File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_1995/nietzsche_Jun.95, message 4


Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 18:32:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Jacobs <djacobs-AT-cecasun.utc.edu>
Subject: Re: Overcoming and Gianni Vattimo


I am not sure if we can say that both Nietzsche and Heidegger have 
foundations in any traditional sense (i.e., an a-temporal foundation that 
transcends the historical).  Why I think this is that both thinkers, in 
different ways, maintain their transitional place in the history of 
thought -- that is, they attempt to remain historical and are more within 
a foundation than giving one.  In section 42 of BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, N. 
writes that a new species of philosophers is coming up (the free 
spirits), and though he does call himself this now and then, it seems 
here that he is a bridge to them in some way.

For Heidegger, in "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking," his 
place remains preparatory; he writes, "the thinking in question remains 
unassumming, because its task is only preparatory, not a founding character. [...] Thinking must 
first learn what remains reserved and in store for it, what it is to get 
involved in. It prepares its own transformation in this learning" (BASIC 
WRITINGS, 2nd ed., p. 436).  I think both can seen as thinking that their 
work is a transformation, not building a new foundation.  Is this an 
implicit foundation?  Maybe, but both do not attempt in the least to have 
their foundations taken as the eternal truths; both allow others to 
surpass their own thinking.  In fact, it seems that both want that to occur.

I cannot respond directly to Vattimo's ideas; what are your thoughts?

David Jacobs


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