Friedrich Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human
A Book for Free Spirits
This will be the last Nietzsche I do for a good, long time. Seriously. Unless the Untimely Meditations make their way to my door. Which, you never know. They might.
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Here we have a picture of the younger, more idealistic Nietzsche. Well, in a way. He's not yet the Nietzsche that becomes familiar with, say, The Gay Science. When he started on this he was still a professor of philology, had not quite yet completed his break with Richard Wagner, and generally didn't hit the stride that he took up for most of his prolific career. This work, combined with its two supplements (Assorted Opinions and Maxims and The Wanderer and His Shadow) run from 1878 to 1880 publishing wise, and have two distinctive periods before and after (the early Nietzsche, which was the Nietzsche of The Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations, and the Nietzsche that came about with The Dawn and The Gay Science and eventually evolved into the later Nietzsche). Thus, given the position of this work and the length of the time period it covers, it is the perfect example of a transitional work. Here we see the philosopher start to "become what he is."
What is he, then? In the past he was a Wagnerian, a Schopenhauerian, and a professor of Greek literature. He was not satisfied with Christianity and thought that life was not the God-given simplicity that people took it to be. He kept these tendencies in part for the rest of his life, but they were no longer individual strains of influence, for now Nietzsche starts to head in his own direction. In the first volume of Human, All Too Human (HATH) he finds his new champion in science.
One who has read Nietzsche, especially post-Zarathustra, will wonder why he would do this, as he remarks often that science is in effect another faith (one can see this in GS 342, "In what way we, too, are still pious," which was added to GS in 1886). But Nietzsche has not yet reached that conclusion. For him science has come to appear as a new way of doing things, a cold, detached, objective process that can uncover the way things really are:
This all implies that people are no longer thinking that way, that they now have greater intellectual rigor, which he seems to imply frequently throughout the first set of aphorism that make up HATH.
Wait, what? Are we reading Descartes here? Unimpeachable truths? As in, objective truths? This view will very much be shot down in the future, and done so with prejudice. As yet, though, science appears to Nietzsche (as is understandable) a way of fairly evaluating reality based on sensible measures such as experience. He has not yet drawn his conclusions against truth and science, as we see:
The appropriate Nietzsche objection to this is, "...my ass!"
On Nietzsche's terms that is quite a serious rejection right there. In the same year as he added the above to GS, however, he also added new introductions to HATH and the supplements, which were then bound as one volume. What is Nietzsche's response to his leaning on science in this work? Was it just youthful adoration of a new toy? Ignorance?
The answer is neither, but that it was a necessary step in order for Nietzsche to become the person he would become. In order to draw the conclusion against science, which is done on scientific terms, one must first employ science. What that means is that one must employ the scientific method of dodging presuppositions and going for the honest truth before one will discover that the truth itself is a presupposition. Science is a step on the way, and is something that must be used to surpass itself, as Wittgenstein says of language in his investigation in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (6.54).
In the case of HATH specifically, Nietzsche was in the midst of a crisis. He could no longer handle work as a professor, and it looked like he would be without a job. No longer could he be friends with his mentor and leader Wagner, who was going in a very different direction. His theories and loyalties of old were not standing up the way he had hoped; his truths were collapsing under their own weight and under the increasingly skeptical eye of his magnifying lens. Does one emerge unaffected from such an event? Nietzsche, according to his own account, needed to take stock of himself:
This statement on its own, however, doesn't seem complete: he makes it look like he was simply affected by the consequences of his own investigations, when the truth was more complicated:
Even if they are just symptoms, though, losing your best friend and guide and leaving your job at roughly the same time, leaving you utterly alone in an instant, will warp you. It was during this even that HATH was written, and it reflects a mix of the influences from the past brought under a new framework and style, one that would become Nietzsche's own. He no longer has any pretensions to philology; now he just writes. He writes on morality, religion, society, the contemplative life, and anything else that catches his fancy. And he frequently hits on subjects or thoughts that would become major subjects of inquiry in the future, for example:
In addition to this his shift from science and doubt of its powers of certitude start to become visible even in the supplements:
Thus we see Nietzsche was not always a man united within himself, but was, to use the phrase, human, all too human, and had to evolve through the events in his life to become the person he would become legendary as. It was here that became something of his proving ground, where he could create the method and the premises that would eventually inform his philosophy and define his position as a great.
-----
Next, we start from the beginning. That means - Plato! I've got a whole history of philosophy to carve through in abridged form, culminating in undoubtedly epic confrontations with Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger. Until we meet again.
This will be the last Nietzsche I do for a good, long time. Seriously. Unless the Untimely Meditations make their way to my door. Which, you never know. They might.
-----
Here we have a picture of the younger, more idealistic Nietzsche. Well, in a way. He's not yet the Nietzsche that becomes familiar with, say, The Gay Science. When he started on this he was still a professor of philology, had not quite yet completed his break with Richard Wagner, and generally didn't hit the stride that he took up for most of his prolific career. This work, combined with its two supplements (Assorted Opinions and Maxims and The Wanderer and His Shadow) run from 1878 to 1880 publishing wise, and have two distinctive periods before and after (the early Nietzsche, which was the Nietzsche of The Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations, and the Nietzsche that came about with The Dawn and The Gay Science and eventually evolved into the later Nietzsche). Thus, given the position of this work and the length of the time period it covers, it is the perfect example of a transitional work. Here we see the philosopher start to "become what he is."
What is he, then? In the past he was a Wagnerian, a Schopenhauerian, and a professor of Greek literature. He was not satisfied with Christianity and thought that life was not the God-given simplicity that people took it to be. He kept these tendencies in part for the rest of his life, but they were no longer individual strains of influence, for now Nietzsche starts to head in his own direction. In the first volume of Human, All Too Human (HATH) he finds his new champion in science.
One who has read Nietzsche, especially post-Zarathustra, will wonder why he would do this, as he remarks often that science is in effect another faith (one can see this in GS 342, "In what way we, too, are still pious," which was added to GS in 1886). But Nietzsche has not yet reached that conclusion. For him science has come to appear as a new way of doing things, a cold, detached, objective process that can uncover the way things really are:
Formerly the spirit was not engaged in rigorous thinking, its serious occupation was the spinning out of forms and symbols. That has now changed; serious occupation with the symbolic has become a mark of lower culture. (HATH Aph. 3)
This all implies that people are no longer thinking that way, that they now have greater intellectual rigor, which he seems to imply frequently throughout the first set of aphorism that make up HATH.
The fact is that science needs doubt and distrust for its closest allies; nonetheless, the sum of unimpeachable truths - truths, that is, which have survived all the assaults of scepticism and disintegration - can in time become so great . . . that one the basis of them one may resolve to embark on 'everlasting' works. (HATH Aph. 22)
Wait, what? Are we reading Descartes here? Unimpeachable truths? As in, objective truths? This view will very much be shot down in the future, and done so with prejudice. As yet, though, science appears to Nietzsche (as is understandable) a way of fairly evaluating reality based on sensible measures such as experience. He has not yet drawn his conclusions against truth and science, as we see:
Science, however, knows no regard for final objectives, just as nature knows nothing of it: but, as the latter occasionally brings into existence things of the greatest appropriateness and usefullness without having will them, so genuine science, as the imitation of nature in concepts, will also occasionally, indeed frequently promote the well-being of mankind and achieve what is appropriate and useful - but likewise without having willed it. (HATH Aph. 38)
The appropriate Nietzsche objection to this is, "...my ass!"
Wouldn’t the cultivation of the scientific spirit begin when one permitted oneself no more convictions? That is probably the case; only we need still ask: in order that this cultivation begin, must there not be some prior conviction – and indeed one so authoritative and unconditional that it sacrifices all other convictions to itself? We see that science, too, rests on a faith; there is simply no ‘presuppositionless’ science . . . But you will gathered what I am getting at, namely that this is a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests . . . the thousand year old faith, the Christian faith which was also Plato’s faith, that God is truth; that truth is divine . . . . (GS Aph. 344)
On Nietzsche's terms that is quite a serious rejection right there. In the same year as he added the above to GS, however, he also added new introductions to HATH and the supplements, which were then bound as one volume. What is Nietzsche's response to his leaning on science in this work? Was it just youthful adoration of a new toy? Ignorance?
The answer is neither, but that it was a necessary step in order for Nietzsche to become the person he would become. In order to draw the conclusion against science, which is done on scientific terms, one must first employ science. What that means is that one must employ the scientific method of dodging presuppositions and going for the honest truth before one will discover that the truth itself is a presupposition. Science is a step on the way, and is something that must be used to surpass itself, as Wittgenstein says of language in his investigation in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (6.54).
In the case of HATH specifically, Nietzsche was in the midst of a crisis. He could no longer handle work as a professor, and it looked like he would be without a job. No longer could he be friends with his mentor and leader Wagner, who was going in a very different direction. His theories and loyalties of old were not standing up the way he had hoped; his truths were collapsing under their own weight and under the increasingly skeptical eye of his magnifying lens. Does one emerge unaffected from such an event? Nietzsche, according to his own account, needed to take stock of himself:
[A]nd if anyone who could divine something of the consequences that lie in that profound suspiciousness, something of the fears and frosts of the isolation to which that unconditional disparity of view condemns him who is infected with it, will also understand how often, in an effort to recover from myself, as it were to induce a temporary self-forgetting, I have sought shelter in this or that - in some piece of admiration or enmity or scientificality or frivolity or stupidity . . . . (HATH Preface 1)
This statement on its own, however, doesn't seem complete: he makes it look like he was simply affected by the consequences of his own investigations, when the truth was more complicated:
Human, All Too Human is the monument to a crisis . . . What decided me then was not a break with Wagner or anything like that - I felt a complete displacement of my instincts; the occasional mistake, whether it is called 'Wagner' or the professorship in Basle, was just a symptom. I was overcome with impatience with myself: I saw that it was high time to reconsider myself. (Ecce Homo, "Why I Write Such Good Books", "Human, All Too Human" sections 1, 3)
Even if they are just symptoms, though, losing your best friend and guide and leaving your job at roughly the same time, leaving you utterly alone in an instant, will warp you. It was during this even that HATH was written, and it reflects a mix of the influences from the past brought under a new framework and style, one that would become Nietzsche's own. He no longer has any pretensions to philology; now he just writes. He writes on morality, religion, society, the contemplative life, and anything else that catches his fancy. And he frequently hits on subjects or thoughts that would become major subjects of inquiry in the future, for example:
All states and orderings within society - classes, marriage, education, law - all these derive their force and endurance solely from the faith the fettered spirits have in them . . . the personal utility of an opinion is supposed to guarantee its intellectual soundness and well-foundedness. (HATH Aph. 227)
The men of the world of antiquity knew better how to rejoice: we how to suffer less; the former employed all their abundance of ingenuity and capacity to reflect for the continual creation of new occasions for happiness and celebration: whereas we employ our minds rather towards the amelioration of suffering and the removal of sources of pain. (AOAM, Aph. 187)
In addition to this his shift from science and doubt of its powers of certitude start to become visible even in the supplements:
If we had not remained to some extent unscientific men what meaning could science possibly have for us? (AOAM Aph. 98)
Thus we see Nietzsche was not always a man united within himself, but was, to use the phrase, human, all too human, and had to evolve through the events in his life to become the person he would become legendary as. It was here that became something of his proving ground, where he could create the method and the premises that would eventually inform his philosophy and define his position as a great.
-----
Next, we start from the beginning. That means - Plato! I've got a whole history of philosophy to carve through in abridged form, culminating in undoubtedly epic confrontations with Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger. Until we meet again.
posted by Derek at 6:02 PM
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