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KEITH J. ANSELL-PEARSON NIETZSCHE'S OVERCOMING OF KANT AND METAPHYSICS: FROM TRAGEDY TO NIHILISM Almost every important German thinker, even if he has not remained a Kantian, has at least started out from Kant and from the need clearly to define his position with respect to Kant's ideas. Lucien Goldmann1 The aim of this essay is to situate Nietesche's thinking in the context of Kant's critique of metaphysics in of der to show that Kant's philosophy provides one of the most important, but frequently overlooked, philosophical contexts in which Nietzsche's relation to modern philosophy can be most ffuitfully understood. I want to show contrary to widespread belief, that Nietzsche's remarks about Kant are neither simply polemical nör incidental3, but rather, that Nietzsche's thinking, understood in terms öf an Artisten-Metaphysik* is born out of an attempt to think through and overcome the aporiai of Kant's critique of metaphysics. Kant's critique was for Nietzsche a decisive event, äs the following fragment from the Nachlassoi 1872—3 testifies: The altered position of philosophy since Kant. Metaphysics impossible, Self-castration. Tragic resignation, the end of philosophy. Only art has the capacity to save us.4 1 Lucien Goldmann, Immanuel Kant p. 33 (New Left Books, London 1971) The classical source of the view that Nietzsche had no direct firsthand know^ledge of Kant but only a superficial acquaintance is Hans Vaihinger's Die Philosophie des Ais-Ob of 1911. See also Alfred Baeumler, Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker (Leipzig 1937) and Otto Ackermann, Kant im Urteil Nietzsches (Tübingen 1939). This view is also shared by Martin Heidegger — cf. Nietzsche, volumel, The Will to Power äs Art p. 111 (trans. by David Farrell Krell, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1981). For ä refutation of this view see Karl Heinz Dickopp's article, eAspekte zum Verhältnis Nietzsche—Kant und ihre Bedeutung für die Interpretation des Willens zur Macht/ in Kantstudien 61, pp. 97^111 (Bonn 1970) 3 For the conception of an 'artist's metaphysics* see Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie sections 5 and 24, and the * Selbstkritik' of 1886 see 5. KGW III l Tr. The Birth of Trageäy by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, Random House 1967). All references to Nietzsche are to sections unless stated otherwise. 4 KGW III4, 19[319] (Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer 1872-Ende 1874). Tr, Philosopby and Truth^ Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks of the early 1870's, edited with an 2 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 311 Nietzsche's conception of an 'artist's metaphysics' develops in the wider context of a series of reflections (Betrachtungen) on what he calls den Kampf von Kunst und Erkenntnis* — the struggle between art and knowledge. This is not only true of the early writings — The Birth of Tragedy, the Philosopbenbucb5, the four Untimely Meditations, but is equally true of the later writings, and in particular Nietzsche's most systematic and historical piece of writing, On the Genealogy of Morals, where, once again, and in the context of nihilism (the ascetic ideal), art assumes a central place in Nietzsche's thought, and represents the great countermovement to the decadence of modern religion, morality, and philosophy.6 Today we tend to categorise the development of Nietzsche's thought in accordance with a triadic Schema — a first phase of 'aestheticism' from 1872 — 77, a second phase of 'positivism' from 1878 — 82, and a third phase of 'mysticism' from 1882 — 88 (incipit Zarathustra and the doctrines of the Overman and the eternal return). But while such a Schema may serve certain scholastic functions demanded by contemporary criticism, it does, I believe, conceal the essential continuity of Nietzsche's philosophical concerns. What do we mean by Nietzsche's Overcoming' of metaphysics? What do we mean by 'metaphysics'? In order to answer these questions it is first necessary to understand how Kant conceived of his original critique of metaphysics, and then examine how Nietzsche interpreted the meaning of Kant's critique and understood its implications, and then, finally, to show how Nietzsche developed a radical critique of the dualistic character of Western metaphysics, which for Nietzsche reached its apotheosis with Kant. For Nietzsche Kant's critique reveals ä much more fundamental moralmetaphysical crisis than Kant himself was prepared to acknowledge or concede. Nietzsche has bequeäthed to philosophy today the term 'nihilism' to Introduction and Notes by Daniel Breazeale, p. 153 (Humanities Press 1979) henceforth abbr. to P T. References are given to English tränslations of Nietzsche's Nachlass where these are available. 5 The Philosophenbuch ('Philosopher's Book7) was intended by Nietzsche to be a majpr theoretical, historical, and practical work, a 'centaur* (letter to Erwin Rohde, February 15, 1870) but it never achieved published form. However, the various pieces and unfinished essays that make up the Book are central to any Interpretation of Nietzsche, and I rely on it heavily here in order to illuminate the idea of an 'artist's metaphysics'. For the history of the Book see Anni Anders and Karl Schlechta, Friedrich Nietzsche, von den verborgenen Anfängen seines Philosophierens pp. 118—127 (Stuttgart-Bad* Cannstatt 1962), and Breazeale op. cit. Introduction pp. xxii—xxvi. 6 KGW VIII3 (Nachgelassene Fragmente Anfang 1888 bis Anfang Januar 1889) 14[168], 14[35] and 14[117 —119]. Tr. The Will To Power 586A and 794 (Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, Vintage Books 1968) Henceforth abbr. WM. Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

312 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson f describe the nature ofthat crisis. As I shall show, Nietzsche holds that Kant's critique of metaphysics was not a genuine critique but merely placatory, and thus, he argues, it is necessary to initiate what he calls die Umwertung aller Werte — the revaluation of all values. Ultimately, this project of revaluation represents Nietzsche's conclusive response to the aporiai of Kant's critique. Here, philosophy is at an end and at another beginning, for it begins to think in a new element — the will to power. I want to show that Nietzsche understands the overcoming of metaphysics in terms of a self-övercoming? an overcoming that is both a dialectical appropriation and a critical destruction. It is absolutely necessary that we grasp here that for Nietzsche the event of nihilism is the precondition of such an overcoming, of the project of revaluation. The present age is defined by Kant äs an age of criticism (Kritik!) to which everything — religion^ morality, Reäson — must submit. It is the age of the Enlightenment in which the house of metaphysics is in disärray, disreputed by dogmatism and scepticism, it is no longer regärded äs the queen of all the scietices. The aim of a critique of pure Reason is to enter the arena of contested claims on behalf of metaphysics in order to restore its dignity by setting up a tribunal of Reason: It is, in fäct, a call to Reason, again to undertake the most laborious of all tasks — that of self-knowledge, and to Institute a tribunal which will assute to Reason its lawful claims, and dismiss all groundless pretensiöns, not by despotic decrees, but in accordance with its own eternal and unalterable laws.8 For Kant the aim is to reach a decision äs to the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics, to detefmine the sources, extent, and limits of metaphysics. By metaphysics Kant understands the Ideas of Reason — freedom, God, and the immortality of the Soul. These are the problems, "to whpse solution, äs 7 Nietzsche employs interchangeably the expressions Selbstaufhebung and Selbstüberwindung. For example, see Zur Genealogie der Moral Dritte Abhandlung, sec 27 in KGW VI2 Tr. On the Genealogy of Morals (Walter Kaufmann, Vintage Books 1968). We cannot favour one of the expressions over the other in Nietzsche's wiritingSj and it is testimony to the ambiguous nature of Nietzsche's thinking that we cannot 'decide' easily between the two terms. (see section IV below) For rne the distinction to be made is that between a 'critical appropriation' of metaphysics (.Aufhebung — annulment, lifting up and Suspension) and a 'critical destruction' of metaphysics (Überwindung — conquest, victory, and overcoming). 8 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the First Edition, tr. by Norman Kemp-Smith (MacMiUan Press, London 1950). Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 313 their ultimate and unique goal, all the laborious preparations of metaphysics are directed."9 Kant argues that there will always be metaphysical speculation in the world but, "in the absence of a public Standard everyone will cut his metaphysics in his own way."10 Thus, in order to secure the sovereignty of Reason it is necessary to forge out a critical path for the discipline of metaphysics and determine the boundaries of Reason. Kant argues that Reason errs when it oversteps its legitimate field of employment and tries to extend knowledge, i. e. theoretical cognition, beyond the bounds of experience. The dogmatism of metaphysics lies in the extension of the principles of empirical nature to supersensible reality. On the one hand, he argues that because Reason points to a realm beyond experience it is susceptible to *persuasion% to what he calls 'fruitful fictions' which can be neither confirmed nor refuted by experience11, and, on the other hand, he argues that in the absence of an ideal norm, a public Standard, metaphysics will be susceptible to anarchy. It is the task of Reason to guard itself against 'poetic extravagance.'12 It is only in the domain of pure practical Reason that the ultimate ground of existence reveals itself and where the transcendental ideas of Reason acquire a positive meaning. Kant argues that if we hold fast to the distinction between constitutive and regulative knowledge, between determinate theoretical cognition and indeterminate practical knowledge13, metaphysics can avoid dialectical illusions and sophistical reasoning. Kant affirms metaphysics äs a natural disposition of man but denies its claims to knowledge. This dualism of faith and knowledge is one of the most striking aspects of Kant's philosophy. The transcendental Ideas express the peculiar destiny of Reason äs a principle of the systematic unity of the use of the Understanding (the distinction here is between Vernunft and Verstand of course). Experience Stands, ultimately under the legislation of Reason.14 The Ideas of Reason are neither matters offact nor matters of opiniony but rather matters offaitbi Such is the summun bonum (the highest good), which has to be realised in the world through freedom — a conception whose objective reality cannot be proved in any experience possible for us, or, consequently, so äs to satisfy the theoretical employment of Reason, while at the same time we are enjoined to use it for the purpose of realising that end through pure practical Reason in the best way possible, and, accordingly, its possibility 9 Kant, The Critique ofJudgetnent^ second part sec 91, tr. by J. C. Meredith, (Oxford University Press 1957) henceforth abbr. to CJ. 10 Kant, Prolegomenat to any Future Metaphysics that will be able to Present itself äs a Science pp. 121 (tr. P. G. Lucas Manchester Univ. Press 1953). 11 ibid. p. 78 12 C/op.cit. sec 78 13 For Kant's own dissolution of this distinction in his later writings see CJ op. cit. sec 70 14 Prolegomena op. cit. p. 133 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

314 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson f must be assumed. This effect which is commanded, together with the only conditions on which its possibility is conceivable by us, namely the existence of God and the immortality of the Soul, are matters of faith (res fidef) and, moreover, are of all objects the only ones that can be so called.15 Faith is described by Kant äs, "the moral attitude in its assurance of the truth of what is beyond the reach of theoretical knowledge."16 The primacy of practical Reason is the meaning öf Kant's famous Statement that he has found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith. The Ideas of Reason are proven for Kant not äs facts or äs truths but äs rights (de jure), äs necessary postulates of practical Reason, i. e. äs necessary Statements of the conditions for the application of Reason in the determination of the moral will in right action. Reason refers üs to something that is not a possible object of experience but is the highest ground of all existence, teaching us nothing äs to the thing äs it is in-itself but only something in reference to Reason's own use, "complete and directed to the highest ends in the field of experience."17 The vacant place that is necessarily left at the apex of our knowledge is Glied by Kant by arguing for the primacy of practical Reason understood äs human freedom in terms of moral autonomy. If, he argues, Reason, in its practical aspect, requires that the theoretical empty space in the System of knowledge be filled with assumptions, in default of which the moral experience would be illusory and the moral law invalid, and if these principles conflict with no principles theoretical Reason can establish, then pure Reason in its practical capacity has primacy over pure Reason in its speculative (theoretical) capacity. But it makes these assumptions not äs expressions of knowledge but äs matters of faith and äs practical postulates. Thus, although positive knowledge cqncerning things-in-themselves (noumena) is denied to theoretical Reason, the moral law points to a pure intelligible (noumenal) world and enables us to know something of it — a /aw — and which gives to the sensible world, äs sensuous nature, the form of an intelligible world.18 Thus the primacy of practical Reason over theoretical Reason lies in that the former gives us äs moral beings access to a realm that is not possible by the latter. For Kant, "every interest is ultimately practical, even that of speculative Reason only reaching perfection in practical use."19 Kant understands man äs the creature whose goal is the creation of freedom, the creation of man äs an end in himself. He writes: 15 CJ op. cit. sec 91 ibid. 17 Prolegomena p. 129 18 Kant, Critique öd Practical Reason p. 43 (tr. Lewis White Beck, Bobbs-MerriÜ 1956) henceforth CPracR. 19 ibid. p. 126 16 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 315 Nature has willed it that man should, by himself, produce everything that goes beyond the mechanical ordering of his existence, and that he should partake of no other happiness or perfection than that which he himself, independently of instinct has created by his own Reason.20 (my emphasis) This view accords with Kant's definition of practical Reason in terms of moral autonomy. For Kant moral freedom must be a condition where all heteronomous determinations (happiness, pleasure, instinct, etc.) must be excluded. Morality must be unconditional and assume an imperative form for s human beings we are creatures of sense and sensuousness s well s creatures of Reason, and thus something, namely a law, must legislative over us, a law that we give to ourselves s rational beings.21 In being determined by a purely formal law (the categorical imperative prescribes only the form not the content of morality), binding on one simply qua rational will, the individual is able to declare him or herseif s independent from all natural considerations and natural causality. Nature for Kant cannot furnish the basis of man's freedom. Thus the individual is claimed to be free in a radical sense, s self-determining not s a natural or a knowing being but s a pure, moral will. Any determination of the will by some external consideration or Standard — inclination, God, etc. — is not moral freedom. In Kant we find throughout this strict Separation of autonomy and heteronomy, between morality and legality. The moral being must not only act rightly, but from the right rnotive and this can only be in terms of duty, of obedience to the moral law, a law which the individual gives to him or herseif s a rational being embodying a rational will. The result of Kant's critique of metaphysics, of his denial of knowledge and assertion of faith, is an overall dualistic philosophy. Not only is there the dualism of faith and knowledge, but also the dualism of thing-in-itself and appearance (the *true* world and the 'apparent' worid), the dualism of freedom and necessity that extends to a dualism of is and ought (or, in more modern terms, facts and Values), and so on. But the main result of Kant's critique and its resultant split between theory and practice, freedom and necessity, is that Kant can only bridge that split in the postul tion of an abstract ideal — the highest good. Kant's philosophy leaves us with a divided 20 Kant, *Idea for a,-Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View' Third Thesis in Kant on History p. 13 (tr. Lewis White Beck, (Bobbs-Merrill 1963) 21 Kant, Groundwork of tbe Metaphysic of Morals p» 70 (tr. H. J. Paton, Harper & Row 1964). The categorical imperative is defined by Kant s follows, "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that the maxim of my action should become a universal law." For Nietzsche's critique of the categorical imperative see Menschliches, ΛΙΙ%Η/ηβη$Μίώ6$ Ι sec.25 in KGW IV 2 (1967), Tr. Human, ΛΙΙ Too Human by Marion Faber with Stephan Lehmann (University of Nebraska Press 1984); GM II, 6; JGB secs. 187 and 188; FW sec. 335. Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

316 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson ,f seif, a free seif of noumenal reality and a determined seif of phenomenal reality. Kant recognises the paradox but argues that, "while we do not comprehend the practical unconditioned necessity of the moral imperative, we do comprehend its incomprehensibility," and this, he says, "is all that can be fairly asked of a philosophy which presses forwards in its principles to the very limit of human Reason."22 Because human beings are both beings of nature and beings of Reason they possess only a pure not a holy will that is affected by sensuous desires and needs. Consequently, the moral law assumes an imperative form commanding one categorically. The relation of the will to the moral law is one of duty, and it is here, in the conception of freedom in terms öf Obligation and duty, that Kant reveals that his conception of the human seif is a problematical one, for he can only conceive of the realisation of freedom in terms of a command. Freedorn in Kant becomes an infinite moral task for finite, rational beings, it becomes a Sollen (ought). He teils us that, "the utmost that finite practical Reason can accomplish is to make sure of the unending progress of its maxims towards this ideal and of the constäncy of the finite rational being in making continuous progress."23 The moralism behind Kant's project of a critique of metaphysics would seem to bear out Nietzsche's contention that philosophy hitherto has been operating under the seduction of morality and that philosophers have not been aiming at 'truth' but at majestic moral structures.2* For Nietzsche Kant's critique and its resultant dualistic nature reflects the discord of the present age. For Nietzsche the agnosticism abcmt the ultimate nature of reality that constitutes Kant's Separation of faith and knowledge is not the success but the problem of Kant's critique. Freedom in Kant can only be conceived of in negative terms äs freedom from not freedom to: the Ideas of Reason and their necessity, üniversality, and apodicity can only be conceived in terms of law. Nietzsche, in response to Kant, will launch both a critique of the notion of Reason äs a lawgiver and a historical-genealogical analysis of the discord of the present age which has resulted in the positing of an abstract ideal and a divided seif. Above all, Nietzsche is critical of the imperative form Kant's thinking takes. In Kant there is reflected the alienation of Reason from experience; it Stands opposed to both nature and culture, and posits itself in terms of an Ideal. For Kant, freedom is a condition that transcends nature. There is implanted in man only a disposition to morality; there is no 22 Groundwork p. 131 CPracR. p. 33 24 Nietzsche, Morgenröthe 'Vorrede' sec.4 in KGW VI. Tr. Daybreak by R.J. Hollingdale, ... Cambridge Univ. Press 1982 23 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 317 natural morality. Morality is a creation of pure practical Reason that cannot be comprehended empirically by history or theoretically by philosophy. The latter can only teach us to comprehend its incotnprehensibility. Nietzsche's concern to translate man back into the basic text of homo natura2* Stands him in sharp contrast to Kant. This concern leads Nietzsche to arguing that, "Kant, with his practical Reason and moral fanaticism is wholly eighteenth Century; still entirely outside the historical movement, without an eye for the actuality (Wirklichkeit) of his time."26 Nietzsche understands nature not, like Kant, in Christian theistic terms but in the Greek sense of nature äs physis, and he opposes the philosophy that poses man against the world and seeks to discover a newly discovered and newly redeemed conception of a natural humanity27, for he argues that it is precisely what is left out of Kant's formulation that is the essential thing.28 For Nietzsche it is the struggle against Sinnlichkeit (sensuousness) that characterises the tradition of Western metaphysics from Plato to Kant29, and which, he argues, is the result of an attitude of ressentiment by metaphysicians against actuality.30 Thus, for Nietzsche the overcoming of metaphysics is an overcoming of the metaphysics of ressentiment. I would now like to examine Nietzsche's understanding of Kant's critique and its implications in both his early and later writings. In the first case the question centres around the struggle between art and knowledge, the overcoming of the universal scepticism that has followed in the wake of Kant's critique31, and the cultivation of tragic thought. In the second case the question centres around the critique of the ascetic Ideal and the overcoming of nihilism. Although there is a continuity in Nietzsche's reading of Kant there develops an intensification in Nietzsche's attitude towards Kant, and this intensification represents the development of a greater awareness on Nietzsche's part of the implications of the Kantian critique — a movement from tragedy to nihilism. 25 Jenseits von Gut und Böse sec. 230 in KGW VI2. TR. by Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books 1966). 26 KGW VIII2 (Nachgelassene Fragmente Herbst 1887 bis März 1888) 9[178j. WM 95 27 Die fröhliche Wissenschaft sec. 109 in KGW V 2. Tr. Walter Kaufmann, The Gay Science (Vintage Books 1974) 28 M 106 29 see 'Der Kampf gegen die "Sinnlichkeit"/ in Friedrich Nietzsche Gesammelte Werke, MusA IV, pp. 401 30 WM 579 31 see Nietzsche's perceptive remark in section 3 of Schopenhauer als Erzieher (ÜB III): "If Kant should ever begin to exercise any widespread influence we shall be aware of it in the form of a growing and disintegrating scepticism and relativism." in KGW\!L9 1. Tr. Schopenhauer äs Educator in Untimely Meditations by R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge Univ. Press 1983) Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

318 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson .f II Man's longing to be completely truthful in the midst of a mendacious natural order is something noble and heroic. But it is possible only in a very relative sense. That is tragic. That is Kant's tragic problem! Art now acquires an entirely new dignity. The sciences, in contrast, are degraded to a degree. The truthfulness of art: it alone is now honest.32 The centrality of art in Nietzsche's early writings is only comprehensible if we understand that his c nception of an 'artist's metaphysics' is based on a theory of culture and a critique of modern wissenschaftlichen Menschen (scientific mankind).33 Nietzsche argues ia his early writings that it has proven impossible to build a culture based upon knowledge and that once science (Wissenschaft} reaches its limits tragic insight will break through and the justification of art will follow for there will once again be a need for art. It is in this context that he understands the signific nce of Kant's critique of metaphysics. In his early writings Nietzsche will draw on Kaut's critique in order to legitimate his claim that there is present in the modern epoch the signs of a rebirth of tragic culture. Kant's critique, argues Nietzsche, has pointed out the limits of science and has thus prepared the w y for a resurgence of tragic wisdom (Weisheit).34 Thus he writes in a fragment from the projected Philosophenbuch entitled Der Philosoph der tragischen Erkenntniss\ He (the philosopher of tragic knowledge) masters the uncontrolled knowledge drive (Wissenstrieb), though not by means of a new metaphysics. He establishes no new faith. He considers it tragic that the ground of metaphysics (Boden der Metaphysik) has been withdrawn, and he will never permit himself to be satisfied with the motley whirling game of the sciences (Wissenschaften). He cultivates a new life; he returns to art its rights.35 But, we need to ask, is Nietzsche's conception of the struggle ofp art and knowledge a mere parallel of Kant's dualism of faith and knowledge? Is not Nietzsche's denial of Socrates to m ke room for Dionysus in the argument of Birth of Tragedy the same s Kant's denial of knowledge to make room for faith? We need to be clear on the issue of Kant and Nietzsche on the question of the nature of an 'artist's metaphysics'. It is true that Nietzsche empathised with Kant's critique s an attempt to establish the primacy of practical Reason over theoretical Reason; indeed, in a fragment from Philosophenbuch he quotes Kant's Statement on the denial of knowledge and the primacy of faith, and he argues that a cultural need impelled Kant: "he wished to preserve a domain from knowledge — that is where the roots of all that is highest and deepest 32 KGW\\\l·, 19[104], ΡΓρ.29 Ueber den Dichter (1875)oin Μν*Λ Band V (Vorlesungen 1872-6) pp. 472-3 34 GTscc.19 35 KGWIII4, 19[35]; ΡΓ pp. 11-12 33 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nictzsche's Ovcrcoming of Kant and Mctaphysics 319 lie, of art and of ethics ,.."36 And yet he considers that this Opposition of faith and knowledge is a phenomenon of recent times, and says that it would have bcen unknown to the Greeks, and — "Kant was acquainted with no other Opposition, but what about us?"37 Nietzsche here is drawing on Kant and the intention behind Kant's critique but only in order to establish an unKantian philosophy. Let me try and show this. Firstly it is necessary to understand why Nietzsche wants to deny knowledge and establish the primacy of art, and this can only be done by understanding his notion of Kultur (culture); and secondly i t is necessary to appreciate the nature and primacy of the Dionysian in Nietzsche, the Ur-Einen (primordial oneness) of Dasein (existence) which contains the destruction of the principium individuationis. In the Philosophenbuch, the four Untimely Meditations and Birth of Tragedy^ Nietzsche is arguing for the unity of life and knowledge based upon a notion of Kultur, Kultur understood äs, "Einheit des künstlerischen Stiles in allen Lebensäusserungen eines Volkes" (The unity of style in all the expressions of the life of a people)38. Modern culture for Nietzsche is not a real culture but only a kind of knowledge about culture. Knowledge is consumed without the hunger and desire for it, it no longer acts äs a means for transforming the external world but remains concealed within a chaotic inner world, that which, "modern man describes with a curious pride äs his uniquely characteristic 'subjectivity' (Innerlichkeit^'.39 Modern culture rests upon an antithesis of form and content, but, Nietzsche argues, such an antithesis is improper when applied to living things (Lebendiges). Modern culture, therefore, is not a living culture. A true and healthy culture for Nietzsche is one where there is a single living unity and where culture does not fall apart in t o inner and outer, content and form.40 Referring to what he calls the present-day 'cult of inwardness' (Innerlichkeit), he says that the great danger of this inwardness is that "the internal content cannot express itself and be seen from the outside, and so may one day take the opportunity of vanishing, and no one will notice its absence any more than its presence."41 The task of the philosopher in the present age is defined äs one of fighting for an improved Kultur in the Greek sense physis.*2 3 * ibid. 19[34]; pp. 10-11 ibid. 38 David Strauss, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller scc. I in KGW III l (ÜB I), tr. David S traust, the Confessor and the Writer in UM op. cit. 39 Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben sec. 4 in KGW III l (Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen Zweites Stück — ÜB 77), tr. On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life in UM op. cit. 40 ibid. «i ibid. 42 KGW III 4, 30[15]; PT p. 123 37 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

320 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson •r Nietzsche argues that our modern understanding of culture comes not from the Greeks but from the Hellenized Roman world where culture is understood not äs physis but äs tbesis (convention).43 Kultur in the sense of physis is understood by Nietzsche in terms of a 'unifying mastery of the drives*. Man is the being whose nature is to cultivate, transform, and transfigure his own nature. Thus, we find Nietzsche arguing for "Überwindung des romanischen Begriffs der Kunst: Kunst als Convention^ als Tbesis. Rückkehr zum hellenistischen Begriff: Kunst als pbysis"44 The Greeks, Nietzsche argues, teach us that culture can be something more than a mere decoration of life, "the conception of culture äs a new improved physisy without dissimulation (Verstellung) and convention, culture äs a unanimity of life, thought^ appearance (Scheinen), and will."45 For Nietzsche it is the art of dissimulation that has reached its peak in modern man — it has become his chief means of selfdeception. It is what he will later call the anthropomorphic naivete of man, positing himself äs the meaning and measure of all things.46 Nietzsche's critique öf the modern conception of knowledge is that it represents an unselective knowledge drive (Erkenntnistrieb\ in which mankind possesses "ein schönes Mittel zum Untergang" (a beautiful means öf decline)47. He argues (i) that the problem of knowledge needs to be understood in a wider context äs a problem of culture and (ii) the mastery of science (die Bändigung der Wissenschaff) occurs now only by means of art.48 His thinking on art and knowledge revolves around the ultimate question concerning the conditions of life. Today, he argues, the thinker Stands in the discord of the present age — the discord between the desire for freedom, beauty and abundance of life on the one hand, and the drive to truth which asks only, what is existence worth äs such, on the other.49 The ultimate question that philosophy must pose is, is life to dominate knowledge, or are knpwledge and science to dominate life? Which of these two forces is the higher and more decisive?50 It is the task of the philosopher to determine the value of science. It is not a question of annihilating science but of contrölling it. It is necessary to combat the barbarising effects of science which easily loses itself 43 Wir Philologen in KGW IV l (Nachlass 1875-6) 5[47], tr. We Philologists in The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche ed. by Oscar Levy, tr. by Anthony M. Ludovici, volume 8 sec. 40 (Edinburgh and London 1911) 44 KGWlll4y 19[290] (my emphasis) 45 ÜB II10 46 KGW VIII2, 11 [99],; WM 12B 47 KGW III4, 19[182], PT p. 44. For Nietzsche's critique of modern man's Erkenntnistrieb in his later writings see KGW VIII3, 14[142] 4 * KGWIII4, 19[36], .12 49 £ 3 50 ÜB IIW Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcomixig of Kant and Metaphysics 321 in the Service of 'practical interests'.51 For Nietzsche the question of knowledge — of Wissenschaft — is not one of objectivity understood in the sense of correctness (Richtigkeit} but of truth and justice (Gerechtigkeit}. What is necessary, he argues, is truth, but not truth in the form of cold, ineffectual knowledge, but truth äs a regulating and punishing judge: truth not äs the possession of the egoistic individual, but äs the sacred right to overturn all boundaries of egoism: "The research for truth is often thoughtlessly praised; but it has something great in it only if the truthful man possesses the unconditional will to justice".52 The struggle between art and knowledge is a struggle between two different conceptions of knowledge; between the philosopher of 'tragic knowledge', and the philosopher of 'desperate knowledge'. The latter is absorbed in blind science, knowledge at any price. The former is not a sceptic, but recognises that truth lies in error, that both truth and illusion are necessary for 'life*.53 Art, Nietzsche argues, is more powerful than knowledge because it desires life — sie will das Leben. Knowledge, by contrast, based on a blind knowledge drive, only achieves its goal in Weltvernichtung (world annihilation).54 We need knowledge, Nietzsche argues, but knowledge in the service of the best life, on a culture built on the recognition of the necessity of truth and illusion (truth and lies in an extra-moral sense), that life requires illusion, and that illusion is part of the ground of truth — for "all of life is based on semblance, art, points of view, and necessity of perspectives and error".55 We must will illusion, and it is this willing illusion that constitutes a tragic thinker.56 Art for Nietzsche is no instructor or educator in direct action, but it has the capacity to simplify the world and to force language back to a more primordial state and provide us with a 51 KGW III 4, 19[23]; PT pp. 8—9 ÜB 116 53 KGW III 4, 19[35]; PT p. 11 54 KGW III2 (Nachgelassene Schriften 1870—3) -^ Ueber das Pathos der Wahrheit p. 274, tr. On the Pathos of Truth in PT op. cit. p. 66. Compare the following frorn Nietzsche's Nachlass of Mai-*- Juni 1888 in KGW Vin 3, 17[3]: "Die Kunst und nichts als die Kunst! Sie ist die große Ermöglicherin des Lebens, die große Veführerin zum Leben, das große Stimulans des Lebens. Die Kunst als einzig überlegene Gegenkraft gegen allen Willen zur Verneinung des Lebens, als das Antichristliche, Antibuddhistische, Antinihilistische par excellence. Die Kunst als die Erlösung des Erkennenden [...] Die Kunst als die Erlösung des H a n d e l n d e n [...] Die Kunst als die Erlösung des Leidenden [..-]." This citation shows unequivocally the central role art played in Nietzsche's thinking throughout his philosophical career. 55 GT Selbstkritik 5 56 "Man muß selbst die Illusion wollen — darin liegt das Tragische." KGW 4, 19[35], tr. PT p. 12. In a Nachlass fragment of Frühjahr 1888 Nietzsche writes, "Der Wille zum Schein, zur Illusion, zur Täuschung, zum Werden und Wechseln ist tiefer, "metaphysischer" als der Wille zur Wahrheit, zur Wirklichkeit, zum Sein [...]" see KGWVIII3, 14[18] 52 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

322 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson ,r sense for the tragic (die tragische Gesinung)*1 Art can thus shatter our abstract and reified consciousness and bring us in touch with the true ground of existence — the Dionysian. Before showing why the question of what is Dionysian is so important for Nietzsche, it is necessary to examine how Nietzsche understands the overcoming of science and the Erkenntnistrieb of the modern epoch. Firstly, let us recognise the close relationship that Nietzsche envisages between the philosopher and the artist. He understands the first äs a physician of culture58 and the second äs a creative redeemer: „The philosopher should recognise what is needed and the artist should create it."59 Thus in The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche speaks of the rebirth of a tragic world-view in the configuration of German rnusic (Wagner) and German philosophy (Kant, Schopenhauer). The philosopher, he who "erkennt, indem er dichtet, und dichtet, indem er erkennt,"60 and the artist work in coiijunction to show that, "our salvation lies not in knöwing (Erkennen} but in creating (Schaffen)"61 Secondly let us appreciate the dialecticäl nature of Nietzsche's argument, for he argues that when carried to its limits the knowledge drive turns itself against itself in order to proceed to the critique of knöwing.62 This argument is one of the central claims of both The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals. In the former Nietzsche examines the overcoming of Socratism and in the latter the overcoming of the will to truth. For the moment I am only concerned with the former. The birth of science in the form of Socratism entails the death of tragedy and a culture based on a tragic world-view. For Nietzsche, Socrates is an Instrument of Greek disintegration, and he speaks of that Socratism whose influence extends down to the present day and which is responsible for our modern abstract culture, "the abstract man, untutored by myth; abstract education; abstract morality; abstract law; the abstract state: ... there we have the present age, the result of that Socratism which is bent on the destf uction of myth."63 Thus, already with his first published book Nietzsche is constructing a genealogical narrative of Western history. By the control he has developed over his instincts Socrates becomes the first philosopher of life. Previously, Nietzsche argues, life served thought and knowledge, life was logically prior and could not be improved by formal pedagogy. With Socrates 57 Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (ÜB IV) in KGW IVI sec. 4, tr. UM op. cit. see Der Philosoph als Ar^t der Kultur (1873) in KGW III4 pp. 133-155, tr. The Philosopher äs Cultural Physician in PT pp. 69—76 59 KGW III4, 19[23]; PT p. 8 60 ibid. 19[62]; p. 27 61 ibid. 19[125]; p. 32 62 ibid. 19[35];pp.ll-12 63 GT23 58 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 323 virtue now becomes teachable. In the optimism of the Socratic maxims, c Virtue is knowledge, man sins only from ignorance/ lies the death of tragedy. Nietzsche argues that there exists a profound ülusion which first saw the light of day with the daimonion of Socrates, "the unshakeable faith that thought, using the threat of causality, can penetrate the deepest abysses of being, and that thought is not only capable of knowing but even of correcting being. This sublime metaphysical ülusion (Wahnvorstellung) accompanies science äs an instinct."64 Science, however, an activity that is based on dissemblance and self-deception, ultimately reaches the limits of its quest, for unable to penetrate to the true essence of reality, it will reach its limits where the optimism hidden in logic suffers shipwreck and where knowledge bites its own tau and turns its sting against itself. With this knowledge of the limits of knowledge the path is laid for a rebirth of tragic culture and for the hegemony of wisdom (Weisheit} over knowledge (Erkenntnis). Moreover, when it is seen, Nietzsche argues, how logic coils up at its boundaries and finally bites its own tail, then a new form of insight will break through, "tragic insight, which, merely to be endured needs art äs a protection and a remedy."65 This tragic insight is already present for Nietzsche äs a possibility in Socrates' own life, and in the ciosing sections of The Birth of Tragedy he will ask us to consider the possibility of an artistic Socrates. A profound experience in Socrates' life, Nietzsche says, impels us to ask, "whether there is necessarily only an antipodal relation between Socratism and art, and whether the birth of an 'artistic Socrates' is altogether a contradiction in terms."66 Nietzsche refers to Socrates' last days in prison where he consented to practice a little music. Socrates of course, Nietzsche argues, did not understand what it was that was operating inside him but we, however, can Interpret it äs a sign of his misgivings about the limits of logic, äs the Intuition that there is perhaps, "a realm of wisdom from which the logician is exiled, Perhaps art is even a necessary correlation of, and Supplement for science."67 The image of an artistic Socrates, a Socrates who practices wousike6*, prompts a regeneration of art and dichterischen Menschen*®. Art, that which Socratic culture reduced to a pleasing soporific, reasserts itself äs containing a deeper truth than science. When it recognisies the limits of its claims to universality science recoils and arrives at a point of re-formation (Bildung). 64 ibid. 15 ibid. 66 ibid. 14 67 ibid. 68 An 'artistic Socrates' is not simply someone who plays music but mousike in the wider sense of art and poetry. For this insight see J. P. Stern and M. S. Silk, Nietzsche on Tragedy p. 395 note9 (Cambridge Univ. Press 1981). 69 Ueber den Dichter op. cit. p. 473 65 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

324 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson ,f All science, Nietzsche writes, is, "auf den Schein gerichtet insofern sie streng an der Individuation festhält und die Wesenseinheit nie anerkennt. In diesem Sinn ist sie apollinisch."70 Here, in this passage, Nietzsche reveals to us his conception of die primacy of practical understood in terms of the primacy of the Dionysian. Ultimately in the argument of The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche privileges Dionysus over Apollo, and this, I would argue, reveals a fundamental aspect of Nietzsche's whole thinking. Nietzsche employs the Apollinian to emphasise that its nature is that of the principium individuationis but only in order, I would argue, to show that this principium must be overcome, for we must recognise the Dionysian äs the Ur-Eine of existence. The Dionysian reveals to man that he is not simply an individual but a Gattungswesen (species-being).71 Modern culture for Nietzsche is an abstract culture that rests on a fragmented, individualistic morality. It is the conception of himself äs an 'artistically-creative subject' possessing a sound subjectivity that man has forgotten in the course of Western metaphysics.72 The Dionysian is that power which reveals to us our true nature and which may have become concealed from us. The wisdom that Dionysus proclaims needs to be retrieved if mankind is not to end in world-annihilation. The fact that Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy employs Kant's critique in the Services of a rebirth of tragedy should not deceive us äs to the 'pathos of distance' that separates Nietzsche from Kant, for what Nietzsche is attempting in The Birth of Tragedy in establishing the primacy of the Dionysian is something fundamentally different from Kant. The experience of the Dionysian is not one of moral autonomy but rather one of radical ethical heteronomy. Nietzsche writes: Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but nature, which has become alienated, hpstile, or subjugated celebrates once more her reconciliation with her lost lost son, man.73 Nietzsche emphasises that in order to attain to this collective condition one must have reached the height of one's Selbstentäusserung (self-alienation), for it is only man's Apollinian consciousness that, like a veil, hides this Dionysian world from his vision. This oneness with nature on the part of man and which constitutes the essence of the Dionysian is understood by Nietzsche äs a genuine revolutionary force: 70 KGW III3 (Nachgelassene Fragmente Herbst 1869—Herbst 1872) 7[86] ibid. 3[21] 72 For the idea of the human being, "als k ü n s t l e r i s c h schaffendes Subjekt", see Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoraliscben Sinne (1873) in KGW III2 pp. 377—8, tr. On Trutb and Lies in *An Extra-Moral Sense in PT p. 86 ™ GT\ 71 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 325 Now the slave is a free man, now all the rigid, hostile barriers that necessity, caprice, or 'itnpudent convention* have fixed between man and man are broken. Now, with the gospel of universal harmony, each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, and fused with his neighbour, but is one with him, äs if the veil of mäyä had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity.74 Nothing has perhaps been more deleterious to a productive reading of the originality and significance of The Birth of Tragedy than the reading of Dionysus and Apollo in terms of a Kantian/Schopenhauerian thing-in-itself and appearance duality. Of course one cannot deny the fact that Nietzsche actually speaks of the Dionysian äs the Ding-an-sich in the text, but this, I would argue, is less for metaphysical than for historical reasons. By this I mean that for Nietzsche it is the question of 'what is Dionysian?' that has been forgotten by Western metaphysics and remains concealed within its history. Thus, it should not surprise us too much perhaps that Nietzsche refers to the Dionysian äs the thing-in-itself for it is precisely the Dionysian that is today unknown. The Dionysian refers to nothing otherworldly; it is nothing that lies in a Beyond, in an inaccessible noumenal reality. On the contrary, the Dionysian is radically of this worid. As Nietzsche was later to write, reflecting on his first book: "The antithesis of a real and an apparent worid is lacking here: there is only one worid, and this is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive."75 It is the worid Kant and the tradition of metaphysics from Plato onwards wants to liberate us from; they seek certainty, permanence, eternity, immortality. They want to grant man repose from the worid and its becoming and so seek a stable worid of being — an Ideal worid, a worid that lies in a Beyond. By contrast, Nietzsche envisages a poetic humanity who seek, die Grenzen der Erkenntniss, ja der Skepsis mit Vorliebe, um sich dem Bann der Logik zu entziehen. Sie wollen Unsicherheit (uncertainty), weil dann der Zauberer, die Ahnung, und die grossen Seelen-Effecte wieder möglich werden.76 Thus, I would argue, we must take cognisance of Nietzsche's Statements in his Self-Criticism of The Birth of Tragedy in 1886, in particular we must acknowledge the implications of his claim that he tried in that work, "laboriously to express by means of Schopenhauerian and Kantian formulas stränge 74 ibid. Nietzsche emphasises in the same section that in the VöAz/effect of tragedy the Dionysian predominates: "Tragedy closes with a sound which could never come from the realm of the Apollinian." The tragic myth is to be understood äs, "A symbolisation of Dionysian wisdom through Apollinian artifices/' Ibid. 22. For the consistency of Nietzsche's Interpretation of Dionysus cf. KGWV\TL\ 14[14], tr. WM 1050 7 5 KGW VIII3, 14[14]-14[26], tr. WM 853 76 Ueber den Dichter op. cit. p. 473 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

326 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson ,f and new valuations which were basically at odds with Kant's and Schopenhauer's spirit and taste."77 For Nietzsche the Greeks and their overcoming of nihilism provides modern man with a parable by which he can Interpret the meaning of the discord of his age. What the Greeks display to us is not Kantian faith but Dionysian wisdom. Here lies a fundamental difference between Kant and Nietzsche. Kant wants to induce us to take flight from the world and seek repose in a world Beyond; Nietzsche by contrast wants us to listen to the wisdom of Dionysus that proclaims man's oneness with nature and this world. For Nietzsche the Greeks knew and feit the terror and absurdity of existence but they did not conceal this absurdity but revealed its nature, and this revelation constituted their overcoming. A 'nihilism' threatened the Greeks in the form of the wisdom of Silenus78 but in order to live and refute the nihilism contained in that wisdom they created the gods of Dionysus and Apollo from their most profouftd needs. The folk wisdom of Silenus is transformed into an affirmation of existence even at its most terrible and questionable. The Greeks were able to reach the only satisfactory theodicy there has ever been for, "do the gods justify the life of man! They themselves live it."79 Nietzsche emphasises that there is nothing here that suggests ascetism, spirituality, o* duty, "we hear nothing but the accents of an exhuberant, triumphant life in which all things, whether good or evil, are deified."80 This conception of freedom and of 'joyful wisdom' radically separates Nietzsche from Kant. In Nietzsche's early writings the overcoming of metaphysics is anderstood in terms of overcoming a ständpoint of scepticism through the cultivation of tragic thinking. This concern persists throughout Nietzsche's writings and represents a fundamental continuity in his thinking. Any split between a young and a mature Nietzsche is, I wöuld argue, based on an erroneous conception of the development of Nietzsche*s philosophy and a neglect of the theoretical basis of his philosophical concerns. As is clearly evident from my examining of his construal of the struggle between art and knowledge, what Nietzsche was later to call the revaluation of values is already present in his early writings. Initially Nietzsche understands Kant's critique and its implications in tragic terms, but by the time of the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche has fully recognised the nihilistic will behind Kant's philosophy. 77 GT Selbstkritik 6 The wisdom Silenus proclaims is that the best thing for man is not to be born, to be and the second best is for him to die äs soon äs possible. GT 3 79 ibid. 80 ibid. In the Greeks, Nietzsche says, the will wished to contemplate itself in the world of art, and this state of contemplation, which is the theme of the first part of Kant's Critique of Judgement^ was attained and experienced by the Greeks without it acting äs a reproach or a command. 78 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Mctaphysics 327 Here, Nietzsche undcrstands by metaphysics *the lie of the IdeaF and the nihilism inherent in the positing of two worlds in which one is 'true' and therefore valued good and the other is 'apparent* and therefore valued eviL And yet this development on Nietzsche's part in his estimation of Kant's philosophy is characterised by the consistency of his argument for the formation of tragic philosophy not, äs originally construed, äs a means for overcoming scepticism, but now äs the means for overcoming the nihilism of Western metaphysics. III The last thing 7 should promise would be to "improve" mankind. No new idols are erected by me ... Overthrowing (umwerfen) idols (my word for "ideals") — that comes closer to being part of my craft. One has deprived reality of its value, its meaning, its truthfulness, to precisely the extent to which one has mendaciously invented an ideal worid.81 Although Kant's critique of metaphysics provides the starting-point for modern philosophy äs far äs Nietzsche is concerned, he argues that Kant's standpoint must be overcome in an effort to break out of the dualistic character of Western metaphysics which has reached an apogee with Kant. Already in 1870 — 71 though, let us note, Nietzsche had clearly called for, "Die Überwindung der ,Aufklärung* ... Die Aufklärung verachtet den Instinkt: sie glaubt nur an Gründe/'82 Hegel had located the crisis of modern subjectivity in an unhappy consciousness (unglückliches Bewusstseiri) which he defined äs follows: "Consciousness of life, of its existence and activity is only an agonising over this existence and activity, for therein it is conscious that its essence is only its opposite, is conscious only of its own nothingness."83 Adorno and Horkheimer were right to point out that Nietzsche was one of the few thinkers after Hegel to recognise the 'dialectic of Enlightenment*84, for Nietzsche is concerned to draw out the nihilistic implications of this unhappy consciousness. Nietzsche detects the course of culture and its historical development in terms of the growth of man's bäd conscience (schlechtes Gewissen) and an attitude of ressenti81 Ecce bonto Vorwort sec.2 in KGW VI3, tr. Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books 1968) KGW III, 5[23] and 5 [45], Nietzsche identifies the 'Enlightenment' first with Socrates and then with Kant: "Mit Sokrates beginnt der Optimismus, die nicht mehr künstlerische, mit Teleologie und dem Glauben an den guten Gott; der Glaube an den wissenden guten Menschen. Auflösung der Instinkte." KGWUI4, 23[35] 83 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit sec.209 (tr. A. V. Müler, Oxford Univ. Press 1979). 84 Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment9 p. 44 (tr. John Cumming, Verso NLB, London 1979). 82 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

328 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson .f ment towards existence. Nietzsche defines the bad conscience äs, "the instinct for freedom (in my language: the will to power) pushed back and repressed, incarcerated from within and finally able to discharge and vent itself only on itself ,.."85 For Nietzsche this consciousness and attitude is based ofi man's alienation from nature and activity. It has resulted in a condition where man would rather will nothingness than not will at all.86 In morality, he argues, man treats himself not äs a complete individual with a whole subjectivity, not äs Individuum but äs dividuum*1 The divided seif of modern subjectivity receives its highest expression for Nietzsche in Kant' s moral philosophy where the positing of a tftrue workT (wahre Weif) that lies in an inaccessible Beyond serves to denigrate and act äs a judge presiding imperatively over the natural world. Kant' s philosophy bears witness to the cultufal process of the denaturalisation of natural values (die Entnatürlichung der Natur-Werthe) and the ,internationalisation of man' (Verinnerlichung der Menschheit).** Concerning Kant's postulation of a two-world thesis he writes: The lie of the Ideal has so far been the curse on reality (Realität); on account of it, mankind has become mendacious and false down to its most fundamental instincts — to the pöint of worshipping the opposite values of those which alone would guarantee its health, its future, the lofty rigbt (das hohe Recht) to its future. The "true world" (wahre Weif) and the "apparent wofld" (scheinbare Welt) — that means: the mendaciously invented world and reality,89 In his later writings therefore Nietzsche has liberated himself completely from a Schopenhauerian perspective and appropriätion of Kant and arrived at a radical critique of Kant's philosophy. It is a critique that argues: Faith in the categories öf Reason is the cause of nihilism. We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious In the third and final essay of the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche takes up Kant's conception of Reason äs a lawgiver and locates in Kant a will to negate life and actuality. The Kantian will expresses itself for Nietzsche, expresses its desiresy in terms of an 'ascetic ideal'. In this essay which poses the question *What is the Meaning of the Ascetic Ideal?,' Nietzsche attempts 85 GM II, 18 ibid. II, 28 87 I 57 88 AC 25 in KGW VI3, tr. R. J. Holüngdale (Penguin 1968), and GM II, 16: "AU instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward (innen) — that is whät I call the inUrnalisation of man: thus it was that man first developed what was later called his 'soul'." 89 EH Vorwort Z 90 "der Glaube an die Vernunft-Kategorien ist die Ursache des Nihilismus, — wir haben den Werth der Welt an Kategorien gemesseil, welche sich auf eine rein fingirte Welt beziehen." KGW VIII2, 11[99], tr. WM 12B 86 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 329 to show how this ideal has dominated philosophy (= the metaphysics of ressentimenf). He writes: Suppose such an incarnate will to contradiction and anti-naturalness is induced to philosophise: upon what will it vent its innermost contrariness? Upon what is feit certaitüy to be real and actual [...] To renounce belief in one's ego, to deny one's own 'reality' — what a triumph, not merely over the senses, over appearance (Augenschein), but a much higher kind of triumph, a violation and cruelty against Reason (Vernunft) ... a voluptuous pleasure that reaches its height when the ascetic self-contempt and self-mockery of Reason declares: 'There is a realm of truth and being, but Reason is excluded from it!"91 Nietzsche argues that from Plato to Kant philosophy has been dominated by the ascetic ideal which rests on a dualistic conception of man and the world. In Plato we find a split between a sensory and supersensory world; in Kant we find the split between a phenomenal and a noumenal reality. In both cases freedom and truth are said to reside in the 'reaF or ctrue world* of the supersensory or noumenal. And in both cases the sensuous realm of existence is devalued and the supersensuous realm is esteemed äs the true world and accorded great value.92 It is significant in this context that Nietzsche says faith in the categories of Reason is the cause of philosophical nihilism for, äs we saw, it was precisely in the realm of faith that Kant had placed Reason, and which finds its home in a 'fictitious World* — noumenal reality. And he argues that because we seek knowledge, [...] let us not be ungrateful to such resolute reversals of accustomed perspectives and valuations with which the spirit has, with apparent mischievousness and futility, raged against itself for so long: to see differently, to want to see differently, is no small discipline and preparation of the intellect for its future "objectivity" — the latter understood not äs "contemplation without interest" [Katit], but äs the ability to control one's Pro and Con and to dispose of them, so that one knows how to employ a variety of perspectives and affective interpretations in the Service of knowledge.93 Thus Nietzsche rejects any split between faith and knowledge, and sees in Kant's two-world thesis an ascetic morality that loves to turn Reason against itself, Intelligible character in Kant, he argues, is an expression of this ascetic discord for intelligible character signifies, "that things are so constituted that the intellect comprehends just enough of them to know that for the intellect they are utterly incomprehensible"*** 91 92 GM III, 12 see GD ,Wie die „wahre Welt" endlich zur Fabel wurde* in KGW VI3, tr. Twilight of the Idols — 'How the "Real World" finally Became a Myth,' by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin 1968). 93 GM III, 12 94 ibid. Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

330 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson In Kant's moral philosophy freedom is deftiied äs moral autonomy which can only be realised at the expense of heteronomy. Thus the Kantian seif can never be at home in the world but rernains forever alienated from nature and existence, and can only pösit its freedom in terms of an abstract Sollen. Signifikant too then perhaps is Nietzsche's definition of a nihilist äs, "a man who judges of the world äs it is that it ought not to be, and of the world äs it ought to be that it does not exist."95 Thus it is Kant's conception of freedom that Nietzsche objects to for, he argues, "If one shifts the centfe of gravity of life into the Beyond, into nothingness, one has deprived life of its centre of gravity."96 Nietzsche's objections to the dualistic basis of Kant's thought are essentially threefold. Firstly, he argues that the idea of a noumenal reality that is unknown insinuates that the one we know is in fact 'known' and knowable. Secondly, he argues that the notion of a *true world* itisinuates that this world is untruthful and inauthentic. And thirdly, he argues that the notion of 'another world' for which we must strive and in terms of duty, insinuates that the world could be otherwise, i. e. it abölishes necessity and fate.97 Kant's Separation of instinct and reason and of faith and knowledge is the basis of Nietzsche's conclusive assessment of Kant: Anti-naturalness äs instinct, German decadence äs philosophy — that is Kant98 It is Nietzsche's contention that the ascetic ideal has been the dominant ideal of Western metaphysics. The will that lies behind Western religion, morality, and science is, he argues, the will to truth (Der Wille %ur Wahrheif). In the history of metaphysics, however, this will has remained unacknowledged. Man has forgotten the nature of his Erkenntnistrieb and posited truth äs an abstract goal to be striven for at any price. Thus, Nietzsche argues/ the will to truth is in need of a justification and which can only take place in the context of life and the conditions of existence. The lacuna of philosophy lies in that, "the ascetic ideal has dominated all philosophy, because truth was posited äs being, äs God, äs the highest court of appeal, because truth was not permitted to be a problem."99 Thus Nietzsche defines the task of the philosopher today äs being one of inaugurating a 'critique' of truth: "the 95 KGW VIII2, 9[60], tr. WM 585A: "Ein Nihilist ist der Mensch, welcher von der Welt, wie sie ist, urtheilt, sie sollte nicht sein und von der Welt, wie sie sein sollte, urtheilt^ sie existirt nicht." 96 AC 43 97 KGWVIIl?>, 14[168], tr. WM 586A 98 AC 11 99 GM III, 24 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 331 value of truth must for once be experimentally called into question"1™* Out understanding of truth is not based on knowledge but on faith, on an unconscious imperative. This is one of Nietzsche's most provocative and perspective insights, I would argue. Given this, he then argues that the task should be to bring the will to truth to self-consciousness. But how can this event take place? Firstly Nietzsche considers science äs a possible candidate for the task of instituting a critique of truth, but he rejects the idea because, he argues, science too rests on a faith. Today, he says, the scientific conscience is an abyss (A.bgrund)\ "it does not represent the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather the latest and noblest form of it."101 Modern science is built on a positivistic ground that reflects a philosophical abstinence and intellectual stoicism. It refuses not only to affirm but also to deny, it is, "the desire to halt before the factum brutum^ the fatalism of 'petiffazts9"102 Nietzsche conceives of the critique of truth in terms of a self-overcoming. Self-overcoming is defined äs the law of life. Thus, he writes: The law of life will have it, the law of the necessity of self-overcoming in the nature of life — the lawgiver himself eventually receives the call — patere legem, quam ipse tulisti [submit to the law you yourself proposed].103 In this way, he argues, Christianity äs a dogma is destroyed by its own morality. Atheism for Nietzsche is not the overcoming of Christianity, of the death of God. Although it may appear to be the antithesis of the ascetic ideal atheism is, in fact, understood by Nietzsche äs one of the last phases of its evolution, äs one of its most dramatic terminal forms; "it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of two thousand years of training in truth that finally forbids itself the lie involved in belief in God."104 That all great things bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming, is a basic principle of Nietzsche's thinking. Today, he argues, we stand at the threshold of the self-overcoming of metaphysics for in us the will to truth becomes for the first time conscious of itself äs a problem. The meaning of the ascetic ideal is> ironicälly, that man has had, historically, no meaning apart from this ideal: This is precisely what the ascetic ideal means: that something was lacking^ that man was surrounded by a fearful void — he did not know how to justify, to affirm himself, he suffered from the problem of his meaning. He also suffered otherwise, he was in the main a sick anitnal: but his problem 100 101 ibid. ibid. 23 ibid. 24 103 ibid. 27 104 ibid. 102 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

332 Keith J. Ansell-Pear$on ·f was not suffering itself, but that there was no answer to the crying question, "why do I suffer?"105 Why has man suffered from the problem of bis meaning? Because, Nietzsche argues, man has operated under the Illusion that once he has discovered 'truth' he would be liberated from suffering and hence €free\ Man has sought, '"die Wahrheit': eine Welt, die nicht sich widerspricht, nicht täuscht, nicht wechselt, eine wahre Welt — eine Welt, in der man nicht leidet."106 The will to truth, Nietzsche argues, represents in the history of Western metaphysics the impotence of the will to create.107 In the concluding sections of the Genealogy Nietzsche will once again pose the question of art. He teils us that he will return one day to the subject at greater length, and argues that art is the means for overcoming the ascetic ideal. He posits 'Plato versus Homer' äs "the most complete and genuine antagonism." On the one band there is an advocate of the beyond and a slanderer of life, on the other band there is the deifier of becoming and illusion who embodies the good will to appearance.108 Nietzsche, did not need to return to the topic at greater length for he had already presented his case for art contra scieiice in The Birth of Tragedy in the form of Socratism versus tragedy, Socrates versus Dionysus. And it is the Dionysian in Nietzsche's later writings that once again takes us to the heart of his innermost, deepest thinking. He writes: To divide the world into a 'true' aiid 'apparent world', whether in the name of Christianity or in the manner of Kant is only a symptom of decadence, of declining life ... That the artist places a higher value on appearance than on reality constitutes no objection to this proposition, for 'appearance' (der Schein) here signifies reality once more, only selected, strengthened ... The tragic artist is not a pessimist, — it is precisely he who affirms all that is questionable and terrible in existence, he is Dionysian^ The movement from tragedy to nihilism is also a movement to a rebirth of tragedy and tragic philosophy. Nietzsche considers himself to be the first philosopher who has 'found' the concept of tragedy. Thus, he writes, "In this sense I have the right to understand myself äs the first tragic philosopher — that is, the most extreme opposite and antipode of a pessimistic philosopher. Before me this transposition of the Dionysian into a philosophical pathos did not exist: tragic ivisdom was lacking ..."110 The centrality of the Dionysian throughout Nietzsche's writings shows to what extent Nietzsche conceives of the overcoming of nihilism äs an 105 ibid. 28 ™ KGWVII12, 9[60], WM 585A 107 ibid. GM III, 25; for art äs' the 'good wül to appearance' see FW 107 109 GD ,Die „Vernunft^ in der Philosophie' sec.6 110 EH ,Die Geburt der Tragödie' sec. 3 108 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietssche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 333 overcoming to a Dionysian standpoint. The aim of the Dionysian is not to liberate us from suffering but to affirm and thus overcome suffering. This is why Nietzsche says that the problem is that of the meaning of suffering: whether a Christian/Kantian meaning or tragic meaning. It is the Dionysian that plays the central role in the tragic meaning of suffering, for it is the Dionysian that contains the ground of the unity of creation and destruction and that teaches one to be oneself with the eternaiy^y of becoming, the joy that includes joy in destroying.111 The self-overcoming of nihilism112 for Nietzsche is a down-going (Untergang) and a going-across (Übergang) to tragedy and Dionysus. IV In place of Kant's critique of dogmatic metaphysics Nietzsche calls for a revaluation of all values. He defines his philosophy äs posing a solution to the problem of value, to the determination of an order of rank among values. He argues that his philosophy aims at an ordering of rank not at an individualistic morality.112 I have argued that Nietzsche's critique of the modern epoch legitimises itself in terms of a self-overcoming. He speaks of the self-overcoming of morality out of morality and of the self-overcoming of truth out of truthfulness.113 But what is the event that underlies this self-overcoming? It is the event of nihilism, the event of the devaluation (Entwertung) of the highest values (obersten Werthe). For Nietzsche nihilism possesses a logic; it represents the logical conclusion of the values and ideals of humanity, and it is a logic that the revaluation itself must presuppose for it can come only after and out of it.114 In ans wer to the question why has the advent of nihilism become necessary, Nietzsche reveals himself to be a dialectical thinker: For why has the advent pf nihilism become necessary? Because the values we have had hitherto thus draw their final consequence; because nihilism represents the ultimate conclusion pf our great values and ideals — because we must experience nihilism before we can find out what value these 'values' really had. We require sometime new values.115 It is noticeable that Nietzsche does not call for a creatio ex nihilo^ but rather nihilism äs a dialectical movement provides the reason both for a revaluation 111 112 „Die Selbstüberwindung des Nihilismus. "'^TGIF VIII 2, 9[127] 113 M Vorrede 4 KGW VIII 2, 1 1 [411], tr. WM Preface 4 115 ibid. 114 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

334 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson ,, of values and the creation of new values. It is a movement Nietzsche both lives and thinks through: he describes himself äs the 'first perfect nihilist, who, however, has even now lived through the whole of nihilism/116 Commentators and readers who attempt to determine whether Nietzsche is for or against nihilism establish a false antinomy which nüsses the essential point of Nietzsche's characterisation of European nihilism — that is, that for Nietzsche nihilism is a matter of amor fati. How is Nietzsche's revaluation of values related to Känt's critique? The essential difference for Nietzsche lies in that the project of revaluation represents in contradistinction to Känt's critique a genuine overcoming of metaphysics. Kant's critique, he argues, is merely a conciliatory critique; Känt's success is merely the success of a theologian:117 Does one still seriously believe that Kant's victory over the dogmatic concepts of theology, (cGod', 'souF, 'freedom') damaged that ideaP What is certain is that, since Kant, tratiscendentalists of every kind have once more won the day — they have been emancipated from the theologians: what joy! Kant showed them a secret path by which they may, on their own initiative, and with all scientific respectability, from now on follow their 'heart's desire'.118 Nietzsche has his thoughts too on the back to Kant movement that characterised German philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth Century: The movement back to Kant in our Century is a movement back to the eighteenth Century: one wants to regain a right to the old ideals — for that reason an epistemology (Erkenntnistheorie) that *sets boundaries', which means that it permits one to posit äs one may see fit a beyond of Reason.119 Thus, in contrast to Kant, Nietzsche argues that there is a need not only for a critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but for a fundamental reversal (Umkehrung) of the values and ideals of mankind. This new demahd for a critique of values is based on the need for a determination of the value of these values which has hitherto been taken äs given and factual, äs beyond question. And yet, dialectically construed, the revaluation project äs ä way 116 ibid. (tr. Pref. 3): "[...] als der erste vollkomtnene Nihilist Europas, der aber den Nihilismus selbst schon in sich zu Ende gelebt hat, ^ der ihn hinter sich, unter sich, außer sich hat ..." 117 AC 10 » GM III, 25 119 KGW VIII2, 9[178], tr. WM 95. The 'back to Kant' movement found its emblem in Otto Liebmann's Kant und die Epigonen of 1865 where Liebmann ended every chapter with the words, "Also muss auf Kant zurückgegangen werden." The movement was largely inspired by the concern'to re-establish the epistemological foundations of philosophy. Its influence and legacy on German philosophy and sociology was enormous. For an excellent account of neo-Kantianism and its relation to post-Hegelian German philosophy see Herbett Schnädelbach, Pbilosophy in Germanj 1831 — 1933 (tr. Eric Matthews, Cambridge Univ. Press 1984). Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 335 of overcoming metaphysics is not sirnply to be conceived äs a critical destruction, but is equally to be understood äs a critical appropriation. That is to say that nihilism, äs a dialectical movement, is both positive and negative. In our time Heidegger has defined the task of philosophy äs one of a destruction of the history of ontology, and he has argued that this 'destruction' is not simply a matter of shaking off the ontological tradition, but rather of staking out the positive possibilities of that tradition, and which always means keeping it within its limits.120 Heidegger's conception of overcoming the philpsophical tradition is very similar to HegeFs notion of a determinate negation.121 Nietzsche's dialectical conception of the principle and task of the overcoming of nihilism (i. e. The Will To Power: ^ttempt at a Revaluation of all Values) is very similar to both HegeFs and Heidegger's understanding of the tradition and its appropriation. And yet, there is a fundamental difference which distinguishes Nietzsche's position from a strictly dialectical one, and this difference lies in Nietzsche's understanding of the Dionysian where 'excess reveals itself äs truth'.122 This 'excess' is fundamental for Nietzsche. It is, I would argue, Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche that has bequeathed to us the most important question concerning Nietzsche's philosophy today. Heidegger rightly understands the revaluation project in terms of an overturning of the nature and manner of valuing. We no longer posit values from the place of the will to truth, but recognise that the most important event of recent times, the death of God (the ascetic ideal), signals the necessity for an abolition of the 'place' of Western metaphysics.123 And yet, Heidegger argues that, ultimately, Nietzsche does not overcome metaphysics, that is, overcome in the sense of Überwindung^ but merely overturns (Umkehrung) it. Thus we need to ask, is the meaning of Nietzsche's philosophy, defined äs "umgedrehter Platonismus99^4^ no more than an overtufning of metaphysics? Heidegger is convinced that, "Nietzsche's countermovement against metaphysics is, äs the mere turning upside down of metaphysics, an inextricable entanglement in metaphysics, in such a way, indeed, that metaphysics is cut off from its essence and, äs metaphysics, is nevef äble to think its own essence."125 120 Heidegger, Being and Time p. 44 (tr. J. Macquarrie and J. Robinson, Oxford, Basil Blackwell 1962). 121 Hegel, op. cit. preface 59 122 GT4 123 Heidegger, The Word of Nietzsche: "God is Dead" p. 70^ in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (tr. William Lovitt, Harpe* & Row 1977) 124 "Meine Philosophie umgedrehter Platonismus" KGWIII3, 7[156] 125 Heidegger, The Word of Nietzsche op. cit. pol. I think that Eugen Fink is correct when he writes in answer to the question whether Nietzsche finds a new ground or whether he merely remains trapped in and dependent on metaphysics, that this way of posing the issue Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

336 Keith J. Ansell-Pearson /r This is not the place to launch a serious response to Heidegger's questioning, though such a response is, I would argue, one of the most pressing tasks of philosophy today. However, I would suggest that what is left out of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche is äs important and revealing äs what he puts in. Thus, we can turn Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche against itself. Heidegger's reading of metaphysics is based on the insight that there is always something that exceeds metaphysics and which is never recognised äs such — the question of Being. But — and this is a fundamental point — there is something that exceeds and that is left out of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche, and this is the question concerning the nature of the excess itself, it is the question of 'what is Dionysian?'126 For Nietzsche it is this question, the question that has been forgotten in the history of metaphysics, which is the most urgent question of the modern epoch because, he argues — All that we now call culture, education, civilisation, must some day appear before the unerring judge, Dionysus.127 I have shown that Nietzsche conceived his project of a revaluation of values against the background of Kant's original critique of metaphysics, Kant provided Nietzsche with, I would argue, the decisive philosophical context in which he could articulate his 'artist's metaphysics', the metaphysics that paradoxically represent no new metaphysics. For me this paradox of a metaphysics that is also not a metaphysics captures the essential oracular nature of Nietzsche's thinking and of his tragic insights into the present age. It is, above all, the ambiguity of our condition that Nietzsche wishes to alert us to: Nihilism: [...] It is ambiguous (zweideutig). A. Nihilism äs a sign (Zeichen) of the increased power of the spirit: äs active nihilism. [...] B. Nihilism äs decline (Niedergang) and recession (Rückgang) of the power of the«spirit: äs passive nihilism.128 The project of a revaluation is, in contrast to Kant's theologically guided critique, not an a priori success, but is by its very nature 'undecidable'. Only of Nietzsche's relation to the tradition is too simple. Rather, he argues, that it is necessary to understand Nietzsche's philosophy in terms of Schicksal (fate, destiny), and he argues that, "Mit Nietzsche kommt der europäische Mensch an einen Scheideweg." see Eugen Fink, Nietzsches Philosophie, p. 7 and pp. 181 (W. Kohlhammer Verlag Stuttgart 1960). 126 Gj* Selbstkritik 3. For Heidegger's neglect of the Dionysian in Nietzsche see the 'Analysis' by David Farrell Krell to his translation of Heidegger's Nietzsche, volume II, The Eternal Recurrence of the Same (Harper & Row 1984), pp. 253—9 and pp. 268—81. I would suggest that part of the reason for Heidegger's neglect is to be found in his serious underestimation of the importance of The Birth of Tragedy for an understanding of Nietzsche's läter theories and ideas. see Heidegger, Nietzsche, volume I, op, cit. p. 9 127 GT19 128 KGW VIII2, 9[35], tr. WM 22 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 337 through the cultivation of tragic thought can the barbarism of the modern epoch be overcome, and this requires above all a 'pessimism of strength': I promise a tragic age: the highest art in saying Yes to life, tragedy, will be reborn when humanity has weathered the consciousness of the hardest but most necessary wars without suffering from //.129 Conclusion This inquiry into Nietzsche's reception of Kant, traced from his earliest to his latest writings, does not pretend to be an exhaustive treatment of the relation between Kant's critique of metaphysics and Nietzsche's philosophy. Rather, the intention has been to be suggestive and provocative, with the aim of showing that (i) Kant's thinking was decisive for Nietzsche's formulation of his conception of an 'artist's metaphysics/ and (ii) that in terms of the history of modern European philosophy, Nietzsche's fundamental, philosophical project — regarding both principle and task (will to power and the revaluation of all values) — is to be examined against the backdrop of Kant's critique of metaphysics — a critique that has determined the parameters and nature of modern Western philosophy up to this day. Gilles Deleuze in his study of 1962 entitled Nietzsche et la Philosophie, is the only thinker to have explored the relation between Kant and Nietzsche — specifically on the nature and aims of 'critique' — in any detail and with some degree of sophistication.13° Once, however, it is accepted and acknowledged that the relation between Kant and Nietzsche is a crucial one for contemporary thinking in philosophy, then it is to be hoped that the relation between Nietzsche and the "Chinaman of Königsberg"131 will be the focus of much greater attention amongst scholars and commentators of Nietzsche's philosophy than has hitherto been the case. Although the claims I have made on behalf of Nietzsche's conception of the Dionysian must remain suggestive and in need of further elaboration, I believe I have shown two important things that can make a significant contribution to ouf understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy: one, that Nietzsche's formulation of an 'artist's metaphysics' and his call for the cultivation of tragic thinking in the modern epoch, was initially philosophically inspired by Kant's thinking, and two, that in his later writings, Nietzsche comes to 129 Eff _ GT sec. 4 130 English translatipn by Hugh Tqmlinson, Nietzsche and Philosophy (London: Athlone Press, 1983). See especially pp. 89 — 94. 131 This is how Nietzsche describes Kant in sec. 210 of JGB. Kant, he says, "was merely a great critic." Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

338 Keith J. Ansell-Pearspn ·' r see Kant äs a nihilistic thinker whose project of a critique of metaphysics was not radical enough but merely conciliatory and delaying the final crisis, and which is why Nietzsche could say of his own work that it represented "a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far."132 This is how Nietzsche conceived of his project of Revaluation in the context of active nihilism — to bring humanity to a fateful and responsible decision concerning its future. Nietzsche places his hopes for a 'beyond' of European nihilism on a rebirth of tragedy and tragic thinking so that the tragic philosopher and the tragic life will be possible once again. One important task that has not been carried out here, but which is fundamental for our ünderstanding of the relätion between the philosopher of power and the philosopher of the categorical imperative, is that of determining precisely the role of the principle — will to power — in Nietzsche's task of Revaluation, for Nietzsche argued that, uthe objective measure of value" is "solely the quanturn of enhanced and organised power."133 The task of determining the role the principle of the will to power plays in Nietzsche's innermost and deepest thinking regarding his task is an important one for the reason of the claim I made at the very beginfting of this essay: that with the principle of the will to power metaphysics is both at an end and at another beginning because it has begun to think in a new element. The overcoming of Kant and metaphysics is for Nietzsche to take its irnpetus from the thinking that takes place in this new element. With this overcoming metaphysics becomes transformed into an artisfs metaphysics, not because such a metaphysics signifies an aestheticism äs a means of overcoming the nihilism of Western metaphysics, but because it conceives reality and existence in terms of der Wille %ur Macht understöod äs the will to create and make.134 It is precisely because this will has been lacking 132 EH 'Why I Am Destiny' (,Warum ich ein Schicksal bin') sec. 1. WM(H*. 134 This poiftt, I would argue, finds textual evidence in Nietzsche's work in the distinction he makes between "philosophical labourers" and "philosophical legislators" in sec. 211 ofJGB. The latter represent a new breed of philosophers — the philosophers of the future — who will not continue to build "majestic moral structures" in the manne* of the phüosophical labourers, but who will rather aim at "truth" in the sense of will to power. See the conception of truth in WM 552 where Nietzsche criticises the will to truth and argues that 'truth' is not something fixed and determined, not something "that might be found or discovered — but something that must first be created and that gives name to a process ... introducing truth, äs a process in infinitum, an active determining — not a becoming conscious of something that is in itself fixed and determined. It is a word for the 'will to power/" Concerning the phüosophical legislators in JGB 211 Nietzsche writes of them: "Their 'knowing* is a creating, their creating is a legislation, their will to truth is — will to power" 133 Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM

Nietzsche's Overcoming of Kant and Metaphysics 339 (misrecognised and unacknowledged) in Western metaphysics and morality that Nietzsche is able to describe European culture äs displaying and revealing a nihilistic will — a "will to nothingness" that would rather will nothingness than not will at all —, and why he also calls for the overcoming of European nihilism. Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 1/21/16 7:29 PM