Dr. Ess - Drury University
[These comments are drawn from a longer paper on "Teaching Nietzsche: Aphorisms as Gateways"]
In the Preface to the Second edition, Nietzsche takes up the "contradictions" of winter/summer, sickness/health - and points out that these apparent contradictions are nonetheless held together in the experience of the body.
The suggestion here of bodily experience as that which holds together in a unity what otherwise appear to be opposites (in my language - the logic of connection in the face of irreducible differences) is further alluded to in his reference to Zarathustra as both tragedy and comedy.
As we will see, Nietzsche will speak of "the rich ambiguity of existence" in Aphorism 2: this ambiguity - associated with his emphasis on our understanding especially value judgments as dependent upon the perspective from which those judgments are made - likewise requires our consistent use of this logic: the same "thing" is always "multi-valent," e.g., open to being judged (perhaps from different perspectives) as both "good" and "evil." But this ambiguity or multivalence - the essential ambiguity of existence - does not devolve into mere contradiction. On the contrary, just a bodily experience grounds the unity which holds together both sickness and health, the experience of winter and summer - so things are/may be judged both good and evil. And so: Zarathustra is both a tragedy and a comedy.
Nietzsche further alludes to the theoretical tension we have seen in postmodernists such as Belsey - namely, the tension between a claim made at a first theoretical level and a meta-theoretical claim made at a second level (e.g., the rejection of such notions as "truth," "theory," argument, etc. at a first level - while such rejections involve at a second level precisely a theoretical effort to establish some truths, based on argument, etc.) So Nietzsche says that in the Gay Science "the poet makes fun of all poets in a way that may be hard to forgive." (33) This suggests that poetry - especially in the "amplified" sense of Nietzsche's gaya scienza, the gay science that conjoins both the poetic and the scientific in the broadest sense (Wissenschaft in German means something more broad, e.g. "disciplinary," insofar as the humanities, for example, count as the Geisteswissenschaften, vis-a-vis the natural sciences, the Naturwissenschaften) - for Nietzsche is both self-reflexive and critical. That is, poetry can turn on itself (self-reflexive) to issue in a kind of critique of not simply a specific poem or poetry, but poetry as such. Where such self-reflexiveness and self-criticism are classical characteristics of reason - this suggests a concrete way in which Nietzsche's gaya scienza is both rational ("wissenschaftlich") and poetic in something of their earlier, narrower senses (i.e., the senses that excluded one another from a dualistic standpoint).
Whereas Belsey, on my view, was not especially explicit about the contradictions between her theoretical and meta-theoretical claims - this line in Nietzsche suggests that he was quite clear about the possibility of such contradictions, and that he sees them as avoided precisely through his consistent use of a logic which conjoins apparent opposites, specifically in a "theory," the gaya scienza as itself the conjunction of both reason and poetry.
Generally, over against the view that Nietzsche's aphorisms represent a kind of intentional fragmentation, one that is anti-systematic, even relativistic - I wish to show that the aphorisms, if read carefully, reveal a very sophisticated structure, one which contributes to our understanding of Nietzsche's specific aphorisms. Specifically, the first four aphorisms follow a sonata-like structure (in keeping with (a) Neitzsche's own passion for music and (b) the poetic side of the Gay Science). The first aphorism announced the main themes, which are then explored in two complementary variations in aphorisms 2 and 3. Aphorism 4 returns to the main themes of 1, now considerably enriched precisely through the explorations of 2 and 3, and provides a kind of summary and coda.
Aphorism 1 brings out Nietzsche's use of a complementary logic, tied to his understanding of the role of perspective in shaping our judgments and views,in the very first sentence: "Whether I contemplate men with benevolence or with an evil eye, I always find them concerned with a single task...," namely, the preservation of the species, which in fact serves as the main theme of this first aphorism.
That is, we have here two different perspectives, defined by two distinctive moods - and in this case, each perspective issues in the same insight. As a meta-theoretical comment: neither perspective is valued or "privileged" above the other (to use the postmodernist jargon): both are apparently accepted without further comment as legitimate. (This amounts to an "argument from silence" - i.e., using what is not said to infer someone's assumptions or views. Such arguments are notoriously hazardous - but we will see that this assumption becomes more and more explicit as Nietzsche continues.)
In fact, as Nietzsche continues here, he provides additional distinct but complementary perspectives: useful/harmful and good/evil - as not only perspectives, but - seen from a still larger perspective - are myopic ones. In this shift from dualistic distinctions to a larger perspective, Nietzsche first of all suggests that what are originally dualities (within the starting perspective) can nonetheless be understood as conjoined with one another, insofar as the belong to the initial perspective. In doing so, of course, he introduces a further distinction between the starting perspective (which makes just such dualistic distinctions) and a larger one - and he now suggests that, compared to one another (i.e., not from some absolute standpoint), the starting perspective is myopic. IF one prefers the larger scale perspective, one can certainly move to it - and in doing so, move from a dualistic logic to a complementary one. This complementarity is apparent first of all in the fact that - while Nietzsche is willing to characterize the starting perspective as myopic as compared to the larger one - he does not suggest that we must dualistically choose between the starting perspective (as itself somehow "bad") and the larger perspective (as itself somehow "good" because it is more encompassing). Rather, both remain "on the table" before us: both remain legitimate as defined perspectives.
To put this differently - the distinction between "good" and "bad" in the starting perspective thus does not somehow disappear, as something to be rejected in light of the shift to a larger perspective. On the contrary, as especially aphorisms 2 and 3 make clear, Nietzsche warns against the temptation to judge one perspective from the framework of another (he will call this "injustice"). In this light, the distinction between "good" and "bad" remains perfectly legitimate - within a defined framework or perspective.
To draw an analogy: Einstein's relativity theories do not mean that "all things are relative," as they are often popularly understood to mean. On the contrary: while our experience of time, for example, is relative to our frame of reference (i.e., time - "measured" on the basis of the speed of light - may differ between frames of reference that are moving relative to one another) - our experience of the speed of light (and thus of time) is "absolute" within a given frame of reference.
Analogously, while "good" and "bad" - from a different frame of reference, may be seen to be relative to that frame, within that frame they remain valid. In this way, while Nietzsche heads in a relativizing direction - i.e., one that has us understand the validity of value judgments as relative to given frames of reference - this is not the same as simple relativism, which would say there are no valid distinctions between good and evil. On the contrary, a good part of Nietzsche's philosophical project can be understood as precisely the effort to overcome relativism and nihilism - the immediate outgrowths, he believes, of our recognition that "God is dead," i.e., that we have lost as a culture an absolute center of value and reality.
Still again: Nietzsche's perspectivism - the insistence that judgments, especially value judgments, are made within a given framework or perspective - opens up the essential ambiguity ot "things": what is "bad" within one perspective may simultaneously be "good" from the view of another perspective. Both judgments are correct - as long as one is explicit regarding the perspective from which the judgment is made.
There are additional examples of this in the first aphorism - e.g.,
Pursue your best or your worst desires, and above all perish! In both cases you are probably still in some way a promoter and benefactor of humanity and therefore entitled to your eulogists -- but also to your detractors.
And, more broadly, consider his discussion of the tragedies of moralities and religions - vis-a-vis the comedy of existence. Rather than saying one is right and the other is wrong - Nietzsche presents these as on-going moments in human history, each intertwined with one another in a larger process. And again, both tragedy and comedy work for the preservation of the species.
Aphorisms 2 and 3 both offer examples of juxtaposed, initially hierarchical/dualistic perspectives - with the same lesson: it is injustice to judge one perspective by using the criteria of the other.
| Aphorism 2 | Aphorism 3 |
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Lack of an intellectual conscience among "the many"
(note: what N. criticizes here is precisely the failure to seek reasons for one's beliefs - i.e., the failure to fulfill what he characterized in Aphorism 1 as the "tragedy" of existence. Is Nietzsche "for" or "against" reason? The question is meaningless unless we know to what perspective or framework it refers.) |
The common people also have their wisdom, reason, and pride - from which perspective the noble are unreasonable in their passion for knowledge |
| Nietzsche's demand for an intellectual conscience | The taste of the higher type - for exceptions, etc. |
| Nietzsche's injustice in criticizing "the many" using his perspective's demand for intellectual conscience | "The eternal injustice of the higher type" for failing to recognize that different persons operate by different instincts and values |
Aphorism 4 then returns us to the original theme of aphorism 1, species-preservation. Here Nietzsche's complementary logic is made much more explicit - and in a way that overtly criticizes Anglo-American utilitarianism (something a real relativist would not be able to consistently do).
Here "good" is identified with "those who dig the old thoughts, digging deep and getting them to bear fruit - the farmers of the spirit," while "evil" is what is new, "that which wants to conquer and overthrow the old boundary markers and the old pieties...." But because the farmers of the spirit eventually exhaust the land - "the ploughshare of evil [i.e., of overturning, of the new] must come again and again."
And both are necessary to the preservation of the species. Again, Nietzsche moves the distinction between "good" and "evil" from holding an absolute, dualistic status (as it would be perceived within an initial framework) to operating in a complementary fashion - both are necessary and legitimate from a larger framework, as both can be seen to contribute to the preservation of the species. But this recognition that what is "evil" in the starting framework may be "good" from a larger perspective does not issue in a relativistic claim that there are no valid ways of distinguishing between "good" and "evil," and the result is anything goes. Rather to the contrary, Nietzsche lifts up here a rather significant value - the preservation of the species - and argues rather explicitly for the validity of both "good" and "evil" in light of this value. This is hardly the move of a relativist.
Especially after we examine Nietzsche's discussion of "God is dead," we will be able to see that Nietzsche seems intent on helping us move beyond an initial framework - one which takes all moral values to derive from some external, unchanging, absolute authority ("God") - but also beyond the nihilism and relativism which emerge as the first individual and cultural reactions to the realization that such moral absolutism/objectivism can no longer be defended. Part of his effort to move beyond nihilism is to make clear that nihilism - while it thinks of itself as the opposite of moral absolutism/objectivism - remains within the definitive framework of such absolutism/objectivism. Schematically:
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Moral Absolutism/Objectivism
Moral values must derive from a single, univeral, unchanging, external "objective" source - e.g., God OR moral values are entirely individual, arbitrary, relative to the individual/culture, "subjective" |
Relativism/Nihilism
since there is no God (or any other external, "objective" source of values) moral values are entirely individual, arbitrary, relative to the individual/culture, "subjective" - nothing matters |
Nietzsche's "artists' metaphysics" seeks to overcome nihilism by moving beyond the initial framework of moral absolutism/objectivism - and in a way that is roughly analogous to Kant's "Copernican Revolution," - i.e., the recognition that the standpoint of the observer contributes to how things appear to that observer .
For Kant, the recognition that the subject contributes to his/her experience of an "objective" world does not issue in simple epistemological relativism - the subject can make up any experience of an "objective" world s/he chooses. On the contrary, for Kant, the subject's construction of experience is still constrained within the parameters established by an external reality (even if my experience of lightwaves/photons is different from yours - it still depends on the presence of lightwaves/photons) and shared structures of subjectivity (e.g., frameworks of time and space, etc.). This is to say, rather than rejecting our experience of the world as "subjective" in the old sense (individual, arbitrary, etc.) in an epistemological relativism - Kant's recognition of the role of the subject in the construction of his/her experience forces us to shift from an old (Anglo-American) epistemology which dualistically pits the "objective" against the "subjective" to a new, complementary stance which affirms the reality and validity of the "subjective" contribution to the construction of experience. Such contribution is necessary, first of all, if there is to be any experience of the world.
By the same token, Nietzsche's solution to the problem of nihilism involves first of all recognizing how nihilism remains a reaction to the death of God from within the framework ostensibly held to be no longer valid. This negative/critical move is followed by a positive one - i.e., the notion of an "artists' metaphysics," in which we affirm (ala Kant) the creative dimension involved in the subjective construction of experience.
Just as Kant's epistemology requires us to move beyond an old, Anglo-American dualism between "subjective" and "objective" - so Nietzsche's artists' metaphysics moves us beyond the parallel dualism between moral subjectivity (relativism) and objectivity (absolutism). Just as Kant's understanding of a complementary relationship between the subject and the object in the construction of experience affirms the role of the subject in the construction of experience as positive - so Nietzsche's artists' metaphysics, with its understanding of a complementary relationship between the artist's subjectivity and the work of art as an object shared in some measure or another by a larger community affirms that subjectivity as creative.
Indeed, a central motive for Nietzsche's choice of the artist as the image/model is just that in the artist, the "subjective" is held to be of positive value in the first place. That is, by choosing the artist in this way, Nietzsche moves us to a familiar domain of culture in which "subjectivity" - suspect in the original dualism between moral absolutism/objectivism and in its association with nihilism/relativism as we initially reject the moral absolutism/objectivism framework - is valued positively rather than negatively.
Reading for June 27, 1997.
Be sure to look at the aphorisms on women (which provide an almost feminist critique of how males - in a specific example of subjective construction of experience - create an image of woman to which women must adhere in traditional cultures): 56-60, 62-72, 74-75.
We will also work through the aphorisms surrounding and including 125, the famous passage on the death of God.