The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (96 page)

47
Cf.
Will
, §§576ff.

48
Cf.
Anti-Christ
, §16.

49
Cf. again n. 5.

50
Cf. Deleuze (
2006a
), p. 100.

51
The awkwardness explored in this paragraph concerning how to express Nietzsche’s atheism is arguably an instance of a more general awkwardness concerning how to express any post-reflection state of enlightenment in which the reflection has, in accord with the controversial and provocative view that Bernard Williams defends in Williams (
2006o
), destroyed knowledge: see ibid., p. 148. (I discuss this further in Moore (
2003c
).) Two very pertinent passages in Nietzsche himself are
Beyond Good and Evil
, §211, and
Genealogy
, III.27. Also relevant, in particular to the question of what truth must be like if it is to vary in this way from one epoch to another, is the famous passage from ‘Truth and Lies’ in which Nietzsche characterizes truth as ‘a movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding,’ adding that ‘truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions’ (p. 84). Finally, for two fascinating discussions of Nietzsche’s claim that God is dead, each of which emphasizes different aspects of the force of the claim, see Heidegger (
1977
) and Deleuze (
2006a
),
Ch. 5
, §3. (Heidegger connects Nietzsche’s claim to the idea, which I mentioned in n. 18, that Nietzsche brings metaphysics of a sort to an end.)

52
There is a helpful account in Poellner (
1995
),
Ch. 6
. See also Han-Pile (
2006
) for an interesting discussion of Nietzsche’s metaphysics in his earliest work.

53
Two caveats before I proceed. First, Nietzsche’s work resists being presented systematically. There are many reasons for this, among which his own suspicion of systematic theorizing in philosophy is paramount: see e.g.
Twilight
, II.26. (Is this akin to what we found in the later Wittgenstein? Not really. Nietzsche’s suspicion of systematic theorizing in philosophy is grounded in his (utterly non-Wittgensteinian) conviction, of which more anon, that philosophy is an essentially creative enterprise that should be constantly on its guard against stagnation. For more on the relation between Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, see Williams (
2006f
), pp. 299–300.) That said, Nietzsche does have a story to tell, and it is that story that I shall try to summarize in this section. The second caveat is simply the caveat about
The Will to Power
that I have already issued in n. 2: I shall be making especially extensive use of Nietzsche’s unpublished notes in this section.

54
Dionysos was the Greek god of wine, who inspired ritual madness and ecstasy.

55
But note that the very use of language involves such imposition. We cannot say what the world is like
apart from
interpretation: see
Will
, §§517 and 715. This of course relates to the seductions of grammar discussed in §4.

On Nietzsche’s rejection of identity, see further n. 85.

56
Cf. Deleuze (
2006a
),
Ch. 2
, §7, and Deleuze (
1989
), pp. 139ff.

57
Cf. Maudemarie Clark (
1990
),
Ch. 7
, §4, where Clark distinguishes between Nietzsche’s metaphysical doctrine, which she describes as a kind of ‘construction’, and his views about the wills of individual subjects, which she accounts a contribution to the empirical understanding of human psychology. (In
Will
, §692, Nietzsche rejects ‘the will of psychology hitherto’. This is directed principally at Schopenhauer, whose view I mentioned in
Ch. 6
, §1.)

58
For a particularly graphic illustration of this, written as if to play straight into Nietzsche’s hands (especially in the light of what is still to come in this chapter), see Fichte (
1956
), p. 101.

59
See e.g.
Will
, §§411 and 419.

60
That there is no such
telos
is in Nietzsche’s view indicated by the very passage of time. For if there were such a
telos
, he argues, then the universe ought already to have reached it: there would be, as it were, no point to time (
Will
, §§55, 708, and 1062). Hegel of course thought that the universe
had
already reached it (just): see
Ch. 7
, §5. For further discussion of the relations between Hegel and Nietzsche, see the next section below.

61
For a fascinating discussion of meaningless suffering in relation to Nietzsche, see Williams (
2006i
). Cf. also Williams (
2006a
), pp. 52–54, and (
2006g
), pp. 317–319. Other interesting discussions of Nietzsche’s views on suffering, with a bearing on what is to come, include Neiman (
2002
), pp. 206–227, and Dews (
2008
), pp. 136–152.

62
In
Will
, §765, he also talks of ‘the innocence of all existence’.

63
The parenthetical references here to abhorrence and crookedness indicate that ‘Thus I willed it’ means nothing like ‘I was glad that it was so,’ nor even ‘I am glad that it was so.’

64
See again the material from
Beyond Good and Evil
, Preface, to which I referred in §3.

65
Cf. Houlgate (
1986
), p. 74. Note: this requires a caveat similar to that in n. 63.

66
But note that there is just the same equivocation, with respect to truthfulness, as there is with respect to truth itself. For a discussion of the opposed conception of truthfulness, as a correlate of
absolute
truth, see
Untimely Meditations
, pp. 152–155; cf.
Gay Science
, §344, and
Will
, §§277 and 278.

67
Cf. the quotation from §50 of the
Anti-Christ
which I gave in §3: see also
Ecce Homo
, Preface, §3, and
Will
, §538. Cf. Craig (
1987
), p. 281. But for the suggestion that its not being easy is an indication of something rotten, see
Twilight
, VII.2.

68
Cf.
Beyond Good and Evil
, Pt One, passim, and
Will
, §§539–544 and 599–606. See also Deleuze (
2006a
), pp. 97ff.

69
Here is a very crude model. (It is too crude to provide anything other than an initial steer, but it does provide that.) A man incorrectly thinks he is facing north; and he continues to think he is facing north after reorienting himself so that he is.

70
I am still working with my own conception of metaphysics. Nietzsche himself talks only in terms of philosophy, though it is worth noting that, in his earliest work, he is also prepared to say, ‘I am convinced that art represents … the truly metaphysical activity of this life’ (
Tragedy
, ‘Preface to Richard Wagner’).

71
This unlovely coinage is meant simply as a term for those who embrace asceticism. ‘Ascetics’ would have had inappropriate connotations of monasticism.

72
The last of these examples is also an example, as the references testify, of what Nietzsche calls ‘
ressentiment
’.
Ressentiment
in fact includes a number of these examples. It includes all those in which suffering is externalized and met with a resounding ‘no’: see
Genealogy
, I.10–11 and III.14;
Ecce Homo
, I.6; and
Will
, §579. (See Deleuze (
1990b
), p. 149, for a suggestion that even acquiescence, with its meaningless ‘yes’, is a form of
ressentiment
.)

73
Cf. in what follows Schacht (
1995c
) – which also, incidentally, draws attention to some of the quarrels. What are these? There is an extensive list – so extensive that it can even seem to foreclose any
rapprochement
. Nietzsche is opposed to Spinoza’s idea of a single substance with attributes of both thought and extension (
Will
, §523). He is suspicious of Spinoza’s notion of conatus, whereby nature comprises unified individuals bent on their own self-preservation: on his own conception of the will to power, nature comprises, not unified individuals, but centres of force, bent not on their own self-preservation, but on the exertion and the increase of power, sometimes at their own expense (
Gay Science
, §349;
Beyond Good and Evil
, §13; and
Will
, §688; cf. also
Will
, §627). He thinks that there is something of the will to truth in Spinoza’s pursuit of knowledge (
Gay Science
, §§37 and 333) and indeed, more generally, that Spinoza is in the grip of the ascetic ideal (
Will
, §578). He thinks that Spinoza is too concerned with the minimization of passion, too naïve about the ease with which this can be achieved (
Beyond Good and Evil
, §198). And he even sees an element of
ressentiment
in Spinoza (
Beyond Good and Evil
, §25; see previous note). There is obviously much to be said about each of these. In particular, there is an issue in each case about how fair and accurate Nietzsche’s view of Spinoza is. But I shall not pursue these quarrels any further.

– Not that they are the only reason why Spinoza and Nietzsche may appear unlikely bedfellows. Even the most casual reading of the
Ethics
and of Nietzsche’s works supplies another. The austere, methodical disquisitions of the former, where theorems are derived from axioms and definitions
a là
Euclid (
2002
), stand in stark contrast to the florid and desultory tirades that we find throughout the latter. True, these are matters of style rather than matters of content, and misleading matters of style at that. (The
Ethics
lacks the mathematical rigour that its format suggests it has. Nietzsche’s works follow a much more carefully wrought plan than they appear to do.) But the misleadingness does not prevent – in fact it provokes – a further recoil from Spinoza on Nietzsche’s part. Nietzsche attacks what he calls ‘that hocus-pocus of mathematical form in which, as if in iron, Spinoza encased and masked his philosophy’ (
Beyond Good and Evil
, §5). He sees this as a terror-inducing sham designed to hide the fact that Spinoza is merely defending his prejudices, and he bemoans the ‘personal timidity and vulnerability [which] this masquerade of a sick recluse betrays’ (ibid.).

74
See Yovel (
1989
),
Ch. 5
, for discussion of the differences between the two conceptions, as well as discussion of the similarities between them.

75
In a remarkable passage in his notebooks Nietzsche gives an indication of his own distinctive conception of joy (a conception that is related to, if not identical with, Spinoza’s). He describes joy as a feeling of ‘the presence of eternal harmony’, and as a ‘sensation of contact with the whole of nature’. He also says that it is a ‘clear and indisputable feeling’, that it is ‘not an emotion’, and that it is ‘superior to love.’ And he suggests that the soul cannot bear it for more than ‘five [or] six seconds’ (
Werke
, II.3.11.337, trans. Béatrice Han-Pile, to whom I am indebted for drawing the passage to my attention).

76
See n. 73.

77
This is reflected in the very titles of
Beyond Good and Evil
and
Genealogy
, I (“Good and Evil,” “Good and Bad”), each of which is a sustained discussion of this idea. Cf. also
Daybreak
, passim.

78
It is fascinating in this connection to consider P.F. Strawson’s celebrated
avowal
of freedom of the will, on pretty much the same grounds: see Strawson (
2008
). (Especially noteworthy, in view of Nietzsche’s promotion of proactive sense-making over reactive sense-making, is Strawson’s continual appeal, throughout this essay, to what he calls ‘our reactive attitudes’.)

79
Cf. in what follows Deleuze (
2006a
), ‘Conclusion’, and Turetzky (
1998
),
Ch. 8
, §2, to both of which I am indebted. (I have borrowed the title of the latter.) For a book-length study somewhat opposed to these, see Houlgate (
1986
). See also n. 60 above.