63 figure in his thought, for it is a consequence of passive or reactive Nihilism All

forms of appearance are felt to be mere illusion and hence their constitution be­ comes indifferent, since nothing is at stake. It is a way of thinking which cannot but lead one to pure inactivity, something which Nietzsche abhores, not in the name of selfishness, but rather because that is an easy or weak response. For as Houlgate himself admits, and it is a ciriticism which Georges Bataille has also made^^, the slave in Hegel’s dialectic is open with a view to saving his own skin; he willingly submits to the rule of the Master because it is an easier choice than risking all in a life or death struggle. For Nietzsche there can be no such easy option, since

without accepting risk nothing is achieved. As Zarathustra says, ‘Free to die, and %

free in death, a sacred sayer of no, when it is no longer time for saying yes: thus he J

is an expert at life and death’ (KSA 4 p. 95).

Conclusion

In this chapter I have argued for a number of points concerning Nietzsche's philos­ ophy of the self, which will serve as a basis for investigation into his aesthetic the­ ory. The first theme was the assertion that Nietzsche's so-called critique of the subject is much more limited in scope than that which many contemporary believe

him to have carried out. The word 'subject' has for Nietzsche the connotation of a f

specific concept of human agency and knowing derived from a complex of interre- <

lated and mutually dependent metaphysical, religious and morals ideologies. In metaphysics the most prominent proponents of this ‘subject’ are seen to be Plato and Descartes, while in the spheres of morality and religion the most culpable agent is Christianity and its ascetic morality. All three spheres share a common con­ ception of human subjecthood as a unified, stable and autonomous intellect, one which in the right environment can exercise its powers of cognition unaffected by the putative ‘lower’ instincts and passions. As such it is a subject endowed with moral autonomy and responsibility, one of whom adherence to unconditional moral tenets can be expected, whether they be the ‘thou shalt’ of a legislating divinity, or

obedience to an internal voice of conscience, as in Kant's categorical i m p e ra t i v e . ^ 7

The second theme was to argue that concomitantly Nietzsche develops a theory of the self which in many ways represents a determinate negation of the ‘metaphysical’ subject knowing . Nietzsche's alternative concept is of a self whose origins are many and varied, a self which cannot easily be dissociated from the physiological functions of the organic being of human existence, yet which simul­ taneously cannot simply be reduced to those functions of the organism. Because of its complex nature, the self cannot be interpreted as a simple unity, or indeed as a

i

': 'î

64 ^

I

simple relation of cognitive functions. It should be seen instead as a multiplicity, S

one which lacks any a priori order or regularity, a rethinking of the self which natu- 'I

rally reminds us of the proximity of Nietzsche’s work in this respect to feminist cri- 4

tiques of the (decidedly male) metaphysical subject.

Thirdly I argued that although the self is not an a priori unity, it must never­ theless strive to attain an aesthetic unity, no matter how provisional that unity, in order to act on and control the environment. In his more general critique of meta­ physics Nietzsche claims that although the fabrications of human interpretation bear

a metaphoric relation to reality, they are nonetheless necessary fictions, so as to J

make life possible. Will to power which motivates the interpretative process ensures that the ‘healthy’ individual never ceases his drive to produce ever more complete, more comprehensive interpretations of the world, no matter how elusive the ideal of an ‘objective’ knowledge may be. By bringing this model to bear on the

problem of the authentic mode of existence Nietzsche is arguing that the authentic S

lifestyle cannot derive its inspiration from the commands of Christian morality, which depends on a specific idea of subjecthood already revealed as being the pure

negation of life itself. Instead, authentic existence, ‘becoming who you are’ %

consists in an application of the interpretation to oneself as interpreting being in the ^

world, according the sensuous, physiological aspects of the self their due place, yet at the same time avoiding decay into an egalitarian democracy of the affects. It is a

style of being which combines an exuberant affirmation of the vital forces of life I

with a severe discipline of the passions, in order to forge them into a weapon to f

maximise one's potential for action. Yet the impossibility of Absolute Knowledge j

means that this process of self-interpretation, self-expansion can never be #

exhausted: the Übermensch is the individual who is always engaged in the activity i

of self-overcoming, and never one that represents a utopian e n d - p o i nt . ^ 8 Despite

his obvious Hegelian leanings, and his critique of Modernity's lack of determinate negativity is another example, Nietzsche's Übemiensch never reaches the Absolute.

There is always the possibility of more, never a moment of rest and stasis. 4;

I

1

Notes;

‘.j

^ Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity , trans. F. Lawrence (Oxford: 2

Polity Press, 1987), p. 160.

^ Andrew Bowie, Aesthetics and Subjectivity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990) :!

3 Op. cit. ‘On the Prejudices of the Philosophers’ § 20 KSA 5 pp. 34-5. ■

^ Having said that, Nietzsche nevertheless does maintain that the ‘perspective’ of some languages f

and vocabularies might be preferable to that of others. Tracy Strong notes, ‘It is, however, en- 4

65

unemployed series of interrelated concepts picturing the world anew . . . Nietzsche had dreams of removing from the language those qualities he saw to be the message and herald of nihilism.’ See Strong, op. cit., p. 57. See, too, note 7 below.

^ Jacques Derrida, Margins o f Philosophy , trans. A. Bass, (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1982), p. 16. 6 Ibid.

7 J. Derrida ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences’ in Writing and

Difference , trans. A. Bass (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978) p. 280-1. In drawing a contrast between Nietzsche and Derrida on the possibility of critiquing metaphysics I am working against the interpretation of Nehemas, who maintains linguistic reform is not on the agenda in Nietzsche's critical thinking. Michel Haar, though obviously influenced by the thought of Derrida reads Nietzsche otherwise, maintaining that Nietzsche deliberately plays with the meaning of meta­ physical concepts in order to bring out the ambiguities of meaning, with precisely the goal of undercutting the language of metaphysics. See ‘Nietzsche and Metaphysical Language’ in D.

Allison (ed.), The New Nietzsche (New York: Delta Books, 1977). One might go further and

suggest, as Strong has done, that Nietzsche coins his own set of counter-metaphysical concepts, imbued though they are with a certain irony and distance.

8 As Nicholas Davey has pointed out, there is remarkable similarity between Nietzsche and Hume on this particular issue. One should not be misled by this similarity into conflating their positions, however, for as I have demonstrated in the first chapter, Nietzsche’s scepticism has a very different origin from that of the earlier thinker. See Davey, ‘Nietzsche and Hume on Self and

Identity’, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 18 (1987).

9 M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge , trans. A. Sheridan Smith (London: Tavistock

Publications, 1974) pp. 47-8.

l^What is an Author ?’ in J. Harari (ed.), Textual Strategies (London: Methuen, 1979) p. 159.

^^‘The Turn towards Subjectivity: Michel Foucault's Legacy’, Journal of the British Society for