Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 14:34:23 -0800
From: "Evan A. Leeson" <evan-AT-xfind.com>
Subject: Re: Smirking at Nihilism


One argument would be that the eternal return is an embracing of nihilism
in order to overcome it and get past it. This brings metaphysics to an end
as well. So, rather than struggling with the metaphysicians on their own
grounds, constantly having to come up with some replacement for their
"explanations", one reaches a point where no explanation is required since
the question is devalued. Thus nihilism is erased at the source.

evan

At 04:18 PM 3/19/98 EST, you wrote:
>ddd smirks at Paul S. Rhodes who would "like to think" that Nietzsche's
>madness was just devine retribution for N's "nihilism."  [Do I have that
about
>right, Paul?]  I thought I'd take this opportunity to open a big can of
worms.
>Now mind you, I ain't no expert, but I have read a lot of Nietzsche's books
>and I've read a lot of books about Nietzsche.  I've never seen where
Nietzsche
>says anything that would brand him as a Nihilist; to the contrary, I've only
>seen where he castigates the "metaphysicians" and religions (especially
>Christianity as embodied by "The Church") for their nihilism, by which they
>deny life and stigmatize it with "sin" in favor of death or else some
>pipedream about what is supposed to replace this world after its destruction.
>But I see everywhere people burning "Nihilist" into Nietzsche's presumptively
>damned flesh.  Would someone please explain to me how it is that Nietzsche
>(who, as I said, I've only seen anti-nihilistic statements from) gets turned
>into a "Nihilist" by the advocates of the metaphysicians and religions who
>themselves have a long way to go to absolve themselves of that taint (at
least
>insofar as I may be a Judge)?
>
>And as far as speculating about Nietzsche's madness goes, I am sort of
fond of
>the notion (I think first stated by his friend Overbeck) that his madness
>seemed feigned.  Didn't Nietzsche somewhere predict that he would come to a
>place in his experiments in thought where everything after would be silence?
>Anyway, I would like to recommend, to everyone who has not already discovered
>it, David Farell Krell's "novel" about Nietsche's last ten years of madness.
>It is called simply NIETZSCHE and I think it's published by SUNY Press.
>
>Friedrick Haines
>
>> [ddd smirks at you.] 
>>  
>>  Paul S. Rhodes wrote: 
>>  
>>  
>>  >Well, I'd like to think that his nihilism drove him mad, but that's just
>>  >little old benightedly Catholic me.
>>  
>>  ******************************************************
>>  D. Diane Davis                  
>>  Department of Rhetoric          
>>  University of Iowa
>>  Iowa City, IA 52242-1486              
>>  (319) 335-0184
>>  d3davis-AT-earthlink.net or d-davis-AT-uiowa.edu    
>>  http://www.uiowa.edu/~ddrhet/
>>  ******************************************************
>>  
>
>
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