File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_1995/nietzsche_Oct.95, message 22


Date: Mon, 2 Oct 1995 16:04:37 -0700
From: nologos-AT-primenet.com (Sam Vagenas)
Subject: Re: Interpretation vs. Life


Nathan writes:

>As for whether Foucault's disciplines/ethics, Derrida's speech/writing,
>Heidegger's Being/being, etc., are "binary distinctions which by way of 
>negative theology can be taken as foundations" -- I'm not sure I agree with
>this, although I'd like to know more about why you think this in the first
>place.  Derrida's arche-writing or differerAnce, for example, precisely
>functions as a hinge to deconstruct the speech/writing and identity/difference
>distinctions.  It is neither a combination of those two terms in the
>binary (dialectical or otherwise) nor is it subsumable into either one of them.
>And it is in no way a foundation because differAnce paradoxically cannot be
>'called into being' prior to what it is supposed to 'ground'.

Whatever Nietzsche means by "life-affirmation," we cannot deny that lurking
behind this notion is the backdrop of slave morality.   Whatever the elusive
(positive) correlates of Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida mean, they are in
tension with a negative horizon:  Heidegger's attacks on the refication of
Being and metaphysics, Derrida's assaults on phonocentrism and logocentrism,
and Foucault's endless diatribe against disciplinary technologies and
biopower evince a negative theology of a sort.  An exteriority is sought in
response to a sense of degradation. 

All of these thinkers (as post-whatever)  are trying to walk a critical
tight rope, but on both sides of that rope there is metaphorically  a
similar tension as between Nietzsche's interpretation and life.  A tension I
view as heathy and ultimately inescapable, unless of course we are to say
nothing.   It has been said that many philosophical authors such as
Dostoevsky, Hesse, Mann, and Camus prefer fiction to systematic philosophy
because they as authors are a conflict of interpretations.  Only through the
heterogeneity gained through different characters can the authors depict the
play of forces which is in their soul.  You know the saying:  "You have to
have a little chaos in your heart to give birth to a dancing star."







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