea as “I, Plato, am the truth” and Kant’s scepticism as “At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and scepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Königsbergian”. 35 This is the title that a biographer of German philosophers, Rüdiger Safranski, gives to his philosophical biography of Schopenhauer: Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy . In the preface, Safranski writes: “This book looks back to a vanished world, when philosophy was once more, perhaps for the last time, in magnificent flower. The ‘wild years of philosophy’: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, the philosophy of the Romantic movement, Hegel, Feuerbach, young Marx. Such exciting and excited ideas never existed before. The reason was the discovery of the ego; whether it took on the role of the spirit, of morality, of nature, of the body, or of the proletariat, it produced a euphoric mood which gave rise to the most extravagant hopes. Man was claiming back for himself ‘the riches squandered to heaven’” [Safranski (1991), p. 1]. 36 See NL 1885, KSA 11, 38[12] = WP 1067. 37 Z Prologue/ZA I Vorrede. On Zarathustra’s Untergang, Heidegger (1984b), p. 59, writes: “‘Untergang’ here means two things: first, transition as departure; second, descent as acknowledgement of the abyss”.

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thesis that the star is part of Nietzsche’s project of transforming philosophy and our use of language. In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, we witness the use of star as the creative spark, as the “mysterious star” (BT 22/GT 22) – in line with the connection made with the flame and light in the first part of his paper, although the word Nietzsche uses is still Gestirn and not Stern. In Untimely Meditations (1873–1876) the “star” as Gestirn is used two times in relation to the constellation of life and history and twice in relation to genius in the essay “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life”.38 It is also used twice as Stern in relation to inspiration in the essay “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth”,39 and once as Stern in “Schopenhauer as Educator”, which points to Nietzsche’s future use of the stars as something that are distant from us but yet reveal our humble and cataclysmic place in the nihilistic cosmos.40 In Human, All Too Human, “star” as Stern is mentioned twice, in the same passage, though only in parenthesis in quoting Goethe and in his admiration of Shakespeare as “star of the most distant heights”, and followed by quoting a line by Goethe – “the stars, these we do not desire” (HH I 162/MA I 162). “Star” as Stern is mentioned twice and once as Gestirn in Daybreak (1881), moving away from the metaphor for genius and instead is brought up as a planet.41 The Gay Science is, next to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the book that deals most explicitly with the stars. In fact, beginning and ending with reference to the stars, this text acts as a companion piece and prelude to Zarathustra’s journey.42 Stars are mentioned six times in the Prelude,43 which is made up 38 UM II 4/UB II 4 and UM II 7/UB II 7. 39 UM IV 2/UB IV 2 and UM IV 8/UB IV 8. 40 UM III 3/UB III 3: “Schopenhauer […] namely the leader who leads us from the depths of sceptical gloom or criticizing renunciation up to the heights of tragic contemplation, to the nocturnal sky and its stars extended endlessly above us, and who was himself the first to take his path.” 41 D 45/M 45: “Perhaps, if one day an alliance has been established with the inhabitants of other stars for the purpose of knowledge, and knowledge has been communicated from star to star for a few millennia: perhaps enthusiasm for knowledge may then rise to such a high watermark!”; D 49/M 49: “The becoming drags the has-been along behind it: why should an exception to this eternal spectacle be made on behalf of some little star or for any little species upon it! Away with such sentimentalities!”; D 548/M 548: “[…] being is still, in precisely the greatest thing that demands reverence, invisible like a too distant star [Gestirn] […]” 42 Nietzsche actually calls The Gay Science and Daybreak as the commentary to Thus Spoke Zarathustra in a letter to his friend Franz Overbeck, April 7, 1884. 43 The full title of the prelude is: “Joke, Cunning and Revenge: A Prelude in German Rhymes”, which shows Nietzsche’s and later Zarathustra’s intermingling of whimsy, irony and earnestness.

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of a collection of poems44 – two of which have star in the poem’s title. The first is “The Egoism of the Stars” (Sternen-Egoismus), and it goes as follows: “If I did not, a rolling cask, / Keep turning endlessly, I ask, / How would I keep from burning when / I run after the blazing sun?”45 The second title closes the prelude of poems with “Star Morals” (already mentioned above), presenting a quasi-mystical morality of giving in all directions as the light from the star does. This seems to be the moral of Nietzsche’s “noble soul” put forward in Beyond Good and Evil. Section 265 helps to understand what “Star Morals” means from the beginning of The Gay Science, as Nietzsche calls his “noble soul” a star, and “every star is such an egoist” (BGE 265/JGB 265) – giving as it takes. To clarify further in the same section, Nietzsche writes on the “noble soul” qua star: “[…] it honours itself in them and in the rights it concedes them […] The noble soul gives as it takes, out of the passionate and sensitive instinct of requital which lies in its depths.” The crux of the matter is however – and this is a key to Nietzsche’s thought – that it takes time for us to receive from the noble soul as indeed it takes time for the light of the star to reach us. We don’t even know the star is dead by the time the light hits us. This again is the paradoxical flavour in Nietzsche and most particularly Zarathustra’s thought – in that great ideas are already dead by the time they reach us, and hence there is such a striving for the philosopher and seeker to find new stars not only out there but in order to transform, even revolutionise, the state of things, to find stars from within oneself. Nietzsche’s madman, after declaring the death of God, concludes that “the light of the stars [Gestirne] requires time” (GS 125/FW 125). This is reiterated in Beyond Good and Evil even more emphatically: “The light of the furthest stars comes to men last; and before it has arrived man denies that there are – stars there” (BGE 285/ JGB 285). At the same time, to find new stars is exactly what Beyond Good and Evil, the critical work, is warning us against, after finishing his star book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For Nietzsche, this happens all too often with the “religious nature” in the insatiable yearning for new stars, images and enigmas (BGE 57/ JGB 57). This, as we shall see, is what Zarathustra is trying to both overcome and transform. And yet, even though it is a quintessential book of critique, Beyond Good and Evil, like The Gay Science, concludes with the poetic form and contains a question pointing to the stars yet again: “For you have I pre-

44 In all, “star” is mentioned six times in the Prelude of The Gay Science in sections GS 29/ FW 29, GS 30/FW 30, GS 39/FW 39, GS 40/FW 40, GS 48/FW 48 and GS 63/FW 63. 45 FWS 29, KSA 3, 359: “Rollt’ ich mich rundes Rollefass / Nicht um mich selbst ohn’ Unterlass, / Wie hielt’ ich’s aus, ohne anzubrennen, / Der heissen Sonne nachzurennen?”

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pared my table in the highest height – who lives so near the stars as I, or who so near the depths of the abyss?” (BGE 203/JGB 203). Also in The Gay Science, there is a theme in the use of the star that reveals the distance between humans that is sometimes necessary – for friendship, neighbours, and support for solitude.46 The poems “The Neighbour” (“I do not love my neighbour near, / but wish he were high up and far. / How else could he become my star?”),47 “Without Envy” (“He does not see you, / he sees only stars”),48 and the passage on “Star Friendship” (GS 279/FW 279)49 which comes later in Book Four all deal with this juxtaposition of stars and relationships. I will not delve into this use of star but only to say that it connects to the star of Zarathustra in the eternal recurrence in seeing friendships long past and broken come again. Before turning to the star book of Zarathustra, Nietzsche helps set the stage with a few other starry passages from The Gay Science. Halfway through the book, Nietzsche declares: “We have left the land and have embarked” (GS 124/FW 124). Like Dante, Nietzsche has reached his mezzo del cammino and echoes Dante who before entering Paradise declared: “The waters I take were never sailed before”.50 Both feel they are entering infinity, but two different kinds of infinity. Nietzsche writes of the “perspective character of existence” and “our new infinite” that “may include infinite interpretations” (GS 374/FW 374) in the final book of The Gay Science which was added after publishing Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche makes it plain his project for philosophy and the malleable use of language two paragraphs before the “Parable”: “What I want is more; I am no seeker. I want to create my own sun for myself” (GS 320/FW 320). The “greatest weight” – that is the heaviness of existence – might be overcome by Zarathustra’s discovery of the eternal recur-

46 In this first section of poems, there is a reference to “the Dog Star” (FWS 39, KSA 3, p. 362) and the Sun (KSA 3, p. 364), which I refrain from commenting on in the main section of this article as they repeat themes to a lesser extent than the other examples I have given. Also, in another poem, “Against the Laws” (“Gegen die Gesetze”), the stars are representative of that which is finished or no longer responding: “As of today, the stars, the sun, / Cockcrow and shadows are all done; / What ever used to tell the time / Is mute and deaf and blind” (FWS 48, KSA 3, 364 / GS, p. 61: “Von heut an hört der Sterne Lauf, / Sonn’, Hahnenschrei und Schatten auf, / Und was mir je die Zeit verkünd’t, / Das ist jetzt stumm und taub und blind”). 47 FWS 30, KSA 3, p. 359: “Nah hab’ den Nächsten ich nicht gerne: / Fort mit ihm in die Höh’ und Ferne! / Wie würd’ er sonst zu meinem Sterne? –” 48 FWS 40, KSA 3, p. 362: “Er sieht euch nicht! – er sieht nur Sterne, Sterne!” 49 As an aside, distraught and lonely, Nietzsche also wrote his star book Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the aftermath of his failed attempt to get closer to Lou Salomé and according to legend had said upon meeting her: “What star have we both come from to meet here?” 50 Dante, Paradiso Canto II: “L’acqua ch’io prendo già mai non si corse”.

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rence, and the fourth book closes with the first mention of Zarathustra in his published works which is repeated word for word in the prologue of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Gay Science closes for the final time in the Appendix of Book Five with the author triumphantly tossing one’s wreath upon a star.51 Finally then, Nietzsche is indeed seeking to be upon a star, to be a star, and give birth to a dancing star. Incipit Zarathustra.52

III. Zarathustra’s Stars “Come! Come! Let us wander now! The hour has come: let us wander into the night!” Z IV Sleepwalker 2/ZA IV Nachtwandler 2.

Throughout the whole of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, there is constant reference to dawn, dusk, midnight, and noon. These are all related to the great Sun star enabling everything to live on this planet, and the times of the day to the rising, setting, absence of, and moment when the Sun is highest in the sky. Its absence allows us to see the other stars which are the limits of our vision and our knowledge. Zarathustra’s first and last speeches of the book begin at dawn and are directed to the Sun with “You great star”. Throughout his body of work, we can already see this allusion to rising and falling in the titles alone such as The Birth of Tragedy, Daybreak, Twilight of the Idols, and The Fall of Wagner. The epigraph of Daybreak bears an Indian inscription: “There are so many daybreaks that have not yet dawned”;53 and Nietzsche places his thought with the light of the stars reaching us long after they have burnt out. As a philosophy for the future, a philosophy whose light has not reached us yet, witness the subtitle of Beyond Good and Evil, the first lines of The Antichrist or declaring to being born posthumously in The Antichrist as well as in Ecce Homo.54 51 See GS Mistral/PV Mistral. 52 With his first mention of Zarathustra, Nietzsche gives the paragraph the title “Incipit tragoedia” (GS 342/FW 342). Elsewhere, in the closing line of TI Fable/GD Fabel, Nietzsche writes “INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA” in capital letters to declare (as the great star – the Sun – is at the highest point of the sky from the Earth’s perspective) the beginning of something new and the end of the great error of Western philosophy in its depiction of truth. 53 M Inschrift, KSA 3, p. 9: “Es giebt so viele Morgenröthen, die noch nicht geleuchtet haben – Rigveda”. 54 BGE, Title, KSA 5, p. 9: “Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future”; A Preface/AC Vorrede: “This book belongs to the very few. Perhaps not one of them is living yet. Maybe they will be the readers who understand my Zarathustra […] Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously […] New eyes for what is most distant”; EH Books 1/EH Bücher 1: “My time has not yet come, some are born posthumously.”

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Zarathustra is the text that attempts to reveal this star in its use of language – that ventures to go beyond (or prelude) Western philosophy. It is understandable that it is often ignored or not taken seriously as a result. In this article, I have wanted simply to bring up Nietzsche’s use of the stars, how this challenges our conception of philosophical language, and finally that Zarathustra’s special “star book” is a manifestation of what Nietzsche is attempting to express. In light of this interpretation, Paul S. Loeb, in his recent book The Death of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, calls his project a “performative understanding” and “performative reading” of Zarathustra which is in tune with my suggestion that Zarathustra is the performative moment in Nietzsche’s œuvre.55 Through the difficult task of articulating the eternal recurrence through language, it is the actual performance, narrative and speeches of Zarathustra with constant reference to the stars that ambitiously attempt to reveal its secret. In the section when the eternal recurrence is first explicitly expounded, Zarathustra asks: “Are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things which are eternally apart?” (Z III Convalescent 2/ ZA III Genesende). Now before moving on through the text itself, returning to the beginning and end of Zarathustra with “you great star” reveals the circularity of Zarathustra’s narrative: the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end like so much of the Eastern visions. With the endless repetitions, Zarathustra’s journey is such that it is only towards the end of Book Three in “The Convalescent” chapter (the great noon event) that he realises in his most “abysmal thought”56 the riddle of the universe not only the eternal recurrence but the joyous acceptance of this secret. It is after this revelation that he melts into the ocean from the star that he has become. He already anticipated this in the prologue of allowing the chaos to give birth to a dancing star. Contrary to what many commentators have written, the fourth and final book is not detrimental to the narrative of the book; rather it affirms the revelation of the eternal recurrence

55 Loeb (2010), p. 6 and p. 9. Loeb also writes, Loeb (2010), p. 6: “Just as the lives and actions of Zarathustra are meant to dramatize what Nietzsche thinks is the deeper reality of eternal repetition […] it is the narrative course of the book’s drama that actually shows, manifests, and enacts this thought.” 56 For mention of “abysmal thought” (abgründlicher Gedanke), see especially: Z III Bliss/ZA III Seligkeit, Z III Convalescent/ZA III Genesende. I concur with Loeb (2010) when he writes: “Zarathustra’s most abysmal thought concerns the eternal recurrence of existence in the specific sense that this entails the eternal recurrence even of the smallest human” Loeb then quotes from Nietzsche himself: “But I confess that my deepest objection to ‘eternal recurrence’, my truly most abysmal thought, is always mother and sister” (EH wise 3/EH weise 3). See Loeb (2010), p. 102.

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that a new book should begin as a white haired Zarathustra finds himself outside his cave once more. Perhaps Zarathustra was already dead before the book began, perhaps he died at the end of Book Three, or perhaps he didn’t die at all; what is important to understand here is that all three could have happened and the reader can start with whichever book he or she so chooses, as the narrative and life of Zarathustra is intertwined and moves in circles, and like the stars, is constantly wandering, for change alone endures and yet the change brings us back to a transformed beginning. Let us see if this can be supported by going through the text now. The Prologue of Thus Spoke Zarathustra contains six mentions of the star and Zarathustra’s first speech begins with “you great star” and “you overrich star”. At the beginning of this star book, Zarathustra compares himself to the “great star” in that he too must go under (Untergang): “For that I must descend to the depths, as you do in the evening when you go behind the sea and still bring light to the underworld” (Z Prologue 1/ZA I Vorrede 1). A few pages on, Zarathustra declares that he loves those who do not first seek behind the stars but who descend to the earth, thus again inverting the play with the stars – in that it is from within that the star is born. But this is something for the future, or to come, a redemptive messianic quality that Zarathustra on his journey is trying to figure out: “What is a star? Thus asks the last man, and he blinks” (Z Prologue 5/ZA I Vorrede). But Zarathustra is still a nightwalker and the narrator of the text informs the reader that Zarathustra trusts the light of the stars (Z Prologue 8/ZA I Vorrede 8), as he makes his way down into the world. Divided into four parts, stars are mentioned six times in Part One, four times in Part Two, twelve times in Part Three, and just twice in Part Four. There is the abiding dichotomy and conflict in the use of the star – that of the star of Kant and Christianity and that of the star that comes from the chaos from within. In Part One, the stars refer to the former and Zarathustra warns us against the temptation of viewing them as such as he is as much prone to do himself in his longing and need for a creator, a metaphysics, and a way to give meaning to life.57 57 The word star appears in connection to the saints: “They wanted to escape their own misery, and the stars were too far for them” (Z I Tree/ZA I Baum); “You aspire to the free heights, your soul thirsts for the stars” (Z I Tree/ZA I Baum). In the section “On the Way of the Creator” [The word is Schaffenden, which does not have religious connotations but signifies more as artificer, builder and which also pertain to the artist], the star is mentioned three times. There is an attempt to control them: “Can you compel the very stars to revolve around you?”; the star as something that is created: “Terrible it is to be alone with the judge and avenger of one’s own law. Thus is a star thrown out into the void and into the icy breath of solitude”; pertaining to someone solitary and great: “Injustice and filth they throw after the lonely one: but my brother, if you would be a star, you must not

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In Part Two, the star is mentioned four times. The first relays to the star in the “madman” passage of The Gay Science regarding the light of the star reaching us long after the star has died: “And like a dying star is every work of your virtue: its light is always still on its way and wanders – and when will it no longer be on its way?” (Z II Virtuous/ZA II Tugendhaften). Old habits die hard. In the beautifully evocative “The Night Song”, Zarathustra concedes to the allure of the stars: “And even you would I bless, you little sparkling stars and glowworms up there, and be overjoyed with your gifts of light.” (Z II Song/ ZA II Tanzlied). The third mention is of one who “piously and silently […] passes over carpets of stars” (Z II Immaculate/ZA II Erkentniss). Instead Zarathustra wants to be a star, and like the sun to “love life” and “all deep seas”; in other words, to confront and challenge all stars and forever reach new heights going so low. The final mention in Book Two is simply a nod from a disciple in the “Soothsayer” speech: “New stars you have let me see, and new wonders of the night” (Z II, The Soothsayer/ZA II Wahrsager). This concludes and prepares the reader for the high point of Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Book Three, and understanding, becoming, and dying as a star. The first four speeches of Book Three implicitly offer an account of the new star that will melt into the ocean just before the revelation of the eternal recurrence at the end of the same book. Book Three begins with “The Wanderer” (and Zarathustra is the wandering star) continuing to “On the Vision and the Riddle” heralding in Zarathustra as “star-crusher” and facing the “spirit of gravity”. The third speech, “On Involuntary Bliss”, brings up again the light of the star; and “Before Sunrise” alludes to the concealing and revealing of the stars. It is vital that Book Three begins with “The Wanderer” in connection to presenting Zarathustra as the star book. As with the great poets of time gone by, the wanderer is guided and inspired by the stars.58 From the shine less for them because of that”; and finally, it alludes to the manifestation of the potential power in a woman (at least for Zarathustra): “Let the radiance of a star shine through your love! Let your hope be: May I give birth to the overman!” (Z I Women/ZA I Weiblein). 58 The 20th century expressionist and visionary poet Georg Trakl, deeply influenced by The Spoke Zarathustra, was obsessed with the conflation and collapse of the wanderer and the stars. Trakl’s poetry becomes a petrification of Nietzsche’s brutal cosmic vision. In Georg Trakl (2001), Poems and Prose, see for example in his poems: “Helian” (p. 31: “white stars”; p. 33: “the gold of his stars”; p. 37 “the stars have gone out”), “Grodek” (p. 127: “Under the golden bough of night and stars”), “In an Old Family Album” (p. 13: “Shuddering under autumn stars”), “De Profundis” (p. 15: “dust of stars”), “Psalm I” (p. 19: “she plays with his stars”), “In the Village” (p. 25: “drinks milk and stars”), “To the Boy Elis” (p. 45: “The final gold of vanished stars”), “Elis” (p. 47: “signs and stars”), “Hohenburg” (p. 47: “He who sounds aloud is embraced with crimson arms by his star”), “Sebastian in Dream” (p. 51: “the silver voices of stars”), “In Spring” (pp. 3: “star and night”), and the prose poem

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opening lines of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, it is clear that Zarathustra is a wanderer, and from then on he never stops moving albeit with a few rests along the never ending way. His “way” is both up to the heights (to the sun and the glittering stars) and to the depths (the chaos within that gives birth to a star and the starry, shimmering depths of the mysterious ocean). All this amounts to is the journey to the unknown to find the new, as Baudelaire (born over twenty years before Nietzsche) famously put it: “Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!”59 By beginning Book Three with the “The Wanderer” speech, the intention is made for the journey to be completed in the rise and fall of the star before beginning again in Book Four. The first four words (“It was about midnight”) cause us to imagine that the stars are abundant in the night sky, and indeed the narrator confirms this image a few paragraphs later: “But the night was cold at this height, and clear and starry bright”. The wanderer as star is both going over (Übergang) and under (Untergang).60 It is after all “out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height”. It is at midnight and midday where the Sun is at its lowest and its highest, and it is also why Zarathustra calls himself a mountain climber in order to reach great heights and great depths from the peaks to the valleys: “[…] hence you must climb over yourself – upward, up until even your stars are under you. Indeed, to look down upon myself and even upon my stars, that alone I should call my peak; that has remained for me as my ultimate peak” (Z III Wanderer/ZA III Wanderer). Zarathustra, all the way through his journey to giving birth to the dancing star, must overcome or at least come to terms with the “spirit of gravity” (dem Geist der Schwere).61 This gravity is heaviness and weight, even “Revelation and Perdition” (Offenbarung und Untergang, p. 129: “Flicker into life, you stars in my arched brows” and “the mighty canopy of stars”; p. 131: “the blue sky was high above me and full of stars”). 59 Baudelaire (1997), p. 351: “to the depths of the unknown to find the new” (translation modified). Compare Byron, Zarathustra and Joyce – these wandering yeasayers’ reflections respectively: “But there are wanderers o’er Eternity / Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne’er shall be” (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, (1812–1818), Canto 3, LXX); “I am a wanderer and a mountain climber, he said to his heart; I do not like the plains, and it seems I cannot sit still for long. And whatever may yet come to me as destiny and experience will include some wandering and mountain climbing: in the end, one experiences oneself” (Z III Wanderer/ZA III Wanderer); Joyce (2008), p. 204: “Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves”. 60 See for example in Nietzsche’s wordplay in depicting what is potentially great in man: “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is a going over [Übergang] and a going under [Untergang]” (Z I Prologue 4/ZA I Vorrede). 61 For example, see Z II Isles/ZA II Inseln, Z III Gravity/ZA III Schwere.

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paralysis from giving flight to the free spirit and the dancing star. Even the myth of the star can encapsulate us into its sphere as a petrified truth that we must liberate ourselves from (“O my brothers, so far there have been only illusions about stars and the future”, Z III Gravity/ZA III Schwere). As with giving birth to a star, Zarathustra is also a “star-crusher” (Z III Riddle/ZA III Räthsel). He must inevitably bow down to the law of gravity as well as combat the great illusion and allure of stars in previous truth touchstones of philosophies and religions. It is eternal recurrence and the metaphor of the star that comes from chaos and melts into the sea what will free Zarathustra from the dreaded spirit of gravity. It is this poetic and allegorical language that also helps Nietzsche to overcome the language of the stars and the conceit of truth in language. As I already mentioned, in the speech that reveals the eternal recurrence, Zarathustra had asked: “Are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things which are eternally apart?” (Z III Convalescent/ ZA III Genesende). And thus in the climax of the book, one must even learn how to “dance star-dances” (Z III Seals/ZA III Siegel) until finally the star bursts – over-ripe like the over-rich sun at the beginning of the book when Zarathustra first stepped out of the cave and spoke to the great star. The speech called “Of the Old and New Tables” is by far the longest chapter in the book, and it is here where Zarathustra yearns and feels he is ready to melt like the Sun onto the sea. In a way it is his death wish: “[…] I want to go under; dying, I want to give them my richest gift. From the sun I learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars” (Z III Tablets 3/ZA III Tafeln 3). At the end of this long speech, he repeats his desire that is both the end and a new beginning: That I may one day be ready and ripe in the great noon: as ready and ripe as glowing bronze, clouds pregnant with lightning, and swelling milk udders – ready for myself and my most hidden will: a bow lusting for its arrow, an arrow lusting for its star – a star ready and ripe in its noon, glowing, pierced, enraptured by annihilating sun arrows – a sun itself and an inexorable solar will, ready to annihilate in victory! (Z III Tablets 3/ZA III Tafeln 3).

This paragraph condenses a lot of what I have put forward so far regarding Zarathustra’s star – one that comes from within, one that is triumphant in defeat, one that is an exhilarating, cosmic repetition that keeps John D. Caputo sleepless and propelled to work, and one that dances into nothingness. When one releases and gives all, one must begin anew. Has Zarathustra died? Zarathustra’s last wish to be scattered into countless pieces or to dismember like a collapsing star is fulfilled, in a vision not unlike this one: “[…] the sun flung

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spangles, dancing coins”.62 This death is a thought about time as is usually the case when thinking and gazing at the stars. God has died, man is dying, either too late or too early the news comes to us, and as Zarathustra’s animals tell him the hourglass turns over again and again regardless. Following Loeb’s performative reading, Book Three reaches its rising climax with “The Old and New Tablets”, “The Convalescent”, “The Other Dancing Song” (with Zarathustra working through his first rendition of his song of eternity which will be sung again in the penultimate speech of Book Four) and “The Seven Seals” before starting again in the curious and often maligned Book Four. Zarathustra’s will has become a self-declared “solar will” in the climax of Book Three and a celebration of the dancing and collapsing star. The word star is only mentioned twice in Book Four of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the book itself is of least interest to many of the Nietzsche scholars in the last seventy years. By adding on Book Four to the overall text, many scholars have been left perplexed and ultimately dismissive adding more fuel to the fire to the perspective that the book as a whole is a “gorgeous disaster” and “unreadable”.63 Perhaps at the end of the day Nietzsche would be pleased with this reaction. It is the readers of the book that have failed even though the description as “gorgeous disaster” is apt. The book is both “gorgeous” and a “disaster”: gorgeous in the way the German language is used and the variety of ideas that are expressed in various allegorical and startling ways; and disastrous in its apocalyptic tone, the celebration of chaos and the breakdown of truth as we may think we know it, and the oblique quality of being able to start with any of the books after the Prologue. That said however, there is an ordering in the four books. In tune with circularity, repetition and eternal recurrence, the last speech of the whole book (“The Sign”) starts with the same three words that began the Prologue (“You great star”). Thus Spoke Zarathustra is indeed a commodius vicus of recirculation64 – coming back to itself with no real beginning or end, a vicious circle, a carnival and circus that goes to play and war with language with its puns and metaphors, a book of disasters to be

62 Joyce (2008), p.36. That other fictional seeker being Stephen Dedalus. Like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus in Stephen Hero, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses is a quasi-self-portrait with a heightened self-importance, yearning, and superiority, but Joyce brings the parody further tapping into his sense of the Irish comic tradition. 63 Bloom (1994), p. 261 and p. 422. 64 This is the opening line from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake [1939], a work of abounding eternal recurrence in which the final line could well be the first and the first line of the book starts in mid-sentence: “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”

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faced again and again with the mystery of the star both above and within us. In the intermezzo that finds itself at the end of the book, Zarathustra, with his now white hair, steps out once more from his cave into the shine of the sun. He encounters many of the characters and ideas that he has hitherto met but this time with more parody and buffoonery. Over half of the “speeches” of Book Four notably don’t end with the refrain of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” which is another indicator that this book is different than the other three.65 But at the end of the whole book, after eighty chapters, Zarathustra once again calls out to “the great star” and the last line of the last speech presents Zarathustra as the sun and/or star: “Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he left his cave, glowing and strong as a morning sun that comes out of dark mountains” (Z IV Sign/ZA IV Zeichen). To remind us in case we have forgotten, in the second longest chapter of the whole book, “On the Higher Man”, Zarathustra gives a line that is analogous to “giving birth to the dancing star” from the Prologue: “My wisdom has long gathered like a cloud; it is becoming stiller and darker. Thus does every wisdom that is yet to give birth to lightning bolts” (Z IV Men 7/ZA IV Menschen 7). And later in the same “speech”, Zarathustra mentions the star for the first time in Book Four: “Man’s greatest distance and depth and what in him is lofty to the stars [Sternen-Höchstes], his tremendous strength – are not all these frothing against each other in your pot?”(Z IV Men 15/ZA IV Menschen 15). Here however the star collapses through Zarathustra warning of conceitedness, flying too high, and the problem of philosophers that forget to learn to laugh at themselves. Stars are to be inspiring and to be created but also to be laughed at. The folly and seriousness of our endeavour should be side by side even as Zarathustra becomes “the dancer” and “the light” always trying to fly but accompanied by laughter (Z IV Men 18/ZA IV Menschen 18). On a final note, as we come to the end of this exploration of the rise and collapse of Zarathustra’s star, and to bring us full circle to the first line of this article of the star being a beacon/guide, it is worth mentioning two lines of a poem from Nietzsche’s Dionysos-Dithyramben which points to the interrelationship between the stars and the ocean. Dionysos-Dithyramben is a collection of nine poems compiled in his last productive year of which three of them end up in Book Four of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.66 The particular poem is called 65 The “speeches” that have no reference to the refrain in Book Four are Z IV Sacrifice/ZA IV Honig-Opfer, Z IV The Ugliest Human Being/ZA IV der hässliche Mensch, Z IV Beggar/ZA IV Bettler, Z IV Welcome/ZA IV Begrüssung - Z IV Awakening/ZA IV Erweckung, Z IV The Sleepwalker Song/ZA IV Nachtwandler-Lied. 66 In Z III Virtue/ZA III Tugend, Z III Longing/ZA III Sehnsucht, Z III Seals/ZA III Siegeln (respectively: “Ariadne’s Lament” (Klage der Ariadne), “Only a Fool! Only a Poet!” (Nur Narr! Nur Dichter!), and “Among the Daughters of the Wilderness” (Unter Töchtern der Wüste)).

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“Das Feuerzeichen” – literally translated as “fire sign” which can also be translated as “The Beacon”. The last verse begins with these two lines: “Lost mariners! Wreckage of ancient stars / You seas of the future! Unexplored sky!”67 Nietzsche feels that he has indeed torn down the ancient stars and created power for new ones. As star gazer and destroyer, Nietzsche, returning to his own name, is also a seafarer and lost mariner venturing over treacherous and unchartered waters across oceans and the cosmos and chaos of ideas. This article has been an exploration of Nietzsche’s use of stars through literaryphilosophical writing most especially through the prism of Thus Spoke Zarathustra through attempting to find out what a star is, how it relates to the transformation of the language of philosophy and how both these enquiries are manifested in the star book of Zarathustra. Throughout the book of stars, there are constant allusions to the depths of the ocean as a mirror to the heights of the stars in the continuation of Übergang and Untergang. In preparing us for the journey, in his most joyous book The Gay Science, Nietzsche writes passages with titles such as “Embark!” and “In the horizon of the infinite”, and towards the end of Book Five after Thus Spoke Zarathustra a poem is inserted called “Towards New Seas”. Throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the ocean reflecting the galaxies of stars appears again and again. There seems also to be a very close relationship between the two.68 The ocean and star remain unexplored both externally and internally and always lie ahead of us as indifferently cruel, rich and inspirational, and we as philosophers and seekers must constantly awaken ourselves to this astonishing reality. The ocean and galaxy of stars dwell out there and within us as we journey on to critique and create the various forms of expression available to us. In perhaps the quintessential novel of tormented wandering and sailing into the infinite, one of the omniscient interjections in the narrative of Moby Dick reflects: The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to

67 DD, KSA 6, p 394: “Verschlagne Schiffer! Trümmer alter Sterne! / Ihr Meere der Zukunft! Unausgeforschte Himmel!” (my translation above). 68 See, for example: Z II Sublime/ZA II Erhabenen, Z II Education/ZA II Bildung and Z II Immaculate/ZA II Erkentniss, Z IV Honey Sacrifice/ZA IV Honig-Opfer, Z IV At Noon/ZA IV Mittags.

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that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.69

Bibliography Baudelaire, Charles (1997), Complete Poems, translated by Walter Martin, Manchester: Carcanet. Bloom, Harold (1994), The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, New York: Riverhead Books. Caputo, John D. (1987), Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Caputo, John D. (1993), Against Ethics, Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (2000), Essential Writings, New York: Modern Library. Groddeck, Wolfram (1989), “‘Oh Himmel über Mir’: Zur kosmischen Wendung in Nietzsches Poetologie”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 18, pp. 490–503. Heidegger, Martin (1975), Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofsadter, New York: Harper&Row. Heidegger, Martin (1984a), Nietzsche: Volumes I and II, translated by David Farrell Krell, New York: Harper Collins. Heidegger, Martin (1984b), Nietzsche: Volumes III and IV, translated by David Farrell Krell, New York: Harper Collins. Ibáñez-Noé, Javier A. (1999), “World and Creation: On Nietzsche’s Perspectivism”, in: Nietzsche-Studien 28, pp. 42–79. Joyce, James (1992), Finnegans Wake, London: Penguin Books. Joyce, James (2008), Ulysses, edited by Jeri Johnson, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kleist, Heinrich von (1978), The Marquise of O – and Other Stories, translated by David Luke/Nigel Reeves, London: Penguin Classics. Lukács, Georg (1971) [1920], The Theory of the Novel (1920), translated by Anna Bostock, Cambridge: MIT Press. Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (1800–06); “Ueber Physiognomie wider die Physiognomen”, in: Lichtenberg, G. C., Vermischte Schriften, vol. III, Göttingen: Dietrich. Loeb, Paul S. (2010), The Death of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, New York: Cambridge University Press. Melville, Herman (1994), Moby Dick, London: Penguin Books. Plato (1977), “Cratylus”, in: Plato IV: Cratylus, Parmenides, Greater Hippias, Lesser Hippias, transl. by H. N. Fowler, London/Harvard: Loeb Classical Library. Safranski, Rüdiger (1991), Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, translated by Ewald Osers, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sagan, Carl (1994), Pale Blue Dot, New York: Ballantine Books. Trakl, Georg (2001), Poems and Prose, translated by Alexander Stillmark, London: Libris.

69 Melville (1994), pp. 396–397.

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‘And so I Will Tell Myself the Story of my Life’. Nietzsche in His Last Letters (1885–1889) Mihi ipsi scripsi! (Nietzsche) One can only talk to someone from within a situation. (Bourdieu)

Nietzsche did not like unauthorised private thoughts being made public: essentially, he regarded publishing a philosopher’s notes as like spying on him in his dressing gown. We know how exacting he was with publishers and printers over the typeface and the editing of his writings; he was terrified that the fourth part of his Zarathustra might fall into the hands of the wrong readers. In short, he had a morbid care for his intellectual legacy that, admittedly, has often been ignored, at least with the publication of the critical edition of the Nachlass and the detailed, not to say painstaking, analysis of the events in his personal and intellectual life. But what about his letters? – described variously as “an essential part of a biography open to criticism”,1 and as private meditations in which “two opposing needs coexist: that of secrecy and that of extreme publicity and potentially unlimited openness, which is proper to writing in a broad sense”,2 can we legitimately regard them as a vehicle for understanding and interpretation? Although letters are inevitably tainted by their context, it is now generally accepted that they cannot be thought of as “parasitic” on the works of their author, but are an “integral part of his machine for writing or expression” (Deleuze-Guattari). It is not a question of interpolating or interpreting the genesis and contents of the works with the pressure of biographical elements, so much as using the letters as a sort of hermeneutic scheme, the better to understand an author’s representation of himself, the underlying intentions of his works, and to grasp their stylistic elements and argumentative resources, which the works inevitably transform. This is even truer in the case of Nietzsche and the letters of the last four years of his productive life. The solitude and lack of understanding he suffered from; the stocktaking on his philosophical activity and the prospect of a Wirkung, an effect on the future; the publishing and editorial problems with his 1 P. Manganaro (1983), p. 19. [Unless otherwise indicated, all translations by R. Bates in collaboration with the authoress]. 2 B. Sebaste (1998), p. 7.

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last works; the different stylistic registers adopted for his various correspondents, not to mention the drafts that were never dispatched and perhaps deliberately never given final form: the mine of more or less voluntary mémoires in the letters really do complete our picture of Nietzsche – with the legitimacy that comes from a letter being, at bottom, closely related to dialogue3 – as long as we recognise that the strong “personalization” of Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially in the final period, in no way detracts from the lucidity, coherence and objective, economic and political effectiveness of his thought.4 To say nothing of the wealth of information the letters provide about events, people and contemporary trends – Montinari had already indicated their enormous interest in this respect in the preface to his critical edition of the Briefwechsel – , Nietzsche’s letters seem particularly interesting not only in their psychological implications (he was in any case aware of how much of what is “inexpressible” emerges from the promptings of correspondence)5 but above all in their role as a counterpoint to the drafting and publication of the works. Particularly in the years under consideration, in his communications with friends and publishers he speaks of his writings developing according to a system that was there from the start and that, above all, had its own “difficultto-grasp” continuity; his “urgent involvement in the task” gradually unfolds in his relations with correspondents until the change brought about by his new contacts in the Turin period, whom he saw as mediators of a decisive action on humanity. Though the tone here is excited and sometimes close to raving, we can still glimpse well-founded intuitions of new possibilities.6 3 Cf. HH I 374/MA I 374: “The dialogue is the perfect conversation, because everything one of the parties says acquires its particular colour, its sound, its accompanying gestures strictly with reference to the other to whom he is speaking, and thus resembles a correspondence in which the forms of expression vary according to whom the correspondent is writing to”. 4 For an overall consideration of Nietzsche’s letters see R. Müller-Buck (2000) and R. MüllerBuck (1998). For the early period: R. Stockmar (2005). 5 “From my own experience of letters I know how, after receiving one, we do something silly – and also show a lack of tact, if we display sympathy too quickly, intervening in this natural ‘discharge’” (Bf. an H. Köselitz, 23.07.1885, KGB III/3, Bf. 613). “Every written word is ambiguous, equivocal, requiring a comment made by glances and hand-clasps. How many silly things we do when we write what we want! How many stupid letters I have now written! Long live the wisdom of my eyes, which more and more transforms me into a taciturn animal from that writing animal I was!” (Bf. an E. (Förster-)Nietzsche, 05.07.1885, KGB III/3, Bf. 611). See also WS 261, NL 1878, KSA 8, 28[56]: “Against friends writing letters. As soon as we write letters we start going wrong.” 6 Cf. G. Campioni (2008), pp. 11–12: “The letters are irreplaceable and striking documents of this last period, in absolute continuity – rare in Nietzsche – with the fulminating notes and

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The letters are, then, almost a commentary, which, alongside the Nachlass, accompanies the drafting of the Werke, explaining the underlying reasons for their composition and the intentions of their author; and also the course of the life lived, the Erlebnis that alone, Nietzsche claims, went into the composition of his writings, and whose sharing remains the one appropriate premise for understanding them.7 “In no other writer could thought be transformed so completely into experience. No other life was ever so fully devoted to the aim of producing all his inner self in his thought. His thinking was not distinct from his actual life and its events, as usually happens: it was rather the one, real event in the life of this solitary”, wrote Lou Salomé in her intellectual biography of the philosopher whom she regarded as “the first great stylist of his time”.8 A short-circuit between thought, writing and life (“I write only what I have lived [erlebt]” [Bf. an Ernst Schmeitzner, beginning of September 1882, KGB II/1, Bf. 296]9), where Erlebnis is not only a hermeneutic device, “not only an accessory circumstance, but more essentially the content and object of the text”.10 The unfolding of this sort of autobiography, the need to construct a “plausible identity that is in principle autonomous, unique and irreplaceable, not communicable if not by choice”,11 is one of the main thematic centres of the writings of that fatal year 1888, in particular the prodigious Ecce Homo. One sees there an extreme attempt to abandon the lair of the sick bête philosophe, to put his past life ad acta and present himself to the world […]. There is no longer a demarcation line: the terrifying ‘vehemence of internal waverings’ attacks and fuses philosophy and life in a growing euphoria”. Campioni’s essay contains an exhaustive and penetrating commentary on the letters of the final period in Turin. 7 Cf. NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[86]: “To understand each other it is not enough just to use the same words; we need to use the same words for the same kind of inner experiences – and we need to have these in common. […] I say this to explain why it is hard to understand writings like mine; in me experiences, evaluations and inner needs are different”. For a useful analysis of this hermeneutic theory, see M. Brusotti (1997), p. 14 ff. 8 Lou Andreas-Salomé (1999). Nietzsche wrote for Lou a «Zur Lehre vom Stil» (NL 1882, KSA 10, 1[109]) in which, among other things, he theorised what he called a “law of the dual relation”, which he applies masterfully in the letters: “The style must be suited to you regarding a specific person with whom you want to communicate. (Law of the dual relation)”. The letters to Overbeck are very important in this respect, as they are the most open and least “censored” by Nietzsche himself. 9 Similarly: “I forget what I have lived (that is to say, my ‘thoughts’)!” (Bf. an H. Köselitz, 18.12.1881, KGB III/1, Bf. 180). 10 M. Brusotti (1997), p. 17. 11 There is an interesting analysis by Franco Gallo, who includes Nietzsche among the “few great, complete experimenters” of décadence. According to Gallo’s hermeneutic theory, the impossibility for them of a traditional dimension of social relations opened to radical innovations in the style of individual existence, which were worked out “in forms of

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letters of the last four years. In these we can partly trace a hermeneutics that Nietzsche applies to himself: looking back over the experience of his past writings, with the aim of making himself understandable for action on the present, he sketches a personal development of which he can only become aware himself with hindsight. The letters to the publisher Fritzsch, to convince him to reprint volumes that had not yet had any real response from the public, were perhaps an opportunity for Nietzsche to clarify to himself the coherence of the journey undertaken and the need to present it to the world, as the precipitate of what, now it had been absorbed and overcome, could become an object of philosophical reflection:12 “My writings speak only of my overcomings: ‘I’ am in them, together with everything that was inimical to me, ego ipsissimus, indeed, if yet a prouder expression is permitted, ego ipsissimum. One will divine that I already have a great deal – beneath me…”, he wrote in the Preface to the second volume of Human, All Too Human, the mature fruit of this period. They were years of “fata and facta”, often painful, to which, as was his custom, Nietzsche tried to oppose “remoteness, distance, healing”. Alongside the at times prophetic, at times almost exalted tones in the letters of the last four years, we often find a disenchanted and melancholy register, with which he traces his personal and intellectual solitude. The incomprehension of members of his family, including his sister’s marriage to the anti-Semite Bernard Förster,13 the attacks of illness, the deafening silence that met, for example, subjective originality, creativity, and diversity taken to the point of absolute singularity of the person”. In particular, the Dionysiac philosophy in late Nietzsche was offered as an “alternative anthropological aspiration”, “moving from unconventionality on a local scale, so to speak, to the most absolute diversification of taste, nourishment and moral evaluation” [Gallo (2007), pp. 48, 53]. 12 “You will have noticed that Human, All Too Human, Daybreak and The Gay Science do not have a preface. I had good reasons for taking a vow of silence after composing these works, I was still too close, too ‘inside’ and I practically did not realize what had happened to me. Now that I am able to explain fully and more clearly the characteristics of these works and what makes them unique and to what point they inaugurate a new literary genre for Germany (the prelude to a self-education and a moral culture that so far has been missing for the Germans) I would willingly decide to compose these retrospective prefaces with hindsight. My writings represent a constant development, and I shall not be alone in living this experience and destiny – I am only the first, a generation that is forming will understand for itself what I have lived through and will have the refinement of taste necessary to savour my books. The preface might clarify what is necessary in the course of this development: as a result there would be the advantage that those who have once tasted my writings, would have to swallow them all” (Bf. an E. W. Fritzsch, 07.08.1886, KGB III/3, Bf. 730). 13 “I have never asked of you, as is right, that you [understand] something of the position that, as a philosopher, I have assumed towards my time; yet, if you had had a grain of instinctive affection, you might have been able to stop me placing you poles apart from me”

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra,14 everything conspired to feed his “long-lasting state of dejection and décadence”, but also to convince him of his superiority over his age, though it had not yet been perceived due to the inexorable dynamic of the (non-)reception of the works and personality of the man of genius in the modern world: Considering the matter with the greatest coolness: there will be very few people in Europe with a culture sufficiently vast and deep to be able to perceive what is new, unexpected and profoundly radical in my writings, but above all I have had no proof so far, and I can hardly even believe, that there might be someone able to guess and feel what I feel, the passion, from which such a way of thinking erupts. – This is my solitude (Bf. an R. von Seydlitz, 25.10.1886, KGB III/3, Bf. 767). I do not know a single person who knows something – or who at least has shown me that he knows it – of what is behind all these works, behind my most strange and real destiny (Bf. to E. (Förster-)Nietzsche, 26.01.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 794).15

As well as confirming the aspect of incomprehensibility as a hard-to-classify sign of the superior man (see, for example, GS 371/FW 371), Nietzsche wanted to prove his mission as being a destiny, founded in a coherent state of being, as witnessed by his long familiarity with solitude and sickness, and immediately poured into his writings, an essential proof of the extraordinary Lebensform that he himself represented. Hence the need for a “recapitulation” – evident in the letters from 1885 onwards – or a retrospective reading of his previous works, not only to discover in them a preordained internal coherence, but also to reorganise them in the light of the new philosophic ideas that followed from them.

(Entwurf an E. (Förster-)Nietzsche, end of December 1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 968). The drafts to his sister have a bitter and distant tone that Nietzsche was not able to maintain in the letters he sent. 14 On Zarathustra see, for example, C. Fuchs, 17.06.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 863; Entwurf an F. Overbeck, 21.07.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1067 and Nietzsche’s protests in EH CW 4/EH WA 4. 15 Bf. an F. Overbeck, 14.04.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 831: “This winter I looked around, and scanned European literature high and low so as to be able to claim now that my philosophical position is far and away the most independent, although I feel myself as the heir of various millennia: present-day Europe does not yet have any presentiment of the terrible decisions around which my whole being wheels, and of the wheel of problems to which I am bound – and of the fact that with me a catastrophe is brewing whose name I know but I shall not speak it”. Bf. an R. von Seydlitz, 12.02.1888, KGB III/6, Bf. 496: “Between ourselves […] it’s not impossible that I am the first philosopher of this age, perhaps even something more, something decisive and fatal, bestriding two millennia. Such a singular position, one pays for it constantly – through a segregation that grows all the time, more and more gelid, more and more cutting”.

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Rethinking the underlying problems, which, without my wanting it, is the fulcrum of my summer up in the mountains of Engadina, takes me back every time, despite the most daring assaults from the “sceptic” inside me, to the same decisions: they are already there, though hidden and still obscure, in my Birth of Tragedy, and everything I have added in the meantime has grown alongside and inside it and become a part of it (Bf. An F. Overbeck, 13.07.1885, KGB III/3, Bf. 612). One day someone may be found who will discover that from Human, All Too Human onwards I have simply acted on my promises. And it’s true that what I now call truth is something terrible and repellent: and I need much art to gradually persuade people to completely overturn their highest scales of values (Bf. an Unbekannt, probably August 1885, KGB III/3, Bf. 617).

Nietzsche is pursuing a task that weighs on him “with the weight of ten thousand kilos” (“my formula for it is ‘transvaluation of all values’” [Bf. an R. von Seydlitz, 12.02.1888, KGB III/6, Bf. 496]): before tackling it, he must solve and take leave of his previous works, which are both the summa and the launching pad of his future philosophy. The letters of the early period justify this ambitious project. From the planned new edition of his writings his editors had reluctantly agreed to; to the conception of his most recent works as aimed at launching and explaining his “daredevil son” Zarathustra; to On the Genealogy of Morals conceived as the final stage of his “preliminary adventure”;16 and, last but not least, the business of the “Prefaces” of 1886, seen as a genuine philosophical autobiography: everything plays its part in closing a phase, in a desire for narrative (re)construction of his identity – otherwise regarded as impossible17 – through the succession of his works, whose apotheosis was undoubtedly represented by Ecce Homo (significantly: How To Become What You Are). The printing of my book has reached the third and last part; the book will be called ‘On the Genealogy of Morals. A polemical work’. With this all the essential indications have now been supplied for taking provisional bearings on me: from the preface of the Birth of Tragedy to the preface of the above book a sort of ‘history of evolution’ has been traced. But nothing is more disgusting than having to comment on oneself; but as there is not

16 “With this writing (which contains three dissertations) my preliminary activity has reached its end: at bottom, really just in time, as was written in the programme of my life, despite the terrible obstacles and counterwinds: but everything works to the advantage of the brave” (Bf. an F. Overbeck, 17.09.1887, KGB III/3, Bf. 913). But Nietzsche would later regard Twilight of the Idols too as “a very bold and rigorous synthesis of [his] main philosophical heterodoxies”, such as “to serve as initiation and to reawaken the appetite” pending his greater work, the planned Transvaluation of all values (Bf. an H. Köselitz, 12.09.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1105). 17 There is a useful treatment of the subject of the possibility of knowing and constructing oneself in the light of a new idea of subjectivity in C. Piazzesi (2007).

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the least prospect of someone else being able to relieve me of this task I have gritted my teeth, made the best of it and, I hope, not so ‘bad a job’ of it either (Bf. an M. von Salis, 14.09.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 908).18

Nietzsche projects himself beyond the present generation with a view to a posthumous condition of life: the communication of his philosophy entrusted to his works – and whose urgency is revealed in the correspondence – aims to set up an insurmountable polemical distance from his contemporaries, but at the same time leaves the door open for possible interaction, not so much with a “public” (whose presence Nietzsche always declared to be inessential and pernicious),19 as with those longed-for “disciples” able to understand its experience. It was an operation of genuine “education” in his philosophical premises (Nietzsche specifically refers to the need for “eine Menge erzieherischer Prämissen zu geben” [Bf. an F. Overbeck, 12.10.1886, KGB III/3, Bf. 761]), while remaining aware of how unlikely his architecture of thoughts was to reach even the most cultivated spirits of his age. The few interlocutors Nietzsche recognised as adequate included Bruno Bauer, Taine, Strindberg and Burckhardt: for the rest, physical solitude and intellectual isolation, which were certainly exhausting, but were also the first, inevitable condition for following one’s fatum.20 18 “… I absolutely want to free myself of all this and be no longer disturbed by what belongs to the past. I have wasted the whole year: well, salvavi animam, it was a matter of conscience, but now I’ve had enough! – Now I need, for long long years, deep calm: as I must proceed to setting out my whole philosophical system” (Bf. an E. W. Fritzsch, end of December 1886, KGB III/3, Bf. 784). “This winter is doing me good, like an intermezzo and a backward glance. It’s incredible! In the last 15 years I have marked out a whole literary opus and then ‘polished’ it with prefaces and additions, until I consider it as quite separate from me – and I can even laugh about it, as in the end I laugh at any literary activity. All in all, I have spent the most miserable years of my life on it” (Bf. an F. Overbeck, 23.02.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 804). 19 “Don’t misunderstand me: the last thing I want is ‘fame’, ‘newspaper chatter’ and ‘the veneration of pupils’; I have seen all too well what it all means nowadays. In the middle of all that I would feel still lonelier than now and perhaps my contempt for men would increase terribly” (Entwurf an F. Nietzsche und E. (Förster-)Nietzsche, beginning of September 1885, KGB III/3, Bf. 628). 20 Bf. an F. Overbeck, 14.04.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 831: “I’ve been here on the Lago maggiore since 3 April […] Against my will, I confess that my dear old Sils-Maria should be shelved, like Nice: in both these places I lack the fundamental requirement, solitude, deep, undisturbed peace, living apart, extraneousness, and without these conditions I cannot sink into my problems (as, between ourselves, I am a man of depth in the most terrible sense; and without this subterranean work I can no longer stand life). […] The problems that hang over me and which I no longer try to flee (I paid dearly for my deviations! like, e.g. my philology), which literally give me no respite day and night – take their cruel revenge for any wrong relation (with people, places, books). I whisper it to you, as how could I suppose that the strange premises of my creation can be understood on their own?”.

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I haven’t found myself with more friends: life has shown me more and more clearly how fulfillingly my duty is tied to the terrible condition of solitude. It is hard to feel what I feel. I almost always start from the premise of being grossly misunderstood even by those I know, and am deeply grateful for any interpretative subtlety, even for the good will of subtlety (Bf. an E. Rohde, 23.02.1886, KGB III/3, Bf. 673). If only I could give you some idea of my sense of solitude! I have no one either among the living or among the dead with whom I have any affinity. This gives me an indescribable sense of horror; and only practice in enduring this sensation and its gradual development from early childhood enable me to understand why I have not yet sunk to the bottom. For the rest, I can see clearly before me the task for which I live – as a factum of indescribable sadness, yet transfigured by my awareness that there is something great inside it, if ever there was something great in the task of a mortal man (Bf. an F. Overbeck, 05.08.1886, KGB III/3, Bf. 729).21

Behind this fatality was a kind of personal providence, which had nothing to do with any god or divinity, but was rather a “practical and theoretical skill in interpreting and arranging events” (GS 277/FW 277), in the light of which each of us has to make something of himself. The wonderful harmony that arises from the sounds of our instrument, “a harmony that sounds too good for us to dare to give credit to ourselves” (GS 277/FW 277), is the meeting of chance with the capacity to express to the full the uniqueness of one’s condition – as Nietzsche reveals to Paul Deussen on his birthday: “I have such a high idea of your active, brave existence, that it makes little sense to express particular wishes. Things will not exercise any sway over those who must impress their will on things; in the end fortuitous events conform to our truest needs. I have often marvelled at how little power even the cruellest destiny has over a will. Or rather: I tell myself how much the will itself must be destiny so as to be always able once again to get the upper hand against destiny, ὑπὲρ μόρον – ” (Bf. an P. Deussen, 03.01.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 969).22 Necessity, ineluctability, extreme seriousness: these seem to be the key words in Nietzsche’s journey towards a sort of exemplary Selbstbildung: but 21 Bf. an F. Overbeck, 03.02.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 984: “I am very busy too; and the outlines of an unquestionably huge task before me are emerging more and more clearly from the mist. Meanwhile there have been dark hours, there have been whole days and nights when I no longer knew how to go on living and black despair seized me, such as I had never felt before. Yet I know I cannot slip away, either by going back, or to right or left: I have absolutely no choice. […] The prolonged absence for years of human affection that might really bring relief and heal, the absurd isolation that makes any residue of a relation with others only a source of humiliation: all this is the worst that can happen and has only one raison d’être, that of being necessary”. 22 Homer’s expression refers to Aegisthus who, in seducing Clytemnestra, thrusts himself hyper moron, “beyond fate” (Odyssey, I, vv. 34–35).

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the very vastness of the task and the terrible nature of the “truth” discovered (“the problems I raise are new, my psychological horizon is so dauntingly vast” [Bf. an C. Fuchs, 14.12.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 963]) impose forms of defence and comfort. And so seriousness spills over into gaiety, in the “supreme mischievousness of one who suffers hard and continually makes fun of an ideal”.23 The ironic, airy, almost sarcastic tone, that “esprit gaillard” that Nietzsche took over from his French models – Montaigne, La Bruyère, but also that “most profound clown” Galiani – and that is accentuated in the letters of the final period, may be a highly personal philosophical therapy in the face of everything that obsesses and oppresses him,24 but it is also the counterbalance of a new theoretical position, the “away from all suns” that had opened with the death of God. There is a misunderstanding in gaiety that cannot be eliminated; but those who take part in it can be happy about it in the end for that very reason. We who take refuge in happiness, we who need every kind of south and the indomitable plenitude of sun […] do we not seem to possess a knowledge that makes us afraid? Which we do not want to be alone with? A knowledge whose touch makes us tremble, at whose whisper we turn pale? […] Our gaiety – is it not a flight from some incurable certainty? […] we seem to be gay because we are enormously sad. We are not serious, we know the abyss, and that is why we protect ourselves from any seriousness […] Stay bravely by our side, mocking lightheartedness; cool us, oh wind who have hurried across glaciers: we no longer want to take anything to heart, we want to pray to the mask (NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 2[33])

Not only in the works, but also in the late letters, the theme of the mask certainly plays a central role: concealment, “putting on a brave face”, is a weapon Nietzsche openly used to keep the world and his acquaintances at bay.25 But it was not only a question of skill in moulding and dissimulating: this mask – which has no corresponding true face – is more a mimetic and projective capacity, activating that “dionysiac theatricality” that is the key feature of Nietzsche’s late philosophy. This phenomenon of communicative plenitude26 is also translated into the search for a new style, suited to the new 23 NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 2[164]. 24 See V. Vivarelli (2002). For Gallo (2007), p. 62, cynicism coincides with “the pragmatic self-referential quality of irony and a non-cognitive distancing from one’s theoretical assumptions”. 25 See, for example, NL 1885–86, KSA 12, 2[12], but also the tough letter to his mother of 10 October 1887: “if my first work The Birth of Tragedy had met with any understanding, it should have struck people with fear, and made them cross themselves. But then I was living hidden under a beautiful veil and honoured by those horned beasts, the Germans, as if I were one of them. But no longer. I shall certainly be ‘discovered’ in France a few years before I am in my own country” (Bf. An F. Nietzsche, 10.10.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 924). 26 See G. Campioni (2008), p. 24.

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theoretical horizon. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (“For what still remains for me to say comme poète-prophete, I must use a different form from that used till now” [Bf. An H. Köselitz, 14.03.1885, KGB III/3, Bf. 580]), On the Genealogy of Morals (“a new linguistic gesture for arguments that are new from any point of view”)27 or, more clearly, that mèlange of styles that would be Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo, may correspond to the attempt to give voice to a philosophy that is no longer firmly anchored to the “truth” and can only bear witness to a recognised pluralism of perspectives.28 My writings are difficult because rarer and more unusual states of mine prevail over normal ones. I am not boasting about this, but that is how it is. I search for signs of similar emotional situations that are not yet understood and often hardly understandable; my inventive capacity seems to me to be revealed in this. […] Is it not perhaps true that a work’s intention must always create first of all the law of its style? I require that when this intention changes, the whole stylistic procedure must change too (Bf. an J. V. Widmann, 04.02 1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 985, my italics).

Even with the provision, that it is not for us to change our expressive means and that “the demand for an adequate expressive form is nonsensical” (NL 1888, KSA 13, 14[122] = WLN, 258), Nietzsche was certainly seeking precisely that form. And if “the communication of his inner Erlebnisse, which are intersubjectively accessible only through language, is problematic on account of the fact that their intimate nature remains extra-linguistic”,29 it is no accident that Nietzsche struggled to communicate in a normal manner this “still not understood, and often hardly understandable, emotional situation”, which probably coincides with the concrete, embodied advent of vital plenitude of 27 Bf. an C. Spitteler, 10.02.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 988. In this important letter Nietzsche replies to the critic’s judgments on his works, which is “rash” or wrong from a formal point of view, insisting that the stylistic question is not the essential one: “He does not expound or see anything but aesthetic questions: not a word about my problems – or about me”. See too the letter to J. V. Widmann of 4 February 1888: “For his own good reasons, he touches on almost nothing but the formal aspect: he simply leaves aside the real story that is behind the thought, the passion, the catastrophe, the movement towards an end, towards a fatality: – I cannot praise enough this attitude, which conceals a genuine delicacy” (Bf. an J. V. Widmann, 04.02.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 985). 28 According to the now classic reading of A. Nehamas (1985) this generates two sets of paradoxes, the first made up of the content of the writings, including the theory of perspectivism; the second, from the corpus of the writings, which, as the projection of a perspective themselves, call into question the possibility of interpreting Nietzsche’s ideas. Nehamas and, in a different way, Derrida (1978) suggest that style was Nietzsche’s response to the systematic negation of the self, which was replaced by a constant process of literary productivity. 29 M. Brusotti (1997), p. 14.

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the Dionysiac and, along with it, full recognition of the inaccessibility of the “true”: Dionysiac. What wretched timidity, to speak as a scholar of something I might have spoken of as ‘experienced’ [erlebt]. And what does the ‘aesthetic’ matter to someone who must make poetry! (NL 1885, KSA 11, 34[17]).

If words are only signs exposed to misunderstanding, yet those familiar with Nietzsche’s thought know that they are signs that reveal a status, a configuration of forces in play: each page of his philosophy might be read (as Jean Pierre Faye suggests)30 as the narrative of a range of drives, we might say a sort of non-argumentative self-validation of the configuration of drives (in Nietzschean language: of the will to power) that gave life to his philosophy.31 It is no surprise, then, that Nietzsche “now dramatizes himself, taking to an extreme the art of gesture, making his very writing a ‘gesture’, and often defining himself as the jester of eternity and of destiny”.32 Dear and worthy friend, you chose an excellent moment to write me such a letter. For now, almost without wanting to, but obeying an inexorable necessity, I am settling my accounts with people and things and putting ad acta all my ‘so far’. Almost everything I do right now consists in drawing a line under it. For all the last few years the vehemence of my inner waverings has been terrifying; now I have to make a transition to a new and higher form, I need above all a new estrangement, a still greater depersonalization. What is essential in this process is who and what still remains for me (Bf. an C. Fuchs, 14.12.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 963).33

Unlike the play-actor of decadence, characterised by the disintegration and exhaustion of his vital force, Dionysian theatricality is the sign of a “bursting of energies that is expressed in games of forms and rhythms, in the joy of destruction and recomposition”,34 which not even the supposed freedom of space of traditional artistic creation can contain. As we have said, one might 30 J. P. Faye (1998). Faye also refers to a “communicational irony of a technique, with the aim of letting the different perspectives foster knowledge”. Klossowski too speaks of a conspiracy of the impulses that inhabit the body against the principle of identity (i.e. the conscience), culminating in delirium as a value, in which the principle of personal identity is abolished. Cf. Klossowski (1969). 31 Unless we want to ignore Frédéric Cossutta’s warning that “In effect, we should always be able to relate the form and process of reasoning to the philosophical theories they are part of and that determine them”. See Cossutta (1989). 32 G. Campioni (2008), p. 23. 33 But with the caution of which Nietzsche speaks in BGE 207/JGB 207. See too NL 1885– 86, KSA 12, 1[202]. 34 G. Campioni (2008), p. 23.

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try to read in this sense too the stylistic experimentation in late Nietzsche, in particular the experience of the polymorphic Twilight of the Idols: a bold, highspirited misdeed that presents in rigorous and elegant form (“perhaps even more ingenious”) all his philosophical heterodoxy “hidden behind much grace and spite”.35 Gradually, in the letters of the late period, narrative figures, theatrical characters and perspective views take on life in what Faye again describes as “the theatre of shadows staged by his thought”.36 Nietzsche was not afraid to assume “all the names of history”, leaving off now any mask that had held him back till then on the boundary of the principium individuationis. As Campioni observes, it is a jubilant dissolution that carries with it the tragic mimesis of plenitude,37 until the last, famous letter signed with his name, which alarmed the sedate Jakob Burckhardt: Dear Professor, in the end I would much rather have been a professor in Basle than God; but I did not dare drive my private egoism to the point of failing to create the world on his account… (Bf. an J. Burckhardt, 06.01.1889, KGB III/5, Bf. 1256).

35 See letters to C. Fuchs 9 September (Bf. an C. Fuchs, 09.09.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1104), to H. Köselitz, 12 September (Bf. an H. Köselitz, 12.09.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1105) and to F. Overbeck, 14 September 1888 (Bf. an F. Overbeck, 14.09.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 11 15) and passim. See also a letter to F. Avenarius, 10 December 1888: “This year, when I am weighed down by a huge task, the Transvaluation of all values, and I must literally carry the destiny of men on my shoulders, one of the ways I demonstrate my strength is by being a jester, satyr or, if you prefer, ‘essayist’ – succeed in being it, as I was in the Case of Wagner. The fact that the deepest spirit must necessarily also be the most frivolous, is almost the formula of my philosophy…” (Bf. an F. Avenarius, 10.12.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1183). F. Gallo (2004), pp. 29–30: “So it will be an essentially dissembling, ironic language, functional to a larvatus prodeo, that will find no moment of full lyric integration in the real in dithyrambic effusions, precisely because, from the start, he theorizes that dithyrambic ecstasy as incommunicable and exceptional; and at the same time it will be a festive language, to the extent that its power will be multiplied by contact with the deep emotional forces that are the origin and point of return of true knowledge […] the feast of language is no more and no less than the indefinite wealth of its versatility, its capacity to be practised ad libitum. This radical fable thus has the sense of replacing the traditional language of the inner life and self-knowledge”. 36 J. P. Faye (1998), p. 74: “Portrait of Nietzsche as Antichrist, as Free Spirit, as Immoralist, as Dionysian philosopher… One thinks of Rembrandt’s self-portraits where he wears a plumed hat or a strange beret […] Or again, of Artaud’s pencil-sketched self-portraits. The self-portraits of Friedrich Nietzsche are at once the stories he tells his friends; and also objects for reflection in the next centuries – which ‘cut history in two’”. 37 G. Campioni (2008), pp. 30–31. For J. Dugnoille (2005), p. 74, assuming different names is the result of a deflagration of identity and a desire for a perpetual beyond oneself, making Nietzsche, “perhaps excessively anonymous”, “literally no longer anyone”.

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And so the letters illuminate a theoretical, critical and autobiographical journey, the outcome of which is certainly not the planned and abandoned Wille zur Macht, but the works of 1888, and, in particular, Ecce Homo. To judge by the letters, the initial aim of Ecce Homo was to provide clarity, to clear the ground of misunderstandings prior to (again) the Transvaluation,38 but in Nietzsche’s imagination – which had also expanded as a result of the unaccustomed and unexpected approval he received in this last period – it was at once transformed into a cynical presentation to the world (“with a cynicism that will go down in history” [Bf. an G. Brandes, 20.11.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1134]), for which, true to his loved models, he chose the cheerful and fatal form of the pamphlet.39 Ecce Homo and the final letters have extraordinary parallels: Nietzsche arrogantly expounds private events to the world, transforming them into paradigmatic moments of his life. From his dual nature, “décadent and beginning at the same time”, from which he rescues the essential value of sickness for his formation (sickness gave him an eye and an ear for health and for the nuances in knowledge),40 to his first admirers – the names of Taine, Bourget, Brandes and Strindberg pass from the intimacy of the letters to the full light of the printed page, magnified and in some ways misrepresented in their

38 “On my birthday I have again begun something that seems to work and is progressing well. It is called Ecce Homo. Or How to become what we are. It is a daring account of myself and my writings: with it I have not only wanted to present myself before the terrible, solitary act of the Transvaluation […] However, I speak of myself with all possible psychological ‘guile’ and serenity – I have absolutely no desire to present myself to men as a prophet, a monster, and a moral scarecrow. The book might be useful in this sense too: it might prevent me being confused with my opposite” (Bf. An H. Köselitz, 30.10.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1137, see EH Prologue 2/EH Vorrede 2). The work, “of the first importance, presents psychological and even biographical views of myself and my writings: it manages to capture me completely in one go” (to F. Overbeck, 13 November 1888). “The last chapter has the disturbing title: “Why I am a destiny”. And that this is true is shown so powerfully, that in the end people remain immobile before me like ‘larvas’ and an ‘excited soul’…” (Bf. an H. Köselitz, 13.11.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1142). 39 In this case too I turn to F. Gallo (2007), p. 60, who sees in the pamphlet “the only ‘serious’ form possible for writing about oneself” and in particular, in Ecce Homo, a “writing that can only display polemically the author’s monumental identity, consigned to the stylistic perfection of his works and the radical coherence of an ethic, a metaphysic, and a politics that were unprecedented, but cannot be the narrative reconstruction of how his personal identity was determined”. 40 G. Campioni, (2008), p. 21: “Physiology is the premise of writing: being ‘as summa summarum’ healthy made Zarathustra possible”. See NL 1888, KSA 13, 22[28], thinking of Ecce Homo: “To make use of my sickness: a relief from great tension…”.

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approval41 – and his detractors, who become paradigmatic of how difficult the originality of Nietzsche’s philosophical writing was.42 He discloses and at the same time symbolically transfigures events and places (particularly his beloved Turin, whose autumn seemed to him “an endlessly prolonged Claude Lorrain” [EH TI 3/EH GD 3]),43 down to minor occurrences of daily life; while an “incisive image” in a review in Berne characterizing Beyond Good and Evil becomes for Nietzsche his most famous and sharp self-celebrating phrase: “I’m not a man, I’m dynamite”.44 The unusual productive energy of this last period was rewarded with new interlocutors appearing on the scene – in particular Georg Brandes and August Strindberg.45 The prospect of acting concretely on human destiny through the 41 EH books 2/EH Bücher 2: “… I have readers everywhere – all sought-after minds, proven characters, educated to high positions and high duties; I even have some real geniuses among my readers. In Vienna, In St Petersburg, in Stockholm, in Copenaghen, in Paris and in New York”. These references are decipherable from the letters. 42 See in particular the chapter EH books 1/EH Bücher 1, in which Nietzsche sets down the misunderstandings about him by Spitteler and Widmann. See also TI Skirmishes 37/GD Streifzüge 37. Or, in the section of EH TI 2/EH GD 2, Nietzsche repeats the enthusiastic remarks Köselitz had used in the letter of 25 October 1888 (cf. Bf. von H. Köselitz, 25.10.1888, KGB III/6, Bf. 594). 43 This judgment emerges various times in the letters. 44 J. V. Widmann, in the review “Bund” of 16–17 September 1886, had compared Nietzsche’s dangerous book to the dynamite then being used to dig the St Gothard tunnel. Nietzsche, delighted with this comparison, repeating it at least a dozen times in the letters, first (from 20 September to 3 November) as information, then more and more enthusiastically, as selfpraise: “Nothing that exists will remain standing, I am more dynamite than man”; “everything has been blown up – I am the most terrifying dynamite in the whole world” (Bf. an P. Deussen, 26.11.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1159 and Bf. an G. Brandes, beginning of December 1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 1170). See EH Destiny 1/EH Schicksal 1. 45 See the letter from G. Brandes of 26 November 1887 (Bf. von G. Brandes, 26.11.1887, KGB III/6, Bf. 500): “A new and original spirit breathes on me from your writings. I don’t yet fully understand what I have read; I can’t always understand what you’re getting at. But many things coincide with my own thoughts and sympathies, the contempt for ascetic ideals and the profound aversion for democratic mediocrity, your aristocratic radicalism. […] You are one of the few people I would like to meet”. In his reply (Bf. an G. Brandes, 02.12.1887, KGB III/5, Bf. 960) Nietzsche comments: “The expression ‘aristocratic radicalism’, which you use, is very apt. If I may say so, they are the most intelligent words that I have read about me so far”. It was Brandes who acted as go-between with “the Swedish genius”: “The crazy Swede is called August Strindberg […] He thinks you’re wonderful, above all because he thinks he has found in you the same hatred for women that he has. And so, in his view, you are ‘modern’ (ironically). When he read about my spring lessons [on Nietzsche] in the newspapers, he said: this Nietzsche is astonishing, it’s as if I had written many of his things myself” (Bf. von G. Brandes, 16.11.1888, KGB III/6, Bf. 606). Nietzsche exchanged both letters and books with Strindberg.

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publication of the Transvaluation (which Nietzsche regarded as achieved with The Antichrist) and above all crossing the border of that Germany that had often shown itself unfit to understand his affirmative and anti-idealistic philosophy, drove Nietzsche, in an excess of trust, to imagine possible translators in Giosué Carducci, Ruggiero Bonghi, Jean Bourdeau (arbitrarily elected to eminence in French culture), in “his poet” August Strindberg (“my next works will not sell in thousands, but in tens of thousands, and … will appear at the same time in French, English and German”: to A. Heusler, 30 December 1888). The madness is incipient and the last, short messages of January 1889 are disturbing and painful. But in Nietzsche’s hostility towards the Reich and the reigning family, in his (never denied) aloofness from German obtuseness and the supporters of anti-Semitism, even in the obsessive presence of Dionysus, who, together with “The Crucified”, signs the last so-called “mad notes”, one can intuit thematic continuity with the arguments of the man who, effectively and with far-seeing lucidity, set out to become “a capital event in the crisis of value judgments” (Bf. an G. Brandes, 19.02.1888, KGB III/5, Bf. 997).46 We are unlikely to be able to use traditional hermeneutic and speculative means to tackle the phase that starts with the drafting of Ecce Homo and ends in madness, and whose roots lay in his daily life and thinking. Nietzsche is here trying something that is perhaps already beyond the scope of representative thought: as Roberto Calasso puts it, he seems to have wanted to show visibly the transition “from radical speculation that still respected formal conventions, to an unprecedented practice, which will always remain his most mysterious point”.47 The analysis of the path of knowledge advanced so far as to leave intact only the universe of signs: the world wants to be spoken in

46 According to Piazzesi (2007), passim, the transvaluation of values was not a simple theoretical modification, aimed at replacing old values with new, but was, “so to speak, an ethical work, as it is achieved through the transformation of experience of oneself, and so through a new psychology – which, in Nietzsche’s anti-dualist perspective, means a new physiology”. Not so much abstraction and intellectual projection as reality, “it is not a potential theoretical state that becomes real by virtue of an effort of will to make it real. Possibility is already the direction of a becoming, that is to say, the real (and conditioned) fertility of the “Stück fatum” that each person is”. On the level of self-perception, we need to work at encouraging, so to speak, our own fatality, while “personality is not only a fact, it is a destination that could easily remain unexplored, ignored, misunderstood, without the ethical work of genuinely taking responsibility for what this means”. These indications, which are closely linked to the theory of the will to power (“The theory of the will to power is not, on this view, a pure, representative theory: it is the performative help that sustains the birth of a new experience of oneself”) seem valuable for the reading I am suggesting of the letters of this period. 47 R. Calasso (1983), p. 170.

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Maria Cristina Fornari

another tongue. Nietzsche abandoned philosophy – and the conscious world, the theatre of falsification – with a brusque gesture: “Now, he is a sea of power, where each epistemological gesture, the gesture of a fictitious subject, becomes a wild wave in the midst of the immensity of the others”.48

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48 R. Calasso (1983), p. 179.

Contributors Tom Bailey, John Cabot University (Italy) Andrea Christian Bertino, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität in Greifswald (Germany) Maria João Mayer Branco, Universidade Nova de Lisboa/ FCSH/ IFL (Portugal) João Constâncio, Universidade Nova de Lisboa/ FCSH/ IFL (Portugal) Céline Denat, Université de Reims (France) Maria Cristina Fornari, Università del Salento (Italy) Luis Enrique Santiago Guervós, Universidad de Málaga (Spain) Luca Lupo, Università della Calabria (Italy) Chiara Piazzesi, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität in Greifswald (Germany) Bartholomew Ryan, Universidade Nova de Lisboa/ FCSH/ IFL (Portugal) Jaanus Sooväli, University of Tartu (Estonia) Luís Sousa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa/ IFL (Portugal)

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Name Index Arendt, H. 217 Agrippa von Nettesheim 261 Andreas-Salomé, Lou 253, 270, 283 Apel, K.-O. 70 Aristotle 17, 20, 28, 30, 33, 34, 172 Balzac, H. de 77 Barthes, R. 250, 251 Baudelaire, C. 77, 275 Berkeley, G. 259 Boscovich, R. 77 Bourdieu, P. 144, 148, 281 Bourget, P. 293 Brandes, G. 293, 294, 295 Burckhardt, J. 287, 292 Byron 275 Carver, R. 129 Dante 257, 259, 260, 270 Darwin, C. 77 Deleuze, G. 281 Derrida, J. 7, 39, 71, 85, 161–177, 290 Descartes, R. 133, 203, 212, 213 Dühring, E. 117, 120 Elias, N. 143, 148, 149 Emerson, R. W. 258 Fichte, J. G. 267 Foucault, M. 144–145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 152 Gadamer, H.-G. 70 Galiani, F. 289 Gerber, G. 32, 71–72, 73–74, 77, 99, 185 Goethe, J. W. 257, 268, Haeckel, E. von 77 Hartmann, E. von 66, 67 Hegel, G. W. F. 267 Heidegger, M. 70, 76, 80, 85, 86, 198, 257, 261, 265, 266, 267 Heraclitus 263 Herder, J.G. 98, 99 Hölderlin 257

Homer 93, 257, 288 Humboldt, A. von 6, 91–105, 240 Hume, D. 55, 135 Husserl, E. 7, 161–177 Jaspers, K. 79 Jean Paul 32 Joyce, J. 257, 261, 275, 277 Kant, I. 2, 6, 18, 19, 40–41, 44, 45, 56, 57, 58, 66, 78, 107–127, 193, 201, 202, 205, 208, 209, 215, 217–219, 224, 259, 265–267, 273 Kierkegaard, S. 265 Kleist, H. von 261, 262 La Bruyère, J. de 289 Lange, F. A. 77 Leibniz, G. W. 16, 92, 110, 201, 202 Levinas, E. 6, 91, 101–105 Lichtenberg, G. C. 265 Locke, J. 16, 93 Lukács, G. 266, 267 Luhmann, N. 145 MacIntyre, A. 125 Marx, K. 267 Melville, H. 257, 280 Molière 193 Montaigne, M. 289 Parmenides 2, 237, 246, Plato 2, 16, 17, 51, 60, 224, 246–249, 260, 263, 267 Rawls, J. 126 Rembrandt 292 Ricoeur, P. 34, 73 Rilke, R. M. 257 Rorty, R. 84 Rousseau, J. J. 67, 110 Roux, W. 77, 83 Sandel, M. 125 Schelling, F. W. J. 67–68, 267 Schopenhauer, A. 2, 5, 40–61, 67, 71, 77, 146, 169, 174, 177, 198, 199, 201–

308

Name Index

202, 205, 207, 209, 214, 215, 217, 224, 226, 258, 259, 261, 266, 267, 268 Searle, J.R. 184 Spinoza, B. 2, 134, 247 Stendhal 77, 148 Strindberg, A. 287, 293, 294, 295

Thucydides 25–26 Trakl, G. 257, 274

Taine, H. A. 287, 293 Taylor, C. 125

Zöllner, C. F. 72

Virchow, R. C. 77 Wagner, R. 77, 78 Wittgenstein, L. 135, 139, 165, 208

Subject Index Actio in distans (see also Pathos of distance) 9, 249–252 The ‘aesthetic’ 5, 51, 52, 54, 63–69, 72, 73, 76, 78–82, 85, 264–265. 290, 291 Aesthetics 65, 73, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82, 85 Adequacy (see also Correspondence) 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 31, 35, 48–49, 54, 58–60, 68, 201, 202, 216, 228, 234, 235, 242, 290 Affects / affections 4, 5, 7, 23, 28, 32, 41, 42, 64, 83, 129, 131–137, 141, 144, 148, 151–156, 168–169, 197, 204– 205, 214, 216, 220–229, 243–245, 252. 284, 287 Affirmation of Life 3–4, 71, 263 Analogy 27, 72, 189 Anthropomorphisms 47, 53, 58, 89, 266 Appearance (Schein) 3, 8–9, 19, 24, 25, 36, 70, 240, 241, 245, 248–249, 251 Apollo / Apollonian 73, 79 Art / Artists 16, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27, 33, 47, 56–57, 63–82, 84, 188, 149, 185, 188, 211, 217, 219, 220, 225, 226, 249, 273, 291 Artistic / creative drive (see also Art / Artists, Artistic Force, and Drives) 67, 188 Artistic / creative force (see also Drives, Force, and Creation) 69, 75, 80, 220 Atomism 212, 240, 241 Auto-affection 102, 168–169, 245 autobiography 9, 189, 191, 283–296 Autonomy 6, 97, 101–104, 108–109, 119, 150, 151 Bewusstheit 93, 94, 161, 170, 172, 194, 210, 213 Bilderrede 5, 14, 32, 83 Body 5–6, 15, 21, 27, 31, 41, 42, 51, 56, 63–86, 92, 96, 101, 164, 169, 194, 205, 209, 212, 222, 229, 267, 291 Causality 1, 40, 42, 44, 45, 49, 51, 52, 53, 73, 85, 109, 186, 218, 220, 221–223, 240 Chaos 9, 26, 188, 257–280

Chaos of sensations (see also Hubbub of the stimuli) 59, 224–226 Christianity 146, 150, 151, 260, 273 Civilization 21, 63, 136, 139, 144, 145, 146, 149, 150, 152, 154 Communication 6, 7, 8, 43, 65, 68, 72, 91, 92, 95–104, 131, 139, 140, 141, 143, 145, 149, 153, 162–167, 170–174, 198–229, 235, 237, 241, 242, 252, 268, 283 Community 6, 8, 104–126, 140, 172, 215, 221, 226, 227 Conceptual language (see also Concepts and Conceptualisation) 15, 22, 24, 36, 51, 65, 68, 71–76, 82, 85, 100 Concepts (see also Conceptualisation) 1, 2, 3, 8, 17, 23, 24, 36, 42, 43, 44, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 64, 67, 69, 70–76, 84, 85, 92, 99–100, 130–131, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 173, 185–186, 190, 197–229, 238, 240, 244, 247, 248 Conceptualisation / formation of concepts 2, 8, 41, 42, 67–68, 75, 79, 84, 85, 52, 53, 56, 58, 64, 70–76, 92, 185, 190, 197–229, Conscience 8, 95, 120, 121, 124, 136, 243–244, 247, 251, 287, 291 Consciousness 4, 7–9, 43, 51, 55, 64, 66– 68, 72, 74, 91–105, 109, 117, 150, 161–162, 164, 169, 170–176, 179– 195, 197–229, 243, 259 Continuum 213, 214 Connectivism 207 Correspondence (see also Adequacy) 5, 21, 41, 49, 51–52, 57, 58–60, 69, 75, 83, 234, 242, 289 Cosmos 9, 257, 260, 261, 267, 268, 279 Creation / creativity 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 20, 21, 22, 25–26, 27–28, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63–84, 101, 111, 117–119, 130, 138, 140, 141, 149, 154–156, 182, 187–189, 212, 215, 217, 222, 224, 229, 235, 257, 259, 260, 261,

310

Subject Index

262, 263, 265, 267, 268, 284, 287, 291 Critique (of language, morality, and metaphysics) 2–4, 5, 7, 8–9, 17, 22– 23, 24, 39, 46, 47, 48, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71, 73, 85, 129–130, 132–141, 144, 152, 154, 155, 179, 192–195, 215, 227–228, 239, 258, 266, 267, 269, 279, 281, 293 Culture 21, 22, 28, 78, 101, 117, 119, 130, 132, 133, 134, 137, 139, 142, 144, 153, 155, 181, 261 Dance 68, 151, 262, 263, 276, 278 Death of the Subject or I 162, 176 Décadence / decadence 63, 78, 80–81, 283, 285, 291 Deconstruction 2, 3, 9, 71, 78, 85, 96, 97, 153, 154, 162, 165, 228, 258, 265 Development (see also Evolution) 1, 2, 3, 21–22, 48, 66, 91–99, 101, 103, 104, 154, 171, 172, 191, 200, 203, 206, 211, 225, 235, 236, 237, 238, 284 Dissimulation 48, 56, 241, 289 Dionysus / Dionysian 79, 81, 85, 137, 194, 267, 284, 289, 291, 292, 295 Dogmatism 8, 14, 22, 58–59, 192–195, 250 Drives (Triebe) 5, 7, 8, 28, 32, 46–48, 50, 56, 64–80, 82–83, 92, 96, 109, 138, 139, 140, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 163, 179–195, 197, 198, 214, 216, 220–229, 240, 248, 291 Drive for causality see Ursachentrieb Drive for illusion 46–47, 69, 220 Drive for truth (see also Will to truth) 46– 48, 50 Drive to form metaphors 47, 56, 73, 75, 186, 220, 237 Egoism / altruism 101, 111, 138, 139, 148, 169, 269, 292 Emotions (see also Affects) 6, 7, 20, 129– 156, 290, 292 Equals / equality 4, 6, 111–112, 116–120, 121, 125, 210, 244, 251 Empfindung 19, 74, 155, 200, 205, 206, 210, 221, 223

Erdichten 8, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 187, 217, 220, 221 Erleben 8, 179, 180, 181, 182, 190, 191, 219, 221, 283, 290, 291 Error 15, 93, 109, 233, 235, 244, 245, 249, 271 Essence 3, 19, 20, 49, 58, 69, 71, 86, 125, 164, 171, 180, 240, 242, 248, 249, 250 Evaluations / valuations / revaluations 2, 3, 7, 47, 81, 94, 119, 131, 134, 135, 137, 139, 141, 143, 144, 147, 153, 155, 181, 183, 184, 188, 223, 227, 283, 284 Evolution (see also Development) 93, 134, 145, 148, 151, 154, 185, 191, 198, 199, 202, 210, 211, 286 Expression (see also Self-expression and Performance) 7–8, 18, 23, 24, 31, 38, 42, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 63, 68, 70, 69, 73, 77, 78, 82, 83, 91, 92, 100, 103, 108, 120, 129, 148, 156, 161–171, 175–176, 178, 183, 184, 192, 203, 210, 211, 225–229, 235, 240, 248, 281, 282, 288, 290 Falsification 59, 136, 206, 212, 216, 224, 229, 235, 236, 296 Fictions 5, 7, 69, 71, 75, 81, 83, 144, 167, 175, 212–213, 219, 224, 296 Folk psychology (see also Psychology) 7, 131–132, 141–144, 152–155 Force (Kraft), inventive / poetic / artistic / rhetoric force 5, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 28, 31, 63, 66, 69, 75, 80, 182, 187, 188, 189, 220, 237, 262, 292 Forgetfulness 35, 48, 53, 55, 56, 68, 70, 71, 75, 94, 234, 236, 237, 241 Freedom 6, 15, 21, 25, 26, 91, 113, 114, 117, 123, 141, 233, 238, 239, 244, 246 Genealogy (see also Self-genealogy) 3, 7, 35, 47, 50, 70, 84, 116, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123, 132, 138, 139, 141, 144–146, 148, 151, 152, 227, 228, 286, 290

Subject Index

311

Genius of the species 92, 169–170, 226– 227 God 1, 2, 4, 21, 65, 259, 260, 263, 269, 277, 279–280, 288, 289, 292 Grammar 2, 3, 6, 15, 23, 30, 49, 65, 78, 84, 91, 92, 93, 203, 208, 225, 239

Intoxication (Rausch) 79–82, 247, 248 Intuition 42, 43, 44, 49, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 67, 75, 125–126, 161, 185, 201, 217–218, 223 Irony 76, 77, 84, 264, 267, 268, 289, 292, 294

Habit 8, 55–56, 236–237, 238–239, 241, 242, 245 Herd / Herd-perspective / Herd-instinct 66, 96, 100, 104, 172, 221, 226, 227, 229 Honesty (see also Probity and Redlichkeit) 8, 14, 24, 243, 245, 247, 262 Hubbub of the stimuli 188

Judgement(s) (see also Instinctive judgements) 1, 8, 16, 18, 23, 43, 50, 64, 80, 81, 82, 93, 109, 133, 134, 140, 150, 154, 155, 189–192, 193, 295

I (of consciousness) (see also Self) 6, 7, 91–104, 161–176, 179–180, 205–209, 211–214, 229, 241 Idealism 5, 39–61, 81, 101 Idealisation 138, 140, 146, 148, 150, 195, 223, 224, 295 Illusion 1, 14, 34, 35, 36, 46, 47, 48, 55– 56, 57, 60, 69, 72, 84, 85, 94, 104, 144, 146, 180, 185, 187, 224, 233, 236, 245, 261, 276 Image (Bild) 13–14, 17, 18–20, 24, 30, 31, 32, 36, 51, 52, 55, 71, 74, 75, 83, 183, 205, 216–217 Incorporation / Assimilation 26, 27, 91, 53, 94, 96, 100, 103, 144, 145, 188, 190, 191, 229 Individual / Individuality 2, 6, 43, 52, 58, 75, 82, 95–97, 98, 100–101, 104, 107, 116, 117, 119–120, 125, 126, 139, 141–148, 150, 153, 154, 171–176, 180, 182, 188–189, 191, 207, 212, 215, 223, 225–229, 234–236, 239– 248, 283, 292 Intentionality 8, 50, 163, 168, 204–211 Instinct(s) 4, 6, 8, 63, 64–66, 68, 73, 76, 77, 78, 80, 93, 95, 96, 100, 111, 121, 124, 140, 151, 179, 189–192, 197, 214, 216, 220, 221, 226, 227, 228, 229, 237, 238, 269, 284 Instinctive judgements 8, 189–192 Interpretation 19, 23, 24, 32, 36, 64, 69, 70, 79, 80, 182, 184, 186, 189, 200, 206, 219, 226, 227, 281

Knowledge (see also Lover of knowledge) 1, 4, 5, 17, 19, 22, 27, 30–31, 36, 39– 60, 69, 70, 75, 77, 79, 93, 99, 100, 130–131, 137, 141, 142, 145–151, 155, 162–163, 171, 179, 181, 194, 210, 214, 219, 228, 229, 236, 243, 245, 259, 260, 266, 268, 271, 289, 291, 292, 293, 295 Limits of Language 4–5, 11ff. Love of knowledge 4 Logic 53, 64 Love 4, 9, 80, 112, 129, 131, 132–153, 221, 239, 245, 246, 248–252, 259, 270, 273, 274, 275 Love as passion 133, 136, 144–151 Mask 3, 8, 9, 212, 233, 239, 241–245, 249–252, 289, 292 Memory 43, 132, 190, 192 Metaphysics 2, 3, 4, 6, 17, 39, 45, 46, 57, 65, 68, 70, 71, 75, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 96, 97, 117, 138, 147, 155, 164, 165, 194–195, 204, 212, 213, 215, 225, 227, 228, 259, 266, 273, 293 Metaphor 4, 5, 6, 9, 13–37, 39, 48–53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 64, 67, 69, 71–77, 83–85, 184–187, 198, 219, 220, 237, 261, 262, 277 Modernity 6, 26, 28, 29–30, 64, 92–93, 120, 124, 243, 244, 248, 259, 265, 294 Morality 4, 6, 7, 21, 68, 77, 91–104, 107– 127, 129–156, 179, 180, 181, 184,

312

Subject Index

194, 233, 234, 236, 246, 263–267, 269, 284, 292, 293 Music 68 Natural selection 54, 202, 210 Need / Needs (see also Need to communicate) 9, 23, 27, 44, 54, 66, 69, 81, 91, 92, 95, 96, 101, 103, 108, 110, 111, 112, 122, 156, 170–172, 174, 180–181, 199, 204, 206, 210, 211, 223, 225–229, 235, 237, 281, 283–289, 291, 295 Need to communicate (see also Needs / Need) 92, 170–172, 174, 210, 211, 235 Nets of language (see also Spider / cobwebs) 2–10, 14, 22, 55, 63, 82, 179, 187, 236, 238, 240, 242, 247 New Language 3, 5, 8, 13–27, 36, 76–78, 198, 204, 228–229, 233, 249, 252, 258 Nihilism 65, 75, 78, 80, 141, 147, 229, 262, 268 Organism 8, 32, 41, 56, 66–67, 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83, 93, 96, 182, 187–192, 198, 200, 202, 204, 207, 213, 217, 219, 221 Origin of Language 3, 33, 43, 48, 52–53, 63, 66, 67, 68, 77, 98, 107, 172, 184, 187, 240, 292 Pathos of distance 243, 244, 245 Performance 9, 27, 33, 34, 35, 98, 131, 135, 229, 141, 143, 144, 153, 155, 265, 268, 272, 277, 295 Perception 5, 41–44, 49–54, 59–60, 73, 131, 133, 135, 136, 140, 141, 167, 188, 206, 210, 212, 214, 222, 234, 237, 245, 266 Perspectivism 73, 74, 83, 85, 174, 175, 202, 257, 290 Philosophy of Mind 214–215 Philosophy of the Emotions (see emotions) Pictorial language 13, 15, 17, 19, 30–36, 63, 74–75, 83 Platonism 248–249 Private language 96–97, 102, 202, 204

Probity (See Honesty and Redlichkeit) 5, 14, 15, 25 Psychology 3, 7, 27, 129–156, 179, 227, 267, 295 Reason 42–43, 44, 53–54, 85, 180, 182– 184, 186, 187, 200, 201, 203–204, 219, 220 Redlichkeit (see Honesty and Probity) 8, 243–247 Rhetoric 5, 13–33, 51, 70, 71, 74 Scepticism 5, 46, 47, 69, 84, 130, 155, 181, 192, 267 Schema / Schemata / Schematism 190, 197, 203, 216–223, 227 Self (see also I) 96, 99, 101–104, 171, 173, 174, 229 Self-affirmation 108, 109, 117, 119, 120, 140, 150 Self-consciousness 94, 98, 100, 150, 197– 200, 204–209, 211–214, 229, 244 Self-creation 117, 119 Self-expression 4, 7–9, 197, 225–229, 235, 248, 281–296 Self-genealogy 227 Self-inquiry 146 Self-knowledge 146, 149, 171, 173, 227, 242, 292 Self-government 145, 148–152, 156 Self-reflection / self-reflivity 8, 93, 94–98, 173, 197, 198, 210, 214 Sensation 1, 19, 41, 42–44, 49–54, 59, 74, 139, 194, 197, 200–205, 210, 216–226 Senses 1, 41, 42, 51, 80, 151, 187, 188, 221–224 Sickness (of man and language) 64, 65 Signs 43, 103, 161–169, 172, 173, 174, 184, 185, 188, 290, 291, 295–296 Sign-Language 151 Silence 72, 86, 233, 238, 245, 250, 252 Simplification 15, 23–25, 36, 59, 80, 136, 188–190, 201–202, 206, 212, 216– 217, 221–222, 224, 226 Socialisation 48, 55, 102, 132, 153 Soul 15, 21, 27, 70, 74, 79, 92, 93, 153, 194, 241, 243, 269, 273

Subject Index

Sovereignty / Sovereign individual 64, 97, 101, 104, 108, 110, 111, 118, 119, 151 Spider / cobwebs (see also Nets of language) 1–3, 8, 56, 187, 228, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 246, 247 Sprachnot 83, 86 Subject 7, 23, 27, 40–41, 45, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56, 69–70, 72, 73, 75, 83, 91, 93, 98–104, 133–134, 141, 144–152, 161–176, 179–180, 182, 189, 212, 213, 225, 241, 296 Sublimation 78, 79 Star / Stars 9, 257–280 Stimuli / nervous stimulations 19, 30–32, 49–56, 59, 74, 75, 76, 181, 182, 183, 184–186, 188–190, 205, 206, 220, 221, 222, 235, 250 Style 9–10, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27 Thing-in-itself 5, 18–19, 31, 39–61, 68, 69, 74, 202, 215, 224–225 Triebleben (‘pulsional life’) 6, 64, 77, 180, 183, 186, 216, 223 Truth 1, 3, 4, 5, 14–16, 20, 22, 39, 43, 46, 48, 55, 57–60, 66, 141, 147, 155,

313

167, 228, 229, 235, 237, 244, 245, 259, 261, 266, 267, 271, 276, 277, 286, 289, 290 Umwelt 8 Unconscious 2, 7–8, 19, 20, 63, 64, 66– 68, 75, 92, 94, 96, 98, 143, 172, 171, 177, 184–185, 188, 191, 197, 201, 204, 206, 208–215–229 Ursachentrieb 220, 221–223 Verbindungsnetz 100, 171, 207, 209, 215, 223 Will to Power 3, 75, 76, 78, 81, 82, 123, 134, 136, 153, 154, 212, 225, 252, 291, 295 Wills to Power 153 Will to Truth 250 Words 1, 3, 7, 8, 14, 15, 18–21, 23–24, 28–33, 43, 49, 50–56, 68, 70, 72, 78, 83, 85, 97, 98, 103, 129, 132, 134, 138, 139, 142–144, 152, 154, 183– 185, 193, 200–206, 215–219, 225– 228, 233–252, 272, 276, 282, 283, 291