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[Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, section 21]
Towards a Dionysiac Philosophy
Distinction between:
a) The Primal Dionysian, and
b) The Greek Dionysian
Distinction between:
a) The Primal Dionysian, and
b) The Greek Dionysian
The Primal Dionysian is a fleeting-empty-fullness. It is, of course, bereft of emotions - such as joy - just as it is bereft of all things human.
The Greek Dionysian is just one form of its manifestation.
It is only once the formless substratum of the Primal Dionysian is given - in this instance, Apollonian - form, that any joy can be found in it. Such is the Greek Dionysian and its joy in destruction - only made possible by Apollonian form.
Likewise the Homeric laughter which is golden and is, as Nietzsche says, Apollonian.
There can be no 'golden mean' in the Primal Dionysian as it does not allow the separation and differentiation necessary to posit 'means'.
Nor can there be any 'selves'.
It cannot be male or female.
It cannot even be androgynous.
It cannot be sexed ... 'unsex me now!'
It is bereft of all figures, be they Titans, New Gods, demi-gods or Heroes.
There are no personae or masks, whether they be Dionysus, Prometheus, Oedipus etc.,
In other words, the primal Dionysian cannot form a Dionysus singular.
The Primal Dionysian contains the potentiality for this, but it can only be unleashed [in all its fearful frenzy] by the form-giving Apollonian.
Primal Becoming does not 'die out' as it is timeless and spaceless ... formless.
It is will of power and symbolised by the Dionysian as potentia, not as singual god with followers.
Parasitically the Apolloninan form-building impulse draws upon this primal becoming.
The Apollonian is synonymous with time and space - i.e. it makes its appearance on a stage and a play of its own making, creating forms using the raw material of the Dionysian.
The forms which are closest to the primal becoming are the most durable in perspectival terms.
The forms created by a further synthesis of forms are destined to short lives.
But this world of form is but a lightning flash.
Amongst the all-pervading darkness of formless becoming, we who are briefly illumined by the flicker of form are its gods ... and worms.
To say that emptiness = form [or that formlessness has form, somehow] is really to say that all is form:
This is the Apolline manifesto.
It is to say that all you think of as formless is really form; - all that you think of as nonexistence is really existence, etc., etc.,
By this token then, Nietzsche was 'wrong' to posit the philosophical opposition in BT of Dionysos [formlessness] and Apollo [form] because - according to the above logic - formlessness is form, and such oppositions are not therefore, real oppositions.
But note that the logic which suggests the impossibility of true opposites tends to favour form, or substance, or existence etc. It maintains the supremacy of the Positive, of the Plenum, even when it says that the formless is the same as form [emptiness = form].
In other words, this logic is Apollonian.
Why?
Is it because the terms for emptiness, nonexistence etc., are all linguistic negations and therefore give us nothing to chew on conceptually?
The empty, then, cannot be named positively; if the formless - to be truly formless - cannot be given form it therefore cannot be said [saying is a form-giving] even in negation.
Language does not accept positive emptiness.
It can merely prefix a minus sign, a crossing out, which reveals its intention as an ever-full palimpsest. [The seeming exceptions, such as 'empty' itself and 'vacuum' are actually metaphorical terms alluding to leisure etc.,]
Therefore, the Dionysian in its purest philosophical essence [as emptiness] cannot be said.
It is the fire that doesn't need air to burn.
Unsayable but not impossible.
It follows of course that - as joy and grief are emotions - the formless knows no emotions.
It cannot be moved; it is uneventful.
To say otherwise is just to say once more that - as far as language (saying) is concerned - movements/events are ubiquitous.
It is to deny the non eventful-nothingness simply because the latter cannot be said.
Likewise, "middle/edge" etc., are just features of form; they do not touch the formless which naturally has no middle or edge.
While the Dionysian can destroy boundaries, it must be thought of in itself as that which has no boundaries.
If this cannot be thought or said, that is rather due to the limitations of thought and language.
It does not mean that there is no pure, irrevocable and untouchable emptiness.
Searching for a Dionysian manifesto
The Dionysian might be the potter's wheel forever turning, but there is not enough clay to enpot the total emptiness that is the Dionysian.
Nor is there a potter with hands big enough to grasp the formless totality.
The Apollonine potter only snatches some wisps of emptiness here and there.
Enjoying the game, then the Dionysian takes the pot, fills it with wine, drinks it to the lees, before smashing it to smithereens with a loud burp.
Where is your emptiness then, O potter?
And is the broken shards of clay being swept away into the gutter your human beings?
My soul,
its tongue insatiable,
has licked at every good and evil thing,
dived down into every depth'
[Nietzsche, Dionysos Dithyrambs]
its tongue insatiable,
has licked at every good and evil thing,
dived down into every depth'
[Nietzsche, Dionysos Dithyrambs]
General distinctions between the Dionysian and the Apollonian
The Dionysian knows no 'past' - time is Apollonian.
The Dionysian is therefore timeless.
The concept of spatial worlds is likewise Apollonian.
The Dionysian is bereft of space and time and always seeks to destroy
such bindings in its struggles with the Apollonian.
The destruction of space and time will not throw up frag-ments of
dis-placed space/time as the latter are fig-ments - "a straight
plantation" - of the Apollonian illusion.
The Dionysian is pure Becoming; it does not stay, it hurt-les and it is
hurt-less [innocent].
The Hurtlessness of Becoming is the uncorrupted Dionysian rush.
The Apollonian rupture is a binding of space/time, and introduces the
Wound of Being.
The Apollonian wounds so that it may increase its own strength.
He drinks so as to dull the pain of the wound of Being.
If one has to 'get drunk' - has to induce drunkenness by intoxication -
then one is at least a step away from the Dionysian.
The Dionysian's natural state is drunkenness itself.
Getting sober is the unnatural step taken by the Apolline.
After that, a getting drunk is an attempt to return to the primal
Dionysian nature - but such a one is always wrenched back to the
illusory dream of sobriety.
The Dionysian is therefore timeless.
The concept of spatial worlds is likewise Apollonian.
The Dionysian is bereft of space and time and always seeks to destroy
such bindings in its struggles with the Apollonian.
The destruction of space and time will not throw up frag-ments of
dis-placed space/time as the latter are fig-ments - "a straight
plantation" - of the Apollonian illusion.
The Dionysian is pure Becoming; it does not stay, it hurt-les and it is
hurt-less [innocent].
The Hurtlessness of Becoming is the uncorrupted Dionysian rush.
The Apollonian rupture is a binding of space/time, and introduces the
Wound of Being.
The Apollonian wounds so that it may increase its own strength.
He drinks so as to dull the pain of the wound of Being.
If one has to 'get drunk' - has to induce drunkenness by intoxication -
then one is at least a step away from the Dionysian.
The Dionysian's natural state is drunkenness itself.
Getting sober is the unnatural step taken by the Apolline.
After that, a getting drunk is an attempt to return to the primal
Dionysian nature - but such a one is always wrenched back to the
illusory dream of sobriety.
The temple of no sex.
The mechanics of music are Socratic, as we have known since the
Pythagoreans.
It is the rush behind music that is Dionysian, not the music itself.
Dionysian music is the background noise of the universe.
Dualities
Can life be explained in terms of dualisms or dualities?
If so, does this apply only to humans and similar life forms, or does it apply to all of existence?
For example, myths often posit dualistic beginnings, such as the Norse Fire & Ice.
As philosophers then, shouldn't we reject this 'all-too-human' tendency to think in dualities?
After all, don't we want to think beyond the human?
The question then becomes; - 'can we think outside of dualities of opposites'?
Will our intellectual apparatus allow it?
Or is all this a self-fulfilling prophecy?
What are the alternatives to dualities, polarities etc.,?
Singularities?
What is this "singular substance"? Of what does it consist and what can be said about it as such?
If it is merely that which exists, consists or subsists, then it has zero explanatory power, it being just another word for 'everything'.
The word 'sub-stance' implies something which 'stands below'; - what is this 'something', and is there a duality implied between this mysterious substance and the things that we perceive in the world via our sense perceptions?
Or is it the case that everything in the world is a refraction of this 'substance', in the way of the Ionians' use of the term arche?
But even here the Milesians were bold enough to say what this arche actually was [be it water, air or the apeiron].
Or is this monistic in fact a monotheism under another guise?
To say that there "must" be a "common" "quality" to all things? - Why must there be?
On who's 'say-so' is this imperative?
Do we have here yet another wanting rather than a finding?
Or is this monistic in fact a monotheism under another guise?
To say that there "must" be a "common" "quality" to all things? - Why must there be?
On who's 'say-so' is this imperative?
Do we have here yet another wanting rather than a finding?
Will
Schopenhauer's 'Will' should be be seen as differing from Nietzsche's 'will to power' [or 'will of power'] as Nietzsche explicitly criticised Schopenhauer's Will as a monism [see BGE for example].
Furthermore Nietzsche deconstructs the notion of will in the notebooks gathered by his editors as 'The Will to Power'.
And anyhow, is the 'will' a substance even in Schopenhauer?
If we view things as being forever in flux [a la Heraclitus] - and this seems to be Nietzsche's mature view - then there can be no 'substance' [and the word is very inappropriate as nothing 'stands', whether below or above].
Here 'power' is but the incomprehensible multiplicity of fluxions.
A constant evolution/devolution in every possible direction - a continual conflict.
I'm not saying that the world 'must' be this way.
I am only saying that it seems to have a greater explanatory power than the view of there having to be a single substance, a single essence - a 'God' [with or without a 'personality'].
Surely the use of a dualism, such as an antinomy, has more explanatory power - no matter how limited - as life seems to be predicated on forms of conflict and struggle.
We tend, on the contrary, to need the psychological illusions of stability and permanence.
This is at the root of the tendency for human cultures and individuals to gravitate towards monuments of permanence, and - particularly at moments of grief - to desire eternal life.
The impossibility [but the need] of being able to comprehend any kind of permanent totality, and to experience any real unchanging Being, suggests that the desire for such is wishful thinking.
Nietzsche certainly approved of a dualistic 'moral' system based on good and bad [master morality], while rejecting the moral system based on good and evil [slave morality].
However, he also claimed that there was a pre-moral period in human evolution, and envisaged a supra-moral era likewise.
Is morality [of whatever stripe] necessarily based on the self/other duality?
Is a morality of solipsism possible?
I suppose the thought of morality always sets up a duality of some kind; - the solipsist has a 'conscience', implying a dualism within himself and so on ad infinitum.
Nietzsche's rejection of morality was a rejection of good/evil (slave) morality, not a rejection of good/bad (master) morality.
Of course, the advocates of the former regard the latter as 'amoral'.
It is upon this irony that Nietzsche plays.
Schopenhauer's 'Will' should be be seen as differing from Nietzsche's 'will to power' [or 'will of power'] as Nietzsche explicitly criticised Schopenhauer's Will as a monism [see BGE for example].
Furthermore Nietzsche deconstructs the notion of will in the notebooks gathered by his editors as 'The Will to Power'.
And anyhow, is the 'will' a substance even in Schopenhauer?
If we view things as being forever in flux [a la Heraclitus] - and this seems to be Nietzsche's mature view - then there can be no 'substance' [and the word is very inappropriate as nothing 'stands', whether below or above].
Here 'power' is but the incomprehensible multiplicity of fluxions.
A constant evolution/devolution in every possible direction - a continual conflict.
I'm not saying that the world 'must' be this way.
I am only saying that it seems to have a greater explanatory power than the view of there having to be a single substance, a single essence - a 'God' [with or without a 'personality'].
Surely the use of a dualism, such as an antinomy, has more explanatory power - no matter how limited - as life seems to be predicated on forms of conflict and struggle.
We tend, on the contrary, to need the psychological illusions of stability and permanence.
This is at the root of the tendency for human cultures and individuals to gravitate towards monuments of permanence, and - particularly at moments of grief - to desire eternal life.
The impossibility [but the need] of being able to comprehend any kind of permanent totality, and to experience any real unchanging Being, suggests that the desire for such is wishful thinking.
Nietzsche certainly approved of a dualistic 'moral' system based on good and bad [master morality], while rejecting the moral system based on good and evil [slave morality].
However, he also claimed that there was a pre-moral period in human evolution, and envisaged a supra-moral era likewise.
Is morality [of whatever stripe] necessarily based on the self/other duality?
Is a morality of solipsism possible?
I suppose the thought of morality always sets up a duality of some kind; - the solipsist has a 'conscience', implying a dualism within himself and so on ad infinitum.
Nietzsche's rejection of morality was a rejection of good/evil (slave) morality, not a rejection of good/bad (master) morality.
Of course, the advocates of the former regard the latter as 'amoral'.
It is upon this irony that Nietzsche plays.
Apollo
Dionysos
Apollo, Dionysos & the Birth of Tragedy
These "twin art deities" [BT1] have a profound significance for Nietzsche which goes beyond their significance in art [although for Nietzsche, in BT 5, art is actually of supreme significance as it 'justifies' life].
What does the duality Apollonian/Dionysian [or Apolline/Dionysiac] mean?
Apollo and Dionysos are both male.
Doesn't Nietzsche's suggestion that the two 'copulate' in the tragic synthesis imply a homosexual undercurrent, or at least a pervasive androgyny?
The Dionysian does not set any 'thin lines' or boundaries - only the Apollonian does that [upon the roiling Dionysian].
In BT 1, Nietzsche writes:
"But the image of Apollo must incorporate that thin line which the dream image may not cross, under penalty of becoming pathological, of imposing itself on us as crass reality: a discreet limitation, a freedom from all extravagant urges, the sapient tranquillity of the plastic god. His eye must be sunlike, in keeping with his origin. Even at those moments when he is angry and ill-tempered there lies upon him the consecration of fair illusion."
Nietzsche here is talking about the Apollonian over-stepping its own bounds.
An example of this is that of taking our dreams to be reality even when we are awake.
This is pathological.
To Nietzsche we must always remember that the Apollonian [and its boundaries] is illusory.
Only the Dionysian is real.
This reality has no bounds - it is undifferentiated, chaotic and terrifying.
As Nietzsche writes further on:
"in order that the Apollonian tendency ... might not congeal the form to Egyptian rigidity ... the hightide of the Dionysian tendency destroyed from time to time all those little circles in which the one-sided Apollonian 'will' sought to confine the Hellenic world".
[BT 9 - Fadiman translation p. 33]
- It is the "Apollonian tendency" that creates such 'absolutes'.
In BT Nietzsche always envisages the Apolline and the Dionysiac as working together - either in conflict or in copulation.
He does not reject the Apollonian - indeed, he rather rejects the pure Dionysian [the barabaric Dionysian] and the Socratic [another example of Apollonian boundary-overstepping].
Nietzsche notes that in tragedy the Apollonian speaks like the Dionysian and the Dionysiac speaks like the Apolline.. If the Apollonian and Dionysian are to be understood as poles of the "same thing", then it might be well to think of the Apollonian as the 'will to power', and the Dionysian as the 'will of power' - a shift in perspectives. The problem here is that the Dionysian, properly speaking, does not have a single perspective as it has no seeing [-spective].
The Apolline is focused, image-making, perspectival and rank-ordering, while the Dionysiac is formless, blind, multivarious and undifferentiated.
But oppositions are important as life is warfare - one should always be seeking one's antipodes - so this is where the 'usefulness' of the duality lies.
Nietzsche makes it clear in BT that the Apollonian - and the Apollonian alone - is that which sets boundaries [and it is the Dionysian that breaks them].
When the Apollonian oversteps its own bounds it results in the aforesaid "congealment" of "Egyptian rigidity"; - this is the result of an excessive binding that only the Apollonian can achieve.
It moves from usefully giving the Dionysian form to creating a sterile limitation that has to be smashed by a resurgement of the Dionysian.
The Apollonian cannot smash its own bounds: only the Dionysian can do this.
The Apollonian and Dionysian must be seen - in the most basic sense - as two philosophical polarities.
Dreams and visions are only created by the Apollonian. In other words the Dionysian reality [the undifferentiated, chaotic cacophany] is only brought to knowledge by the intervention of the Apollonian which gives form [i.e., perceptibility] to it in dreams, visions, and art.
It must be remembered that Nietzsche says that at the very basic level, the Apollonian 'dream' and the Dionysian 'drunkenness' are prior to any human and therefore any conscious or artistic mediation.
The 'dream' [metaphorically speaking] in the first instance is the illusion cast by Nature ['Nature likes to hide'] on herself for herself [whether man exists or no].
The human dream is a very late and 'all-too-human' reflection of that illusion of Nature [the 'woman' Truth]; and the poet uses the dream as raw material for poetry.
The ultimate Apollonian expression of this dream is classic sculpture with its hard lines and boundaries.
When the Apollonian over-steps these boundaries it becomes like Medusa, petrifying everything Becoming into marmoreal Being.
Then the Dionysian hero comes once more upon the stage, and the tragedy beginneth again and again.
As I said - only the Dionysian can destory illusions - only the Dionysian is the repository of the reality of the will of power.
The ego is the result of the principle of individuation [which is the sole role of the Apollonian].
The Dionysian has nothing to do with any kind of individualism or ego [despite N. O. Brown's contention that a 'Dionysian ego' needs to be created].
The Dionysian is pure chaotic collectivity.
That's what Nature is too.
Ditto the will of power.
Let us keep some Distance between these two deities of the Hellenes!
Lament for my cock
Sore and crucified
I seek to know you
Aquiring soulful wisdom
You can open walls of mystery
Stripshow
How to aquire death in the morning show
TV death which the child absorbs
Deathwell mystery which makes me write
Slow train, the death of my cock gives life
Forgive the poor old people who gave us entry
Taught us god in the child's prayer in the night
Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode to my cock
Caress it's lament
Stiffen and guide us, we frozen
Lost cells
I sacrifice my cock on the alter of silence.
Sore and crucified
I seek to know you
Aquiring soulful wisdom
You can open walls of mystery
Stripshow
How to aquire death in the morning show
TV death which the child absorbs
Deathwell mystery which makes me write
Slow train, the death of my cock gives life
Forgive the poor old people who gave us entry
Taught us god in the child's prayer in the night
Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode to my cock
Caress it's lament
Stiffen and guide us, we frozen
Lost cells
I sacrifice my cock on the alter of silence.
Jim Morrison
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
"Cruel bindings"
All bounds bind [both words are cognate, of course; ME binden, OE bindan; cf., Goth bindan, Skt bandhati (he) binds].
All bound-aries are intolerable to the Dionysian.
It is a figure of speech in English to say that a line is crossed when an excessive act has been committed, and needn't imply any kind of trans-ition.
BT is not written in a linear fashion, and so all the sections are inter-connected [the theme of life being justified only as aesthetic phenomena* occurs at the start and at the end, for example (and this* means that Dionysos is only justified by Apollo)].
His vision of the Apollonian is consistent throughout the book.
Excessive Apollonianism is an undue preponderance of order [form] from start to finish.
The order of rank can only be Apollonian.
The Dionysian knows no order just as it knows no individualism.
The Dionysian is not, therefore, Aryan either.
Pure Dionysianism is beyond human.
The so-called Primordial One [or will of power] is not a dream or a vision [an illusion]; it is reality [and therefore Dionysian]. It does not have an re-presentation [as it cannot reflect upon itself], nor an image-ination [as it has no images]!
It is the Apollonian which clothes it in image-ination, as it is this illusion [and mirrored reflection [consciousness is a mirror] which brings it to into perceptivity.
Apollo as the sublimation of Dionysos.
Isn't rationality rather the sobering of sex?
Rationality is the sublimation of sex.
Shaman
The shamanic drugs of choice - psychedelics - enhance dream effects,
visionary journies etc., and so is Apollonian.
The Dionysian drug of choice - alcohol - does nothing of the sort. It
rather allows one to embrace the 'blue oblivion' of stupor. It does not
free the vision [although it can free the tongue!]
Duality
The basic duality of Apollo and Dionysos is necessary for the creation of tragic culture, as we know.
However, taking a Hegelian turn, Nietzsche then describes the breakdown of this 'synthesis' as tragic culture declines [or commits "suicide" BT 11]. A new thesis/antithesis is posited: a [degenerating] Dionysianism versus the Socratic [BT 12].
It is this dualism of Socrates/Dionysos that Nietzsche feels explains the [then?] current situation in culture.
There is a [lazy] tendency to conflate the Apollonian/Dionysian duality with that of the Socratic/Dionysiac duality - under the rubric of Apollo/Dionysos.
By this conflation, Apollo becomes the rational-logical deity when he is actually the deity of dreams and illusions.
Not only that, the Dionysos of the Socratic duality is a different beast to the Dionysos of the Apolloninan duality, as he is at least twice removed from the satyr of the barbaric Dionysianism [BT 2].
I propose a thoroughly perspectival reading of BT, from the perspective of a Dionysian poet/dramatist. In this reading one approaches the book as if one were that very poet and then draws conclusions from that assumed perspective.
Music
Nietzsche's position on music in The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music [BT] might be worth studying in relation to this.
The contention [borrowed from Schopenhauer, no doubt] that music expresses the Primal Unity, the One of Existence.
That music expresses the Blind Will that is reality.
That music therefore expresses what Nietzsche calls in BT 'the barbaric Dionysian' in all its terror.
Not only that, but that music - and only music - can give birth to myth [but that can only be done via a 'collaboration' - to use a sweet word - with the Apollonian].
But what is this Dionysian music?
If it can only show itself through the influence the Apollonian, then what would it be like in its purity?
Nietzsche thinks in BT that Wagner's rich harmonies and eloborate melodies approximate the Dionysian, although he would later change his mind on that, perhaps. Anyhow, in BT he draws a comparison between Bach, Beethoven and Wagner in music, although this is more an expression of his then Germanophilia than any kind of real Dionysianism.
We might imagine that Dionysian music is a poly-harmonic drone with every possible tone at once [no counter-point] - a total chaotic cacophony.
No rhythm [for that is Apollonian to Nietzsche].
Completely improvised.
Yes - what we would call today a 'noise'!
Counterpoint is Socratic [even more than Apollonian] due to its need to be worked out in rational, meticulous detail.
Nietzsche & Oblivion:
" ... And now let us take this artistically limited world [i.e. of the Apollonian], based on appearance and moderation; let us imagine how into it there penetrated, in tones ever more bewitching and alluring, the ecstatic sound of the Dionysian festival; let us remember that in these strains all of Nature's excess in joy, sorrow, and knowledge become audible, even in piercing shrieks ..." [BT 4]
And further:
"The individual, with all his restraint and proportion, succumbed to the self-oblivion of the Dionysian state, forgetting the precepts of Apollo. Excess revealed itself as truth..." [ib.]
Self-oblivion is a losing of the ego-self [selfhood being individualism and therefore Apollonian].
The pure Dionysian, as well as lacking selfhood, knows no order of rank either, and cannot therefore be Aryan as an order of rank is necessary for there to be a caste system.
Indeed, Nietzsche even describes the levelling festive revolution which occurs in the Dionysia, where the "slave becomes a free man" [ib., 1]
On the aforementioned distinction between hallucinogenic visionary drugs [shamanic and Apollonian] and oblivioning narcotics [Gk. narke, numbness, torpor, and so Dionysian], I bow to the experience of one who tried them all to excess, Jim Morrison.
Interviewed in April 1970 he said that:
"Three years ago there was a wave of hallucinogenics. I don't think anyone really has the strength to sustain those kicks forever. Then you go into narcotics, of which alcohol is one. Instead of trying to think more, you try to kill thought."
Self-oblivion, once more.
On Metaphysics
It is said that this early Nietzschean position of a metaphysical Primal Dionysian was later superseded by that philosopher, but that suggests the following questions:
Our language [and Nietzsche's language] seems to imply a totality of things [we are talking of metaphysics here, no doubt].
Philosophers have always staked their reputations on providing a language for the totality of things.
From the Presocratics to Schopenhauer [to be conservative in the Nietzschean ambit of our analysis] they have probably been ultimately 'wrong' in their language.
But as the early Nietzsche of the Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks says, that language is revealing when it comes to understanding those philosophers themselves as per-sons.
So what do we understand of the per-sonage of Nietzsche when he uses the language of the totality of things?
Early on, Nietzsche speaks like his mentor, Schopenhauer.
He then ostensibly turns against Schopenhauer [turns against himself?].
Is this a 'turning in the widening gyre' or a mere contrapposto ?
A perning * or a spurning?
But does turning against oneself/one's mentor actually re-pudiate one's self/mentor?
Does "dropping the sub-ject" really cancel out the sub-ject?
Or does it merely sub-limate the sub-ject?
In a cyclic universe do things dropped not bounce back up again?
Or does the re-jected sub-ject actually speak all the more loudly as it is dropped?
Is the mouth made more eloquent than the stopped speech?
So is the metaphysics of the early Nietzsche "dropped" in real terms?
Perhaps it was re-placed with something else - in which case then we might find the aforesaid drop to be effective.
But if it was re-placed, then was the subject itself 'dropped'? - No. It is still spoken of, and placed, but in different terms.
If it was just dropped and not re-placed, did there result in Nietzsche's later philosophy a metaphysical-shaped hole?
Is the metaphysical sub-ject then the curse of all philosophers, Nietzsche [and ourselves] included?
Going back more specifically to Nietzsche's early works; are they just 'early' in terms of chronology, or is there an implication that they are 'im-mature'?
Or is it not rather the case that Nietzsche only said one thing [as Heidegger thinks all philosophers are wont to do] throughout his career [careening], i.e., that he said that 'one thing' in his so-called 'early', 'middle' and 'late' works? Indeed, that he said that 'one thing' in what he didn't write too - in his silences, in his ennui, in his madnesses?
*'Perne' occurs in Yeats, of course, in the phrase 'perne in a gyre', suggesting rapid, circular and cyclical fluxions.
It is said that this early Nietzschean position of a metaphysical Primal Dionysian was later superseded by that philosopher, but that suggests the following questions:
Our language [and Nietzsche's language] seems to imply a totality of things [we are talking of metaphysics here, no doubt].
Philosophers have always staked their reputations on providing a language for the totality of things.
From the Presocratics to Schopenhauer [to be conservative in the Nietzschean ambit of our analysis] they have probably been ultimately 'wrong' in their language.
But as the early Nietzsche of the Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks says, that language is revealing when it comes to understanding those philosophers themselves as per-sons.
So what do we understand of the per-sonage of Nietzsche when he uses the language of the totality of things?
Early on, Nietzsche speaks like his mentor, Schopenhauer.
He then ostensibly turns against Schopenhauer [turns against himself?].
Is this a 'turning in the widening gyre' or a mere contrapposto ?
A perning * or a spurning?
But does turning against oneself/one's mentor actually re-pudiate one's self/mentor?
Does "dropping the sub-ject" really cancel out the sub-ject?
Or does it merely sub-limate the sub-ject?
In a cyclic universe do things dropped not bounce back up again?
Or does the re-jected sub-ject actually speak all the more loudly as it is dropped?
Is the mouth made more eloquent than the stopped speech?
So is the metaphysics of the early Nietzsche "dropped" in real terms?
Perhaps it was re-placed with something else - in which case then we might find the aforesaid drop to be effective.
But if it was re-placed, then was the subject itself 'dropped'? - No. It is still spoken of, and placed, but in different terms.
If it was just dropped and not re-placed, did there result in Nietzsche's later philosophy a metaphysical-shaped hole?
Is the metaphysical sub-ject then the curse of all philosophers, Nietzsche [and ourselves] included?
Going back more specifically to Nietzsche's early works; are they just 'early' in terms of chronology, or is there an implication that they are 'im-mature'?
Or is it not rather the case that Nietzsche only said one thing [as Heidegger thinks all philosophers are wont to do] throughout his career [careening], i.e., that he said that 'one thing' in his so-called 'early', 'middle' and 'late' works? Indeed, that he said that 'one thing' in what he didn't write too - in his silences, in his ennui, in his madnesses?
*'Perne' occurs in Yeats, of course, in the phrase 'perne in a gyre', suggesting rapid, circular and cyclical fluxions.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne* in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
[Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium , 3rd stanza]
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne* in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
[Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium , 3rd stanza]
[*"The phrase “perne in a gyre” refers to a spinning wheel such as those Yeats would have seen during his youth in Sligo. Yeats is referring to the movement of thread through bobbin and spool, a movement that is so fast that it is imperceptible to the naked eye. The point that Yeats is highlighting is that each individual strand of thread is submerged by speed into one continuous piece, similarly each successive human life is a mirror image of a previous one, but that taken together there is a continuation, a permanence." ]
Source:http://homepage.tinet.ie/~splash/s2b.html
[* An alternate name for the bird [i.e., Honey Buzzard] is the pern ["Pern," Oxford English Dictionary] . It has been argued by some ("e.g.", Smith [Stan Smith, "W. B. Yeats, a Critical Introduction", Chapter 3.9, "The Gyres," p. 205, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990; ISBN 033348066X] or [ [http://www.eliteskills.com/c/2244] ] ) that the lines "perne in a gyre" in William Butler Yeats' poem Sailing to Byzantium have an alternate reading as referring to the circling flight of a honey buzzard.]
Source:http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/132250
The problem with The Birth of Tragedy [BT] is not so much the metaphysics of the 'Primal Unity' etc., [one could argue that this is restated later as 'the world is will to power and nothing besides'], but rather with its notion of a duality [and hence my threads on dualities elsewhere on this forum].
If the world is a Unity then it cannot also be a Duality [because if the latter is the case it would be a Duality and not a Unity and vice versa] - and yet in BT Nietzsche wants to both have his cake and eat it.
Nietzsche doesn't really let go of this contradiction throughout his work, always looking for fundamental Dualisms [usually antagonistic], while at the same time fundamentally positing a Monism; the will to power [and, I might add that Body/Mind is yet another dualism].
BT aligns the Dionysian with the Unity, while making the Duality [i.e. the Apollonian/Dionysian] necessary for the Unity to come into Being. This is why Norman O. Brown in Life Against Death [the title proclaims his dualism] latches upon BT; he wants to see life in a constant tension of a duality [Eros/Thantos] with the hope [a very Christian Hope] of a resolution into the desired Unity [but what will it be - Dionysos or Apollo?]. He calls this the 'resurrection of the body' - the body being associated with the 'life' aspect of the duality.
The obvious philosophical difficulty is this: if Unity is Primal, where does The Other aspect of the Duality come from? Is it outside of the Unity [like some conceptions of God]? Or is it necessarily thrown up by the Unity [if so, why and how?]
Of Nietzsche's dualities, one must include the duality that is morality as your quote alludes. But if morality [whether good/evil or good/bad] is not phenomena but an interpretation of phenomena, then we must conclude that all Dualities are just interpretations of the Unity.
Apollo reappears again as Perspective [as well he should, as he is Vision].
So are we then led to the position that the Unity somehow becomes conscious of itself as 'the world', and so spews out a variety of Dualities in the process? If so, we seem to have not got beyond the Romantic philosophy of Idealism here. A restatement it seems of the World as Will [Unity] and Representation [a Dualism if there ever was one ... and what is the validity of that little word 'and' which seems to belong to all our dualities?].
If the world is a Unity then it cannot also be a Duality [because if the latter is the case it would be a Duality and not a Unity and vice versa] - and yet in BT Nietzsche wants to both have his cake and eat it.
Nietzsche doesn't really let go of this contradiction throughout his work, always looking for fundamental Dualisms [usually antagonistic], while at the same time fundamentally positing a Monism; the will to power [and, I might add that Body/Mind is yet another dualism].
BT aligns the Dionysian with the Unity, while making the Duality [i.e. the Apollonian/Dionysian] necessary for the Unity to come into Being. This is why Norman O. Brown in Life Against Death [the title proclaims his dualism] latches upon BT; he wants to see life in a constant tension of a duality [Eros/Thantos] with the hope [a very Christian Hope] of a resolution into the desired Unity [but what will it be - Dionysos or Apollo?]. He calls this the 'resurrection of the body' - the body being associated with the 'life' aspect of the duality.
The obvious philosophical difficulty is this: if Unity is Primal, where does The Other aspect of the Duality come from? Is it outside of the Unity [like some conceptions of God]? Or is it necessarily thrown up by the Unity [if so, why and how?]
Of Nietzsche's dualities, one must include the duality that is morality as your quote alludes. But if morality [whether good/evil or good/bad] is not phenomena but an interpretation of phenomena, then we must conclude that all Dualities are just interpretations of the Unity.
Apollo reappears again as Perspective [as well he should, as he is Vision].
So are we then led to the position that the Unity somehow becomes conscious of itself as 'the world', and so spews out a variety of Dualities in the process? If so, we seem to have not got beyond the Romantic philosophy of Idealism here. A restatement it seems of the World as Will [Unity] and Representation [a Dualism if there ever was one ... and what is the validity of that little word 'and' which seems to belong to all our dualities?].
The Apollonian/Dionysian antinomy can be seen as a version of the Arayn mythos. The dark, formless, barbaric pre-Aryan Dionysian state is conquered and given form by the Aryan genius of the Apollonian.
Perspectives
"Supposing that the world as will to power also is only interpretation---and you will be eager enough to make this objection?---well then, so much the better."
[BGE 22]
This could be something of a slip on N's part here; - "only interpretation" - this is the diminishing effect of strong Perspectivism.
The WP is robbed of its global impact and import - it becomes mere interpretation, suggesting it is subjective, changeable and personal - a petty fact.
Nietzsche's interpretation is not "of" the Will to Power [which suggests that the Will to Power is a pre-established non-Perspectival fact]; rather his interpretation is the Will to Power and therefore is prey to the Perspectival limitations mentioned above.
However, those who are not Nietzsche may have their own interpretations of Nietzsche's Perspective of the Will to Power, but only Nietzsche owns the Will to Power as it is his unique Perspective.
And this brings in a further [and extremely important epistemological] objection; - a Perspective is only existentially accessible to its owner, i.e. the single perspectivism of the particular Perspective. No one else can know it [a suggestion Nirtzsche himself invites].
However, if one says that Perspectives could be shared [here I might coin 'symperspectivism'], then one weakens the notion of Perspectivism itself, and violates Nietzsche's rejection of immediate sameness.
Perspectivism is not so much in opposition to the disinterestedness of Kant - after all, disinterestedness can also be called a Perspective [and it just so happens that Nietzsche's Perspective rejects disinterestedness]. Perspectivism is rather in opposition to Omniscience, the God's eye view, metaphysics, Platonism, the 'Cosmic Other', [i.e., what I call non-P].
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
[Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.]
And that is non-Perspectivist.
Platonism is specifically non-Perspectival; the Platonic Forms are non-Perspectivism par excellence.
That's why in the BGE Preface Nietzsche says that Plato's mistake was in denying Perspective.
And the assumption that there is something outside of the cave is non-Perspectival.
Indeed, the allegory of the cave can be seen as a refutation of Perspectivism: those who maintain Perspectivism are like prisoners in a cave who are so shackled that they believe that the copies of reality they see projected on the wall are real. In other words, they are in thrall of a single Perspective. Only when they break out of the cave [and away from Perspectivism] and escape into the world of Forms [non-Perspectival] will they know The Good [non-Perspectival].
Nietzsche makes the point that our senses developed accidentally - they were not developed for knowledge. This is why they are so inappropriate when applied to knowledge.
Of course, Perspectivism suggests that we cannot escape from our particular place in space/time.
All Mysticism [Plato's cave again] says that we must try and break out of this stranglehold and experience life as something beyond any particularity.
To know God in this sense is to realise non-Perspectivism.
Perspectival truth is relative truth; not Truth as it is usually understood - as an absolute [i.e. non-Perspectival].
One could easily agree with a weak version of Perspectivism, while assuming that non-Perspectival Truths exist. Perspectival-truths [relative truths] are [human-all-too-human] subsidiaries of non-Perspectival Truth.One could likewise accept the "revealing" of global omnisicence while still maintaining local Perspectives.
One could say that the Primal Unity was revealed to me in an inspired book, in a vision [or a 'trip' etc.,], where absolute non-Perspectival Truth became apparent to me.
However, in my everyday life I am only afforded Perspectives. Strong non-Perspectivism says that the Perspectival world is a lie while the non-Perspectival world is the Truth.
And strong Perspectivism [presumably Nietzsche's position] says that non-Perspectivism is illusory while Perspectivism is [relatively] true.
Nietzsche's Order of Rank [embedded as it is in his Perspective of the Will to Power] cannot allow Relativism.
Perspective's in Nietzscheare judged not on their 'truth' but rather on their ranking in terms of strong/weak, arising/declining, affirming/denying, power. This suggests that the Will to Power is non-Perspectival.
Platonism is specifically non-Perspectival; the Platonic Forms are non-Perspectivism par excellence.
That's why in the BGE Preface Nietzsche says that Plato's mistake was in denying Perspective.
And the assumption that there is something outside of the cave is non-Perspectival.
Indeed, the allegory of the cave can be seen as a refutation of Perspectivism: those who maintain Perspectivism are like prisoners in a cave who are so shackled that they believe that the copies of reality they see projected on the wall are real. In other words, they are in thrall of a single Perspective. Only when they break out of the cave [and away from Perspectivism] and escape into the world of Forms [non-Perspectival] will they know The Good [non-Perspectival].
Nietzsche makes the point that our senses developed accidentally - they were not developed for knowledge. This is why they are so inappropriate when applied to knowledge.
Of course, Perspectivism suggests that we cannot escape from our particular place in space/time.
All Mysticism [Plato's cave again] says that we must try and break out of this stranglehold and experience life as something beyond any particularity.
To know God in this sense is to realise non-Perspectivism.
Perspectival truth is relative truth; not Truth as it is usually understood - as an absolute [i.e. non-Perspectival].
One could easily agree with a weak version of Perspectivism, while assuming that non-Perspectival Truths exist. Perspectival-truths [relative truths] are [human-all-too-human] subsidiaries of non-Perspectival Truth.One could likewise accept the "revealing" of global omnisicence while still maintaining local Perspectives.
One could say that the Primal Unity was revealed to me in an inspired book, in a vision [or a 'trip' etc.,], where absolute non-Perspectival Truth became apparent to me.
However, in my everyday life I am only afforded Perspectives. Strong non-Perspectivism says that the Perspectival world is a lie while the non-Perspectival world is the Truth.
And strong Perspectivism [presumably Nietzsche's position] says that non-Perspectivism is illusory while Perspectivism is [relatively] true.
Nietzsche's Order of Rank [embedded as it is in his Perspective of the Will to Power] cannot allow Relativism.
Perspective's in Nietzscheare judged not on their 'truth' but rather on their ranking in terms of strong/weak, arising/declining, affirming/denying, power. This suggests that the Will to Power is non-Perspectival.
It is tempting to believe that any belief is Perspectival: but this is not the case.
Perspectives which are non-Perspectival cannot be Perspectives.
They are non-Perspectival.
Perspectives must have a particularity, relativity and subjectivity.
Otherwise the concept of Perspectivism becomes meaningless [or mere].
Therefore, strictly speaking, the Will to Power cannot be a Perspective.
Also, as Perspective is implicitly Relativist, then a position which forbids this such as Order of Rank is not Perspectival.
Ergo, theOrder of Rank and the Will to Power are not Perspectival.
This is why Nietzsche advisedly says "only" or 'merely' interpretation.
Perspectivism is merely a tool, like it is for painters; it is an experiment and an attempting.
In short, the Will to Power sweeps aside mere Perspectives; while the Order of Rank abolishes the Relativism of strong Perspectivism.
The will to power is not Perspectival.
Nietzsche was not a solipsist.
His positions of the Will to Power, the Order of Rank, the Ubermensch and the Eternal Return are not solipsist positions.
Therefore they are not Perspectival positions.
What therefore is Perspectivism to Nietzsche?
As I said, it is a tool, a technique.
Perspectivism = Method.
Note that those who take up strong Perspectivism after Nietzsche use it to deconstruct the Order of Rank, the Will to Power etc.,
Is that Nietzschean?
No.
Such thinkers have let Method rule substance.
Let us analyse the source [my additions in brackets]:
"6. We have abolished the true world [non-Perspectival]: what world has remained?
the apparent one [i.e., the Perspectival] perhaps? ...
But no!
With the true world [non-Perspectival] we have also abolished the apparent [Perspectival] one!
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow;
end of the longest error;
high point of humanity;
INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)
[TWI 'How the True World finally became a Fable']
'Reality' is neither Perspectival nor non-Perspectival!
I don't think it is a case of "breaking down the distinction" between Perspective/non-Perspective.
The distinction remains, and has been hammered out.
I think it is rather that the Nietzschean [Dionysian] philosophy is neither Perspectival nor non-Perspectival.
The philosophy of BT might be non-Perspectival.
Using the Method of Perspectivism it is transformed into something that cannot be aligned with metaphysics or Perspectivism.
It points towards the promise of a new philosophy, a future philosophy.
A Dionysian philosophy that cannot be said in the usual metaphysical and anti-metaphysical language.
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