Date: Tue, 28 Feb 95 17:05:50 GMT
From: I.P.Wright-AT-computer-science.birmingham.ac.uk
Subject: Re: _verwindung_ and Gianni Vattimo


James Elson wrote

> I find this troubling [talk of different kinds of legitimate
> explanations in different sciences] since
> it suggests a priviledging of the "natural" sciences
> and a concomitant marginalization of
> the "humanities".  To say the least, I am not a fan of the
> "two cultures" mythos.  There are of course differences, but
> not of kind.

I wouldn't want to suggest a `downgrading' of the humanities
with regard to hard science. I was rather thinking that the
usual naive criteria for what constitutes legitimate science
(Popper-Hempel) cannot apply to the humanities (and, indeed,
on reflection doesn't apply to the hard sciences either).
So I agree with what you say, although we're travelling
a long way from Nietzsche and the Nietzsche list.

> If you wish, let's start another thread which addresses
> the question of 'science' after Nietzsche.

I'd be interested in that, but I don't think we should clog
the Nietzsche list with it.

> _Verwindend_, a Heideggerian term, is related to _uberwindend_,
> overcoming.  "Overcoming" is central to the project of modernity
> which "progressively" "overcomes" the "errors" of the past, thereby
> getting closer and closer to apprehending the "Truth".  It seems
> that a number of postmodern thinkers fail to fully appreciate this
> when they criticize others for being "metaphysical" since this
> implies that the "errors" of metaphysics can be "overcome"/left behind.
> However, any such attempt at "overcoming" can only resusitate
> modernity in a "new" form.  (I'll pause here, and continue in
> my response to your question about Vattimo.)

The whole issue pivots around the notion of the possibility of
progress and of obtaining more causally efficacious knowledge
(better `truths') about the natural and social world through
human work. This -- for very good reasons -- is a central
problematic of our time. The original modernist belief in this
possibility has been, largely, lost.

I often think that the generic postmodernism is the grimacing
and posturing of the atheists who still wish for transcendental
sources of value (be it God, Objective Truth, History or
a moral obligation to the working class), know it to be an
unsatisfiable wish, yet cannot ground their action within
the world through a conscious egoism of the Nietzschean/Stirnerian
kind. I know I'm being provocative here, and, to a certain
extent, caricaturing postmodernism, but I can't help having
my fun.

The point you make is a very good and important one. How is
it resolved? -- My feeling is that modernism remains. History
doesn't end.

> > I wouldn't restrict it to Western culture, but view it
> > [the ascetic ideal] as a tendency of beings who
> > have developed high level
> > reasoning capabilities that invoke a seperation between
> > the `body' and `cognition'. For instance, eastern
> > religious traditions are saturated with ascetism and
> > idealism.
>
> Well, I wasn't sure enough of my facts to speak of other
> traditions.  However, I strongly suspect you're correct.
> This suggests an interesting question: is this split
> indicative of a stage of human development?

There are very complex issues here, including empirical ones.
Seperating the `body' from `cognition' is somewhat artificial,
and is only useful as a first approximation in characterising
the kind of organisms we are. It seems unproblematic to state
that our higher level reasoning abilities are of a different
kind to -- say -- the phylogenetically old pleasure/pain
mechanisms that also can determine our behaviour. I'm trying
to recall the concepts Nietzsche employs in talking of
such things, but I cannot recall and do not have the texts
in front of me, which is very remiss.

The prevelance of the ascetic ideal would indeed be a stage
of human development. As we can't `wait around' until our
biological design changes through evolution, the ascetic
ideal will need to be overcome by human culture,
i.e. training, `breeding' (which I think Nietzsche nearly
always considers as the inheritance of acquired characteristics)
and scientific-philosophical work (both thought and practical
activity). A good theory of the individual, including a
theory of the ascetic individual, would be a way of overcoming
the ascetic ideal by understanding how it arises. Isn't
this what Nietzsche first made steps towards?

> I picked that up from Vattimo, who says that _one_ interpretation,
> but certainly not _the_ or _only_ one is that the eternal return
> can be seen as the perpetual appearance of "new and improved"
> ideas/notions/concepts/commodities.  The point being that despite
> "appearances"/conventions nothing has "substantial" has changed.

Yes. What remains the same, what eternally returns? -- Our
biological substrate -- the desiring body, the source of affect
and joy. Socialisation/culture/breeding/training can pour new
`instincts' (higher needs) into this substrate, which Nietzsche
tries to evaluate using some notion of `healthiness'. Getting
the `best' out of the human potential motivates
Nietzsche's interest in breeding and the effects of culture.

With regard to the spectacle of commodities that promise
the satisfaction of desires but deliver nothing of the kind,
do you here mean that although there are `new and improved'
things to consume, the basic premise of society -- the
capitalist organisation of production and the limits on
individuality it imposes -- remains the same, i.e. nothing
really has changed, and novelty, or the pretense of novelty,
is a commodity like everything else. Is this what you
are implying? Perhaps you could elaborate.

> I consider this interpretation of the E.R. as a surface one only.
> I do not profess to fully understand E.R. yet.  I haven't found
> an interpretation that unhinges/shakes/threathens my 'reality'.
> Perhaps, I'm expecting too much, but this notion seems to have
> been very profound to N..  Until I experience an epiphany of an
> intensity similar to N's, I'll continue to contend that I don't
> quite get it.

Me too. Which is why I think of the eternal return as _any_
`scientific' (this needs unpacking but I'll leave it for the
moment because I am unsure) thought that produces the required
epiphany. What is the thought that links cognition to the body
in such a way that affective feelings of pleasure are released
_en masse_ to reveal that `joy' wants `eternity' (the body wishes
to exercise its casual powers/will to power to the upmost), i.e. the
return of more and more life and living? That thought Nietzsche
calls the eternal return. And I think this is certainly an
aspect of the correct (i.e., what Nietzsche meant by it)
interpretation of the eternal return.

> > I don't view Nietzsche as a postmodern thinker because many of
> > his most important ideas are alien to a generic postmodernism.
>
> That is why I spoke of post-modernity as an era/age/epoch.  Most
> post-modernisms have not advanced beyond stage 5 which I see
> as basically therapeutic.  The main focus appears to be placed
> on weening ourselves away from the comforts/guarentees offered
> by metaphysical/foundational thought/belief.  The rarely addressed
> question concerns how we as thinkers should proceed once we have
> lost our nostalgia for metaphysics.  This is stage 6 where the
> "apparent" world has been abolished along with the "real".  It is
> only at this stage that post-modern thought begins to bear fruit.
> Given the degree to which metaphysics/foundationalism permeates
> our culture, it is not surprising that it has taken a 100 years
> for a sizable number of thinkers to reach this stage although
> we are greater outnumbered by stage 5 thinkers.

I am undecided at the moment between discovering a new `ground',
i.e. a replacement of metaphysics, in the indexical knowledge
I have of my own consciousness (some kind of embedded solipsism),
which I think, ultimately, was Nietzsche's position; or
understand the knowledge science provides on a new footing,
i.e. all its knowledge is revisable but it makes sense to talk
of truths about an external world; or some combination of the
two. As I am not widely read in postmodernism I wonder how
these views might fit in to the general scheme of things. Or
perhaps I am totally missing the point and am also at stage 5.
I hope not.

Of course, you're right to point out that the search for
a foundation reveals the ascetic ideal (once again). You
don't need an intellectual theory to act in the world. You
_have_ to act in the world, the body will not have it
otherwise, no matter what intellectual pathologies of
cognition may exist. Nihilism is a symptom of the ascetic.

> As I mentioned previously, _uberwindung_ is "overcoming".  As V.
> points out we cannot simply "overcome"/leave behind metaphysics
> since this would entail that found a "truth" free of the "errors"
> of modernity.  With what are we to replace metaphysics? How is it
> even possible to "overcome" the metaphysics intrinsic to grammar?
> Like Vattimo, I submit that we cannot.  However, I don't find
> a move which simply resusitates metaphysics tenable.

Have you considered the possibility of a new philosophy _for_
science? -- Or is that out of the bounds of good taste?

> Even though we can't "overcome" it, there is another possibility:
> _verwindung_ which conotates a distortion, a resignation, a
> convalescence from a injury/chronic dis-ease which leaves permanent
> traces in/on us.  It indicates a perspective towards modernity and
> metaphysics that "is neither an acceptance of its errors nor a
> critique that tries to overcome them but merely ends up by prolonging
> them instead." (171)   Thus, to speak of 'truth' or 'objectivity'
> is to speak of metaphysical notions in a distorted/convalescence
> sense since we are aware that 'truth' is only a necessary 'error'
> for a particular set/superset of forms of life.

This sounds like giving up to me, and has a forlorn ring to it
reminiscent of the nihilist. `Truth as a necessary error' is,
I think, a sentiment Nietzsche rejcted or de-emphasised in later
work. Error _compared to what_? If it is knowledge for beings
such as us, is causally efficacious, increases our power in
the world, then it _is_ true. And there is no need to search
further.

_verwindung_ doesn't inspire me much. But perhaps you would
like to expand.

> Vattimo connects this with N.'s "philosophy of morning" and
> "accomplished nihilism".  Unlike reactive ones who yearn for
> guarentees/comfort and attempt to solidify the groundless upon
> they stand by valorizing other "truer"values, e.g., other cultures,
> alternative cannons, or even language itself, which thereby take
> the metaphysical grandeur of the _ontos on_, accomplished nihilists
> cheerfully accept the futility of such nostalgic moves.  Nothing
> remains of "Being as such", the highest of all values have been
> devalued, and the dragon "Thou Shalt" has perished: crushed by the
> weight of its scales.  The accomplished nihilist only longer
> sees this as a horror to be "overcome", but as her/his sole
> opportunity for freedom.  This cheerful acceptance is the first
> dance step across that rope toward the _Ubermenschen_.

This sounds much better, and more alike to the underlying passion
and sentiment of a Nietzsche. Life as play and a playground
for _Ubermenschen_. This is indeed beginning to sound like
Nietzsche's philosophy of the future, which, it must be borne
in mind, was a serious research project that Nietzsche hoped
philosophers would engage in. The building of _Ubermenschen_
through the creation of societies that could train them to
be such. (I should back this up from Zarathustra, but it's
not with me).

> Clearly, a great deal of work needs to be done.  However, I find
> the perspective that Vattimo offers to be a promising basis from
> which to work towards a "philosophy of the future."  (I recognize
> that this post is not as cogent as it could be.  I'm currently
> working on an essay which deals with these central issues.  Any
> questions/objections/criticisms/suggestions are welcomed.)

I would like to read your essay if that is possible.

-E.


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