Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900)

Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic. His
writings on truth, morality, language, aesthetics, cultural theory,
history, nihilism, power, consciousness, and the meaning of existence
have exerted an enormous influence on Western philosophy and
intellectual history.

Nietzsche spoke of "the death of God," and predicted a collapse of
traditional religion and metaphysics because he believed critics were
increasingly aware that these ideologies were "lies" and "fictions."
He predicted religion and philosophy would be replaced by a
Schopenhauer-like pessimism and nihilism. Some interpreters of
Nietzsche believe he embraced nihilism, rejected philosophical
reasoning, and promoted a literary exploration of the human condition,
while not being concerned with gaining truth and knowledge in the
traditional sense of those terms. However, other interpreters of
Nietzsche say that in attempting to counteract the predicted rise of
nihilism, he was engaged in a positive program to reaffirm life, and
so he called for a radical, naturalistic rethinking of the nature of
human existence, knowledge, and morality. On either interpretation, it
is agreed that he suggested a plan for "becoming what one is" through
the cultivation of instincts and various cognitive faculties, a plan
that requires constant struggle with one's psychological and
intellectual inheritances. Nietzsche claimed the exemplary human being
must craft his/her own identity through self-realization and do so
without relying on anything transcending that life—such as God or a
soul. This way of living should be affirmed without qualification
even if he were to know that the world would "eternally recur" with
the same events of today occurring again in the future.

Nietzsche did not systematically express his views. He wrote
metaphorically and scattered his views on a topic across a great many
media. In his middle period, he switched from writing essays to
writing in an aphoristic style. Philosophers do not agree on whether
Nietzsche's purpose was to bring to an end the philosophical program
of presenting reasons in defense of positions, or whether he was
trying to show by example a better way to achieve the program. He
called for "new philosophers" to follow his example, and, according to
some readers of his works, he appeared to be broadening the scope of
his ideas in order to work out a cosmology involving the
all-encompassing "will to power." But other readers interpret him as
not being involved in working out any general cosmology.

1. Life

Because much of Nietzsche's philosophical work has to do with the
creation of self—or to put it in Nietzschean terms, "becoming what one
is"— some scholars exhibit uncommon interest in the biographical
anecdotes of Nietzsche's life. Taking this approach, however, risks
confusing aspects of the Nietzsche legend with what is important in
his philosophical work, and many commentators are rightly skeptical of
readings derived primarily from biographical anecdotes.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born October 15, 1844, the son of Karl
Ludwig and Franziska Nietzsche. Karl Ludwig Nietzsche was a Lutheran
Minister in the small Prussian town of Röcken, near Leipzig. When
young Friedrich was not quite five, his father died of a brain
hemorrhage, leaving Franziska, Friedrich, a three-year old daughter,
Elisabeth, and an infant son. Friedrich's brother died unexpectedly
shortly thereafter (reportedly, the legend says, fulfilling
Friedrich's dream foretelling of the tragedy). These events left young
Friedrich the only male in a household that included his mother,
sister, paternal grandmother and an aunt, although Friedrich drew upon
the paternal guidance of Franziska's father. Young Friedrich also
enjoyed the camaraderie of a few male playmates.

Upon the loss of Karl Ludwig, the family took up residence in the
relatively urban setting of Naumburg, Saxony. Friedrich gained
admittance to the prestigious Schulpforta, where he received Prussia's
finest preparatory education in the Humanities, Theology, and
Classical Languages. Outside school, Nietzsche founded a literary and
creative society with classmates including Paul Deussen (who was later
to become a prominent scholar of Sanskrit and Indic Studies). In
addition, Nietzsche played piano, composed music, and read the works
of Emerson and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, who was relatively
unknown at the time.

In 1864 Nietzsche entered the University of Bonn, spending the better
part of that first year unproductively, joining a fraternity and
socializing with old and new acquaintances, most of whom would fall
out of his life once Nietzsche regained his intellectual focus. By
this time he had also given up Theology and his mother's hopes for a
career in the ministry, choosing instead the more humanistic study of
classical languages and a career in Philology. In 1865 he followed his
major professor, Friedrich Ritschl, from Bonn to the University of
Leipzig and dedicated himself to the studious life, establishing an
extracurricular society there devoted to the study of ancient texts.
Nietzsche's first contribution to this group was an essay on the Greek
poet, Theognis, and it drew the attention of Professor Ritschl, who
was so impressed that he published the essay in his academic journal,
Rheinisches Museum. Other published writings by Nietzsche soon
followed, and by 1868 (after a year of obligatory service in the
Prussian military), young Friedrich was being promoted as something of
a "phenomenon" in classical scholarship by Ritschl, whose esteem and
praise landed Nietzsche a position as Professor of Greek Language and
Literature at the University of Basel in Switzerland, even though the
candidate had not yet begun writing his doctoral dissertation. The
year was 1869 and Friedrich Nietzsche was 24 years old.

At this point in his life, however, Nietzsche was a far cry from the
original thinker he would later become, since neither he nor his work
had matured. Swayed by public opinion and youthful exuberance, he
briefly interrupted teaching in 1870 to join the Prussian military,
serving as a medical orderly at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
War. His service was cut short, however, by severe bouts with
dysentery and diphtheria. Back in Basel, his teaching responsibilities
at the University and a nearby Gymnasium consumed much of his
intellectual and physical energy. He became acquainted with the
prominent cultural historian, Jacob Burkhardt, a well-established
member of the university faculty. But, the person exerting the most
influence on Nietzsche at this point was the artist, Richard Wagner,
whom Nietzsche had met while studying in Leipzig. During the first
half of the decade, Wagner and his companion, Cosima von Bülow,
frequently entertained Nietzsche at Triebschen, their residence near
Lake Lucerne, and then later at Bayreuth.

It is commonplace to say that at one time Nietzsche looked to Wagner
with the admiration of a dutiful son. This interpretation of their
relationship is supported by the fact that Wagner would have been the
same age as Karl Ludwig, had the elder Nietzsche been alive. It is
also commonplace to note that Nietzsche was in awe of the artist's
excessive displays of a fiery temperament, bravado, ambition, egoism,
and loftiness— typical qualities demonstrating "genius" in the
nineteenth century. In short, Nietzsche was overwhelmed by Wagner's
personality. A more mature Nietzsche would later look back on this
relationship with some regret, although he never denied the
significance of Wagner's influence on his emotional and intellectual
path, Nietzsche's estimation of Wagner's work would alter considerably
over the course of his life. Nonetheless, in light of this
relationship, one can easily detect Wagner's presence in much of
Nietzsche's early writings, particularly in the latter chapters of The
Birth of Tragedy and in the first and fourth essays of 1874's Untimely
Meditations. Also, Wagner's supervision exerted considerable editorial
control over Nietzsche's intellectual projects, leading him to
abandon, for example, 1873's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the
Greeks, which Wagner scorned because of its apparent irrelevance to
his own work. Such pressures continued to bridle Nietzsche throughout
the so-called early period. He broke free of Wagner's dominance once
and for all in 1877, after a series of emotionally charged episodes.
Nietzsche's fallout with Wagner, who had moved to Bayreuth by this
time, led to the publication of 1878's Human, All-Too Human, one of
Nietzsche's most pragmatic and un-romantic texts—the original title
page included a dedication to Voltaire and a quote from Descartes. If
Nietzsche intended to use this text as a way of alienating himself
from the Wagnerian circle, he surely succeeded. Upon its arrival in
Bayreuth, the text ended this personal relationship with Wagner.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Nietzsche was not developing
intellectually during the period, prior to 1877. In fact, figures
other than Wagner drew Nietzsche's interest and admiration. In
addition to attending Burkhardt's lectures at Basel, Nietzsche studied
Greek thought from the Pre-Socratics to Plato, and he learned much
about the history of philosophy from Friedrich Albert Lange's massive
History of Materialism, which Nietzsche once called "a treasure trove"
of historical and philosophical names, dates, and currents of thought.
In addition, Nietzsche was taken by the persona of the philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer, which Nietzsche clamed to have culled from close
readings of the two-volume magnum opus, The World as Will and
Representation.

Nietzsche discovered Schopenhauer while studying in Leipzig. Because
his training at Schulpforta had elevated him far above most of his
classmates, he frequently skipped lectures at Leipzig in order to
devote time to [CE1] Schopenhauer's philosophy. For Nietzsche, the
most important aspect of this philosophy was the figure from which it
emanated, representing for him the heroic ideal of a man in the life
of thought: a near-contemporary thinker participating in that great
and noble "republic of genius," spanning the centuries of free
thinking sages and creative personalities. That Nietzsche could not
countenance Schopenhauer's "ethical pessimism" and its negation of the
will was recognized by the young man quite early during this
encounter. Yet, even in Nietzsche's attempts to construct a
counter-posed "pessimism of strength" affirming the will, much of
Schopenhauer's thought remained embedded in Nietzsche's philosophy,
particularly during the early period. Nietzsche's philosophical
reliance on "genius", his cultural-political visions of rank and order
through merit, and his self-described (and later self-rebuked)
"metaphysics of art" all had Schopenhauerian underpinnings. Also,
Birth of Tragedy's well-known dualism between the
cosmological/aesthetic principles of Dionysus and Apollo, contesting
and complimenting each other in the tragic play of chaos and order,
confusion and individuation, strikes a familiar chord to readers
acquainted with Schopenhauer's description of the world as "will" and
"representation."

Despite these similarities, Nietzsche's philosophical break with
Schopenhauerian pessimism was as real as his break with Wagner's
domineering presence was painful. Ultimately, however, such triumphs
were necessary to the development and liberation of Nietzsche as
thinker, and they proved to be instructive as Nietzsche later
thematized the importance of "self-overcoming" for the project of
cultivating a free spirit.

The middle and latter part of the 1870s was a time of great upheaval
in Nietzsche's personal life. In addition to the turmoil with Wagner
and related troubles with friends in the artist's circle of admirers,
Nietzsche suffered digestive problems, declining eyesight, migraines,
and a variety of physical aliments, rendering him unable to fulfill
responsibilities at Basel for months at a time. After publication of
Birth of Tragedy, and despite its perceived success in Wagnerian
circles for trumpeting the master's vision for Das Kunstwerk der
Zukunft ("The Art Work of the Future") Nietzsche's academic reputation
as a philologist was effectively destroyed due in large part to the
work's apparent disregard for scholarly expectations characteristic of
nineteenth-century philology. Birth of Tragedy was mocked as
Zukunfts-Philologie ("Future Philology") by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
an up-and-coming peer destined for an illustrious career in
Classicism, and even Ritschl characterized it as a work of
"megalomania." For these reasons, Nietzsche had difficulty attracting
students. Even before the publication of Birth of Tragedy, he had
attempted to re-position himself at Basel in the department of
philosophy, but the University apparently never took such an endeavor
seriously. By 1878, his circumstances at Basel deteriorated to the
point that neither the University nor Nietzsche was very much
interested in seeing him continue as a professor there, so both agreed
that he should retire with a modest pension [CE2] . He was 34 years
old and now apparently liberated, not only from his teaching duties
and the professional discipline he grew to despise, but also from the
emotional and intellectual ties that dominated him during his youth.
His physical woes, however, would continue to plague him for the
remainder of his life.

After leaving Basel, Nietzsche enjoyed a period of great productivity.
And, during this time, he was never to stay in one place for long,
moving with the seasons, in search of relief for his ailments,
solitude for his work, and reasonable living conditions, given his
very modest budget. He often spent summers in the Swiss Alps in Sils
Maria, near St. Moritz, and winters in Genoa, Nice, or Rappollo on the
Mediterranean coast. Occasionally, he would visit family and friends
in Naumburg or Basel, and he spent a great deal of time in social
discourse, exchanging letters with friends and associates.

In the latter part of the 1880s, Nietzsche's health worsened, and in
the midst of an amazing flourish of intellectual activity which
produced On the Genealogy of Morality, Twilight of the Idols, The
Anti-Christ, and several other works (including preparation for what
was intended to be his magnum opus, a work that editors later titled
Will to Power) Nietzsche suffered a complete mental and physical
breakdown. The famed moment at which Nietzsche is said to have
succumbed irrevocably to his ailments occurred January 3, 1889 in
Turin (Torino) Italy, reportedly outside Nietzsche's apartment in the
Piazza Carlos Alberto while embracing a horse being flogged by its
owner.

After spending time in psychiatric clinics in Basel and Jena,
Nietzsche was first placed in the care of his mother, and then later
his sister (who had spent the latter half of the 1880's attempting to
establish a "racially pure" German colony in Paraguay with her
husband, the anti-Semitic political opportunist Bernhard Foerster). By
the early 1890s, Elisabeth had seized control of Nietzsche's literary
remains, which included a vast amount of unpublished writings. She
quickly began shaping his image and the reception of his work, which
by this time had already gained momentum among academics such as
Georges Brandes. Soon the Nietzsche legend would grow in spectacular
fashion among popular readers. From Villa Silberblick, the Nietzsche
home in Weimar, Elisabeth and her associates managed Friedrich's
estate, editing his works in accordance with her taste for a populist
decorum and occasionally with an ominous political intent that (later
researchers agree) corrupted the original thought[CE3] .
Unfortunately, Friedrich experienced little of his fame, having never
recovered from the breakdown of late-1888 and early 1889. His final
years were spent at Villa Silberblick in grim mental and physical
deterioration, ending mercifully August 25, 1900. He was buried in
Röcken, near Leipzig. Elisabeth spent one last year in Paraguay in
1892-93 before returning to Germany, where she continued to exert
influence over the perception of Nietzsche's work and reputation,
particularly among general readers, until her death in 1935. Villa
Silberblick stands today as a monument, of sorts, to Friedrich and
Elisabeth, while the bulk of Nietzsche's literary remains is held in
the Goethe-Schiller Archiv, also in Weimar.
2. Periodization of Writings

Nietzsche scholars commonly divide his work into periods, usually with
the implication that discernable shifts in Nietzsche's circumstances
and intellectual development justify some form of periodization in the
corpus. The following division is typical:

(i.) before 1869—the juvenilia

Cautious Nietzsche biographers work to separate the facts of
Nietzsche's life from myth, and while a major part of the Nietzsche
legend holds that Friedrich was a precocious child, writings from his
youth bear witness to that part of the story. During this time
Nietzsche was admitted into the prestigious Gymnasium Schulpforta; he
composed music, wrote poetry and plays, and in 1863 produced an
autobiography (at the age of 19). He also produced more serious and
accomplished works on themes related to philology, literature, and
philosophy. By 1866 he had begun contributing articles to a major
philological journal, Rheinisches Museum, edited by Nietzsche's
esteemed professor at Bonn and Leipzig, Friedrich Ritschl. With
Ritschl's recommendation, Nietzsche was appointed professor of Greek
Language and Literature at the University of Basel in January 1869.

(ii.) 1869-1876–the early period

Nietzsche's writings during this time reflect interests in philology,
cultural criticism, and aesthetics. His inaugural public lecture at
Basel in May 1869, "Homer and Classical Philology" brought out
aesthetic and scientific aspects of his discipline, portending
Nietzsche's attitudes towards science, art, philology and philosophy.
He was influenced intellectually by the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer and emotionally by the artist Richard Wagner. Nietzsche's
first published book, The Birth of Tragedy, appropriated
Schopenhaurian categories of individuation and chaos in an elucidation
of primordial aesthetic drives represented by the Greek gods Apollo
and Dionysus. This text also included a Wagnerian precept for cultural
flourishing: society must cultivate and promote its most elevated and
creative types—the artistic genius. In the Preface to a later edition
of this work, Nietzsche expresses regret for having attempted to
elaborate a "metaphysics of art." In addition to these themes,
Nietzsche's interest during this period extended to Greek philosophy,
intellectual history, and the natural sciences, all of which were
significant to the development of his mature thought. Nietzsche's
second book-length project, The Untimely Meditations, contains four
essays written from 1873-1876. It is a work of acerbic cultural
criticism, encomia to Schopenhauer and Wagner, and an unexpectedly
idiosyncratic analysis of the newly developing historical
consciousness. A fifth meditation on the discipline of philology is
prepared but left unpublished. Plagued by poor health, Nietzsche is
released from teaching duties in February 1876 (his affiliation with
the university officially ends in 1878 and he is granted a small
pension).

(iii.) 1877-1882—the middle period

During this time Nietzsche liberated himself from the emotional grip
of Wagner and the artist's circle of admirers, as well as from those
ideas which (as he claims in Ecce Homo) "did not belong" to him in his
"nature" ("Human All Too Human: With Two Supplements" 1). Reworking
earlier themes such as tragedy in philosophy, art and truth, and the
human exemplar, Nietzsche's thinking now comes into sharper focus, and
he sets out on a philosophical path to be followed the remainder of
his productive life. In this period's three published works Human,
All-Too Human (1878-79), Dawn (1881), and The Gay Science (1882),
Nietzsche takes up writing in an aphoristic style, which permits
exploration of a variety of themes. Most importantly, Nietzsche lays
out a plan for "becoming what one is" through the cultivation of
instincts and various cognitive faculties, a plan that requires
constant struggle with one's psychological and intellectual
inheritances. Nietzsche discovers that "one thing is needful" for the
exemplary human being: to craft an identity from otherwise dissociated
events bringing forth the horizons of one's existence.
Self-realization, as it is conceived in these texts, demands the
radicalization of critical inquiry with a historical consciousness and
then a "retrograde step" back (Human aphorism 20) from what is
revealed in such examinations, insofar as these revelations threaten
to dissolve all metaphysical realities and leave nothing but the
abysmal comedy of existence. A peculiar kind of meaningfulness is thus
gained by the retrograde step: it yields a purpose for existence, but
in an ironic form, perhaps esoterically and without ground; it is
transparently nihilistic to the man with insight, but suitable for
most; susceptible to all sorts of suspicion, it is nonetheless
necessary and for that reason enforced by institutional powers.
Nietzsche calls the one who teaches the purpose of existence a "tragic
hero" (GS 1), and the one who understands the logic of the retrograde
step a "free spirit." Nietzsche's account of this struggle for
self-realization and meaning leads him to consider problems related to
metaphysics, religion, knowledge, aesthetics, and morality.

(iv.) Post-1882—the later period

Nietzsche transitions into a new period with the conclusion of The Gay
Science (Book IV) and his next published work, the novel Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, produced in four parts between 1883 and 1885. Also in
1885 he returns to philosophical writing with Beyond Good and Evil. In
1886 he attempts to consolidate his inquiries through self-criticism
in Prefaces written for the earlier published works, and he writes a
fifth book for The Gay Science. In 1887 he writes On the Genealogy of
Morality. In 1888, with failing health, he produces several texts,
including The Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, and
two works concerning his prior relationship with Wagner. During this
period, as with the earlier ones, Nietzsche produces an abundance of
materials not published during his lifetime. These works constitute
what is referred to as Nietzsche's Nachlass. (For years this material
has been published piecemeal in Germany and translated to English in
various collections.) Philosophically, during this period, Nietzsche
continues his explorations on morality, truth, aesthetics, history,
power, language and identity. For some readers, he appears to be
broadening the scope of his ideas to work out a cosmology involving
the all encompassing "will to power" and the curiously related and
enigmatic "eternal recurrence of the same." Prior claims regarding the
retrograde step are re-thought, apparently in favor of seeking some
sort of breakthrough into the "abyss of light" (Zarathustra's "Before
Sunrise") or in an encounter with "decadence" ("Expeditions of a
Untimely Man" 43, in Twilight of the Idols). The intent here seems to
be an overcoming or dissolution of metaphysics. These developments
are matters of contention, however, as some commentators maintain that
statements regarding Nietzsche's "cosmological vision" are
exaggerated. And, some will even deny that he achieves (nor even
attempts) the overcoming described above. Despite such complaints,
interpreters of Nietzsche continue to reference these ineffable
concepts.
3. Problems of Interpretation

Nietzsche's work in the beginning was heavily influenced, either
positively or negatively, by the events of his young life. His early
and on-going interest in the Greeks, for example, can be attributed in
part to his Classical education at Schulpforta, for which he was
well-prepared as a result of his family's attempts to steer him into
the ministry. Nietzsche's intense association with Wagner no doubt
enhanced his orientation towards the philosophy of Schopenhauer, and
it probably promoted his work in aesthetics and cultural criticism.
These biographical elements came to bear on Nietzsche's first major
works, while the middle period amounts to a confrontation with many of
these influences. In Nietzsche's later writings we find the
development of concepts that seem less tangibly related to the
biographical events of his life.

Let's outline four of these concepts, but not before adding a word of
caution regarding how this outline should be received. Nietzsche
asserts in the opening section of Twilight of the Idols that he
"mistrusts systematizers" ("Maxims and Arrows" 26), which is taken by
some readers to be a declaration of his fundamental stance towards
philosophical systems, with the additional inference that nothing
resembling such a system must be permitted to stand in interpretations
of his thought. Although it would not be illogical to say that
Nietzsche mistrusted philosophical systems, while nevertheless
building one of his own, some commentators point out two important
qualifications. First, the meaning of Nietzsche's stated "mistrust" in
this brief aphorism can and should be treated with caution. In Beyond
Good and Evil Nietzsche claims that philosophers today, after
millennia of dogmatizing about absolutes, now have a "duty to
mistrust" philosophy's dogmatizing tendencies (BGE 34). Yet, earlier
in that same text, Nietzsche claimed that all philosophical
interpretations of nature are acts of will power (BGE 9) and that his
interpretations are subject to the same critique (BGE 22). In Thus
Spoke Zarathustra's "Of Involuntary Bliss" we find Zarathustra
speaking of his own "mistrust," when he describes the happiness that
has come to him in the "blissful hour" of the third part of that book.
Zarathustra attempts to chase away this bliss while waiting for the
arrival of his unhappiness, but his happiness draws "nearer and nearer
to him," because he does not chase after it. In the next scene we find
Zarathustra dwelling in the "light abyss" of the pure open sky,
"before sunrise." What then is the meaning of this "mistrust"? At the
very least, we can say that Nietzsche does not intend it to establish
a strong and unmovable absolute, a negative-system, from which dogma
may be drawn. Nor, possibly, is Nietzsche's mistrust of systematizers
absolutely clear. Perhaps it is a discredit to Nietzsche as a
philosopher that he did not elaborate his position more carefully
within this tension; or, perhaps such uncertainty has its own ground.
Commentators such as Mueller-Lauter have noticed ambivalence in
Nietzsche's work on this very issue, and it seems plausible that
Nietzsche mistrusted systems while nevertheless constructing something
like a system countenancing this mistrust. He says something akin to
this, after all, in Beyond Good and Evil, where it is claimed that
even science's truths are matters of interpretation, while admitting
that this bold claim is also an interpretation and "so much the
better" (aphorism 22). For a second cautionary note, many commentators
will argue along with Richard Schacht that, instead of building a
system, Nietzsche is concerned only with the exploration of problems,
and that his kind of philosophy is limited to the interpretation and
evaluation of cultural inheritances (1995). Other commentators will
attempt to complement this sort of interpretation and, like Löwith,
presume that the ground for Nietzsche's explorations may also be
examined. Löwith and others argue that this ground concerns
Nietzsche's encounter with historical nihilism. The following outline
should be received, then, with the understanding that Nietzsche's own
iconoclastic nature, his perspectivism, and his life-long projects of
genealogical critique and the revaluation of values, lend credence to
those anti-foundational readings which seek to emphasize only those
exploratory aspects of Nietzsche's work while refuting even implicit
submissions to an orthodox interpretation of "the one Nietzsche" and
his "one system of thought." With this caution, the following outline
is offered as one way of grounding Nietzsche's various explorations.

The four major concepts presented in this outline are:
(i) Nihilism and the Revaluation of Values, which is embodied by a
historical event, "the death of God," and which entails, somewhat
problematically, the project of transvaluation;
(ii) The Human Exemplar, which takes many forms in Nietzsche's
thought, including the "tragic artist", the "sage", the "free spirit",
the "philosopher of the future", the Übermensch (variously translated
in English as "Superman," "Overman," "Overhuman," and the like), and
perhaps others (the case could be made, for example, that in
Nietzsche's notoriously self-indulgent and self-congratulatory Ecce
Homo, the role of the human exemplar is played by "Mr. Nietzsche"
himself);
(iii) Will to Power (Wille zur Macht), from a naturalized history of
morals and truth developing through subjective feelings of power to a
cosmology;
(iv) Eternal Recurrence or Eternal Return (variously in Nietzsche's
work, "die ewige Wiederkunft" or "die ewige Wiederkehr") of the Same
(des Gleich), a solution to the riddle of temporality without purpose.

4. Nihilism and the Revaluation of Values

Although Michael Gillespie makes a strong case that Nietzsche
misunderstood nihilism, and in any event Nietzsche's Dionysianism
would be a better place to look for an anti-metaphysical breakthrough
in Nietzsche's corpus (1995, 178), commentators as varied in
philosophical orientation as Heidegger and Danto have argued that
nihilism is a central theme in Nietzsche's philosophy. Why is this so?
The constellation of Nietzsche's fundamental concepts moves within his
general understanding of modernity's historical situation in the late
nineteenth century. In this respect, Nietzsche's thought carries out
the Kantian project of "critique" by applying the nineteenth century's
developing historical awareness to problems concerning the
possibilities of knowledge, truth, and human consciousness. Unlike
Kant's critiques, Nietzsche's examinations find no transcendental ego,
given that even the categories of experience are historically situated
and likewise determined. Unlike Hegel's notion of historical
consciousness, however, history for Nietzsche has no inherent
teleology. Following the owl of Minerva will demonstrate no "world
historical process." All beginnings and ends, for Nietzsche, are thus
lost in a flood of indeterminacy. As early as 1873, Nietzsche was
arguing that human reason is only one of many peculiar developments in
the ebb and flow of time, and when there are no more rational animals
nothing of absolute value will have transpired ("On truth and lies in
a non-moral sense"). Some commentators would prefer to consider these
sorts of remarks as belonging to Nietzsche's "juvenilia."
Nevertheless, as late as 1888's "Reason in Philosophy" from Twilight
of the Idols Nietzsche derides philosophers who would make a "fetish"
out of reason and retreat into the illusion of a "de-historicized"
world. Such a philosopher is "decadent," symptomatic of a "declining
life". Opposed to this type, Nietzsche valorizes the "Dionysian"
artist whose sense of history affirms "all that is questionable and
terrible in existence."

Nietzsche's philosophy contemplates the meaning of values and their
significance to human existence. Given that no absolute values exist,
in Nietzsche's worldview, the evolution of values on earth must be
measured by some other means. How then shall they be understood? The
existence of a value presupposes a value-positing perspective, and
values are created by human beings (and perhaps other value-positing
agents) as aids for survival and growth. Because values are important
for the well being of the human animal, because belief in them is
essential to our existence, we oftentimes prefer to forget that values
are our own creations and to live through them as if they were
absolute. For these reasons, social institutions enforcing adherence
to inherited values are permitted to create self-serving economies of
power, so long as individuals living through them are thereby made
more secure and their possibilities for life enhanced. Nevertheless,
from time to time the values we inherit are deemed no longer suitable
and the continued enforcement of them no longer stands in the service
of life. To maintain allegiance to such values, even when they no
longer seem practicable, turns what once served the advantage
individuals to a disadvantage, and what was once the prudent
deployment of values into a life denying abuse of power. When this
happens the human being must reactivating its creative, value-positing
capacities and construct new values.

Commentators will differ on the question of whether nihilism for
Nietzsche refers specifically to a state of affairs characterizing
specific historical moments, in which inherited values have been
exposed as superstition and have thus become outdated, or whether
Nietzsche means something more than this. It is, at the very least,
accurate to say that for Nietzsche nihilism has become a problem by
the nineteenth century. The scientific, technological, and political
revolutions of the previous two hundred years put an enormous amount
of pressure on the old world order. In this environment, old value
systems were being dismantled under the weight of newly discovered
grounds for doubt. The possibility arises, then, that nihilism for
Nietzsche is merely a temporary stage in the refinement of true
belief. This view has the advantage of making Nietzsche's remarks on
truth and morality seem coherent from a pragmatic standpoint, in that
with this view the problem of nihilism is met when false beliefs have
been identified and corrected. Reason is not a value, in this reading,
but rather the means by which human beings examine their metaphysical
presuppositions and explore new avenues to truth.

Yet, another view will have it that by nihilism Nietzsche is pointing
out something even more unruly at work, systemically, in the Western
world's axiomatic orientation. Heidegger, for example, claims that
with the problem of nihilism Nietzsche is showing us the essence of
Western metaphysics and its system of values ("The Word of Nietzsche:
'God is dead'"). According to this view, Nietzsche's philosophy of
value, with its emphasis on the value-positing gesture, implies that
even the concept of truth in the Western worldview leads to arbitrary
determinations of value and political order and that this worldview is
disintegrating under the weight of its own internal logic (or perhaps
"illogic"). In this reading, the history of truth in the occidental
world is the "history of an error" (Twilight of the Idols), harboring
profoundly disruptive antinomies which lead, ultimately, to the
undoing of the Western philosophical framework. This kind of systemic
flaw is exposed by the historical consciousness of the nineteenth
century, which makes the problem of nihilism seem all the more acutely
related to Nietzsche's historical situation. But to relegate nihilism
to that situation, according to Heidegger, leaves our thinking of it
incomplete.

Heidegger makes this stronger claim with the aid of Nietzsche's
Nachlass. Near the beginning of the aphorisms collected under the
title, Will To Power (aphorism 2), we find this note from 1887: "What
does nihilism mean? That the highest values devalue themselves The aim
is lacking; "why?" finds no answer." Here, Nietzsche's answer
regarding the meaning of nihilism has three parts. The first part
makes a claim about the logic of values: ultimately, given the immense
breadth of time, even "the highest values devalue themselves."no long
t use of such values into an abuse of the same.no longer useful, turns
what was once perhaps advan What does this mean? According to
Nietzsche, the conceptual framework known as Western metaphysics was
first articulated by Plato, who had pieced together remnants of a
declining worldview, borrowing elements from predecessors such as
Anaximander, Parmenides, and especially Socrates, in order to overturn
a cosmology that had been in play from the days of Homer and which
found its fullest and last expression in the thought of Heraclitus.
Plato's framework was popularized by Christianity, which added
egalitarian elements along with the virtue of pity. The maturation of
Western metaphysics occurs during modernity's scientific and political
revolutions, wherein the effects of its inconsistencies, malfunctions,
and mal-development become acute. At this point, according to
Nietzsche, "the highest values devalue themselves," as modernity's
striving for honesty, probity, and courage in the search for truth,
those all-important virtues inhabiting the core of scientific
progress, strike a fatal blow against the foundational idea of
absolutes. Values most responsible for the scientific revolution,
however, are also crucial to the metaphysical system that modern
science is destroying. Such values are threatening, then, to bring
about the destruction of their own foundations. Thus, the highest
values are devaluing themselves at the core. Most importantly, the
values of honesty, probity, and courage in the search for truth no
longer seem compatible with the guarantee, the bestowal, and the
bestowing agent of an absolute value. Even the truth of "truth" now
falls prey to the workings of nihilism, given that Western metaphysics
now appears groundless in this logic.

For some commentators, this line of interpretation leaves Nietzsche's
revaluation of values lost in contradiction. What philosophical
ground, after all, could support revaluation if this interpretation
were accurate? For this reason, readers such as Clark work to
establish a coherent theory of truth in Nietzsche's philosophy, which
can apparently be done by emphasizing various parts of the corpus to
the exclusion of others. If, indeed, a workable epistemology may be
derived from reading specific passages, and good reasons can be given
for prioritizing those passages, then consistent grounds may exist for
Nietzsche having leveled a critique of morality. Such readings,
however, seem incompatible with Nietzsche's encounter with historical
nihilism, unless nihilism is taken to represent merely a temporary
stage in the refinement of Western humanity's acquisition of
knowledge.

With the stronger claim, however, Nietzsche's critique of the modern
situation implies that the "highest values [necessarily] devalue
themselves." Western metaphysics brings about its own disintegration,
in working out the implications of its inner logic. Nietzsche's name
for this great and terrible event, capturing popular imagination with
horror and disgust, is the "death of God." Nietzsche acknowledges that
a widespread understanding of this event, the "great noon" at which
all "shadows of God" will be washed out, is still to come. In
Nietzsche's day, the God of the old metaphysics is still worshiped, of
course, and would be worshiped, he predicted, for years to come. But,
Nietzsche insisted, in an intellectual climate that demands honesty in
the search for truth and proof as a condition for belief, the absence
of foundations has already been laid bare. The dawn of a new day had
broken, and shadows now cast, though long, were receding by the
minute.

The second part of the answer to the question concerning nihilism
states that "the aim is lacking." What does this mean? In Beyond Good
and Evil Nietzsche claims that the logic of an existence lacking
inherent meaning demands, from an organizational standpoint, a
value-creating response, however weak this response might initially be
in comparison to how its values are then taken when enforced by social
institutions (aphorisms 20-23). Surveys of various cultures show that
humanity's most indispensable creation, the affirmation of meaning and
purpose, lies at the heart of all fundamental values. Nihilism stands
not only for that apparently inevitable process by which the highest
values devalue themselves. It also stands for that moment of
recognition in which human existence appears, ultimately, to be in
vain. Nietzsche's surveys of cultures and their values, his cultural
anthropologies, are typically reductive in the extreme, attempting to
reach the most important sociopolitical questions as neatly and
quickly as possible. Thus, when examining so-called Jewish, Oriental,
Roman, or Medieval European cultures Nietzsche asks, "how was meaning
and purpose proffered and secured here? How, and for how long, did the
values here serve the living? What form of redemption was sought here,
and was this form indicative of a healthy life? What may one learn
about the creation of values by surveying such cultures?" This version
of nihilism then means that absolute aims are lacking and that
cultures naturally attempt to compensate for this absence with the
creation of goals.

The third part of the answer to the question concerning nihilism
states that "'why?' finds no answer." Who is posing the question here?
Emphasis is laid on the one who faces the problem of nihilism. The
problem of value-positing concerns the one who posits values, and this
one must be examined, along with a corresponding evaluation of
relative strengths and weaknesses. When, indeed, "why?" finds no
answer, nihilism is complete. The danger here is that the
value-positing agent might become paralyzed, leaving the call of
life's most dreadful question unanswered. In regards to this danger,
Nietzsche's most important cultural anthropologies examined the Greeks
from Homer to the age of tragedy and the "pre-Platonic" philosophers.
Here was evidence, Nietzsche believed, that humanity could face the
dreadful truth of existence without becoming paralyzed. At every turn,
the moment in which the Greek world's highest values devalued
themselves, when an absolute aim was shown to be lacking, the question
"why?' nevertheless called forth an answer. The strength of Greek
culture is evident in the gods, the tragic art, and the philosophical
concepts and personalities created by the Greeks themselves. Comparing
the creativity of the Greeks to the intellectual work of modernity,
the tragic, affirmative thought of Heraclitus to the pessimism of
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche highlights a number of qualitative
differences. Both types are marked by the appearance of nihilism,
having been drawn into the inevitable logic of value-positing and what
it would seem to indicate. The Greek type nevertheless demonstrates
the characteristics of strength by activating and re-intensifying the
capacity to create, by overcoming paralysis, by willing a new truth,
and by affirming the will. The other type displays a pessimism of
weakness, passivity, and weariness—traits typified by Schopenhauer's
life-denying ethics of the will turning against itself. In Nietzsche's
1888 retrospection on the Birth of Tragedy in Ecce Homo, we read that
"Hellenism and Pessimism" would have made a more precise title for the
first work, because Nietzsche claims to have attempted to demonstrate
how

the Greeks got rid of pessimism—with what they overcame it….Precisely
tragedy is the proof that the Greeks were no pessimists: Schopenhauer
blundered in this as he blundered in everything ("The Birth of
Tragedy" in Ecce Homo section 1).

From Twilight of the Idols, also penned during that sublime year of
1888, Nietzsche writes that tragedy "has to be considered the decisive
repudiation" of pessimism as Schopenhauer understood it:

affirmation of life, even in its strangest and sternest problems, the
will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the
sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian….beyond
[Aristotelian] pity and terror, to realize in oneself the eternal joy
of becoming—that joy which also encompasses joy in destruction ("What
I Owe the Ancients" 5).

Nietzsche concludes the above passage by claiming to be the "last
disciple of the philosopher Dionysus" (which by this time in
Nietzsche's thought came to encompass the whole of that movement which
formerly distinguished between Apollo and Dionysus). Simultaneously,
Nietzsche declares himself, with great emphasis, to be the "teacher of
the eternal recurrence."

The work to overcome pessimism is tragic in a two-fold sense: it
maintains a feeling for the absence of ground, while responding to
this absence with the creation of something meaningful. This work is
also unmodern, according to Nietzsche, since modernity either has yet
to ask the question "why?," in any profound sense or, in those cases
where the question has been posed, it has yet to come up with a
response. Hence, a pessimism of weakness and an incomplete form of
nihilism prevail in the modern epoch. Redemption in this life is
denied, while an uncompleted form of nihilism remains the fundamental
condition of humanity. Although the logic of nihilism seems
inevitable, given the absence of absolute purpose and meaning,
"actively" confronting nihilism and completing our historical
encounter with it will be a sign of good health and the "increased
power of the spirit" (Will to Power aphorism 22). Thus far, however,
modernity's attempts to "escape nihilism" (in turning away) have only
served to "make the problem more acute" (aphorism 28). Why, then, this
failure? What does modernity lack?
5. The Human Exemplar

How and why do nihilism and the pessimism of weakness prevail in
modernity? Again, from the notebook of 1887 (Will to Power, aphorism
27), we find two conditions for this situation:

1. the higher species is lacking, i.e., those whose inexhaustible
fertility and power keep up the faith in man….[and] 2. the lower
species ('herd,' 'mass,' 'society,') unlearns modesty and blows up its
needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In this way the whole of
existence is vulgarized: insofar as the mass is dominant it bullies
the exceptions, so they lose their faith in themselves and become
nihilists.

With the fulfillment of "European nihilism" (which is no doubt, for
Nietzsche, endemic throughout the Western world and anyplace touched
by "modernity"), and the death of otherworldly hopes for redemption,
Nietzsche imagines two possible responses: the easy response, the way
of the "herd" and "the last man," or the difficult response, the way
of the "exception," and the Übermensch.

Ancillary to any discussion of the exception, per se, the
compatibility of the Übermensch concept with other movements in
Nietzsche's thought, and even the significance that Nietzsche himself
placed upon it, has been the subject of intense debate among Nietzsche
scholars. The term's appearance in Nietzsche's corpus is limited
primarily to Thus Spoke Zarathustra and works directly related to this
text. Even here, moreover, the Übermensch is only briefly and very
early announced in the narrative, albeit with a tremendous amount of
fanfare, before fading from explicit consideration. In addition to
these problems, there are debates concerning the basic nature of the
Übermensch itself, whether "Über-" refers to a transitional movement
or a transmogrified state of being, and whether Nietzsche envisioned
the possibility of a community of Übermenschen, as opposed to a
solitary figure among lesser types. So, what should be made of
Nietzsche's so-called "overman" (or even "superman") called upon to
arrive after the "death of God"?

Whatever else may be said about the Übermensch, Nietzsche clearly had
in mind an exemplary figure and an exception among humans, one "whose
inexhaustible fertility and power keep up the faith in man." For some
commentators, Nietzsche's distinction between overman and the last man
has political ramifications. The hope for an overman figure to appear
would seem to be permissible for one individual, many, or even a
social ideal, depending on the culture within which it appears.
Modernity, in Nietzsche's view, is in such a state of decadence that
it would be fortunate, indeed, to see the emergence of even one such
type, given that modern sociopolitical arrangements are more conducive
to creating the egalitarian "last man" who "blinks" at expectations
for rank, self-overcoming, and striving for greatness. The last men
are " the most harmful to the species because they preserve their
existence as much at the expense of the truth as at the expense of the
future" ("Why I am a Destiny" in Ecce Homo 1). Although Nietzsche
never lays out a precise political program from these ideas, it is at
least clear that theoretical justifications for complacency or
passivity are antithetical to his philosophy. What, then, may be said
about Nietzsche as political thinker?

Nietzsche's political sympathies are definitely not democratic in any
ordinary way of thinking about that sort of arrangement. Nor are they
socialist or Marxist. Nietzsche's political sympathies have been
called "aristocratic," which is accurate enough only if one does not
confuse the term with European royalty, landed gentry, old money or
the like and if one keeps in mind the original Greek meaning of the
term, "aristos," which meant "the good man, the man with power." A
certain ambiguity exists, for Nietzsche, in the term "good man." On
the one hand, the modern, egalitarian "good man," the "last man,"
expresses hostility for those types willing to impose measures of rank
and who would dare to want greatness and to strive for it. Such
hostilities are born out of ressentiment and inherited from
Judeo-Christian moral value systems. (Beyond Good and Evil 257-260 and
On the Genealogy of Morals essay 1). "Good" in this sense is opposed
to "evil," and the "good man" is the one whose values support the
"herd" and whose condemnations are directed at those whose thoughts
and actions might disrupt the complacent normalcy of modern life. On
the other hand, the kind of "good man" who might overcome the weak
pessimism of "herd morality," the man of strength, a man to confront
nihilism, and thus a true benefactor to humanity, would be decidedly
"unmodern" and "out of season." Only such a figure would "keep up the
faith in man." For these reasons, some commentators have found in
Nietzsche an existentialist program for the heroic individual
dissociated in varying degrees from political considerations. Such
readings however ignore or discount Nietzsche's interest in historical
processes and the unavoidable inference that although Nietzsche's
anti-egalitarianism might lead to questionably "unmodern" political
conclusions, hierarchy nevertheless implies association.

The distinction between the good man of active power and the other
type also points to ambiguity in the concept of freedom. For the
hopeless, human freedom is conceived negatively in the "freedom from"
restraints, from higher expectations, measures of rank, and the
striving for greatness. While the higher type, on the other hand,
understands freedom positively in the "freedom for" achievement, for
revaluations of values, overcoming nihilism, and self-mastery.

Nietzsche frequently points to such exceptions as they have appeared
throughout history—Napoleon is one of his favorite examples. In
modernity, the emergence of such figures seems possible only as an
isolated event, as a flash of lightening from the dark cloud of
humanity. Was there ever a culture, in contrast to modernity, which
saw these sorts of higher types emerge in congress as a matter of
expectation and design? Nietzsche's early philological studies on the
Greeks, such as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, The
Pre-Platonic Philosophers, "Homer on Competition," and "The Greek
State," concur that, indeed, the ancient world before Plato produced
many exemplary human beings, coming forth independently of each other
but "hewn from the same stone," made possible by the fertile cultural
milieu, the social expectation of greatness, and opportunities to
prove individual merit in various competitive arenas. Indeed, Greek
athletic contests, festivals of music and tragedy, and political life
reflected, in Nietzsche's view, a general appreciation for
competition, rank, ingenuity, and the dynamic variation of formal
structures of all sorts. Such institutions thereby promoted the
elevation of human exemplars. Again, the point must be stressed here
that the historical accuracy of Nietzsche's interpretation of the
Greeks is no more relevant to his philosophical schemata than, for
example, the actual signing of a material document is to a
contractarian political theory. What is important for Nietzsche,
throughout his career, is the quick evaluation of social order and
heirarchies, made possible for the first time in the nineteenth
century by the newly developed "historical sense" (BGE 224) through
which Nietzsche draws sweeping conclusions regarding, for example, the
characteristics of various moral and religious epochs (BGE 32 and 55),
which are themselves pre-conditioned by the material origins of
consciousness, from which a pre-human animal acquires the capacity
(even the "right") to make promises and develops into the "sovereign
individual" who then bears responsibility for his or her actions and
thoughts (GM II.2).

Like these rather ambitious conclusions, Nietzsche's valorization of
the Greeks is partly derived from empirical evidence and partly
confected in myth, a methodological concoction that Nietzsche draws
from his philological training. If the Greeks, as a different
interpretation would have them, bear little resemblance to Nietzsche's
reading, such a difference would have little relevance to Nietzsche's
fundamental thoughts. Later Nietzsche is also clear that his
descriptions of the Greeks should not be taken programmatically as a
political vision for the future (see for example GS 340).

The "Greeks" are one of Nietzsche's best exemplars of hope against a
meaningless existence, hence his emphasis on the Greek world's
response to the "wisdom of Silenus" in Birth of Tragedy. (ch. 5). If
the sovereign individual represents history's "ripest fruit", the most
recent millennia have created, through rituals of revenge and
punishment, a "bad conscience." The human animal thereby internalizes
material forces into feelings of guilt and duty, while externalizing a
spirit thus created with hostility towards existence itself (GM
II.21). Compared to this typically Christian manner of forming human
experiences, the Greeks deified "the animal in man" and thereby kept
"bad conscience at bay" (GM II.23).

In addition to exemplifying the Greeks in the early works, Nietzsche
lionizes the "artist-genius" and the "sage;" during the middle period
he writes confidently, at first, and then longingly about the
"scientist," the "philosopher of the future," and the "free spirit;"
Zarathustra's decidedly sententious oratory heralds the coming of the
Übermensch; the periods in which "revaluation" comes to the fore finds
value in the destructive influences of the "madman," the "immoralist,"
the "buffoon," and even the "criminal." Finally, Nietzsche's last
works reflect upon his own image, as the "breaker of human history
into two," upon "Mr. Nietzsche," the "anti-Christian," the
self-anointed clever writer of great books, the creator of
Zarathustra, the embodiment of human destiny and humanity's greatest
benefactor: "only after me," Nietzsche claims in Ecce Homo, "is it
possible to hope again" ("Why I am a Destiny" 1). It should be
cautioned that important differences exist in the way Nietzsche
conceives of each of these various figures, differences that reflect
the development of Nietzsche's philosophical work throughout the
periods of his life. For this reason, none of these exemplars should
be confused for the others. The bombastic "Mr. Nietzsche" of Ecce Homo
is no more the "Übermensch" of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for example,
than the "Zarathustra" character is a "pre-Platonic philosopher" or
the alienated, cool, sober, and contemptuous "scientist" is a "tragic
artist," although these figures will frequently share characteristics.
Yet, a survey of these exceptions shows that Nietzsche's philosophy,
in his own estimation, needs the apotheosis of a human exemplar,
perhaps to keep the search for meaning and redemption from abdicating
the earth in metaphysical retreat, perhaps to avert the exhaustion of
human creativity, to reawaken the instincts, to inspire the striving
for greatness, to remind us that "this has happened once and is
therefore a possibility," or perhaps simply to bestow the "honey
offering" of a very useful piece of folly. This need explains the
meaning of the parodic fourth book of Zarathustra, which opens with
the title character reflecting on the whole of his teachings: "I am
he….who once bade himself, and not in vain: 'Become what you are!'"
The subtitle of Nietzsche's autobiographical Ecce Homo, "How One
Becomes What One Is," strikes a similar chord.
6. Will to Power

The exemplar expresses hope not granted from metaphysical illusions.
After sharpening the critique of art and genius during the
positivistic period, Nietzsche seems more cautious about heaping
praise upon specific historical figures and types, but even when he
could no longer find an ideal exception, he nevertheless deemed it
requisite to fabricate one in myth. Whereas exceptional humans of the
past belong to an exalted "republic of genius," those of the future,
those belonging to human destiny, embody humanity's highest hopes. As
a result of this development, some commentators will emphasize the
"philosophy of the future" as one of Nietzsche's most important ideas.
Work pursued in service of the future constitutes for Nietzsche an
earthly form of redemption. Yet, exemplars of type, whether in the
form of isolated individuals like Napoleon, or of whole cultures like
the Greeks, are not caught up in petty historical politics or similar
mundane endeavors. According to Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols,
their regenerative powers are necessary for the work of interpreting
the meaning and sequence of historical facts.

My Conception of the genius—Great men, like great epochs, are
explosive material in whom tremendous energy has been accumulated;
their prerequisite has always been, historically and psychologically,
that a protracted assembling, accumulating, economizing and preserving
has preceded them—that there has been no explosion for a long time. If
the tension in the mass has grown too great the merest accidental
stimulus suffices to call the "genius," the "deed," the great destiny,
into the world. Of what account then are circumstances, the epoch, the
Zeitgeist, public opinion!…Great human beings are necessary, the epoch
in which they appear is accidental… ("Expeditions of an Untimely Man,"
44).

It is with this understanding of the "great man" that Nietzsche, in
Ecce Homo, proclaims even himself a great man, "dynamite,""breaking
the history of humanity in two" ("Why I am a Destiny" 1 and 8). A
human exemplar, interpreted affirmatively in service of a hopeful
future, is a "great event" denoting qualitative differences amidst the
play of historical determinations. Thus, it belongs, in this reading,
to Nietzsche's cosmological vision of an indifferent nature marked
occasionally by the boundary-stones of noble and sometimes violent
uprisings.

To what extent is Nietzsche entitled to such a vision? Unlike
nihilism, pessimism, and the death of God, which are historically,
scientifically, and sometimes logically derived, Nietzsche's
"yes-saying" concepts seem to be derived from intuition, although
Nietzsche will frequently support even these great hopes with bits of
inductive reasoning. Nietzsche attempts to describe the logical
structure of great events, as if a critical understanding of them
pertains to their recurrence in modernity: great men have a
"historical and psychological prerequisite." Historically, there must
be a time of waiting and gathering energy, as we find, for example, in
the opening scene of Zarathustra. The great man and the great deed
belong to a human destiny, one that emerges in situations of crisis
and severe want. Psychologically, they are the effects of human energy
stored and kept dormant for long periods of time in dark clouds of
indifference. Primal energy gathers to a point before a cataclysmic
event, like a chemical reaction with an electrical charge, unleashes
some decisive, episodic force on all humanity. From here, the logic
unfolds categorically: all great events, having occurred, are
possibilities. All possibilities become necessities, given an infinite
amount of time. Perhaps understanding this logic marks a qualitative
difference in the way existence is understood. Perhaps this
qualitative difference will spark the revaluation of values. When a
momentous event takes place, the exception bolts from the cloud of
normalcy as a point of extreme difference. In such ways, using this
difference as a reference, as a "boundary-stone" on the river of
eternal becoming, the meaning of the past is once again determined and
the course of the future is set for a while, at least until a coming
epoch unleashes the next great transvaluative event. Conditions for
the occurrence of such events, and for the event of grasping this
logic itself, are conceptualized, cosmologically in this reading,
under the appellation "will to power."

Before developing this reading further, it should be noted some
commentators argue that the cosmological interpretation of will to
power makes too strong a claim and that the extent of will to power's
domain ought to be limited to what the idea might explain as a theory
of moral psychology, as the principle of an anthropology regarding the
natural history of morals, or as a response to evolutionary theories
placed in the service of utility. Such commentators will maintain that
Nietzsche either in no way intends to construct a new meta-theory, or
if he does then such intentions are mistaken and in conflict with his
more prescient insights. Indeed, much evidence exists to support each
of these positions. As an enthusiastic reader of the French Moralists
of the eighteenth century, Nietzsche held the view that all human
actions are motivated by the desire "to increase the feeling of power"
(GS 13). This view seems to make Nietzsche's insights regarding moral
psychology akin to psychological egoism and would thus make doubtful
the popular notion that Nietzsche advocated something like an egoistic
ethic. Nevertheless, with this bit of moral psychology, a debate
exists among commentators concerning whether Nietzsche intends to make
dubious morality per se or whether he merely endeavors to expose those
life-denying ways of moralizing inherited from the beginning of
Western thought. Nietzsche, at the very least, is not concerned with
divining origins. He is interested, rather, in measuring the value of
what is taken as true, if such a thing can be measured. For Nietzsche,
a long, murky, and thereby misunderstood history has conditioned the
human animal in response to physical, psychological, and social
necessities (GM II) and in ways that have created additional needs,
including primarily the need to believe in a purpose for its very
existence (GS 1). This ultimate need may be uncritically engaged, as
happens with the incomplete nihilism of those who wish to remain in
the shadow of metaphysics and with the laisser aller of the last man
who overcomes dogmatism by making humanity impotent (BGE 188). On the
other hand, a critical engagement with history is attempted in
Nietzsche's genealogies, which may enlighten the historical
consciousness with a sort of transparency regarding the drive for
truth and its consequences for determining the human condition. In the
more critical engagement, Nietzsche attempts to transform the need for
truth and reconstitute the truth drive in ways that are already
incredulous towards the dogmatizing tendency of philosophy and thus
able to withstand the new suspicions (BGE 22 and 34). Thus, the
philosophical exemplar of the future stands in contrast, once again,
to the uncritical man of the nineteenth century whose hidden
metaphysical principles of utility and comfort fail to complete the
overcoming of nihilism (Ecce Homo, "Why I am a Destiny" 4). The
question of whether Nietzsche's transformation of physical and
psychological need with a doctrine of the will to power, in making an
affirmative principle out of one that has dissolved the highest
principles hitherto, simply replaces one metaphysical doctrine with
another, or even expresses completely all that has been implicit in
metaphysics per se since its inception continues to draw the interest
of Nietzsche commentators today. Perhaps the radicalization of will to
power in this way amounts to no more than an account of this world to
the exclusion of any other. At any rate, the exemplary type, the
philosophy of the future, and will to power comprise aspects of
Nietzsche's affirmative thinking. When the egoist's "I will" becomes
transparent to itself a new beginning is thereby made possible.
Nietzsche thus attempts to bring forward precisely that kind of
affirmation which exists in and through its own essence, insofar as
will to power as a principle of affirmation is made possible by its
own destructive modalities which pulls back the curtain on
metaphysical illusions and dogma founded on them.

The historical situation that conditions Nietzsche's will to power
involves not only the death of God and the reappearance of pessimism,
but also the nineteenth century's increased historical awareness, and
with it the return of the ancient philosophical problem of emergence.
How does the exceptional, for example, begin to take shape in the
ordinary, or truth in untruth, reason in un-reason, social order and
law in violence, a being in becoming? The variation and formal
emergence of each of these states must, according to Nietzsche, be
understood as a possibility only within a presumed sphere of
associated events. One could thus also speak of the "emergence," as
part of this sphere, of a given form's disintegration. Indeed, the new
cosmology must account for such a fate. Most importantly, the new
cosmology must grant meaning to this eternal recurrence of emergence
and disintegration without, however, taking vengeance upon it. This is
to say that in the teaching of such a worldview, the "innocence of
becoming" must be restored. The problem of emergence attracted
Nietzsche's interest in the earliest writings, but he apparently began
to conceptualize it in published texts during the middle period, when
his work freed itself from the early period's "metaphysics of
aesthetics." The opening passage from 1878's Human, All Too Human
gives some indication of how Nietzsche's thinking on this ancient
problem begins to take shape:

Chemistry of concepts and feelings. In almost all respects,
philosophical problems today are again formulated as they were two
thousand years ago: how can something arise from its opposite….? Until
now, metaphysical philosophy has overcome this difficulty by denying
the origin of the one from the other, and by assuming for the more
highly valued things some miraculous origin…. Historical philosophy,
on the other hand, the very youngest of all philosophical methods,
which can no longer be even conceived of as separate from the natural
sciences, has determined in isolated cases (and will probably conclude
in all of them) that they are not opposites, only exaggerated to be so
by the metaphysical view….As historical philosophy explains it, there
exists, strictly considered, neither a selfless act nor a completely
disinterested observation: both are merely sublimations. In them the
basic element appears to be virtually dispersed and proves to be
present only to the most careful observer. (Human, All Too Human, 1)

It is telling that Human begins by alluding to the problem of
"emergence" as it is brought to light again by the "historical
philosophical method." A decidedly un-scientific "metaphysical view,"
by comparison, looks rather for miraculous origins in support of the
highest values. Next, in an unexpected move, Nietzsche relates the
general problem of emergence to two specific issues, one concerning
morals ("selfless acts") and the other, knowledge—which is taken to
include judgment ("disinterested observations"): "in them the basic
element appears to be virtually dispersed" and discernable "only to
the most careful observer."

The logical structure of emergence, here, appears to have been
borrowed from Hegel and, to be sure, one could point to many Hegelian
traces in Nietzsche's thought. But previously in 1874's "On the Uses
and Disadvantages of History for Life," from Untimely Meditations,
Nietzsche had steadfastly refuted the dialectical logic of a "world
historical process," the Absolute Idea, and cunning reason. What,
then, is "the basic element", dispersed in morals and knowledge? How
is it dispersed so that only the careful observer can detect it? The
most decisive moment in Nietzsche's development of a cosmology seems
to have occurred when Nietzsche plumbed the surface of his early
studies on the pathos and social construction of truth to discover a
more prevalent feeling, one animating all socially relevant acts. In
Book One of the The Gay Science (certainly one of the greatest works
in whole corpus) Nietzsche, in the role of "careful observer,"
identifies, with a bit of moral psychology, the one motive spurring
all such acts:

On the doctrine of the feeling of power. Benefiting and hurting others
are ways of exercising one's power upon others: that is all one
desires in such cases…. Whether benefiting or hurting others involves
sacrifices for us does not affect the ultimate value of our actions.
Even if we offer our lives, as martyrs do for their church, this is a
sacrifice that is offered for our desire for power or for the purpose
of preserving our feeling of power. Those who feel "I possess
Truth"—how many possessions would they not abandon in order to save
this feeling!…Certainly the state in which we hurt others is rarely as
agreeable, in an unadulterated way, as that in which we benefit
others; it is a sign that we are still lacking power, or it shows a
sense of frustration in the face of this poverty….(aphorism 13).

The "ultimate value" of our actions, even concerning those intended to
pursue or preserve "truth," are not measured by the goodness we bring
others, notwithstanding the fact that intentionally harmful acts will
be indicative of a desperate want of power. Nietzsche, here, asserts
the significance of enhancing the feeling of power, and with this
aphorism from 1882 we are on the way to seeing how "the feeling of
power" will replace, for Nietzsche, otherworldly measures of value, as
we read in finalized form in the second aphorism of 1888's The
Anti-Christ:

What is good?—All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to
power, power itself in man. What is bad?—All that proceeds from
weakness. What is happiness?—The feeling that power increases—that a
resistance is overcome.

No otherworldly measures exist, for Nietzsche. Yet, one should not
conclude from this absence of a transcendental measure that all
expressions of power are qualitatively the same. Certainly, the
possession of a Machiavellian virtù will find many natural advantages
in this world, but Nietzsche locates the most important aspect of
"overcoming resistance" in self-mastery and self-commanding. In
Zarathustra's chapter, "Of Self-Overcoming," all living creatures are
said to be obeying something, while "he who cannot obey himself will
be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures." It is important
to note the disjunction: one may obey oneself or one may not. Either
way, one will be commanded, but the difference is qualitative.
Moreover, "commanding is more difficult than obeying" (BGE 188 repeats
this theme). Hence, one will take the easier path, if unable to
command, choosing instead to obey the directions of another. The
exception, however, will command and obey the healthy and
self-mastering demands of a willing self. But why, we might ask, are
all living things beholden to such commanding and obeying? Where is
the proof of necessity here? Zarathustra answers:

Listen to my teaching, you wisest men! Test in earnest whether I have
crept into the heart of life itself and down to the roots of its
heart! Where I found a living creature, there I found will to power;
and even in the will of the servant, I found the will to be master (Z
"Of the Self-Overcoming").

Here, apparently, Nietzsche's doctrine of the feeling of power has
become more than an observation on the natural history and psychology
of morals. The "teaching" reaches into the heart of life, and it says
something absolute about obeying and commanding. But what is being
obeyed, on the cosmological level, and what is being commanded? At
this point, Zarathustra passes on a secret told to him by life itself:
"behold [life says], I am that which must overcome itself again and
again…And you too, enlightened man, are only a path and a footstep of
my will: truly, my will to power walks with the feet of your will to
truth." We see here that a principle, will to power, is embodied by
the human being's will to truth, and we may imagine it taking other
forms as well. Reflecting on this insight, for example, Zarathustra
claims to have solved "the riddle of the hearts" of the creator of
values: "you exert power with your values and doctrines of good and
evil, you assessors of values….but a mightier power and a new
overcoming grow from out of your values…" That mightier power growing
in and through the embodiment and expression of human values is will
to power.

It is important not to disassociate will to power, as a cosmology,
from the human being's drive to create values. To be sure, Nietzsche
is still saying that the creation of values expresses a desire for
power, and the first essay of 1887's On the Genealogy of Morality
returns to this simple formula. Here, Nietzsche appropriates a
well-known element of Hegel's Phenomenology, the structural movement
of thought between basic types called "masters and slaves." This
appropriation has the affect of emphasizing the difference between
Nietzsche's own historical "genealogies" and that of Hegel's
"dialectic" (as is worked out in Deleuze's study of Nietzsche). Master
and slave moralities, the truths of which are confirmed independently
by feelings that power has been increased, are expressions of the
human being's will to power in qualitatively different states of
health. The former is a consequence of strength, cheerful optimism and
naiveté, while the latter stems from impotency, pessimism, cunning
and, most famously, ressentiment, the creative reaction of a "bad
conscience" coming to form as it turns against itself in hatred. The
venom of slave morality is thus directed outwardly in ressentiment and
inwardly in bad conscience. Differing concepts of "good," moreover,
belong to master and slave value systems. Master morality complements
its good with the designation, "bad," understood to be associated with
the one who is inferior, weak, and cowardly. For slave morality, on
the other hand, the designation, "good" is itself the complement of
"evil," the primary understanding of value in this scheme, associated
with the one possessing superior strength. Thus, the "good man" in the
unalloyed form of "master morality" will be the "evil man," the man
against whom ressentiment is directed, in the purest form of "slave
morality." Nietzsche is careful to add, at least in Beyond Good and
Evil, that all modern value systems are constituted by compounding, in
varying degrees, these two basic elements. Only a "genealogical" study
of how these modern systems came to form will uncover the qualitative
strengths and weaknesses of any normative judgment.

The language and method of The Genealogy hearken back to The Gay
Science's "doctrine of the feeling of power." But, as we have seen, in
the period between 1882 and 1887, and from out of the
psychological-historical description of morality, truth, and the
feeling of power, Nietzsche has given agency to the willing as such
that lives in and through the embrace of power, and he generalizes the
willing agent in order to include "life" and "the world" and the
principle therein by which entities emerge embodied. The ancient
philosophical problem of emergence is resolved, in part, with the
cosmology of a creative, self-grounding, self-generating, sustaining
and enhancing will to power. Such willing, most importantly, commands,
which at the same time is an obeying: difference emerges from out of
indifference and overcomes it, at least for a while. Life, in this
view, is essentially self-overcoming, a self-empowering power
accomplishing more power to no other end. In a notebook entry from
1885, Will to Power's aphorism 1067, Nietzsche's cosmological
intuitions take flight:

And do you know what "the world" is to me? Shall I show it to you in
my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without
end…as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces…a sea
of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing and
eternally flooding back with tremendous years of recurrence…out of the
play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still blessing
itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows
no satiety, no disgust, no weariness; this my Dionysian world of the
eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery
world of the two-fold voluptuous delight, my "beyond good and evil,"
without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal….This
world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are
also this will to power—and nothing besides!

Nietzsche discovers, here, the words to articulate one of his most
ambitious concepts. The will to power is now described in terms of
eternal and world-encompassing creativity and destructiveness, thought
over the expanse of "tremendous years" and in terms of "recurrence,"
what Foucault has described as the "play of domination" (1971). In
some respects Nietzsche has indeed rediscovered the temporal structure
of Heraclitus' child at play, arranging toys in fanciful constructions
of what merely seems like everything great and noble, before tearing
down this structure and building again on the precipice of a new
mishap. To live in this manner, according to Nietzsche in The Gay
Science, to affirm this kind of cosmology and its form of eternity, is
to "live dangerously" and to "love fate" (amor fati).

In spite of the positivistic methodology of The Genealogy, beneath the
surface of this natural history of morals, will to power pumps life
into the heart of both master and slave conceptual frameworks.
Moreover, will to power stands as a necessary condition for all value
judgments. How, one might ask, are these cosmological intuitions
derived? How is knowledge of both will to power and its eternally
recurring play of creation and destruction grounded? If they are to be
understood poetically, then the question "why?' is misplaced
(Zarathustra, "Of Poets"). Logically, with respect to knowledge,
Nietzsche insists that principles of perception and judgment evolve
co-dependently with consciousness, in response to physical
necessities. The self is organized and brought to stand within the
body and by the stimuli received there. This means that all principles
are transformations of stimuli and interpretations thereupon: truth is
"a mobile army of metaphors" which the body forms before the mind
begins to grasp. Let us beware, Nietzsche cautions, of saying that the
world possesses any sort of order or coherence without these
interpretations (GS 109), even to the extent that Nietzsche himself
conceives will to power as the way of all things. If all principles
are interpretive gestures, by the logic of Nietzsche's new cosmology,
the will to power must also be interpretive (BGE 22). One aspect of
the absence of absolute order is that interpretive gestures are
necessarily called-forth for the establishment of meaning. A critical
requirement of this interpretive gesture becoming transparent is that
the new interpretation must knowingly affirm that all principles are
grounded in interpretation. According to Nietzsche, such reflexivity
does not discredit his cosmology: "so much the better," since will to
power, through Nietzsche's articulation, emerges as the thought that
now dances playfully and lingers for a while in the midst of what
Vattimo might call a "weakened" (and weakening) "ontology" of
indifference. The human being is thereby "an experimental animal" (GM
II). Its truths have the seductive power of the feminine (BGE 1);
while Nietzsche's grandest visions are oriented by the "experimental"
or "tempter" god, the one later Nietzsche comes to identify with the
name Dionysus (BGE 295).

The philosopher of the future will posses a level of critical
awareness hitherto unimagined, given that his interpretive gestures
will be recognized as such. Yet, a flourishing life will still demand,
one might imagine, being able to suspend, hide, or forget—at the right
moments—the creation of values, especially the highest values. Perhaps
the cartoonish, bombastic language of The Genealogy's master and slave
morality, to point to an example, which was much more soberly
discussed in the previous year's Beyond Good and Evil, is employed
esoterically by Nietzsche for the rhetorical effect of producing a
grand and spectacular diversion, hiding the all-important creative
gesture that brought forth the new cosmology as a supreme value: "This
world is the will to power and nothing besides!—And you yourselves are
also this will to power–and nothing besides!" With this teaching,
Nietzsche leaves underdeveloped many obvious themes, such as how the
world's non-animate matter may (or may not) be involved with will to
power or whether non-human life-forms take part fully and equally in
the world's movement of forces. To have a perspective, for Nietzsche,
seems sufficient for participating in will to power, but does this
mean that non-human animals, which certainly seem to have
perspectives, and without question participate in the living of life,
have the human being's capacity (or any capacity for that matter) to
command themselves? Or, do trees and other forms of vegetation?
Apparently, they do not. Such problems involve, again, the question of
freedom, which interests Nietzsche primarily in the positive form. Of
more importance to Nietzsche is that which pertains solely to the
human being's marshalling of forces but, even here (or perhaps
especially here), a hierarchy of differences may be discerned. Some
human forms of participation in will to power are noble, others
ignoble. But, concerning these sorts of activities, Nietzsche stresses
in Beyond Good and Evil (aphorism 9) the difference between his own
cosmology, which at times seems to re-establish the place of nobility
in nature, and the "stoic" view, which asserts the oneness of humanity
with divine nature:

"According to nature" you want to live? Oh you noble Stoics, what
deceptive words these are! Imagine a being like nature, wasteful
beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without purposes and
consideration, without mercy and justice, fertile and desolate and
uncertain at the same time; imagine indifference itself as a power—how
could you live according to this indifference? Living—is that not
precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is not
living—estimating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to
be different? ….But this is an ancient, eternal story: what formerly
happened with the Stoics still happens today, too, as soon as any
philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in
its own image; it cannot do otherwise. Philosophy is this tyrannical
drive itself; the most spiritual will to power, to the "creation of
the world," to the causa prima.

Strauss claims that here Nietzsche is replacing "divine nature" and
its egalitarian coherence with "noble nature" and its expression of
hierarchies, the condition for which is difference, per se, emerging
in nature from indifference (1983). Other commentators have suggested
that Nietzsche, here, betrays all of philosophy, lacking any sense of
decency with this daring expose—that what is left after the expression
of such a forbidden truth is no recourse to meaning.

The most generalized form of the philosophical problem of emergence
and disintegration, of the living, valuing, wanting to be different,
willing power, is described here in terms of the difference-creating
gesture embodied by the human being's essential work, its "creation of
the world" and first causes. Within nature, one might say, energy
disperses and accumulates in various force-points: nature's power to
create these force-points is radically indifferent, and this
indifference towards what has been created also characterizes its
power. Periodically, something exceptional is thrust out from its
opposite, given that radical indifference is indifferent even towards
itself (if one could speak of ontological conditions in such a
representative tone, which Nietzsche certainly does from time to
time). Nature is disturbed, and the human being, having thus become
aware of its own identity and of others, works towards preserving
itself by tying things down with definitions; enhancing itself,
occasionally, by loosening the fetters of old, worn-out forms;
creating and destroying in such patterns, so as to make humanity and
even nature appear to conform to some bit of tyranny. From within the
logic of will to power, narrowly construed, human meaning is thus
affirmed. "But to what end?" one might ask. To no end, Nietzsche would
answer. Here, the more circumspect view could be taken, as is found in
Twilight of the Idol's "The Four Great Errors": "One is a piece of
fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole, there exist
nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for
that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole….But
nothing exist apart from the whole!" Nietzsche conceptualizes human
fate, then, in his most extreme vision of will to power, as being
fitted to a whole, "the world," which is itself "nothing besides" a
"monster of energy, without beginning, without end…eternally changing
and eternally flooding back with tremendous years of recurrence." In
such manner, will to power expresses itself not only through the
embodiment of humanity, its exemplars, and the constant revaluation of
values, but also in time. Dasein, for Nietzsche, is suspended on the
cross between these ontological movements—between an in/different
playing of destruction/creation—and time. But, what temporal model
yields the possibility for these expressions? How does Nietzsche's
experimental philosophy conceptualize time?
7. Eternal Recurrence

The world's eternally self-creating, self-destroying play is
conditioned by time. Yet, Nietzsche's skepticism concerning what can
be known of telos, indeed his refutation of an absolute telos
independent of human fabrication, demands a view of time that differs
from those that place willing, purposiveness, and efficient causes in
the service of goals, sufficient reason, and causa prima. Another
formulation of this problem might ask, "what is the history of
willing, if not the demonstration of progress and/or decay?"

Nietzsche's solution to the riddle of time, nevertheless, radicalizes
the Christian concept of eternity, combining a bit of simple
observation and sure reasoning with an intuition that produces
curious, but innovative results. The solution takes shape as Nietzsche
fills the temporal horizons of past and future with events whose
denotations have no permanent tether. Will to power, the Heraclitean
cosmic-child, plays-on without preference to outcomes. Within the
two-fold limit of this horizon, disturbances emerge from their
opposites, but one cannot evaluate them, absolutely, because judgment
implicates participation in will to power, in the ebb and flow of
events constituting time. The objective perspective is not possible,
since the whole consumes all possibilities, giving form to and
destroying all that has come to fulfillment. Whatever stands in this
flux, does so in the midst of the whole, but only for a while. It
disturbs the whole, but does so as part of the whole. As such,
whatever stands is measured, on the one hand, by the context its
emergence creates. On the other hand, whatever stands is immeasurable,
by virtue of the whole, the logic of which would determine this moment
to have occurred in the never-ending flux of creation and destruction.
Even to say that particular events seem better or worse suited to the
functionality of the whole, or to its stability, or its health, or
that an event may be measured absolutely by its fitted-ness in some
other way, presupposes a standpoint that Nietzsche's cosmology will
not allow. One is left only to describe material occurrences and to
intuit the passing of time.

The second part of Nietzsche's solution to the riddle of time reasons
that the mere observation of an occurrence, whether thought to be a
simple thing or a more complex event, is enough to demonstrate the
occurrence's possibility. If "something" has happened, then its
happening, naturally, must have been possible. Each simple thing or
complex event is linked, inextricably, to a near infinite number of
others, also demonstrating the possibilities of their happenings. If
all of these possibilities could be presented in such a way as to
account for their relationships and probabilities, as for example on a
marvelously complex set of dice, then it could be shown that each of
these possibilities will necessarily occur, and re-occur, given that
the game of dice continues a sufficient length of time.

Next, Nietzsche considers the nature of temporal limits and duration.
He proposes that no beginning or end of time can be determined,
absolutely, in thought. No matter what sort of temporal limits are set
by the imagination, questions concerning what lies beyond these limits
never demonstrably cease. The question, "what precedes or follows the
imagined limits of past and future?" never contradicts our
understanding of time, which is thus shown to be more culturally and
historically determined than otherwise admitted.

Finally, rather than to imagine a past and future extended infinitely
on a plane of sequential moments, or to imagine a time in which
nothing happens or will happen, Nietzsche envisions connecting what
lies beyond the imagination's two temporal horizons, so that time is
represented in the image of a circle, through which a colossal, but
definitive number of possibilities are expressed. Time is infinite
with this model, but filled by a finite number of material
possibilities, recurring eternally in the never-ending play of the
great cosmic game of chance.

What intuition led Nietzsche to interpret the cosmos as having no
inherent meaning, as if it were playing itself out and repeating
itself in eternally recurring cycles, in the endless creation and
destruction of force-points without purpose? How does this curious
temporal model relate to the living of life? In his philosophical
autobiography, Ecce Homo, Nietzsche grounds eternal recurrence in his
own experiences by relating an anecdote regarding, supposedly, its
first appearance to him in thought. One day, Nietzsche writes, while
hiking around Lake Silvaplana near Sils Maria, he came upon a giant
boulder, took out a piece of paper and scribbled, "6000 Fuss jenseits
von Mensch und Zeit." From here, Nietzsche goes on to articulate "the
eternal recurrence of the same," which he then characterizes as "a
doctrine" or "a teaching" of the "highest form of affirmation that can
possibly be attained."

It is important to note that at the time of this discovery, Nietzsche
was bringing his work on The Gay Science to a close and beginning to
sketch out a plan for Zarathustra. The conceptualization of eternal
recurrence emerges at the threshold of Nietzsche's most acute
positivistic inquiry and his most poetic creation. The transition
between the two texts is made explicit when Nietzsche repeats the
final aphorism of The Gay Science's Book IV in the opening scene of
Zarathustra's prelude. The repetition of this scene will prove to be
no coincidence, given the importance Nietzsche places upon the theme
of recurrence in Zarathustra's climactic chapters. Moreover, in the
penultimate aphorism of The Gay Science, as a sort of introduction to
that text's Zarathustra scene (which itself would seem quite odd apart
from the later work), Nietzsche first lays out Zarathustra's central
teaching, the idea of eternal recurrence.

The greatest weight.—What, if some day or night a demon were to steal
after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as
you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and
innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every
pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything
unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you,
all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this
moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The
eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again,
and you with it, speck of dust!" (GS 341).

"What if," wonders Nietzsche, the thought took hold of us? Here, the
conceptualization of eternal recurrence, thus, coincides with
questions regarding its impact: "how well disposed would you have to
become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than
this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?"

How would the logic of this new temporal model alter our experiences
of factual life? Would such a thought diminish the willfulness of
those who grasp it? Would it diminish our willingness to make
normative decisions? Would willing cease under the pessimistic
suspicion that the course for everything has already been determined,
that all intentions are "in vain"? What would we lose by accepting the
doctrine of this teaching? What would we gain? It seems strange that
Nietzsche would place so much dramatic emphasis on this temporal form
of determinism. If all of our worldly strivings and cravings were
revealed, in the logic of eternal recurrence, to be no more than
illusions, if every contingent fact of creation and destruction were
understood to have merely repeated itself without end, if everything
that happens, as it happens, both re-inscribes and anticipates its own
eternal recurrence, what would be the affect on our dispositions, on
our capacities to strive and create? Would we be crushed by this
eternal comedy? Or, could we somehow find it liberating?

Even though Nietzsche has envisioned a temporal model of existence
seemingly depriving us of the freedom to act in unique ways, we should
not fail to catch sight of the qualitative differences the doctrine
nevertheless leaves open for the living. The logic of eternity
determines every contingent fact in each cycle of recurrence. That is,
each recurrence is quantitatively the same. The quality of that
recurrence, however, seems to remain an open question. What if the
thought took hold of us? If we indeed understood ourselves to be bound
by fate and thus having no freedom from the eternal logic of things,
could we yet summon love for that fate, to embrace a kind of freedom
for becoming that person we are? This is the strange confluence of
possibility and necessity that Nietzsche announces in the beginning of
Gay Science's Book IV, with the concept of Amor fati: "I want to learn
more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I
shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that
be my love henceforth!"

Responses to this "doctrine" have been varied. Even some of the most
enthusiastic Nietzsche commentators have, like Kaufmann, deemed it
unworthy of serious reflection. Nietzsche, however, appears to stress
its significance in Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo by emphasizing
Zarathustra's importance in the "history of humanity" and by
dramatically staging in Thus Spoke Zarathustra the idea of eternal
recurrence as the fundamental teaching of the main character. The
presentation of this idea, however, leaves room for much doubt
concerning the literal meaning of these claims, as does the paucity of
direct references to the doctrine in other works intended for
publication. In Nietzsche's Nachlass, we discover attempts to work out
rational proofs supporting the theory, but they seem to present no
serious challenge to a linear conception of time. Among commentators
taking the doctrine seriously, Löwith takes it as a supplement to
Nietzsche's historical nihilism, as a way of placing emphasis on the
problem of meaning in history after the shadows of God have been
dissolved. For Löwith's Nietzsche, nihilism is more than an historical
moment giving rise to a crisis of confidence or faith. Rather,
nihilism is the essence of Nietzsche's thought, and it poses the sorts
of problems that lead Nietzsche into formulating eternal return as a
way of restoring meaning in history. For Löwith, then, eternal return
is inextricably linked to historical nihilism and offers both
cosmological and anthropological grounds for accepting imperatives of
self-overcoming. Yet, this grand attempt fails to restore meaning
after the death of God, according to Löwith, because of eternal
return's logical contradictions.
8. Reception of Nietzsche's Thought

The reception of Nietzsche's work, on all levels of engagement, has
been complicated by historical contingencies that are related only by
accident to the thought itself. The first of these complications
pertains to the editorial control gained by Elizabeth in the aftermath
of her brother's mental and physical collapse. Elisabeth's overall
impact on her brother's reputation is generally thought to be very
problematic. Her husband, Bernhard Förster, whom Friedrich detested,
was a leader of the late nineteenth-century German anti-Semitic
political movement, which Friedrich often ridiculed and unambiguously
condemned, both in his published works and in private correspondences.
On this issue, Yovel demonstrates persuasively, with a contextual
analysis of letters, materials from the Nachlass, and published works,
that Nietzsche developed an attitude of "anti-anti-Semitism" after
overcoming the culture of prejudice that formed him in his youth
(Yovel, 1998). In the mid-1880s, Förster and wife led a small group of
colonists to Paraguay in hopes of establishing an idyllic, racially
pure, German settlement. The colony foundered, Bernhard committed
suicide, and Elisabeth returned home, just in time to find her
brother's health failing and his literary career ready to soar.

Upon her return, Elisabeth devised a way to keep alive the memory of
both husband and brother, legally changing her last name to
"Förster-Nietzsche," a gesture indicative of designs to associate the
philosopher with a political ideology he loathed. The stain of
Elisabeth's editorial imprint can be seen on the many ill-informed and
haphazard interpretations of Nietzsche produced in the early part of
the twentieth century, the unfortunate traces of which remain in some
readings today. During the 1930s, in the midst of intense activity by
National Socialist academic propagandists such as Alfred Bäumler, even
typically insightful thinkers such as Emmanuel Levinas confused the
public image of Nietzsche for the philosopher's stated beliefs.
Counter-efforts in the 1930s to refute such propaganda, and the
popular misconceptions it was fomenting at the time, can be found both
inside and outside Germany, in seminars, for example, led by Karl
Jaspers and Karl Löwith, and in Georges Bataille's essay "Nietzsche
and the Fascists." Of course, the ad hominem argument that "Nietzsche
must be a Fascist philosopher because the Fascists venerated him as
one of their own," may be ignored. (No one should find Kant's moral
philosophy reprehensible, by comparison, simply on the grounds that
Eichmann attempted to exploit it in a Jerusalem court). Apart from the
fallacy, here, even the premise itself regarding Nietzsche and the
Fascists is not entirely above reproach, since some Fascists were
skeptical of the commensurability of Nietzsche's thought with their
political aims. The stronger claim that Nietzsche's thought leads to
National Socialism is even more problematic. Nevertheless,
intellectual histories pursuing the question of how Nietzsche has been
placed into the service of all sorts of political interests are an
important part of Nietzsche scholarship.

Since the middle part of the last century, Nietzsche scholars have
come to grips with the role played by Elisabeth and her associates in
obscuring Nietzsche's anti-Nationalistic, anti-Socialist, anti-German
views, his pan-European advocacy of race mixing, as well as his hatred
for anti-Semitism and its place in the late-nineteenth-century
politics of exploitation. The work Elisabeth performed as her
brother's publicist, however, undoubtedly fulfilled all of her own
fantasies: in the early 1930's, decades after Friedrich's death, the
Nietzsche-Archiv was visited, ceremoniously, by Adolf Hitler, who was
greeted and entertained by Elisabeth (in perhaps the most symbolic
gesture of her association with the Nietzsche image) with a public
reading of the work of her late husband, Bernhard, the anti-Semite.
Hitler later attended Elisabeth's funeral as Chancellor of Germany.

In a matter related to Elizabeth's impact on the reception of her
brother's thought, the relevance of Nietzsche's biography to his
philosophical work has long been a point of contention among Nietzsche
commentators. While an exhaustive survey of the way this key issue has
been addressed in the scholarship would be difficult in this context,
a few influential readings may be briefly mentioned. Among notable
German readers, Heidegger and Fink dismiss the idea that Nietzsche's
thought can be elucidated with the details of his life, while Jaspers
affirms the "exceptional" nature of Nietzsche's life and identifies
the exception as a key aspect of his philosophy. French readers such
as Bataille, Deleuze, Klossowski, Foucault, and Derrida assert the
relevance of various biographical details to specific movements within
Nietzsche's writings. In the United States, the influential reading of
Walter Kaufman follows Heidegger, for the most part, in denying
relevance, while his student, Alexander Nehamas, tends the other way,
linking Nietzsche's various literary styles to his "perspectivism" and
ultimately to living, per se, as an self-interpretive gesture. However
difficult it might be to see the philosophical relevance of various
biographical curiosities, such as Nietzsche's psychological
development as a child without a living father, his fascination and
then fallout with Wagner, his professional ostracism, his thwarted
love life, the excruciating physical ailments that tormented him, and
so on, it would also seem capricious and otherwise inconsistent with
Nietzsche's work to radically severe his thought from these and other
biographical details, and persuasive interpretations have argued that
such experiences, and Nietzsche's well-considered views of them, are
inseparable from the multiple trajectories of his intellectual work.

Attempts to isolate Nietzsche's philosophy from the twists and turns
of a frequently problematic life may be explained, in part, as a
reaction to several early, and rather detrimental,
popular-psychological studies attempting to explain the work in a
reductive and decidedly un-philosophical manner. Such was the reading
proffered, for example, by Lou Salomè, a woman with whom Nietzsche
briefly had an unconventional and famously complex romantic
relationship, and who later befriended Sigmund Freud among other
leaders of European culture at the fin-de-siècle. Salomè's Friedrich
Nietzsche in His Works (1894) helped cast the image of Nietzsche as a
lonely, miserable, self-immolating, recluse whose "external
intellectual work…and inner life coalesce completely." In some
commentaries, this image prevails yet today, but its accuracy is also
a matter of debate. Nietzsche had many casual associates and a few
close friends while in school and as a professor in Basel. Even during
the period of his most intense intellectual activity, after
withdrawing from the professional world of the academy and, like Marx
and others before him in the nineteenth century, taking up the
wandering life of a "good European," the many written correspondences
between Nietzsche and life-long friends, along with what is known
about the minor details of his daily habits, his days spent in the
company of fellow lodgers and travelers, taking meals regularly (in
spite of a very closely regulated diet), and similar anecdotes, all
put forward a different image. No doubt the affair with Salomè and
their mutual friend, the philosopher Paul Rée, left Nietzsche
embittered towards the two of them, and it seems likely that this
bitterness clouded Salomè's interpretation of Nietzsche and his works.
Elisabeth, who had always loathed Salomè for her immoderation and
perceived influence over Friedrich, attempted to correct her rival's
account by writing her own biography of Friedrich, which was effusive
in its praise but did little to advance the understanding of
Nietzsche's thought. Perhaps these kinds of problems, then, provide
the best argument for resisting the lure to reduce interpretations of
Nietzsche's thought to gossipy biographical anecdotes and clumsy,
amateurish speculation, even if the other extreme has also been
excessive at times.

Another key issue in the reception of Nietzsche's work involves
determining its relationship to the thoughts of other philosophers
and, indeed, to the philosophical tradition itself. On both levels of
this complex issue, the work of Martin Heidegger looms paramount.
Heidegger began working closely with Nietzsche's thought in the 1930s,
a time rife with political opportunism in Germany, even among scholars
and intellectuals. In the midst of a struggle over the official Nazi
interpretation of Nietzsche, Heidegger's views began to coalesce, and
after a series of lectures on Nietzsche's thought in the late 1930's
and 1940, Heidegger produces in 1943 the seminal essay, "Nietzsche's
Word: "God is Dead"". Nietzsche, for Heidegger, brought "the
consummation of metaphysics" in the age of subject-centered reasoning,
industrialization, technological power, and the "enframing" (Ge-stell)
of humans and all other beings as a "standing reserve." Combining
Nietzsche's self-described "inversion of Platonism" with the emphasis
Nietzsche had undoubtedly placed upon the value-positing act and its
relatedness to subjective or inter-subjective human perspectives,
Heidegger dubbed Nietzsche "the last metaphysician" and tied him to
the logic of a historical narrative highlighted by the appearances of
Plato, Aristotle, Roman Antiquity, Christendom, Luther, Descartes,
Leibniz, Schopenhauer, and others. The "one thought" common to each of
these movements and thinkers, according to Heidegger, and the path
Nietzsche thus thinks through to its "consummation," is the
"metaphysical" determination of being (Sein) as no more than something
static and constantly present. Although Nietzsche appears to reject
the concept of being as an "empty fiction" (claiming, in Twilight of
the Idols, to concur with Heraclitus in this regard), Heidegger
nevertheless reads in Nietzsche's Platonic inversion the most
insidious form of the metaphysics of presence, in which the
destruction and re-establishment of value is taken to be the only
possible occasion for philosophical labor whereby the very question of
being is completely obliterated. Within this diminution of thought,
the Nietzschean "Superman" emerges supremely powerful and triumphant,
taking dominion over the earth and all of its beings, measured only by
the mundane search for advantages in the ubiquitous struggle for
preservation and enhancement.

As is typically the case with Heidegger's interpretations of the
history of philosophy, many aspects of this reading are truly
remarkable—Heidegger's scholarship, for example, his feel for what is
important to Nietzsche, and his elaboration of Nietzsche's work in a
way that seems compatible with a narrative of the concealing and
revealing destiny of being. However, the plausibility of this reading
has come into question almost from the moment the full extent of it
was made known in the 1950s and 60s. In Germany, for example, Eugen
Fink concludes his 1960 study of Nietzsche by casting doubt upon
Heidegger's claim that Nietzsche's thought can be reduced to a
metaphysics:

Heidegger's Nietzsche interpretation is essentially based upon
Heidegger's summary and insight into the history of being and in
particular on his interpretation of the metaphysics of modernity.
Nevertheless, the question remains open whether Nietzsche does not
already leave the metaphysical dimensions of any problems essentially
and intentionally behind in his conception of the cosmos. There is a
non-metaphysical originality in his cosmological philosophy of "play."
Even the early writings indicate the mysterious dimension of play….

Fink's reluctance to take a stronger position against the reading of
his renowned teacher seems rather coy, given that Fink's study,
throughout, has stressed the meaning and importance of "cosmological
play" in Nietzsche's work. Other commentators have much more
explicitly challenged Heidegger's grand narrative and specifically its
place for Nietzsche in the Western tradition, concurring with Fink
that Nietzsche's conceptualization of play frees his thought from the
tradition of metaphysics, or that Nietzsche, purposively or not,
offered conflicting views of himself, eluding the kind of summary
treatment presented by Heidegger and much less-gifted readers (who
consider Nietzsche to be no more than a late-Romantic, a
social-Darwinist, or the like). In this sort of commentary,
Nietzsche's work itself is at play in deconstructing the all-too-rigid
kinds of explanations.

While such a reading has proven to be popular, partly because it seems
to make room for various points of entry into Nietzsche's thought, it
has understandably stirred a backlash of sorts among less charitable
commentators who find pragmatic or neo-Kantian strains in Nietzsche's
critique of metaphysics and who wish to separate Nietzsche's
level-headed philosophy from his poorly-developed musings. Notable
works by Schacht, Clark, Conway, and Leiter fall into this category.
In a loosely related movement, many commentators bring Nietzsche into
dialogue with the tradition by concentrating on aspects of his work
relevant to particular philosophical issues, such as the problem of
truth, the development of a natural history of morals, a philosophical
consideration of moral psychology, problems concerning subjectivity
and logo-centrism, theories of language, and many others. Finally,
much work continues to be done on Nietzsche in the history of ideas,
regarding, for example, Nietzsche's philology, his intellectual
encounters with nineteenth-century science; the neo-Kantians; the
pre-Socratics (or "pre-Platonics," as he called them); the work of his
friend, Paul Rée; their shared affinity for the wit and style of La
Rochefoucauld; historical affinities and influences such as those
pertaining to Hölderlin, Goethe, Emerson, and Lange, detailed studies
of what Nietzsche was reading and when he was reading it, and a host
of other themes. Works by Habermas, Porter, Gillespie, Brobjer,
Ansell-Pearson, Conway, and Strong are notable for historicizing
Nietzsche in a variety of contexts.

The Anglo-American reception of Nietzsche is typically suspicious of
Heidegger's influence and strongly disapproves of gestures linking the
"New Nietzsche" found in late twentieth-century discussions of
postmodernism and literary criticism to a supposed end of philosophy,
although some American scholars will admit, with Gillespie, that "the
core of this postmodern reading cannot simply be dismissed," despite
this reading's excesses (1995, 177). Due to these suspicions,
moreover, common Nietzschean themes such as historical nihilism,
Dionysianism, tragedy, and play, as well as cosmological readings of
will to power, and eternal recurrence are downplayed in Anglo-American
treatments, in favor of bringing out more traditional sorts of
philosophical problems such as truth and knowledge, values and
morality, and human consciousness. Nietzsche reception in the United
States has been determined by a unique set of circumstances, as
portrayed by Schacht (1995) and others. A very early stage of that
reception is stained by the Nazi-misappropriation of Nietzsche, which
popular American audiences were prepared to accept uncritically due on
the one hand to their initial impression of Nietzsche as an enemy of
Christianity who ultimately went insane and on the other hand to their
lack of familiarity with Nietzsche's work. The next stage of Nietzsche
reception in the U.S. benefited greatly from Walter Kaufmann's
landmark treatment in the 1950's. Kaufmann's Nietzsche was certainly
no fascist. Rather, he was a secular humanist and a forerunner of the
existentialist movement enjoying a measure of popularity (and
acceptability) on college campuses in the United States during the
1950's and 1960's. Whereas European commentators such as Jaspers,
Löwith, Bataille, and even Heidegger had been busy in the 1930's
"marshalling" Nietzsche (as Jaspers described it) against the National
Socialists, in the U.S. it was left to Kaufmann and others in the
1950's to successfully refute the image of Nietzsche as a
Nazi-prototype. So successful was Kaufmann in this regard, that
Anglo-American readers had difficulty seeing Nietzsche in any other
light, and philosophers who found existentialism shallow regarded
Nietzsche with the same disdain. This image of Nietzsche was
corrected, somewhat, by Danto's Nietzsche as Philosopher, which
attempted to cast Nietzsche as a forerunner to analytic philosophy,
although doubts about Nietzsche's suitability for this role surely
remain even today. To the extent that Danto succeeded in the 1970's in
reshaping philosophical discussions regarding Nietzsche, a new
difficulty emerged, related generally to a tension in the world of
Anglo-American philosophy between Analytic and Continental approaches
to the discipline. In such a light, Schacht sees his work on Nietzsche
as an attempt to bridge this institutional divide, as do other
Anglo-American readers. The work of Rorty may certainly be
characterized in this manner. Despite these attempts, tensions remain
between Anglo-American readers who cultivate a neo-pragmatic version
of Nietzsche and those who, by comparison, seem too comfortable
accepting uncritically the problematic aspects of the Continental
interpretation.

In most cases, interpretations of Nietzsche's thought, and what is
taken to be most significant about it, when not directed solely by
external considerations, will be determined by the texts in
Nietzsche's corpus given priority and by a decision regarding
Nietzsche's overall coherence, as concerns any given issue, throughout
the trajectory of his intellectual development.
9. References and Further Reading
a. Nietzsche's Collected Works in German
Samtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and
Mazzino Montinari, 15 vols (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980).
This "critical student edition" of collected works, commonly
referenced as the KSA, contains Nietzsche's major writings and most of
the well-known essays and aphorisms found in his journals. Specialists
and readers seeking Nietzsche's letters, his lectures at Basel, and
other writings from his vast Nachlass, will need to supplement the KSA
with two additional sources.
Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Briefwechsel, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino
Montinari, 24 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975-84).
This edition offers a comprehensive collection of Nietzsche's correspondences.
Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino
Montinari, (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967-).
The project of publishing a "complete edition" of Nietzsche's writings
was started in 1967 by Colli and Montinari and has since enlisted the
services of a number of other editors. At the present time, the
project remains unfinished. The most important contribution of the
KGW, as this edition is commonly referenced, is perhaps its
publication of Nietzsche's lectures from the University of Basel on
topics such as pre-Platonic philosophy, the Platonic dialogues, and
ancient rhetoric.
b. Nietzsche's Major Works Available in English

Most of Nietzsche's major works were published during his lifetime and
are now available to English readers in competing translations. The
following list is by no means exhaustive.
The Birth of Tragedy (Die Geburt der Tragödie,1872); published in
English with The Case of Wagner (Der Fall Wagner, 1888), trans. Walter
Kaufmann, (New York: Vintage, 1966).
These two texts are available separately in other editions
Untimely Meditations (Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, 1873-1876), trans.
R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
The four essays of this work are available separately in other editions
Human, All Too Human (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [vol. 1], 1878
and [vol. 2], 1879-1880), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Volume one of this work and the two distinct parts of volume two,
"Assorted Maxims and Aphorisms" and "The Wanderer and His Shadow," are
available separately in other editions.
Daybreak (Morgenröte, 1881), trans. R, J. Hollingdale (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996).
The later editions of this translation contain a helpful index.
The Gay Science (Die fröliche Wissenschaft, 1882; with important
supplements to the second edition, 1887), trans. Walter Kaufman (New
York: Vintage, 1974).
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also Sprach Zarathustra, bks I-II, 1883; bk
III, 1884; bk IV [printed and distributed privately], 1885), trans. R.
J. Hollingdale, (New York: Penguin, 1973).
Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1886), trans. Walter
Kaufman (New York: Vintage, 1966).
On the Genealogy of Morality (Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887), edited
with important supplements from the Nachlass and other works by Keith
Ansell-Pearson; trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995).
The Case of Wagner (Der Fall Wagner, 1888); published in English with
The Birth of Tragedy (Die Geburt der Tragödie,1872), trans. Walter
Kaufmann, (New York: Vintage, 1966)
Ecce Homo (Ecce Homo, 1888, first published 1908), trans. R. J.
Hollingdale (New York: Penguin, 1992).
Nietzsche contra Wagner (Nietzsche contra Wagner, 1888, first
published 1895), trans. Walter Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche,
ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1954).
Twilight of the Idols (Götzen-Dämmerung, 1889); published in English
with The Anti-Christ (Der Antichrist, 1888), trans. R. J. Hollingdale
(New York: Penguin, 1968).
c. Important Works Available in English from Nietzsche's Nachlass

Nietzsche's Nachlass contains several developed essays and an
overwhelming number of fragments, sketches of outlines, and aphorisms,
some in thematically related successions. A number of these writings
are available to English readers, and a few are accessible in a
variety of editions, either as supplements to the major works or as
part of assorted critical editions. The following list offers a sample
of these writings.
"Homer on Competition" ("Homers Wettkampf," 1872) and "The Greek
State" (Der griechische Staat, 1872), included in On the Genealogy of
Morality (Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887), ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson;
trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" ("Über Wahrheit und Lüge im
aussermoralischen Sinne," 1873), collected in various editions,
including Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks
of the early 1870's, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (New Jersey:
Humanities Press, 1979) and Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and
Language, ed. and trans. Sander L. Gilman, Carole Blair, and David J.
Parent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (Die Philosophie im
tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen, 1873), trans. Marianne Cowan
(Washington, D. C.: Gateway Editions, 1962).
The Pre-Platonic Philosophers (Die vorplatonischen Philosophen,
lectures during various semesters at Basel from 1869 to 1876; ed. by
Fritz Bornmann and Mario Carpitella for the KGW, vol. II, part 4), ed.
and trans. with an interpretive essay and appendix by Greg Whitlock
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001).
Unpublished Writings from the Period of Unfashionable Observations
(vol. 11 of The Completed Works of Friedrich Nietzsche), based on the
KGW, adapted by Ernst Behler; ed. Bernd Magnus; trans. Richard T. Gray
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).
The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht, writings from the Nachlass ed.
and arranged by Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Peter Gast and
published in various forms after Nietzsche's death), trans. Walter
Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1967).
Writings from the Late Notebooks (writings from the Nachlass), ed.
Rüdigger Bittner; trans. Kate Sturge (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003).
d. Biographies

A firsthand and secondhand biographical narrative may be followed in
the collected letters of Nietzsche and his associates:
Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. Christopher Middleton
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996)
Conversations with Nietzsche: A Life in the Words of His
Contemporaries, ed. Sander L. Gilman, trans. David J. Parent (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

The following list includes a few of the most well known biographies in English.
Diethe, Carol. Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography
of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2003).
Hayman, Ronald. Nietzsche: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980).
Hollingdale, R. J. Nietzsche, the Man and His Philosophy (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1965).
Pletsch, Carl. Young Nietzsche: Becoming a Genius (New York: The Free
Press, 1991).
Safranski, Rüdiger. Nietzsche: Biographie Seines Denkens (Muenchen:
Carl Hanser, 2000).
Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, trans. Shelley Frisch (New York:
Norton, 2002).
Salomé, Lou. Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Siegfried Mandel (Redding
Ridge, CT: Black Swan, 1988).
e. Commentaries and Scholarly Researches

Hollingdale once wrote that Nietzsche anticipated what would soon
become "part of the consciousness of every thinking person" living in
the twentieth century and, no doubt, beyond. During the last forty
years, Nietzsche scholarship has generated a considerable amount of
commentary and research, and some of the most important of these texts
were produced by the twentieth century's most significant thinkers.
Even so, the work of elucidating Nietzsche's thought seems unfinished.
The following list is by no means comprehensive, nor does it purport
to represent all of the major themes prevalent in Nietzsche
scholarship today. It is designed for the reader seeking to learn more
about the intellectual history of Nietzsche reception in the twentieth
century.
Allison, David B. ed., The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of
Interpretation, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985).
Allison, David B. Reading the New Nietzsche (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2001).
Ansell-Pearson, Keith. An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political
Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Aschheim, Steven E. The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany: 1890-1990
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
Bambach, Charles R. Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism,
and the Greeks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
This text delivers a scholarly, critical account of Heidegger's
intellectual encounter with Nietzsche against the politically charged
backdrop of Germany in the 1930s.
Bataille, Georges. Sur Nietzsche (Paris, Gallimard, 1945), available
in English under the title, On Nietzsche, trans. Bruce Boon (New York:
Paragon House, 1992).
Bataille, Georges. "Nietzsche and the Fascists," available in Visions
of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 (which includes other essays
devoted to Nietzsche), ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Stoekl, et. al
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).
Brobjer, Thomas. Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual
Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008).
Brobjer delivers invaluable resource for collating Nietzsche's
writings with the texts that he was himself reading.
Clark, Maudemarie. Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990).
This study is representative of the trend in American scholarship
emphasizing those parts of Nietzsche's thought apparently commensurate
with pragmatic and neo-Kantian concerns. It is, perhaps, the best
point of entry for readers hoping to gain such insight. For Clark,
many of Nietzsche's remarks on truth are simply confused, although he
is redeemed as a philosopher by conclusions drawn in 1887 and
thereafter.
Conway ,Daniel W. Nietzsche's Dangerous Game: Philosophy in the
Twilight of the Idols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Conway ,Daniel W. Nietzsche and the Political (London: Routledge, 1997).
Danto, Authur C. Nietzsche as Philosopher (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1965).
According to Danto, a surprisingly rigorous analytic system of thought
is embedded in Nietzsche's writings, which for Danto are rather poorly
executed from a philosophical perspective. In this reading,
Nietzsche's architectonic shortcomings are redeemed, even
unconsciously, by the consistency of his polemics.
Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche et la philosophie, (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1962), available in English under the title,
Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Thomlinson (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1983).
Deleuze's seminal work delivers the classic statement on Nietzsche as
a thinker of processes and relations of active and reactive forces.
For Deleuze, Nietzsche is a post-Kantian thinker of historical
consciousness and a genealogist refuting the dialectic rationalism of
Hegel
Derrida, Jacques. Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles (Èperons: Les Styles de
Nietzsche), published with French and English facing pages, trans.
Barbara Harlow (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979).
Derrida, Jacques . "Interpreting Signatures (Nietzsche/Heidegger): Two
Questions," trans. Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer in
Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1989).
Fink, Eugen. Nietzsches Philosophie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960);
available in English under the title, Nietzsche's Philosophy, trans.
Goetz Richter (London: Continuum, 2003).
Foucault, Michel. "Nietzsche, la généalogie, l'historiè," in Hommage à
Jean Hyppolite (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971),
available in English under the title, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,"
trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon in The Foucault Reader, ed.
Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 76-100.
According to Foucault, Nietzsche's genealogies eschew the search for
origins and teleology with the result of uncovering simply the "play
of dominations" in history.
Gillespie, Michael Allen. Nihilism Before Nietzsche (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Gillespie, Michael Allen and Strong, Tracy B. ed. Nietzsche's New Seas
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
Golomb, Jacob and Robert S. Wistrich ed. Nietzsche, Godfather of
Fascism? On the Uses and Abuse of a Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2002).
Habermas, Jürgen. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1985), available in English under the title, The
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick Lawrence
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).
These lectures offer a historical reading of Nietzsche's decisive role
in interrupting "the discourse of Modernity" and abandoning its
emancipatory content. Habermas detects two dominant strains of
post-Nietzschean philosophical rhetoric: a Dionysian messianism
(transmitted through Heidegger and Derrida) which longs for the absent
god and a fetishization of power, heterogeneity, and subversion (found
in Bataille and Foucault).
Heidegger, Martin. "Nietzsches Wort'Gott is tot,'" in Holzwege
(Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1952 [written in 1943]). The essay
is available to English readers as "Nietzsche's Word: God is dead" in
The Question Concerning Technology and other essays, trans. William
Lovitt; co-edited J. Glenn Gray and Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper,
1977).
This essay is Heidegger's first published and most concise treatment
of Nietzsche.
Heidegger's preparation for this essay includes several lecture
courses devoted entirely to Nietzsche's philosophy, taught at the
University of Freiburg from 1936 to 1940.
The published form of these lectures first appeared during 1961 in two volumes.
Heidegger, Martin. Nietzsche I-II (Pfulligen: Neske, 1961).
Beginning in 1979, Heidegger's Nietzsche lectures at Freiberg became
available to English readers in piecemeal fashion, along with other
materials in a somewhat confusing manner, in a two edition,
four-volume, set.
Heidegger, Martin . Nietzsche, vol. I-IV, trans. David Farrell Krell,
(San Francisco: Harper, 1979ff).
The philosophy of Nietzsche plays a prominent role in several other
works by Heidegger.
Heidegger, Martin. "Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit,"(written in 1930,
revised in 1940), published in Wegmarken (Frankfurt am Main:
Klostermann, 1967); available in English under the title, "Plato's
Doctrine of Truth," in Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Heidegger, Martin. "Was Heisst Denken?" (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1954);
available in English under the title, "What is Called Thinking?,"
trans. J. Glenn Gray and Fred Wieck (San Francisco: Harper, 1968).
Heidegger, Martin. "Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra?" in Vorträge und
Aufsätze (Stuttgart: Neske, 1954); available in English under the
title, "Who is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?" in Nietzsche vol. II trans.
David Farrell Krell, (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), 209-233.
Jaspers, Karl. Nietzsche. Einführung in das Verständnis seines
Philosophierens (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1936); available in English under
the title, Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His
Philosophical Activity, trans. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J.
Schmitz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997)
Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist,
4th edition: (Princeton: PUP, 1974). Kaufmann's study was a watershed
text in the history of Nietzsche reception in the United States
Klossowski, Pierre. Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (Paris: Mercure de
France, 1969), available in English under the title, Nietzsche and the
Vicious Circle, trans. Daniel W. Smith (Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press and Athlone Press, 1997)
Lambert, Laurence. Leo Strauss and Nietzsche (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996)
Lambert, Laurence. Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of 'Thus
Spoke Zarathustra,' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986)
Leiter, Brian. Nietzsche on Morality (London: Routledge, 2002).
Leiter plays down the ineffable aspects of Nietzsche's thought in
order to elaborate formally and concisely Nietzsche's writings on
morality, especially from the Genealogy. This approach lends credit to
the claim that Nietzsche was foremost a moral philosopher with
pragmatic, even analytic consistency
Löwith, Karl. Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Eternal Return of the
Same, trans. J. Harvey Lomax (Berkley: University of California Press,
1997).
Löwith's study was originally produced in the mid 1930's, during a
wave of interest that included treatments by Heidegger and Jaspers.
Like these works, Löwith attempted to correct Alfred Baumler's
political misappropriation. While National Socialist renditions
glorify subjectivity and power in will to power and to the exclusion
of eternal return and other ineffable concepts, Löwith places eternal
return at the forefront of Nietzsche's thought, arguing that such
thought is thereby flawed with internal contradictions
MacIntyre, Ben. Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth
Nietzsche (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux 1992).
This study offers a somewhat informative, if rather sensationalistic,
account of Elizabeth and Bernhard Förster's sordid misadventure in
Paraguay. This title should not be counted on, however, for any sort
of understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy
Michelfelder, Diane P. and Palmer, Richard E. edit Dialogue and
Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter (Albany: SUNY Press,
1989).
This text chronicles an interesting confrontation on Nietzsche
reception between two landmark philosophers of the late twentieth
century. The encounter regards Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche and
what it implies for post-Heideggerian thought
Montinari, Mazzino. Reading Nietzsche trans. Greg Whitlock (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2003).
With Giorgio Colli, Montinari was coeditor of the KSA and the first
volumes of the KGW. This translation of his collection of lectures and
essays originally published in 1982 portrays Nietzsche being primarily
interested in science, albeit taken off course for a time by Wagner
and their shared interest in Schopenhauer. Montinari's Nietzsche is
best characterized as having a lifelong "passion for knowledge."
However, Montinari's insights into previous editions of Nietzsche's
corpus, and the editorial politics behind these editions, may be the
most valuable parts of this interesting work
Mueller-Lauter,Wolfgang. Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions
and the Contradictions of His Philosophy, trans. David J. Parent
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999)
Nehamas, Alexander. Nietzsche: Life as Literature, (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985).
Porter, James I. Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2000).
Porter's study places Nietzsche's philology in historical context and
shows how this training prepared hermeneutic gestures found in later
Nietzsche's philosophy of interpretation
Porter, James I. The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on the Birth of
Tragedy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000)
Schacht, Richard. Nietzsche: The Great Philosophers (London: Routledge, 1983)
Schacht, Richard. Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and
Untimely (Champagne/Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995)
Schrift, Alan D. Nietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogy of
Poststructuralism (New York: Routledge, 1995).
As the title promises, this text surveys aspects of the French
reception of Nietzsche
Schutte, Ofelia. Beyond Nihilism: Nietzsche Without Masks (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984)
Strauss, Leo. "Note on the Plan of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil"
in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983).
Strauss' take on Nietzsche, here and elsewhere, has generated quite a
bit of scholarship on its own
Strong, Tracy B. Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of
Transfiguration: Expanded Edition, (Berkley: University of California
Press, 1988).
Strong's reading is somewhat esoteric, but it nevertheless brings out
important political tensions seemingly implied in Nietzsche's
encounter with Socrates, Aeschylus, and other Greeks
Vattimo, Gianni. The End of Modernity trans. Jon R. Snyder (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins, 1988)
Vattimo, Gianni. Nihilism and Emancipation (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2004).
With these titles and several others, Vattimo takes up Heidegger's
transmission of Nietzsche and works out the issue of "completed
nihilism" with impressive results. Vattimo's Nietzsche emerges as one
of the best philosophical resources for grounding emancipatory
discourse in the twentieth first century
Waite, Geoff. Nietzsche's Corps/e, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996).
Waite offers a richly thematized, innovative Kulturkampf using
Nietzsche-reception itself as a wedge for breaking open a variety of
late-twentieth century issues
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. Dark Riddle: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews
(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1998)
Zimmerman, Michael. Heidegger's Confrontation with Modernity:
Technology, Politics, Art (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1990).
Zimmerman delivers a useful text for understanding this key conduit of
Nietzsche reception.
f. Academic Journals in Nietzsche Studies

In addition to a typically large number full-length manuscripts on
Nietzsche published every year, scholarly works in English may be
found in general, academic periodicals focused on Continental
philosophy, ethical theory, critical theory, the history of ideas and
similar themes. In addition, some major journals are devoted entirely
to Nietzsche and aligned topics. Related both to the issue of
orthodoxy and to the backlash against multiplicity in Nietzsche
interpretation, the value of having so many outlets available for
Nietzsche commentators has even been questioned. The following
journals are devoted specifically to Nietzsche studies.
Nietzsche-Studien (Berlin: de Gruyter).
The Journal of Nietzsche Studies (University Park, PA: The
Pennsylvania State University Press).
New Nietzsche Studies: The Journal of the Nietzsche Society (New York:
Nietzsche Society).