the image is akin both to the sphinx, and the symbol of St Mark, the ‘lion of Venice’ – a winged lion. (The ‘Lion of Venice’ is N’s suggested title for an opera written by N’s friend Peter Gast.) With eagle, serpent and doves, the lion makes four animal companions for Zarathustra (1883.21.2, 1884.29.26) – possibly a reference to the four animals in Rev. 4.7. The lion frightening the ‘higher men’ is a reference to the tale of Dionysus on the ship of the pirates.
The tiger is one of the animals associated in mythology with
Dionysus, which fact N explicitly refers to at for example BT1,
2, and 1883.13.1. The tiger’s wildness is not tamed by, but rather simply not opposed to Dionysus’ needs or purposes. As one lush growth of the tropical south, the tiger is a symbol of wanton and sudden destructiveness (always about to leap) and over-abundance (‘Homer’s Contest’, H1.236, Z2.21). Thus also the tiger is the figure of that sudden urge to traitorous injustice among the Greeks (D199) which requires the state to keep it in check. This tension can be seen negatively as unresolved, lacking perfection or direction (Z2.13). Late in Z, the ‘higher men’ are compared to a tiger that has failed in its leap (Z4.13.14) – that is, ashamed of their action, and not accepting the role of chance in the growth of the human.
In general, the cat is an incompletely domesticated animal: it appears peaceful (BGE131), loves comfort (Z3.12.17), but has a residual wildness, remains akin to a beast of prey and is mischievous or wilful (1880.4.268, 1884.28.21, 1884.31.31, Z4.14.3). At Z3.4, the clouds are cats, incapable of decision. In much of the above, and elsewhere, N associates the cat above all with the figure of
woman (see also for example BGE239). N uses cat imagery often
towards the bitter end of his correspondence with Lou Salomé (e.g. ‘mid-Dec., 1882). Here the cat is incapable of giving, reciprocity or love. (See also 1882.1.30 and 1882.3.1.184; although, see Z4.13.17.) In this, it is the polar opposite of the dog (1884.25.516). Over several years, N experiments in his notebooks with images of granite statues of cats, standing for ancient values, heavy and unmovable (e.g. 1884.32.9).
categorical imperative
See Kant.
category
The notion of ‘category’ has a long history within philosophy, commencing with Aristotle; however, it is Kant whom N generally has in mind when he discusses this notion. In Kant, the categories form a set of 12 absolutely basic and a priori concepts under which all experience falls. They thus describe the structure of experience and its limits, but also provide a transcendental account of how experience is possible in the first place. N ridicules Kant’s pride in his ‘table of categories’ at BGE11, but at the same time accepts Kant as an important philosophical worker at BGE44, 211. For further discussion, see Kant.
causality
Kausalität, or Ursache and Wirkung (cause and effect). N’s analysis
of causality is one of his key physical and metaphysical lines of thought. There are several aspects. First and fundamentally, there is a critique of any simple account of cause and effect. The critique begins early on in N’s career, using some of the same concepts as ‘On Truth and Lies’ (see for example 1872.19.209–10). Although useful as a kind of shorthand for describing and predicting, the concepts of cause and effect require us to posit the cause and the effect as separable and identifiable; that is, each has to be a stable entity. ‘In truth’, N writes, ‘a continuum faces us’ (GS112) and every causal event is actually an ‘infinite number of processes’. Cause and effect thus offers no real understanding or explanation. This simplifying treatment of cause and effect is founded upon a natural, but mistaken, analysis of will (GS127, TIErrors3) – our apparent willing and effecting becomes a model for natural processes. Cause and effect does not follow ‘laws’ – this notion of natural law as something that ‘governs’ also is an illegitimate application of our (mistaken) notion of willing according to a maxim. The critique of causality also amounts to a critique of mechanical thought (all nature consists of pushing and pulling entities) (BGE21). N replaces natural causality with his concept of a network of forces – that is with the will to power. Among other things, this new concept demands (as against mechanism) ‘action at
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a distance’ (1885.34.247). Importantly, N’s analysis of this concept of cause and effect includes a diagnosis of the psychological needs that might explain its adoption (e.g. BGE21, TIErrors5).
Second, clearly there are some natural processes at work that are gestured towards by the concept of cause and effect. This whole natural realm N contrasts with an unnatural or anti-natural sense of cause and effect: the concept of a sin against God for example (AC25, TIErrors6), ‘spiritual causality’ (AC39), or the causa sui (cause of itself) that is both an account of God but also a model of free will (BGE21, and see TIReason4). In all these cases, a cause is posited that lies outside the natural order.
A third strand of thought concerning causality is the notion of
sublimation, in which a force or desire has its ‘direction’ changed –
that is, its mode of discharge – by a second force or desire. This is part of the meaning of GS360 (and likewise H2.394). There, N distinguishes between a vast quantum of force, and a smaller trigger, that serves to give the former direction. The latter would be the ends we set ourselves for tasks or for our lives. But these are, N insists, more often than not ‘beautifying pretexts’ – the real function of the discharge is hidden from us.
cave
Höhle. Although N will sometimes use the figure of the cave in
other writings, its most obvious appearance is as the dwelling place of Zarathustra in Z. There are many caves in Greek mythology, the three most obviously pertinent to Zarathustra – because they serve as symbolic sources or amplifications of Zarathustra’s traits – are (i) the Diktaean Cave where the infant Zeus was born and hidden away from his father Chronos (time); (ii) the cave near Mount Kyllene where Maia gave birth to Hermes (god of travel and herald of the gods), son of Zeus; (iii) and the cave near Mount Nysa where
Dionysus (another son of Zeus) was raised by nymphs, hidden
from Hera’s jealousy.
The other main classical source for the image of cave is, of course, Plato. In The Republic, Plato uses the ‘allegory of the cave’ to describe the journey of the philosopher, who flees the illusory images in the cave (appearances), up to the sunlight (the forms as genuine entities illuminated by genuine light), and then back again
to aid others in escaping. N here inverts Plato. Zarathustra’s cave, rather than being a dark place of illusion, represents depth (in the sense of profundity) but is also elevated in the mountains (see entry on height). When, in ZP1, he steps out before the sun, it is not to gain insight, but to bestow it on others. Similarly, at UM3.3, N uses the figure of a cave to talk about the solitude of the free spirit; at UM4.6, the cave is the depths of insight compared to the superficial daylight of modernity. Finally, at BGE289, N claims that the philosopher-hermit does not ever have ‘ultimate and real opinions’, that for every cave there is ‘another, deeper cave’.