Nietzsche's Philosophy

Nietzsche's Philosophy

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Nietzsche's Philosophy EUGEN FINK Translated by Goetz Richter

O N D O N • NEW YORK A\W Lcontinuum

Continuum The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6503 www. continuumbooks. com English translation © Continuum 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 0-8264-5997-8 (hardback), 0-8264-5998-6 (paperback) Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn

Contents

Translator's Foreword

vii

Chapter One: The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

1

1. Nietzsche's philosophy behind masks

1

2. The fundamental equation of being and value. The perspective of The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music

7

3. The psychology of art and art as cognition of the world

13

4. 'Socratism' against tragic wisdom. Concerning truth and falsity in the extra-moral sense

20

5. Untimely Meditations. Culture and Genius. Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks

27

Chapter Two: Nietzsche's Enlightenment

34

1. The psychology of unmasking and the scientific perspective. Human, All Too Human

34

2. The philosophy of the morning (Dawn and The Gay Science)

42

Chapter Three: The Proclamation

51

1. Form, style and structure of Thus spoke Zarathustra

51

2. The overman and the death of God

57

3. The will to power

65

4. The eternal return: Of the vision and the riddle, Before Sunrise

72

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Contents

5. The eternal return: the cosmological conception of the problem of morality. The recurrence of the same

80

6. The eternal recurrence: Of the Great Yearning

89

7. The eternal recurrence: The Seven Seals. Zarathustra and the Higher Man

98

Chapter Four: The Destruction of the Western Tradition

107

1. The transcendental creation of value. Beyond Good and Evil

107

2. The Genealogy of Morals 114

114

3. The Antichrist and The Twilight of the Idols

121

4. The ontological idea and the moral ideal

129

5. The posthumous work The Will to Power. The problem of nihilism

137

6. The negative ontology of the thing

145

7. Discipline and Breeding - the Dionysian world

154

Chapter Five: Nietzsche's Relationship to Metaphysics as Imprisonment and Liberation

164

1. The four transcendental dimensions of the problem of being and the basic principles of Nietzsche's philosophy. The cosmic concept of play as an extra-metaphysical question

164

Notes

175

Index

182

Translator's Foreword

Eugen Fink (1905-75) taught philosophy at the University in Freiburg from 1946 to 1971. He was a close associate of the German phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and his thinking and language is influenced considerably by these two major thinkers of the twentieth century. Fink frequently refers to the view that philosophy is not just an academic discipline. His lectures on Nietzsche demand a radical commitment to thinking that embraces the existence of the thinking person. For Fink serious philosophical engagement transcends historical curiosity and intellectual interest. The thought and language of a philosopher with this demanding vision of philosophy is somewhat difficult to translate. Fink's German text tends to be complex. It attempts to articulate visions of Nietzsche and his philosophical thinking in a personal and engaged manner. Like any spoken language the text contains redundancies, neologisms and some grammatical errors. In addition it lacks a degree of detachment from Nietzsche that results in Fink's occasional emulation of Nietzsche's prophetic style. The translation has made the attempt to preserve Fink's idiosyncrasies in a literal sense and has not necessarily simplified seeming rhetoric complexities or smoothed over any apparent roughness created by redundancies. Fink's phenomenological method relies on a direct connection between thinking and expression that often discovers its own highly individual style of language. In addition, Fink's close association and engagement with Heidegger has made certain questions and concepts an integral part of his own thinking. The ontological difference between Being itself (das Seiri) and being (das Seiende) and the corresponding distinction between ontological and ontic considerations form an important background to Fink's own thought. Rather than following the tradition of some Heidegger translations that create a peculiar English Heidegger-jargon, the present translation has made the attempt to rely on context to elucidate these meanings. Even though, certain difficult concepts (such as Lichtung or 'clearing', Offenheit or 'openness', etc.) have been directly translated and may only be appreciated if the reader engages with Heidegger or Fink beyond this book.

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Translator's Foreword

Fink's own philosophical focus (also evident in these lectures) is the concept of 'world' (Welt). Fink frequently uses this term by itself and without article in the endeavour perhaps to avoid a simple and reifying understanding of it. The term is closely related to Heidegger's 'Being'. The present translation makes use of the two terms 'cosmos' and 'world' and retains them as a reference wherever Fink refers to a related term. Fink's Nietzsche lectures were written before the current critical Nietzsche edition came into existence. Fink accordingly discusses an edited version of Nietzsche's posthumous aphorisms that is known as The Will to Power. The present translation copies Fink's text and referencing in this regard and translates his citations from Nietzsche's works. On occasion, some standard English translations of Nietzsche's works by Kaufmann and Hollingdale were consulted.1 I am much indebted to Dr Ted Sadler (Sydney) for his inspiration and guidance in relation to philosophy in general and the work of Nietzsche, Eugen Fink and Martin Heidegger in particular. His illuminating interpretations and his generous critical review of large sections of this translation have been invaluable. I should also like to thank Mr Georg Seifert (Winsen) for his early assistance and for inspiring me to pursue the English language to a point where I was able to adopt it as a voluntary exile. Dr Jeanell Carrigan (Sydney) has provided the most essential support at times when this translation appeared too difficult to complete. Goetz Richter Sydney, October 2002

CHAPTER ONE

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

1. NIETZSCHE'S PHILOSOPHY BEHIND MASKS Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the great, fateful characters in the history of western spirit. He is a fated person who demands final decisions and a terrifying question mark on the path of European man, shaped by the heritage of classical antiquity and two thousand years of Christendom. Nietzsche is a symbol for the suspicion that this path was a wrong track, that man has lost his way and that a reversal and a rejection of everything which hitherto had been considered 'holy', 'good' and 'true' is required. Nietzsche stands for a radical critique of religion, philosophy, science and morality. Hegel made the tremendous attempt to grasp the entire history of the spirit as a process in which all preceding steps are assimilated yet nevertheless relevant in their own right. Hegel considered himself able to evaluate the history of European man positively. Nietzsche presents an absolute, decisive rejection of the past, an overturning of all traditions, and an appeal to a radical reversal. With Nietzsche, European man arrives at a crossroad. Hegel and Nietzsche have a historical consciousness in common, which reflects upon - and evaluates western history as a whole. Both are influenced by early Greek thinkers and return to origins. Both are Heracliteans. Hegel and Nietzsche relate to one another like absolute affirmation to absolute negation. Hegel's enormous conceptual labours reflect and integrate all human modes of ontological understanding and all opposing motifs of the history of metaphysics in one system bringing this very history to an end. For Nietzsche, the same history is only the history of the longest error. He attacks it with unbounded passion and rhetoric resonating with tension and suspicion, with fervent hatred and bitter mockery, with the wit and sly malice of a propagandist. He mobilizes all weapons at his disposal in his struggle: his refined psychology, his cutting wit, his ardour, and above all his style. Nietzsche attacks with full commitment, but he neither engages in a conceptual destruction of metaphysics nor does he demolish metaphysics through a method of conceptual, ontological thought. He rejects the concept and opposes

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

rationalism with its conceptual violation of reality. Nietzsche struggles with the entire past. He does not only take issue with traditional philosophy, but also with traditional religion and morality. His struggle takes the form of a comprehensive critique of culture. This feature is of utmost importance. Nietzsche's critique of culture can easily conceal the more fundamental fact that he is essentially only concerned with a philosophical polemic against western metaphysics. To be sure, Nietzsche subjects the entire cultural past to his devastating criticism. With this comprehensive approach into the past, with the fundamental interrogation of our occidental origins Nietzsche distinguishes himself immediately from the fashionable, moralizing critics of the nineteenth century. He does not only approach the past critically, but makes a positive decision. Revaluing western values, he has a will to the future, an agenda and an ideal. But he is no Utopian, no idealist wishing to make the world a happier and better place. He does not believe in 'progress'. He makes sombre predictions about the future. He is a prophet of European Nihilism, which appears to have become omnipresent - not only in Europe. Everyone knows that and discusses it - one is even in the process of 'overcoming' it. Nietzsche predicts the advent of nihilism 'within the next two centuries'. His historical consciousness extends far into the future. It accordingly shows a kind of pettiness and poverty of spirit if we attempt to enclose a thinker who embraces our entire history and who projects a design of life over centuries, in our limited, contemporary context and interpret him from this perspective. The attempts to drag Nietzsche into current political debate, to portray him as a characteristic 'advocate' of violence, of German imperialism, as a Teutonic warrior who runs amok against the values of Mediterranean culture must be strongly rejected. Although Nietzsche cannot escape the fate of any philosophy to be vulgarized and trivialized, his political abuse is no argument against him unless it can be shown that the objectionable political practice derives from a genuine understanding of his real philosophy. The works of great systematic thinkers such as Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, are perhaps less exposed to crude misunderstandings than Nietzsche, who seems to be more accessible on account of his style. The splendour of his style and its aphoristic form captivates and attracts us; Nietzsche entices and fascinates with the directness of his discourse. He exudes an aesthetic charm and confounds us with an aura of excess. Considering Nietzsche's increasing influence, the following important question poses itself: Is Nietzsche's influence based on his philosophy or on subsidiary features of his works? Is it perhaps even the result of a seduction by compelling stylistic features of his sharp mind? Our answer might be disappointing. Nietzsche's philosophy is actually hardly influential - it is perhaps still not understood and awaits adequate interpretation. Nietzsche, the philosopher, is concealed by the cultural critic, by the mysterious, eloquent prophet. His masks

Nietzsche's philosophy behind masks

3

conceal his substance. Our century testifies to a diverse preoccupation with these masks, yet it still remains out of touch with his philosophy. Nevertheless, our view of Nietzsche has undergone a characteristic change in the last decades. At the beginning of the century, Nietzsche was largely portrayed as the ingenious diagnostician of the decline of culture and as the creator of an ambiguous, enigmatic psychology or of a high art of conjecture and interpretation. Nietzsche was praised as the keen investigator of 'resentment' and 'decadence' with an evil eye for all that is morbid and decayed. He appeared to be an artist, an eloquent poet and a prophet. Nietzsche invested the word 'life' (as Scheler put it) with a golden sound. He was the founder of the 'philosophy of life' (Lebensphilosophie). The Nietzsche cult increased with the ignorance about Nietzsche. Nietzsche was made into a legendary figure or stylized to a symbol. Combining biography and work, interpretation created an artistic fiction. The Nietzsche interpretations of recent times are characterized by a stronger sense of reality. Now we can observe an inverted tendency. The approach is often biographical and attempts are made to understand the work through the life which created it. Nietzsche is looked at with fewer illusions. He is not seen as the Overman proclaimed in the Zarathustra. Quite the contrary, the shrewd psychology of unmasking, which Nietzsche developed with greatest virtuosity, is now applied to himself. He appears as deeply suffering, crushed and forsaken by life. The wild, infernal hatred against Christianity is apparently explained by his simple inability to come to terms with it, his anti-moralism by the unconditional honesty of his critique of morality; his glorification of abundant, vigorous life, the Great Health and the man of power by needs arising from the privations of a suffering person. Peripheral aspects of his work determine this image of Nietzsche more than its philosophical substance. Without doubt, Nietzsche's 'psychological achievements' are extraordinary: he has opened our eyes to the ambiguities, the hidden meanings of any spiritual expression and to other countless ambiguities. His technique of psychological analysis is highly sophisticated. Without doubt, Nietzsche is blessed with an uncanny instinct for historical processes; he can read the signs of the future and can even predict it. No doubt, Nietzsche is an artist with the sensitivity of a Mimosa, with a tremendous richness of intuition, with a fertile imagination and with visionary powers. Without doubt, Nietzsche is a poet. Nietzsche once said about himself: 'I am the most concealed of all the concealed.' Perhaps we understand the philosopher with such great difficulty because he is the genuine Nietzsche. Concealing himself became a passion for Nietzsche. He has an uncanny desire for deceit, masquerade and the pose of the jester. He assumes as many disguising as revealing 'roles': perhaps no other philosopher conceals his philosophy behind so much sophistry. It seems as if his shimmering, unsteady being was unable to find a clear and determinate

4

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

expression, as if he played too many roles. They include the 'free spirit' from the time of Human, All Too Human, the 'Prince Vogelfrei', Zarathustra, and his final self-identification with Dionysos. What, however, is this desire for the mask? Is it merely a literary device, a mystification of the public, a safe method to advocate a position without being committed to it? Is this feature ultimately the result of Nietzsche's absence of any roots, of his suspension over an abyss, wishing to conjure up a secure basis for himself and others? Psychological information will never be able to solve this enigma within Nietzsche's being. In a metaphor full of symbolism, Nietzsche speaks of the 'labyrinth': for him man is essentially a labyrinth from which no one has escaped and where all heroes have perished. Nietzsche himself is the exemplary man in a labyrinth. The secret of his being cannot be wrestled from him; he safeguards himself through many false tracks, through his many disguises and characters. However, is this relevant to us? In general, the interpretation of Nietzsche suffers from the fact, that the work is approached through the personality, that biography is used as a key. Nietzsche's life is more concealed than his work. But the extraordinary nature of his fate, his passion and his messianic claims, the outrageous pathos with which he postures, angers, confuses and fascinates - all these tempt us again and again to look to the person rather than the work. Nietzsche seduces us. All his books are written in the manner of confessions. As an author he does not remain in the background, but speaks in an almost unbearable manner about himself, his spiritual experiences, his illness and his taste. It takes a peculiar arrogance to burden the reader with the personality of the author and to imply at the same time that all his books are essentially only monologues. Nietzsche uses the audacity of such an imposition on the reader as an artistic device and literary delicacy; he secures himself a following just because he repels. This aristocratic pathos stimulates and interests. As a writer, Nietzsche is sophisticated, he is able to pull out all stops, create tender, sublime sounds as well as blazing fanfares. He has a developed sense for the natural melody of language, constructing a long-winded sentence as an artful period, with the timing of the accelerando, with a flight that puts every word just right. He also commands the staccato rhythm of the short, captivating sentence that hits like lightning. His style teems with the scintillating electricity of spiritual tension, appealing to the irrational forces of the human soul in a virtuosic manner. Nietzsche's style is intentionally affected. His analysis of Wagner's music applies to his own style. There is a great deal of affectation, of seduction and magic in Nietzsche's style. However, where thinking comes into the genuine closeness of poetry we also encounter great profundity. The brilliance of Nietzsche's style, its extreme subjectivity, tempts us repeatedly to look back from the work to the author who is reflected in his work in so many ways. There is a further reason for the usual approach to Nietzsche. A few works

Nietzsche's philosophy behind masks

5

aside, Nietzsche's books generally do not follow one train of thought or progressively unfold a path of thought. They are collections of aphorisms. Nietzsche, whose poor eyesight prevented him from spending long hours at his writing desk, developed the aphorism into an art form. However, it would be presumptuous if one were to explain his aphoristic style simply through this affliction, categorizing it as a virtue arising from a need. The aphorism, rather, reflects the character of Nietzsche's thought. It allows the short, surprising formulation without need for any justifications. It appears that Nietzsche thinks in flashes, not in a cumbersome way of conceptually developing long sequences of thought. As a thinker he is intuitive and imaginative, possessing extraordinary powers of concretization. Nietzsche's aphorisms are very succinct. They resemble cut stones. And yet they do not just stand on their own, but form sequences and (within the unity of a book) a unique whole. Nietzsche is a master of composition; each book has its own unique spiritual mood which is found in all aphorisms, each has its own pace, its own unmistakable individual sound. No two books of Nietzsche resemble each other. The more one becomes sensitive to this, the greater becomes one's awe about his artistic achievements. At the same time, however, the wonder grows why Nietzsche, who gave so much to his books, always withdrew from organizing his thought within a systematic conceptual framework. We find systematic sketches, conceptions of a planned path of thought only in the posthumous writings. Nietzsche's highly poetical quality and the aphoristic form of his books are disadvantageous to the exposition of his philosophy. Nietzsche concealed rather than revealed his philosophy through a style which equally intended to attract attention, persuade and aesthetically charm be it through conscious provocation or extreme, eristic exaggeration. We would not have to bother about Nietzsche if his work merely articulated the particular existential experience of an extremely tormented person. He would not be a fateful figure, but an interesting person, a great individual who deserves our moderate admiration. If he is, however, a philosopher, i.e. someone who spiritually safeguards our humanity and the truth of our existence, he must concern us, whether we like it or not. Does Nietzsche share the responsibility for the kind of modern mankind we are? Where does he stand as a thinker? We can never find an answer to this question by focusing intently on Nietzsche's personality, by accumulating reports about him and by having recourse to the most penetrating psychology. Only the reflection of his philosophical thought can experience where Nietzsche is located in the history of western thought and gains a glimpse of the seriousness of his questions. Even if we diligently and honestly strive for this understanding we find ourselves in danger. Nietzsche is a threat to everyone, not only to the young person who is defencelessly exposed to his scepticism, his abysmal suspicion and his art of psychological seduction.

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

Nietzsche is not only dangerous because he is a pied piper, because the music of his language is so persuasive. He is dangerous rather because of the uncanny mixture of philosophy and sophistry, of original thought and radical scepticism of thinking against itself. Nietzsche is the philosopher who places the entire history of philosophy in question and who sees in this philosophy a 'deeply negative movement'. Nietzsche does not follow the path broken by centuries of fundamental thinking. Nietzsche questions this path and attacks metaphysics in a way that differs from the affirmation of everyday life or from the sciences. His attack on metaphysics does not proceed from a pre-philosophical sphere of being; he is not 'naive'. In Nietzsche thinking itself turns against metaphysics. After 25 centuries of a metaphysical approach to being Nietzsche searches for a new beginning. In his battle against western metaphysics he still remains tied to it, he only 'inverts metaphysics'. However, the question which is posed in this book is whether Nietzsche is merely the inverted metaphysician or whether a new ontological understanding announces itself through him. This question cannot be answered briefly and decisively. We must rather engage in a long and involved reflection. Following the paths of Nietzsche's thought, we must immerse ourselves in his work, and, finally and most importantly, we must argue with him. We attempt a preliminary interpretation. In a concentrated journey through Nietzsche's writings we will firstly expose the fundamental features of Nietzsche's thought. We will then pose the question how these fundamental features relate to the basic questions of traditional philosophy. Do they show the features of a metaphysical inquiry or not? This will prepare the question about Nietzsche's new ontological understanding. We are looking for the philosophy of Nietzsche, which is concealed in his writings by his dazzling language, his seductive stylistic power, his unique aphorisms, and behind the fascinating personality which repeatedly demands attention. However, before we look for his philosophy we must obviously already have a preconception of what philosophy is. We are not searching blindly and without guidance nor do we rely on the assurances of the author about his understanding of 'philosophy'. The preconception that guides us all is - in accordance with our historical origins - that of metaphysics, which Nietzsche is challenging. We find ourselves in a peculiar situation. In searching for Nietzsche's philosophy, we may have lost the thread, the thread of Ariadne, which could guide us into the labyrinth of Nietzsche's thought. With what legitimation do we speak about 'philosophy' if Nietzsche casts off an entire tradition? Should we not invent and coin a new word to designate whatever Nietzsche's philosophy is? However, Nietzsche's thinking, which passionately questions an entire historical age, does not deny the origins of occidental philosophy. Nietzsche returns to Heraclitus. His battle begins with the Eleatics, against Plato and the metaphysical tradition

The fundamental equation of being and value

7

originating from him. The primordial origin of Nietzsche's philosophy remains Heraclitus. After 2500 years a repetition of Heraclitus occurs accompanied by the tremendous assertion to wipe out and oppose the extended reflection of an entire tradition formed in the meantime and to show humanity a new yet ancient path. This stance towards history illustrates Nietzsche's exaggerated missionary consciousness, his feeling of destiny, as he expresses it in Ecce Homo; I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous - a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.1

2. THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATION OF BEING AND VALUE. THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY FROM THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC Nietzsche's philosophy is hidden rather than evident in his work. To be sure philosophy is hardly ever objectively present and accessible to everyone in its literary form. Accordingly, there is a peculiar tension between the utterance, the common meaning of the words, and the philosophical thought. Nietzsche's 'philosophy', however, does not just show aspects of such concealment. Rather, it is hidden in a work appearing under many guises. It is obscured by his cultural critique, by his psychology, by his poetry, and it is concealed beneath Nietzsche's masks, beneath the manifold roles and characters he plays. It is overshadowed by his 'literary trickery' which is acquainted with every device of charm and seduction. It is distorted by the immoderate subjectivity of the author, and by a never ending, painful self-examination. Nietzsche, who often gets caught by the resentment of thinking against itself, states on one occasion: If thinking is your fate, revere this fate with divine honour and sacrifice to it the best, the most beloved.2 Nietzsche's fateful existence is respected most if we search for his philosophy in the labyrinth of his work. Is Nietzsche's disdain for metaphysics really to be taken seriously, or is it only an arrogant prejudice? His attacks on occidental philosophy from Parmenides and Plato onwards are certainly not the expression of a radicalism that finds the ontological question of metaphysics wanting or that wishes to overcome this philosophy because it does not pose the question of being in a sufficiently decisive manner. Nietzsche rejects metaphysics and its

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

concept of philosophy from a quite different perspective. Metaphysics is understood 'morally', not ontologically. For Nietzsche metaphysics is a process of life in which above all 'value judgements' assert themselves, a movement in which crippling, subjugating, life-denying 'values' achieve supremacy. Metaphysics is understood as a process of life which Nietzsche assesses according to its value. He views metaphysics through the 'perspective of life'. Nietzsche considers the ontological reflections of metaphysics in respect of their symptomatic importance. The distinction between appearance and thing-initself expresses a declining passion for life. A life which no longer feels at home in the sense-world invents itself an 'otherworld' beyond appearance. Nietzsche does not examine or evaluate the ontological representations of the metaphysical tradition, but sees them merely as symptoms of vital tendencies. In other words, he does not himself pose the question of being - at least not in the traditional way. The question of being gives way to the question of value. Nietzsche's own unreflected basic presupposition must become an explicit topic of our interpretation. Nietzsche himself passes over the ontological question of value and poses questions about the unclear basis of the phenomenon of value. The philosophical significance of Nietzsche's categories, his main concepts of cultural critique, psychology and aesthetics, can only be understood if their foundation, the interpretation of being as 'value', is clarified. In order to arrive at an interpretation we intend to present the work of Nietzsche in a compressed overview and highlight its basic features. The extent of Nietzsche's literary work was only possible through a remarkable productivity that created works in quick succession. The 27-year-old Nietzsche, who had been professor of classical philology at the University of Basle for two years, wrote his first work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music in 1871, the first Untimely Meditation, namely David Strauss, the Confessor and Writer in 1873, On the Use and Abuse History in Regard to Life in 1874, Schopenhauer as Educator still in 1874, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth in 1876, Human, All Too Human in 1878, Miscellaneous Beliefs and Sayings in 1879, The Wanderer and his Shadow, which was later combined (1886) together with Miscellaneous Beliefs and Sayings as the second volume of Human, All Too Human; Daybreak appears in 1881, The Gay Science in 1882, the four parts of Zarathustra between 1883 and 1885, Beyond Good and Evil in 1886, On the Genealogy of Morals in 1887, The Case of Wagner, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo and Nietzsche contra Wagner in 1888. Nietzsche's breakdown in 1888 propelled him into darkness. In less than twenty years Nietzsche pours out his works; his production has an eruptive character. A range of important treatises was finally published from his posthumous writings, in particular The Will to Power. On many occasions attempts have been made to order Nietzsche's literary work chronologically to show an evolution within his thought. Accordingly, one

The fundamental equation of being and value

9

often speaks of Nietzsche's romantic period, which is characterized by The Birth of Tragedy and the Untimely Meditations. This is followed by a critical, more sober period, in which Nietzsche closely approaches positivism. With Dawn and The Gay Science a new existential sentiment announces itself. These books supposedly express an expectant mood and return towards himself. Nietzsche experiences an 'advent', which then finds its first fulfilment in the fourth period of the Zarathustra. The fifth period (Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals) again forms a preparation to a final period (The Will to Power), the non-poetical, reflective completion and final form of Nietzsche's philosophy. The value of such a schema, which operates mainly with biographical concepts presenting the spiritual history of his life, is doubtful. This developmental schema does not establish if the temporally later is necessarily also substantially more important. A path of life is conceivable in which a thinker falls down from an achieved height, shrinks back from his own audacity or sinks to his knees. Accordingly, we would like to focus on Nietzsche's works outside their biographical context and investigate their basic features. We start with The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. This book is firstly an act of homage to Richard Wagner, an interpretation of his musical drama as an all-inclusive work of art comparable to the classical drama. Nietzsche's understanding of tragedy is based on a fundamentally new view of the classical world. Later in life Nietzsche's judgement about the book became quite severe: it seemed to him spoilt by a 'reliance on Wagnerism', by confusing the understanding of the Greeks with the phenomenon of Wagner, a phenomenon which was by no means a 'symptom of ascent' but rather the opposite, a sign of decline. Nietzsche's later re-evaluation of his first book is indeed fitting. The glorification of the Wagner opera overshadows the basic feature of the book, demotes it so to speak to a preliminary reflection. The genuine problem is Nietzsche's essential conception of the tragic. Regardless of whether Nietzsche portrays the classical tragedy correctly, he expresses at any rate the central concern of his philosophy for the first time through it. He formulates his philosophy within aesthetic categories. The true nature of reality is seen through the phenomenon of the tragic. The aesthetic motif assumes the position of a basic ontological principle. Art and tragic poetry become the keys that unlock the essence of the world. Art becomes the instrument of philosophy. It is understood as the deepest, most authentic approach, as the most primordial form of understanding. The concept can, at best, follow it. Understanding becomes immediate only where it commits itself to the more profound vision of art and reflects its creative experience. Although Nietzsche follows the classical ontological insight that the beautiful is a mode of being, he does not achieve a conceptual, ontological grasp of the phenomenon of the

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

aesthetic. On the contrary: Nietzsche expresses his fundamental vision of being in aesthetic categories. This lends a romantic character to The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche calls it a 'metaphysics of the artist'. Art achieves supremacy. The world is understood through art and in relation to it. In this context art is not only, as Nietzsche puts it, 'the genuine metaphysical activity of man', but, more importantly, a metaphysical revelation of being in its entirety. Only the perspective of art allows the thinker to look into the heart of the world. However, it is essentially tragic art, the classical tragedy, which possesses this quality. Nietzsche grounds the authentic nature of art in the tragic. Tragic art grasps the tragic essence of the world. The tragic is Nietzsche's first fundamental formula for his ontological vision. For him, reality is the conflict of primordial opposites. Already at the start of his philosophical path the tragic pathos puts Nietzsche in an irresolvable conflict with Christianity. Christian dogma with its necessary idea of redemption does not only contradict Nietzsche's instincts, it contradicts his basic sentiment, the basic mood of his life and of his experience of reality. The tragic world does not know any redemption, any salvation of the finite being from its finitude. It knows only the inexorable law of universal decline of the individual existence and of everything that has been severed from the teeming All-life. In this tragic view of the world, life and death, the ascent and decline of all finite beings, embrace each other. The tragic pathos is no passive pessimism: Nietzsche is struck by this and it prevents him from being a mere successor to Schopenhauer. The tragic sentiment of life is rather a yes-saying to life, a joyous affirmation even of the terrible and horrible, of death and decay. It is, however, wrong to interpret this as a heroic attitude, as reckless courage. Tragic affirmation (including even the affirmation of one's own destruction) is based on the realization that all finite manifestations are just temporal waves in a great flood of life, that the destruction of finite being is not simply an annihilation, but a return to the ground of life from which all individual beings ascend. The tragic pathos lives through the knowledge that 'all is one'; life and death are fundamentally related and embraced by a mysterious circle. Where one ascends, the other must descend; all forms emerge through the destruction of others. Where the one steps into the light the other sinks into the night. However, light and night, appearance and the shadow of the underworld, ascent and decline, are only aspects of one wave of life. According to Heraclitus, the way up and down are one and the same. The tragic pathos understands the identity of Hades and Dionysos. Nietzsche discovers the playful encounter of form and the amorphous flux of life in the classical tragedy. He discovers Peras and Apeiron, finite being consecrated to decay in the infinite ground and the abyss itself which brings forth ever new

The fundamental equation of being and value

II

forms. He calls this antagonism the opposition between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche deals with this distinction in a genuinely antithetical manner, as if the Apollonian and the Dionysian were simply opposed. Later on, this original antithesis is grasped in a more radical way through the inclusion of the Apollonian itself into the Dionysian. Infinite life itself is the building and creative force which produces forms and destroys them again. Towards the end of Nietzsche's development the Apollonian is grasped as an aspect of the Dionysian. Looking back at The Birth of Tragedy in Ecce Homo (1888), Nietzsche interprets the discovery of the 'marvellous phenomenon of the Dionysian' as the decisive feature of his first work. We find here a most informative comment: I had discovered the only parable and parallel of my intimate intuition in history.. .3 Is this only an 'intimate' existential experience of Nietzsche, the person, confirming his position as an outsider in a distant historical past? Or is Nietzsche the medium of a new ontological experience? To begin with, it must remain undecided what value, rank-order or relevance this 'intuition' has. Nietzsche expresses it as a theory of art, which in turn has the form of a psychology of art, a psychological analysis of mutually opposing artistic drives combining in the unity of the tragic art-work. The aesthetic values, as stated further in Ecce Homo, are 'the only values recognized in The Birth of Tragedy'*. One can pose the following question: Did Nietzsche not damage his philosophical problem through the aestheticpsychological approach in this first work much more than through 'Wagnerism'? This is indeed so, but it is no mistake which could be counted against him. The basic equation 'being equals value' characterizes his philosophy. It cannot be ignored without ignoring Nietzsche on the whole. It is his basic, operative presupposition. Perhaps all human philosophy is a finite patchwork where fundamental assumptions always remain obscure. In the Attempt at a Self-Criticism drafted in 1886, as well as in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche erases all the 'Wagnerism' and places the emphasis on the discovery of the Dionysian and its opposing phenomenon. The latter, however, is not the Apollonian, since Nietzsche has already included it in the concept of the Dionysian. The playful antithesis between Dionysos and Apollo is grasped as a complex unity. The opposite phenomenon of the tragic world view, of this deepest view of the cosmic essence, is Socratism, the advent of 'logic', the advent of rationality without a vision for the 'life' teeming behind appearances, creating and destroying them.

12

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

'What', Nietzsche asks, 'is the significance of the tragic myth for the Greeks in their best, their strongest, their most courageous period? And the tremendous phenomenon of the Dionysian - and, born from it, tragedy - what might they signify? - And again: that which killed tragedy, the Socratism of morality, the dialectics, frugality, and cheerfulness of theoretical man - how now? Might not this very Socratism be a symptom of decline, weariness, of infection, of the anarchical dissolution of the instincts?'5 Just like tragic pathos, Nietzsche understands Socratism as a fundamental human stance, as the so-called 'scientific' relation to being. Looking back after fifteen years, Nietzsche states that in The Birth of Tragedy science is posed as a problem, What I grasped then, something terrifying and dangerous, a problem with horns, not necessarily a bull, nevertheless a new problem: today I would say that it was the problem of science itself - science for the first time made problematic, worthy of questioning.6 Such an inquiry into science is not self-evident, it is not a problem which science poses itself. For Nietzsche, science as a whole (with all its problems) becomes worthy of questioning. It becomes problematic and suspect when it is contrasted with the different truth of the tragedy, which sees through all appearance and superficiality to discover the creative and destructive play of life called Dionysos. Nietzsche thus approaches science from the perspective of art, and art in turn from the perspective of life. With the title 'perspective of life' we refer to a fundamental characteristic throughout Nietzsche's entire thought. It is only comprehensible if the concept of life remains primarily guided by the tragic experience, by the tragic revelation, by an ontological understanding of tragedy, i.e. by the knowledge of the nothingness of all finite beings and the infinity of the Dionysian world-ground. All too often and for mainly polemic reasons Nietzsche himself conceals his deep and abysmal concept of life beneath a biological concept. His reliance on Darwin is not to be taken seriously. His concept of'life' is only understood if his key-concept of the 'tragic', the antithetical play of the fundamental powers of the world, Apollo and Dionysos, is grasped. Although Nietzsche also operates within aesthetic and psychological categories, and even says in 1888 about The Birth of Tragedy that it provided the first psychological analysis of the tragic poet, we must recognize that in reality he is concerned with something entirely different. He is concerned with a primordial experience of Being, with an ontology which is merely concealed by psychology and aesthetic theory. In Ecce Homo he calls himself the first tragic philosopher, and refers, across the metaphysical and scientific centuries back to his kinship with Heraclitus:

The psychology of art and art as cognition of the world

13

Before me, this transposition of the Dionysian into a philosophical pathos did not exist: the tragic wisdom was absent - I have looked in vain for signs of it even amongst the great Greek philosophers, of those in the two centuries before Socrates. I retained some doubt in the case of Heraclitus, in whose proximity I feel altogether warmer and better than anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away and destroying, which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy, saying Yes to opposition and war; becoming, along with a radical repudiation of the very concept of being - all this is clearly more closely related to me than anything else thought to date.7

3. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART AND ART AS COGNITION OF THE WORLD From the start, Nietzsche's distinctive approach unfolds as part of an aesthetic and psychological problem. A strong feeling of alienation from the tradition of conceptual, ontological reflection ensures that Nietzsche dispenses, indeed must dispense, with the tools and methods of classical philosophy. Accordingly his thinking hides itself behind aesthetics and psychology. This concealment is maintained for some time. Since all of Nietzsche's aesthetic-psychological concepts resonate as it were with the energy of philosophical inquiry, they are also overloaded, exaggerated and deceptive. 'What found expression here was anyway', Nietzsche says fifteen years later, '. . . a strange voice, the disciple of a still "unknown God", one who concealed himself for the time being under the scholar's hood, under the gravity and dialectical ill humour of the German, even under the bad manners of the Wagnerian . . . a mystical, almost macnadic soul ... It should have sung this "new soul" - and not spoken. What I had to say then - too bad that I did not dare say it as a poet: Perhaps I had the ability.'8 The Birth of Tragedy displays a strange methodological character which is difficult to comprehend. A fundamental philosophical thought is disguised in psychologizing aesthetics and turns aesdietics at the same time into an instrument of philosophy. Nietzsche has a vision of the cosmos as tragic play. In his tragic vision of this cosmic essence, he refers to the tragic artwork as just that 'key' that unlocks and opens up its true understanding. The aesthetic theory of the classical tragedy discloses in this way the essence of being in its entirety. The aesthetic occurrence of the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music reflects the primordial event of the birth of the anthropocentric world, unfolding from the chaotic, primordial ground into a multitude of forms. The 'tragic' is understood as a cosmic principle. In outlining a theory about the origin of the Attic tragedy, Nietzsche reveals his 'intimate intuition'. He projects himself into the

14

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

Greek world and interprets himself from that perspective. He recognizes himself (not personally, but through his tragic cognition of the world) in the Greeks of the tragic age. The rejection of Nietzsche's treatise by traditional philologists is in some degree justified. No less than Wilamowitz-Mollendorf led a sharp attack against the treatise, which he accused of 'a dreamy ingenuity and impertinence, ignorance and insufficient love of truth'. However, it rests on the misunderstanding provoked by Nietzsche himself, namely that he was concerned with a philological question. The presentation of this treatise differs in all respects from the level of its actual conception. It appears to deal with aesthetic, psychological and philological problems, but it is in reality Nietzsche's first tentative attempt to articulate his philosophical understanding of the world. This flaw, which already characterizes his first work, remains a feature of Nietzsche's entire oeuvre despite its significant later developments. It lends a provocative ambiguity, a mysterious aura and unfathomable depth to his works. However, it does not sound convincing when this proud and self-conscious mind implies with a prophetical smile that he concealed on purpose, that he had more arrows in his quiver, that this inadequacy was 'intended' in order to address those with ears to hear and those able to read between the lines. Since he does not engage historically with metaphysical concepts, yet refuted (and had to refute) them through his new fundamental intuition, and since furthermore his conceptual identification of 'logical' with 'abstract' and 'inanimate' makes him unable to conceptualize his thinking adequately he becomes diverted and has to philosophize in the guise of an aesthetic theory. Nietzsche's first treatise shows some distinctive characteristics of his thinking with striking clarity. For Nietzsche, intuition is always primary. In The Birth of Tragedy the fundamental thoughts are expressed thetically. They are asserted, affirmed and they obtain a kind of confirmation through their powers of illumination. The phenomena become illuminated and comprehensible through them. They show the projected outline, the inner plan and structure of things. For Nietzsche intuition is an instant view of an essence. It is divination. His most fundamental insights always have the character of illuminations. This is not meant in a derogatory sense. Nietzsche distances himself from any speculation. His thinking emerges from a fundamental experience that is poetical and symbolic. Nietzsche is subject to the powers of thinking and poetry, or rather, he is torn apart by their antagonism. However, there is a kinship between his mythical divination and speculative thinking in so far as both 'leap ahead' of the phenomena to be brought into view. In Nietzsche's first treatise this 'leap-ahead' is very obvious. What looks like a prelude is the heart of the treatise. Nietzsche begins by stating, that it would be a gain for an 'aesthetic science' if it reached the 'immediate certainty of intuition', and that the continued development of art is connected to the dualism of the

The psychology of art and art as cognition of the world

15

Apollonian and the Dionysian comparable to the reliance of procreation on the duality of the sexes. We already find all the relevant elements in this first sentence. Nietzsche purports to formulate insights of a science of aesthetics. Aesthetics appears to be the context of his inquiry. Furthermore, he demands for his inquiry an 'immediate certainty of intuition'. He proclaims a divine intuition and at the same time alludes to it in a mythical metaphor. The mythical symbol is borrowed from the Greeks, who - as he puts it - 'disclose to the discerning mind the profound mysteries of their view of art, not, to be sure, in concepts, but in the intensely clear figures of their gods.'9 The 'profound mysteries' of classical art are now brought into view, i.e. the so-called aesthetic theory is extended to include an understanding of the cosmos supposedly revealed by Greek art. The classical work of art becomes the key to the classical world view. The Apollonian and the Dionysian are initially revealed as aspects of the artistic drives of Hellenic man. Apollo symbolizes the formative drive; he is the God of clarity, of light, of measure, of shape, of beautiful proportion. Dionysos on the other hand is the God of unbounded chaos, of the disproportionate, of the teeming flood of life, of sexual frenzy. Dionysos is the God of night, and, in contrast to the image-rich Apollo, the God of music not, however, of the strict domesticated kind that is merely a 'Dorian architecture of sounds', but of the seductive, evocative music which releases all passions. Initially Apollo and Dionysos are merely metaphors for the opposite artistic drives of the Greeks, for the antagonism between image and music. To further clarify the opposition between these artistic drives Nietzsche refers to a 'physiological' antithesis in human life. He crosses over into psychology. The antithesis is restated in the understanding of dream and intoxication. The dream, as it were, is an unconscious and imaginative human power: The beautiful illusion of the dream worlds, in the creation of which every man is truly an artist, is the prerequisite of all plastic a r t . . .10 he states now. The dream creates the world of images, the scene of appearances and characters. It conjures up the beautiful semblance blessing the soul with a particular vision. Regardless how arbitrary its plot, the dream is a creative vision, a formative force, which creates images over and over again. Apollo, states Nietzsche, was recognized by the Greeks as the power creating the imaginary worlds of man's dreams. But he is an even more powerful force. And here Nietzsche suddenly leaps out of the psychological interpretation of dreams: Apollo creates not only the world of images in human dreams, but also the world of images, which man usually takes to be reality. Apollo, the God of form, Nietzsche says, should be called 'the glorious divine image of the principiium individuationis, through whose gestures and eyes all the joy and wisdom of

16

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

"illusion", together with its beauty, speak to us.'n How is this to be understood? The principiium individuationis is the basis of the individual separation of all beings. Things are in space and time. They are collectively in space and time precisely because they are separated from each other: wherever one ends the other begins. Space and time join and divide at the same time. What we commonly call things or beings is an incalculable manifold of all that is differentiated and detached, yet jointly gathered in space and time. The world-view which affirms the division of being, its multiplicity and separation, is caught in an illusion - as Nietzsche following Schopenhauer believes. It is unwittingly misled by the veil of the Maja. This illusion is the world of appearance which we encounter through the subjective forms of space and time. The world as it really is, as 'thing-in-itself is not dispersed into a multiplicity, but is an undifferentiated life, a unified flux. The multiplicity of being is an illusion, a mere appearance. In truth all is one. It is of utmost importance to remember that Nietzsche's point of departure is Schopenhauer's distinction between thing-in-itself and appearance, between will and representation. Interpreted psychologically this distinction resurfaces as the one between dream and intoxication mentioned above. Nietzsche follows Schopenhauer particularly in the remarkable leap from the human dream to the dream of primordial being itself at the beginning of The Birt Tragedy. He thus extrapolates a finding from the psychology of human artistic drives to a principle of the world summoning Schopenhauer as a crown witness for this view. What was initially a human tendency becomes an ontological power. Nietzsche thinks analogically here. The dream of human imagination is comparable to the ontological power creating appearances and images called Apollo. This power of beautiful semblance creates the world of appearance. Individuation and separation are an Apollonian mirage. In this analogy psychology is transformed into a peculiar metaphysics. The same analogy applies to intoxication. Initially it is regarded as a human phenomenon, as that ecstatic condition in which we feel that all confines fall away and we step out of ourselves, become unified with all being, flow and sink into one infinite sea. But it suddenly assumes a cosmic significance: Man 'is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art: in these paroxysms of intoxication the artistic power of all nature reveals itself to the highest gratification of the primordial unity.'12 Intoxication is a cosmic ecstasy, a bacchantic frenzy which explodes, rips apart, assimilates all appearances. It is the great elan of life. It transcends all finitude and individuation. The Birth of Tragedy is indeed a 'metaphysics of the artist', an aesthetic interpretation of the world in its entirety. The two competing fundamental forces of being reveal themselves through art as it were. Art becomes a symbol. In one unified, magnificent and autonomous vision

The psychology of art and art as cognition of the world

17

Nietzsche's art-metaphysics introduces itself complete in its basic form already at the beginning of the book. No attempt is made to demonstrate the path leading to these assertions. At no point do we encounter a reflection if the underlying ontological conception is justified or not. One is amazed at Nietzsche's uncritical reliance on Schopenhauer. A critical and suspicious spirit such as Nietzsche displays an astonishing degree of naivety in the area of ontological reflection, in regard to fundamental ontological concepts. Nietzsche does not in any way assess and scrutinize Schopenhauer's fundamental distinction between world as will and world as representation. He has no assessment criteria for it. He does not think in a speculative way himself. But he fills Schopenhauer's questionable framework with unprecedented life; he conjures up mythical symbols and interprets Greek art through them as a key to the essence of the world. Furthermore Nietzsche describes the development of classical Greek culture influenced by the great forces of art. The Apollonian struggles with the Dionysian and vice versa. There is a hostility between these opposing powers: they displace and battle each other, but (and this is Nietzsche's profound insight) neither can exist without the other. Their contest, their dispute, is also a peculiar harmony. They are bound together as contestants. The Apollonian world of the Greek culture, the preference for measure and harmony rests on the suppressed ground of titanic formlessness which nevertheless remains present. The Dionysian is the foundation on which the visible world is based. The Olympian 'Magic Mountain' has its roots in the Tartarous. Beyond the world of beautiful appearance lies the Gorgo. The Greek knew and felt the terror and horror of existence. That he might endure this terror at all, he had to interpose between himself and life the radiant dream-birth of the Olympians.13 Apollo, however, cannot live without Dionysos. Nietzsche contrasts the naive poet Homer, the dreamer of the great Apollonian dream of the Olympic Gods, with Archilochos. The lyric poetry of Archilochos has nothing to do with 'subjectivity'. This is a modern concept totally inappropriate in this context. Lyric poetry is the original musical element of art, the Dionysian counter-feature to epic imagery. Lyric poetry resounds from the depth of the world beyond all appearances for Nietzsche. Music and lyric poetry make clear that the true subject of art is not man, who believes himself to have created it, but the ground of the world itself, which acts through man and makes him receptive to its forces. The cosmic ground itself searches for 'redemption' from the frenzied restlessness, avarice and 'eagerness' of a restless 'will' precisely in the deception of beautiful semblance, the seeming eternity of form, the firmness of appearance

18

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

and the proportionate harmony of things. In truth, human artistic endeavour is a play in which humans themselves are only characters and appearances. From a human perspective art is - viewed metaphysically - an 'artistic comedy'. For to our humiliation and exaltation, one thing above all must be clear to us. The entire comedy of art is neither performed for our betterment or education nor are we the true authors of this art world.. .. Thus all our knowledge of art is basically quite illusory, because as knowing beings we are not one and identical with that being which, as the sole author and spectator of this comedy of art, prepares a perpetual entertainment for itself.14 With this view Nietzsche inverts his original approach. He departed originally from the human, artistic drives to establish an analogy for the ontological powers of dream and intoxication (or Apollo and Dionysos) as cosmic principles. What served as a starting point is now reinterpreted through the attained result. Nietzsche arrives at metaphysical principles of the world through the human artistic drive, and he now interprets human art itself as a cosmic event. In becoming receptive to the fundamental power of Dionysos and Apollo through art man becomes the medium and location of a cosmic event. Nietzsche uses for this the concepts of 'redemption' and 'justification'; these are concepts which are initially familiar to us through the doctrine of Christianity. There can be no redemption in a tragic view of the world. Nietzsche transforms the concepts of redemption and justification, he employs them for a process which belongs to the world and contributes to its ontological constitution. The primordial Dionysian ground casts itself repeatedly into appearance. Its emergence into appearance is transfigured in the phenomenon of art. The world of appearance is, as it were, the beautiful dream of the cosmic spirit. Eternal form, the beauty of the created appearance, the limelight of the great stage on which things appear in space and time - this illumination of the abysmal night is its 'redemption' 'for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.'15 Like a dark urge redeeming itself in the image, like the indeterminate yearning presenting itself on the stage of the world, the happy dream satisfies and art transfigures for Nietzsche the severity and heaviness, the absurd and abysmal character of being. However, Nietzsche is not satisfied with the opposition of both cosmic and artistic principles, nor does he refer just to their mutual dependency in which one necessitates and at the same time opposes the other. He rather searches for the highest unification and interpenetration of the Dionysian and the Apollonian and finds this in the classical tragedy. For him this is not an art form which exhausts and looses itself in beautiful semblance, but, to express it paradoxically, the Apollonian presentation of the Dionysian itself. Beautiful semblance

The psychology of art and art as cognition of the world

19

here resonates with the raging power of the depth it conceals. 'Appearance' is transparent for, as it were, being-itself beyond it and light reveals the shadows of the night. Appearance is recognized as such which means at the same time that it is exposed. The beautiful image reveals the wave which devours it. Tragedy contains both elements: the abyss of the primordial One (Ur-eine) which discloses itself only in music and the luminous dream world of appearances. Apollo and Dionysos form a 'brotherhood', as Nietzsche calls it: 'Dionysos speaks the language of Apollo; and Apollo finally the language of Dionysos.'16 The tragedy is music and image, dream and intoxication, form and chaos, light and night, appearance and essence, more precisely the disclosure of the cosmic essence. Based on this view of the tragedy as an Apollonian-Dionysian artwork, Nietzsche develops a theory of the historical development of the Attic tragedy. He postulates music as its basic feature, which he finds in the chorus. The music of the chorus creates the vision of the dramatic scene, which is entirely concerned with the sufferings of Dionysos. Oedipus and Prometheus are masks of this God. Nietzsche is convinced that all tragedies reveal one mysterious truth, namely 'the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything existent, the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil, and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness'.17 Nietzsche's hypothesis about the development of tragic poetry may be questionable. A philological profession may reject it. His interpretation of the chorus or his identification of Wagner's opera and Greek tragedy may be problematic or his psychology concerning the associative connection between music and image may be spurious. All this is of minor importance. What matters is that Nietzsche gives an interpretation of the world and constructs a schema of being in its entirety in his theory of tragedy. The vagueness of Nietzsche's concept of the Dionysian ground is largely responsible for the difficulty in understanding The Birth of Tragedy rather than the unclear methods, such as the use of analogy as a tool of knowledge. The meaning of the Apollonian, the principium individuationis, is more easily grasped given that we live in a world where things and human beings are individuated. But the ground of this world of appearance, the essence behind the manifold of beings, remains peculiarly foggy. Nietzsche adopts Schopenhauer's term 'will' while taking over his distinction between essence (thing-in-itself) and appearance. He expresses the primordial One18 through ever new images and metaphors: he speaks of the core of being, of the bearers of being, of the primordial One and of the living One. The dimension of Dionysos is mystically intuited rather than conceptually grasped. It almost has the dubious character of an 'Other-world'.

20

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

For this reason, Nietzsche could say in Thus spoke Zarathustra (alluding to The Birth of Tragedy): Once Zarathustra too cast his deluded fancy beyond mankind, like all afterworlds-men. Then the world seemed to me the work of a suffering and tormented God. Then the world seemed to me the dream and fiction of a God; coloured vapour before the eyes of a discontented God.19

4. 'SOCRATISM' AGAINST TRAGIC WISDOM. CONCERNING TRUTH AND FALSITY IN THE EXTRA-MORAL SENSE The Birth of Tragedy is a peculiar book. A thinker makes his debut as a philologist with a questionable interpretation of the stylistic elements of Greek tragedy from a new view of classical antiquity. He psychologizes and exaggerates psychological concepts to cosmic dimensions. He proclaims - based on Schopenhauer's philosophy - an alternative sentiment of life and attempts to interpret Richard Wagner, a phenomenon of the present, through reference to the most distant past of classical antiquity. The book wishes to achieve too much at once, it is so to speak overambitious. Yet, it pays remarkably little attention to its most important concern. It seems as if Nietzsche is not yet able to articulate his insights directly so that he needs to take roundabout ways. However the case may be, Nietzsche's first work appears to be a symbol. It expresses and conceals, insinuates and remains silent. For him philosophy is tragic wisdom, the essential understanding of the primordial strife between the opposing principles of Dionysos and Apollo, the intuition of the strife between the all-bearing, alldevouring, formless foundation of life and the domain of light forming the appearances. Or in other words: Philosophy is the grasp of the eternal discord between all-unity and individuation, between the thing-itself and the appearance, between dream and intoxication. It is the grasp of the dismemberment of being as a whole20 into the opposites of night (in which all is one) and day (where all appears individually). The ancient motif of the strife between darkness and light dominates Nietzsche's fundamental conception. When he later attributes his revelation to Zarathustra, this is not only necessary because this Persian must be the first to revoke his own moral dualism, but because Nietzsche's Zarathustra remains true to the original Persian motif of the strife between darkness and light in his tragic, Dionysian wisdom. In The Birth of Tragedy, ait becomes the instrument of philosophy. Art is not only the theme of philosophical interpretation but its instrument and method. Nietzsche's interpretation of tragedy already relies on a tragic understanding of

'Socratism' against tragic wisdom

21

the world. He uses the 'perspective of art'. From this perspective he sees the enemy and opponent of the tragedy: Socratic reason which killed - in his words - the classical Greek tragedy. Socrates marks the end of the tragic age and introduces the age of reason and of the theoretical man. According to Nietzsche this involves an enormous loss of world. Human existence looses its sensitivity for the dark aspect of life, looses its mythical knowledge about the unity of life and death, looses the tension between individuation and the primordial unity of the ground of life and becomes superficial, trapped in the appearances, yet supposedly enlightened. For Nietzsche Socrates is a world-historic figure of a Greek enlightenment in which the classical existence did not only loose its remarkable instinctive reliability, but even more relevantly the ground of its life, its mythical depth. Nietzsche's intuition and his astute perception recognize the enormous historical importance of Socrates. However, his interpretation exhausts itself in psychological terms. Perhaps Nietzsche foresaw that we are concerned here with a change in our ontological understanding, that in the disputes between the sophists and Socrates western thinking was turning towards anthropology and metaphysics and that this constitutes an event, which indeed can hardly be overestimated. The philosophical perspective is accordingly redirected away from the ruling entirety of the cosmos to inner-worldly (ontical) being for the next 2000 years. Nietzsche recognizes the key position of Socrates but he grasps it within psychological concepts. According to Nietzsche Socrates denies the Greek essence, rejects Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Phidias, Pericles, Pythia and Dionysos. However it seems that this rejection of Greek tradition originates from some extreme, individual, psychological characteristics. Socrates appears to Nietzsche as a paradigmatic example of an unauthentic Greek, who is driven by an enormous need and characterized by a complete lack of 'instinctive wisdom'. In Socrates, Nietzsche alleges, only the logical and rational side of the spirit was developed excessively. Socrates did not possess a mystical organ. He was the original non-mystic. However, he was obsessed by the drive to change everything into something rational, logical and thinkable.21 Socrates appears thus to be a rational demon, a human being in whom all desire and passion was sublimated into a will for rational structure and domination of being. Socrates was the inventor of the 'theoretical man'. With this he introduced a new type, a new ideal and seduced the Greek youth and in particular the magnificent Greek adolescent Plato. Socrates created the delusion that thinking according to the principle of causality could reach into the most unfathomable depth of being. The theoretical cognition of the world, which Nietzsche extracts from his psychological analysis of Socrates, does not only function as a contrast to an artistic mode of life, but Nietzsche alleges that the absolute domination of 'theory' constitutes a hidden assertion of a tendency of

22

The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

art. Nietzsche writes that 'in the logical schematism the Apollonian tendency has disguised itself22. The theoretical cognition of the world is based on a weak and impotent artistic drive. The logical concept is as it were the withered and dried leaf which once grew as metaphor on life's 'golden tree'. A theory, a conceptual fiction can be interpreted from the perspective of art because it conceals an artistic drive despite the fact that it is removed from its antithetical tension with the Dionysian and consequently increasingly impotent. According to Nietzsche, theory and science are comprehensible from the perspective of art, but not vice versa. Nietzsche's view of Socrates is not only problematic because of his psychological approach. The assumed absolute identification between the Socratic and Platonic concept of 'theoria' and a general scientific tendency in the modern sense is even more questionable. Nietzsche conflates essentially two different entities: classical theory and nuova scienza. The way in which Nietzsche describes the decline of the tragedy brought on by Socratic rationality and the way in which he attributes the victory of the logical over the mythical drive to Euripides appear irrelevant to our main concern. The interpretation of the tragedy reaches its climax towards the end of the book which understands the tragic myth's mode of existence. The antagonism between Apollo and Dionysos, between thing itself and appearance, between dream and intoxication is understood as a unity of an antithetical, basic development. Existence can only be justified as an aesthetic phenomenon. Art transforms being. Not only the beautiful in its ordinary understanding, but also the terrifying, the ugly, the horror of existence are moved towards a splendid transformation. In art, the primordial ground of being encounters itself, perceives itself through the images of beings. Nietzsche approaches this riddle through the phenomenon of dissonance. The tragic reality consists in the fact that we desire 'to simultaneously perceive and yearn for a transcendence of perception' just as in musical dissonance we 'listen and yearn beyond listening'. Nietzsche believes that in dissonance and tragic myth we encounter analogical Dionysian phenomena. This encounter 'continuously reveals the playful creation and destruction of the individual world as flowing from a primordial desire, comparable to the comment by Heraclitus, the dark, who likens the world creative power with the power of a child who moves stones and builds sandcastles only to destroy them again'.23 Being in its entirety, the world as a whole is at play. The realm of individuation, the appearance of the many individual things in their distinctive beauty and horror is - considered as a whole - a beautiful semblance perceived by the tragic vision, or, as Nietzsche puts it, 'an artful play, which the will plays with itself for its own infinite fullness of pleasure'.24

'Socratism' against tragic wisdom

23

The ontological distinction between 'will' and 'representation', thing itself and appearance which Nietzsche borrows from Schopenhauer is not taken as a demarcation of two distinct realms but is interpreted as a dynamic and as a creative process. The primordial ground plays the world, it creates the manifold of the individual things like artists creating artworks. Or better: the activity of the artist, the creative process, is only a reflection, a poor replication of the original poeisis of cosmic life. Tragic art becomes an ontological symbol for Nietzsche. The reality, the essence of being is conceived through art. Like man the re-creative artist is redeemed in his creativity through the work of art. Like the beautiful semblance of an art-work that transfigures suffering and ugliness alike, the creative ground of the world achieves a temporary repose and rest through the beautiful semblance of the manifold appearances of finite beings. However, the primordial ground does not only play with creation but also with destruction. The seed of decline is already implanted in all becoming. The pleasure of death and decay resonates in the pleasure of generation and love. The crucial characteristic of this basic conception is firstly Nietzsche's transformation of Schopenhauer's schema. For Schopenhauer, the will, the blind drive towards life, is the only true reality. The world as representation only exists for the human mind. The subjective forms of intuition, space and time, have no metaphysical reality but are only at home in the human spirit. The world as representation exists accordingly only for man. Nietzsche distances himself from this conception. The primordial ground itself playfully creates the world of appearance. This world is a product of its artistic drive and a way to encounter and affirm itself. Yes, one may even be justified to say that the will comes to itself, becomes conscious of itself, takes possession of itself through consciousness and redeems itself in beautiful 'semblance'. The appearance is accordingly necessary to ensure the selfconsciousness of the will. The will must alienate itself in order to own itself and reunite itself from this alienation in order to realize its self-consciousness. Nietzsche assigns tragic art to the realm in which true Being gains selfconsciousness. The tragic play achieves the cosmic realization of being itself. In Ecce Homo Nietzsche remarked much later about this characteristic of cosmic self-consciousness in The Birth of Tragedy that it smelled 'offensively Hegelian'.25 The second characteristic factor of this book is the exposure of primordial reality through the metaphor of play. Nietzsche discloses a central and fundamental concept of his philosophy that reaches back to Heraclitus already here. What is meant by play and how it is to be ontologically determined or conceptualized in more than a witty metaphor is not yet obvious. Ultimately, Nietzsche's concept of play unifies the opposition of Dionysos and Apollo and constitutes the reluctant synthesis of two fundamental powers. The unity of opposites is articulated but is not grasped adequately in any ontological conception. The metaphor of the 'world as play' remains at first a grand intuition. The

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

concept of play becomes for Nietzsche later in retrospect a first formula for his 'innocence of becoming', for a view of the world which opposes all Christian and moral interpretations, for a holistic view of being beyond good and evil. 'Indeed', he writes in 1886, 'the entire book only knows an artist's sense and double-meaning beyond all appearance, a God if you like, but certainly only an entirely questionable and immoral god of the artist, who wishes to become conscious of his own magnificence and pleasure through generation and destruction, through good and evil, who world-creating, is redeemed from the need of fullness and plentifulness, of suffering from the oppressive opposites within itself.. ,'.26 The Birth of Tragedy contains almost all elements of Nietzsche's philosophy. For the first time and with the appeal to an original and fresh intuition it develops the contrast between the Dionysian and the Apollonian, develops the perspective of art and the perspective of life derived from it and displays an anthropomorphic metaphysics which looks at first sight strange and arbitrary. This book practises the art of suspicion in the attack on Socratism. It also introduces the fundamental concept of play - reminding us of Heraclitus. From Nietzsche's posthumously published work we know the treatise Concerning Truth and Deception in the extramoral sense written, but not published in 1873. Truth and deception do not refer to any conscious human behaviour but to a moral issue. The treatise deals with the role of the intellect in the world. Moral truth and untruth are determined within an understanding of the world in the human mind. However, the extent to which the mind itself is true, the extent to which it aims at real truth are different matters. Perhaps the mind with all its pursuit of truth is more radically false. Yet, from which perspective does Nietzsche intend to judge the truth and untruth of the mind? Does he occupy a place outside the mind from which he could view it? It is remarkable that Nietzsche never poses this question, that in his aesthetic vision of the primordial reality of 'becoming' he seems so certain about his intuition. With a kind of cruel irony Nietzsche presents the pitiful, contemptible and superficial characteristics of human cognition. He cites as it were a nature-historical aspect: In some remote corner of the universe of innumerable, shimmeringly dispersed solar systems there was once a planet on which clever animals invented cognition. It was the most arrogant and untruthful moment of world history.. , 27 . However, this external biological view is only an intellectual way of discussing the intellect. Nietzsche does not fall into the traps of the natural scientist. The 'deception' of the rational mind is grounded in the inability to understand the metaphysical rather than the biological concept of life. At the same time

'Socratism' against tragic wisdom

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Nietzsche interprets the role of cognition pragmatically. Reason serves the will to live. It is based on a life-preserving illusion. The arrogance of the cognitive animal convinces it of its existence and seduces it towards it. The most universal characteristic of reason is deception, a clever cunning which assists the survival of the fittest. This tendency attains its fulfilment in man where the art of deception reaches its climax. Nietzsche refers here sarcastically to the futile play of the many human vanities, to the flattery, lies and deceptions and the pretences about oneself and others. He poses the question how in such a context the genuine, pure drive for truth could emerge. Normally we perceive this irreconcilable contradiction: reason is an instrument of clever cunning or vain pretence is opposed to the integrity of the will to truth. However, Nietzsche tries to reflect beyond this distinction here and tries to substantiate that the drive towards truth flows from the instinct towards disguise. One basic aspect emerges in this approach for the first time which is going to be crucial later. Although the development is still elementary at this point it is at the same time clear in its original intention. Nietzsche proceeds from language. Language is seen as a convention which occurs when a peace pact is made in the battle of all against all. According to Nietzsche language essentially conceptualizes conventions and constitutes agreement about henceforth valid significations. However, how does the sign or the word relate to the thing itself? Are they true? Nietzsche denies this: The development of language has no logical determinants. The entire material within and with which the human being, the scholar, the philosopher works, creates derives, if not from cloud-cuckoo land, certainly not from the essence of the things themselves.28 This conception of language may seem questionable. For now, Nietzsche's theory of language or concepts are not relevant but we need to focus on what is responsible for the 'deception' of language, the 'deception' of the concepts - deception understood in the extra-moral sense. 'Truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions.'29 The subconscious use of words and concepts, i.e. the forgotten history of their dubious development, is the condition for an honest, scientific commitment to truth. The scientist uses concepts without being aware any longer that concepts are only empty metaphors devoid of sense. The logical commitment to truth is - according to Nietzsche - only the withered remnant of an originally artistic, that is sensual encounter of man with a dazzling world. The concept is the empty shell of a metaphor once inspired by intuition. Nietzsche contrasts the scientific man who remains blind to the falsity of the concept with the intuitive, artistic mind. The former has retreated into a shell and believes that

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

concepts are the things themselves. The latter knows the untruth of all concepts and metaphors, but he relates freely, creatively to reality creating its images. Compared to the logician and the scientist the intuitive person or the artist is the higher type for Nietzsche. For Nietzsche he constantly attacks conceptual conventions. He is no longer guided by 'concepts but by intuition'. From these intuitions no regular path leads into the land of the ghostly schemata, the abstractions. For these the word is not made, man becomes silent when he sees them - or speaks in all sorts of forbidden metaphors and unheard of conceptual constructs in order to at least correspond creatively to the impression of the powerful intuition created by a destruction and a ridicule of the old conceptual limits.30 Does Nietzsche's discussion of truth and deception make any proper sense given that he as it were inquires into the truth of the human cognition and thus questions a kind of meta-truth? His fictional theory of cognition serves really only as an illustration for Socratism. Nietzsche judges in favour of the artist and against the 'theoretical' man. Art seems to be the true method of philosophy because the primordial ground of being itself playfully creates the world like a 'primordial artist'. Wherever an intuitive man uses his weapons more powerfully and victoriously than his enemy (as in classical Greece) a culture may be formed by itself at best to create the domination of art over life.. . .31 For Nietzsche culture is intimately connected with the striving of the cosmic will to reach self-consciousness in the tragic human work of art. The essence of culture is the genius. The genius is a human being who has become the focus for a justification of being in the beautiful appearance of an aesthetic phenomenon.32 Nietzsche thus portrays culture in two small fragments (from the time of The Birth of Tragedy) entitled Greek State and The Greek Woman with an almost inhuman bluntness. He formulates the 'cruel sounding truth', that 'the essence of culture demands slavery'33 that is the sacrifice of the majority to serve the creation of the genius. This has nothing to do with social arrogance. Nietzsche's concept of culture is grounded in a fundamental understanding that the world is tragic. He considers the 'breathtaking' thought 'that the will (in Schopenhauer's sense) perhaps manifests itself in these worlds, stars, bodies and atoms in order to come to art'.34 Nietzsche's concept of culture and the metaphysics of the genius underpinning it are inseparably linked to his metaphysics of the artist.

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5. UNTIMELY MEDITATIONS. CULTURE AND GENIUS. PHILOSOPHY IN THE TRAGIC AGE OF THE GREEKS The concept of the genius accompanies Nietzsche's intimate intuition of cosmic truth. He finds it confirmed in the two passionately revered figures of Schopenhauer and Wagner. The genius can not be understood by its merely human characteristics. The genius is not the great human being which is quantitatively distinguished from his fellow humans through a number of steps. It is not the most developed type, no ideal type, but rather a human being that is subject to the superhuman and to a cosmic mission, a human being yet a destiny. For the early Nietzsche the concept of genius is a forerunner of the overman. 'Greatness' is primarily a mode of truth. It opens up the reality of the Dionysian play and its manifestations of word, appearance and music. The 'great' human being is only understood through that which manifests itself in it. The genius is an instrument of the creative ground of life, which reflects and represents its own essence in the artistic creation. Without this basic connection of the genius to a cosmic tendency Nietzsche's conception of culture would be inhuman and absurd. Like his concept of the overman, Nietzsche's concept of the genius must ultimately be understood and interpreted via the human dedication to truth. Truth here does not refer to scientific cognition but to the tragic intuition of the cosmic ground. This conception of the genius as a mouthpiece of a cosmic tendency and of culture, as an interpretation of life and world that is accomplished in a unified artistic style by the genius, this conception is repeatedly concealed by Nietzsche himself through the superficial, simplifying heroism of the genius. Nietzsche's cult of the genius often assimilates traces of a hero worship. His superhuman understanding of genius and his function in a unified, primordial will of the world is almost obscured by the emphasis on a 'greatness' which portrays itself as a human achievement. The pathos of distance, of social rank order determines the theory of culture on the surface. We have identified here an essential feature of Nietzsche: his concept of the human being is ambiguous. He is torn between a purely anthropocentric conception distinguishing the extremes of the creative and impotent type, the genius and the herd member and a more profound conception of humanity, which transcends humanism and understands man through his cosmic mission in which he becomes the medium of universal truth. This tension in the concept of the human being remains always alive in the development of Nietzsche's philosophy. Although he inquires into the 'great man' whenever he wishes to express the essence of humanity his exposition of human greatness vacillates within the mentioned ambiguity. In Nietzsche's first period however, it is clear that his metaphysics of the genius is firmly based on the general

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

artistic-metaphysics of the cosmos, that the concept of culture is firmly based on the tragic world-view. His concern for cultural regeneration should be understood from this aspect. Despite its foundation on Schopenhauer's dogma, Nietzsche positions himself already against it. Nietzsche also distinguishes himself from Schopenhauer in his conception of appearance which he interprets as an Appollinian expression (rather than as a mere fiction of the human intellect) which is established and created by the cosmic, Dionysian ground. The latter is - although an illusion - not nothing. A further distinguishing mark is a more significant understanding of time. Time does not only exist for the intellect but designates a mode of being of the cosmic ground. The Dionysian play is pure becoming. Because it is rooted in the cosmic ground time is significant for the realm of appearance. The historical development of culture is the human response to the reality of the Being as play as disclosed by the genius. This is the fundamental horizon of Nietzsche's philosophy of history. Even as a cultural critic Nietzsche can only be understood through interpreting these concealed ontological and fundamental thoughts. Nietzsche's theory of culture is at once a diagnosis and a programme. The Birth of Tragedy unfolds his understanding of the cosmos and establishes a central concept of culture. His portrayal of the 'tragic age' of the Greeks with its 'mythical groundedness', its comprehensive artistic style, its creative productivity, its self-representation in the tragic work of art give his thought its direction followed further by the Untimely Meditations. The first Untimely Meditation, David Strauss, the Confessor and Writer, is not only an attack of an 'educational philistine'. It is more: it is an attack on the complacent and self-satisfied German culture. Nietzsche's subsequent comment becomes true in retrospect: he only attacks things which are victorious. After the war of 1870-71 and the success of the new German empire and its emerging culture, the German Bildung*^ which he regards - as he puts it in Ecce Homo - with merciless contempt appears to him devoid of 'meaning, without substance, without aim; a mere public opinion'36. His polemic treatise against David Straufi establishes a contrast to true culture and shows that true culture can not and is not meant to exist. The critique is poignant and cutting. A more fundamental critique also dominates the Untimely Meditation, Concerning the advantage and disadvantage of history in regard to life. This work is concerned with a critique of'historical meaning' as an indication of the decline of culture. The hidden theme of the book is human historicity. The critique of culture engages with the decay of historical meaning, with the exaggerated turn to the past which erodes the vitality of a culture. Nietzsche distinguishes three possible modes of historical engagement: the antiquarian, the critical and the monumental history. The first corresponds to a preserving and reverential kind of person or to a humanity which lives entirely in the past and takes its lead from

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a tradition. Life becomes essentially a remembrance and a recollection. The basic attitude of critical history on the other hand opens itself to the present and makes this the standard for the past judging history from the horizon of the presence. The approach of monumental history projects itself into the future. A life which sets itself great aims has a sense for comparably audacious attempts of the past. The visions of the past reveal themselves only to those with a determined will to a future. Where the vital plan, the projection of life into the future declines the assembly of historical knowledge becomes a burden or even a danger for life itself. In this case man only learns to surrender in the face of history. The futility of all plans and the life which is no longer sustained by intentions to create its own future escapes into the past and seeks to forget its own emptiness in the remote richness of a past life. This work is not only important because it exposes the dangers of an excessively historical culture, but because it interprets the temporality of human existence. The human being is not merely ready to hand in the dimensions of past, present and future like other things. These dimensions are rather horizons which are kept open by the human being itself in different ways. In the other two Untimely Meditations, Schopenhauer as Educator and Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, Nietzsche portrays the genius which symbolizes the central essence of a culture. He does not simply refer to the present culture (the genius is 'untimely' in relation to his respective contemporary culture) but rather to a future culture. In retrospect37 Nietzsche comments that Schopenhauer and Wagner only served as 'occasions' in these two essays 'to make a few more formulas, signs and means of expression available'. Plato used Socrates in similar ways to express himself. Schopenhauer and Wagner refer to 'Nietzsche, in one word'. However, the meaning of the essays is not exhausted by Nietzsche's psychological identifications, by the allegorical use of two figures. Nietzsche depicts his vision of a future culture in the way in which he depicted the possibility of the greatest culture of history in The Birth of Tragedy. The ambivalence which overshadows all Untimely Meditations is created by the implied, silent metaphysics of the genius expressed so clearly in The Birth of Tragedy. On the whole the presentation of culture remains within the domain of the 'merely human'. The cosmic and instrumental function of the genius remains seemingly obscure. As a result a superficial reading gains the impression of an extraordinary idolization of the genius. In addition Nietzsche seeks an argument. He wishes to assault the 'democratic' levelling tendencies of the time. He is feverishly ready to attack and fight, his 'wrist is dangerously loose'.38 This is a clear example how Nietzsche's writing and his desire for the spectacular endangers his philosophy. On the whole, Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations belong to his first period. The metaphysics of the artist underpin them even though this remains implicit. In discussing 'culture' Nietzsche does not betray his original,

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The 'Metaphysics of the Artist'

metaphysical approach and his debt to Schopenhauer. Although his approach has a human focus this is not an anthropology removed from metaphysics as we encounter it in Nietzsche's second period. Culture is not merely a human product. The saint, the artist, the leader and the human genius influence and form a culture. They are the instruments of a divine power which the cosmic ground creates in order to encounter itself. The genius is the caretaker of the truth of the primordial cosmic ground, the location of its revelation. Nietzsche's first period sketched here from its metaphysical aspect and its concept of culture is essentially determined by Nietzsche's view of the problems of Greek culture and philosophy. In his profession as a classical philologist Nietzsche already engaged with Greek philosophy extensively. He did not only write a treatise on Diogenes Laertius, an important traditional source for Greek philosophies. He also gave repeated lectures on the 'Pre-platonic Philosophers' and further an 'Introduction to the study of Plato's dialogues' during his time in Basle. Furthermore, he compiled different sketches made between 1872 and 1875 (including the small essay Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks written in the spring of 1873) into a 'book on philosophy'. Nietzsche's engagement with Greek philosophy is rather peculiar. Its fundamental ontological problems do not seem to concern him. He is almost blind to them. He is influenced most by Heraclitus and identifies the essence of the primordial ground in accordance with Heraclitus as 'play'. Nevertheless Nietzsche's concept of play is radically distinct from Heraclitus. It is most important that Nietzsche perceives a historical break between Socrates and Plato and the thinkers preceding these. Nietzsche's uncanny instinct for the tragedies of the spirit senses a deep rift here. However, he does not express clearly what constitutes this rift. The philosophers preceding Plato and Socrates are called 'tragic'. Are they tragic because they lived and thought in the age of tragedy or are they themselves inspired by (what Nietzsche calls) the brotherhood of Dionysos and Apollo in the tragedy? Does the tragic understanding of the world determine their thinking? The philosophy of the tragic age disappeared because of the dialectic of Socrates akin to the tragedy itself which disappeared because of the Socratism of Euripides' 'rational' muses. Thus Nietzsche attributes a change of view and method to human influence here, when this change should perhaps be understood more profoundly as a change of truth itself to which humanity reacts and which humanity follows. The heroic, tragic pessimism is contrasted with an optimistic confidence; artistic intuition is contrasted with the assembly of concepts, vision with dialectic. In other words, Nietzsche's characterization of the difference between Pre-Socratic and classical Greek philosophy occurs entirely within anthropological, often psychological categories. The contrast between Nietzsche's intuition of this difference and its interpretation is very peculiar. We can also sense this contrast in his

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relationship to Greek philosophy as a whole. Nietzsche feels its unique importance, feels the greatness of its origins, but he understands it in a way which obliterates the ontological questions entirely. He sees the classical spirits as 'great men' or as 'personalities' of unique stature. He appears to have an aesthetic interest in them. He does not believe in the truth of their systems; he only accepts these as evidence for their rich lives. Whoever enjoys . . . great men at all also enjoys such systems even if they are wholly mistaken: they have some point which is completely irrefutable, a personal mood, a colour, one can use it to gain an image of the philosopher . . . .3