Genealogy and its Shadows: Reading Nietzsche with Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida

Joseph Ward

Genealogy and its Shadows ReadingNietzsche with Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida

Thesis submitted for Doctorate of Philosophy in Philosophy, University of Sussex, September 2007

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I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in for degree. University However, the the thesis to award of any other part another incorporates to the extent indicated below, material already submitted as part of for degree the of. required coursework and/or Master of Arts In RenaissanceEnglish Literature

which was awardedby the University of Sussex Partsof Chapter4 include material derived from an essaysubmittedfor my MA in the `Poststructuralism' module, on Nietzsche and Derrida. This material has been substantiallyreworked and rewritten in the thesis. Signature:

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University of Sussex Joseph Ward, Doctorate of Philosophy in Philosophy

Genealogy and its Shadows: Reading Nietzsche with Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida Summary

The conceptof genealogyhas come to be seenin continentalNietzschestudiesas the Nietzsche's indeed designating of to the approach philosophical central project, as matureNietzsche.I explore how this stateof affairs has come about by readingthe texts of three French-languagewriters whom I take to have particularly influenced the has cometo to way continentalphilosophy, and even someextent analytic philosophy, his Nietzsche. first Gilles to Deleuze view of to make genealogycentral see was the Nietzsche,but Deleuze's tendencyto misleading abstractionin readingNietzschecan be seento have far-reachingconsequencesfor many aspectsof his interpretation, including his famousreading of eternalreturn. Michel Foucault reminds us of the into but historical a Nietzsche's turns genealogy properly philosophy, aspectof historicism basedon presuppositionsquite other than those of Nietzsche.And in JacquesDerrida's adoption of Nietzscheas a forebeargenealogybecomesbound up with conceptionsof opposition and self-referencewhich are quite foreign to Nietzsche's way of thinking. In the processof exploring thesetensionsI contendthat "genealogy" is for Nietzsche a particular word tied to a particular field, that field Genealogy in its On in bears title, the Nietzsche's the text the explored word which of The Morals, his definitely designates a whole. as and of philosophy not a word which conceptof "Nietzscheangenealogy"is not a substantialand solid textual object its itself interpretations be "shadows"; to rather offering which could construedas there is from the start somethingshadowyabout the very idea of "genealogy". In demonstratingthis I hope to openthe way for a reading of Nietzsche's philosophy in is "genealogy" seenas a single aspectof a much broaderphilosophical project. which

4 Table of Contents

Page List of Abbreviations

5

Introduction

7

Chapter 1: Deleuze, Nietzsche and Genealogy

16

19

The emergenceof a concept:genealogyas "differential elementof values" The systematisationof genealogy:Deleuzeon force in Nietzsche

30

The concomitantsof genealogyas systemof forces: the eternalreturn

44

Chapter 2: Nietzsche and Foucault: History and the Unhistorical

60

Life, the Unhistorical, the Suprahistorical:Nietzsche on history

66

"Gray, meticulousand patiently documentary":Foucault on "genealogy"

86

The statusof the historical in Nietzsche: On the Genealogyof Morals

89

Nietzsche'sbroaderphilosophy: placing the historical critique in context

102

Power, Appropriation and Transformation: Genealogy1112

107

Foucaulton the "useandabuseof history"

111

Chapter 3: Nietzsche, Derrida, Deconstruction, Genealogy

117

The Shadow:Referencesto Nietzschein the early Derrida

119

Culmination and Departure:Spurs

143

The questionof genealogy:Nietzscheand the later Derrida Chapter 4: Derrida and the Nietzschean heritage: Two Test Cases

158 165

"A Force of Dislocation": Derrida on Nietzsche's Critique of Opposition Oppositionsopposed:The Genealogy'sfirst essay

168

A "selective deconstruction":Nietzsche on opposition

184

Derrida, Nietzscheand the self-referential circle

190

The knot of self-reference:the will to truth

199

174

Conclusion: the question of Heidegger's Nietzsche

210

Bibliography

214

5 List of Abbreviations

I have used the following abbreviations for the English versions of Nietzsche texts, following convention. Numbers following references in this form refer first (where individual for GM to to and second section aphorism numbers, example applicable) III 10 means On the Genealogy of Morals, third essay, section 10.

A- TheAntichrist BGE - BeyondGood and Evil BT - TheBirth of Tragedy D- Daybreak GM - On the Genealogy of Morals

GS - The Gay Science EH - Ecce Homo

TI - Twilightof theIdols WP - TheWill to Power Z- ThusSpokeZarathustra

I have also usedtwo abbreviationsfor texts by Deleuze: NP - Nietzscheand Philosophy DR - Difference and Repetition In addition, as I have quoted extensively in the final two chaptersfrom a range of texts by Derrida in chapters3 and 4, I have usedthe following abbreviationsfollowed by pagenumbers,for exampleWD 56 means Writing and Difference page 56. EO - TheEar of the Other IS -'Interpreting Signatures(Nietzsche/ Heidegger):Two Questions' M- Marges de la Philosophie MP - Margins of Philosophy OG - Of Grammatology P- Positions PF - Politics of Friendship

S-Spurs SP - Speech and Phenomena WD - Writing and Difference

For all of thesetexts the translationsusedare listed in the bibliography.

7 Introduction

In the Nietzsche scholarshipof the past thirty years it would appearthat the notorious rift betweencontinental and analytic philosophy assertsitself in a particularly ' stark and unmediatedmanner. ContinentalNietzsche studiesmight trace its lineageright back evenbefore Nietzsche's 1889 collapseto the interest in his philosophy which was alreadyunderway in Nietzsche's working lifetime; through the sometimesbemused, sometimesenthusiasticinitial reception and early attemptsto appropriatehim for one cause 2 his in German through or another of society; a seriesof more consideredapprehensions philosophy in the early part of the twentieth century, including both Nazi-orientated readingsand a few isolated,highly idiosyncratic engagementswith Nietzsche's texts, for examplethat of GeorgesBataille.3This history reachesa decisive crisis, however, with the monumental,career-longinterpretationof Nietzscheundertakenby Martin Heidegger, from whencethe interpretationof Nietzsche continuesby way of what looks in part like a long and slow absorptionof Heidegger's reading, culminating in what seemsperhapsthe first truly significant and innovative post-Heideggereanengagementwith Nietzsche,that of Gilles Deleuze(1962). Deleuze'sNietzscheet la Philosophie4standsat the headof a nouveauvague of French-languageNietzsche readingsappearingthroughout the sixties, most if not all of which are implicitly or explicitly respondingto the Heideggereanpicture of Nietzsche's thought. It is this moment in the history of continentalNietzschereception that will be the primary focus of the presentstudy; one reasonfor this is that from this period on, with the ambiguousassociationsbetweenNietzsche,Heideggerand Nazism at least "suspended"to someextent if far from totally dispelled, the future importanceof Nietzschein Frenchphilosophy (and thus in one of the most fertile areasof continental philosophy as a whole) seemsassured,and his nameproliferates in many of the most celebratedphilosophical texts of the next four decades,including those of Michel Foucault, JacquesDerrida, SarahKofman, Bernard Pautrat,Jean-FrancoisLyotard, Luce Irigaray and Maurice Blanchot. This central importance

of Nietzsche for Frenchphilosophy has

continuedunabatedup to the start of the twenty-first century, unlessit should prove that the publication of Luc Ferry and Alain Renault's collection of essaysPourqoi nous ne

8 sommespas Nietzscheannes in 1991 really does mark a decisive turning away from Nietzsche in France.5

The history of Nietzsche as seenthrough the eyesof analytic philosophy is far less extensiveand less continuous.What English-languageresponsethere was to Nietzscheand the early translationsof his published texts by OscarLevy, which appearedbetween1909 and 1913,lay largely in the province of literature rather than philosophy, for examplein the influence he exertedon W. B. Yeats, D. H. Lawrenceand the painter and writer Percy Wyndham-Lewis.Nietzsche's complex, self-consciouslyrhetorical and highly literary texts were of little interestto the new philosophy which was emergingin the dialogue betweenBertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The perspectiveof early analytic philosophy on Nietzsche is encapsulatedup by the attitude of Rudolf Camap,leading memberof the Vienna Circle, who concludedthat sinceNietzsche's texts could not count 6 Nazi be from The they to the as meaningful ought rather regardedas poetry. slur resulting appropriationof Nietzsche also seemedmore or lessto precludeany seriousengagement with Nietzsche in the English-speakingworld in the forties and fifties. A large part of the re-emergenceof Nietzschein this world as a philosopherto be taken seriously must be attributed to the influence of Walter Kaufmann's seminalNietzsche:Philosopher, Psychologist,Antichrist, first published in 1950.7Although Kaufmann himself ought not necessarilyto be seenas an analytic philosopher as such,possessinginsteada catholic interest in ancient Greek and classicalEuropeanphilosophy and with a particular interest in Hegel, his accessiblestyle tendedto make Nietzsche available as a philosopherwho might be of interestto analytic philosophy in much the sameway as were the canonic philosopherswho precededhim, Descartes,Leibiniz, Spinoza,Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel et al. A further developmentcan be seenwith the appearanceof a study of Nietzsche written by a philosopherwho quite readily identified himself as belonging to the analytic school: Arthur Danto's Nietzscheas Philosopher (1965).8 Danto's view of Nietzscheas basically a philosopherof languagedid not, however, immediately result in an analytic school of Nietzsche studies.Nietzsche's peculiar style and his seemingdisavowal of logic and argumentcontinuedto make him an unpromising figure for analytic philosophy to grapplewith. It is only in more recent yearsthat Anglo-American philosophy in this tradition has startedto feel that there might be in elements Nietzsche sympatheticto certain

9 of its own enterprises.Suchreadingshave tendedto emphasizethat side of Nietzsche involvement debunking insistence his "metaphysics" the the of concernedwith on of and the physical and the animal in even the most revered elementsof human existence, sometimesthus making him out to be a kind of naturalistic empiricist somewhatakin to Hume9.A significant milestone in this analytic school of Nietzscheinterpretationis in finds by the Maudemarie Clark's Philosophy Nietzsche Truth which represented and on later Nietzsche's published texts a kind of common sensecorrespondencetheory of truth be both to the the the claims of sciencecan taken according which evidenceof sensesand as straightforwardly true in some sense,and thus an abandonmentof Nietzsche's earlier '0 falsified language conviction that the senses, and science reality. Dialogue betweenthesetwo schoolshas beenand is fairly scanty.Analytic readers of Nietzschedo tend to be awareof the longer-establishedcontinentaltradition and to make somemention of the interpretationsof Heidegger,Derrida and Deleuze,which are brief, be but in English to translations, these tend the readily available whole references on uncomprehendingand dismissive. Readersof Nietzsche from the French-ledcontinental tradition are for the most part simply oblivious to the analytic readings,which have not by large beentranslatedinto French or other Europeanlanguages.Of coursethe great and is be German this Nietzsche that to corpusof sense scholarshipought not my overlooked; should be seenas a distinctive field, one in dialogue with French-languageNietzsche interpretation,but also largely cut off from analytic readings.The only Nietzsche scholarsI know of who are inclined towards the continental readingsbut also preparedto engage with analytic interpretationsof Nietzsche are from the English-speakingacademicworld;

"l

this would seemnaturally enoughto be down to questionsof languageand academic milieu: thosewho have an interest in continental philosophy but work in English-language universities inevitably becomeacquaintedwith English-languagescholarshipof Nietzsche. Although I am myself primarily interestedin continental philosophy rather than analytic, the motivation for the presentstudy derives from a sensethat both theseschools of Nietzsche interpretationhave beenunable to take into accountcertain aspectsof Nietzsche's philosophy I considerto be central, and that the challengeNietzsche posesto philosophy is one which has not really beentaken on board by either tradition; when it is allowed to speakfor itself, I believe that Nietzsche's philosophy has things to say which

10 in both has heart forms traditions. taken the the strike at very of a number of philosophy The challengeto analytic philosophy is a total one, since, in spite of novel interpretations suchas that of Clark, I find that Nietzsche's skepticism with regardto logic as a meansof determiningthe truth about the world is central to his philosophy throughouthis maturity. With continentalphilosophy things are slightly more complicated,since given my minimal, negativedefinition of continental philosophy (seenote 1) as any philosophy based believes is that there to than on premisesand which argument more philosophy conclusions,on the forms of logic, Nietzsche certainly must count as a continental has it However, to that philosopher. every single continentalphilosophy which seems me attemptedto enlist Nietzscheto its causehas done so on the basis of presuppositionswhich immediately fundamentally Nietzsche's Such are philosophy. an objection at odds with invites the responsethat sinceNietzsche is critical, at somepoint in his career,of anything it his including, and everything own positions, whether acknowledgedor not, someof feel be impossible did to to one prey would any philosophical position which not construct or other of Nietzsche's critiques. The point then would be to acknowledgethe multifarious, self-contradictorynatureof Nietzsche's philosophical writings, take from them whatever speaksto us and not set oneselfthe impossible, Sisypheantask of trying to agreewith everything Nietzsche said. While I acknowledgethat there certainly are confusionsand, taken to the letter, contradictionsin Nietzsche,and that I also think there are formulations of his which have to be abandonedin their literal form once one has a senseof where Nietzsche's philosophy is really heading,I do not sharethis characterizationof Nietzsche's philosophy and how it has to be read. It is my conviction that there is a way of reading Nietzschewhich doesfull justice to the position (and I do interpret it as essentiallya single position) he reachedin his mature philosophy, although this doesnot meanresolving all the tensionsand contradictionsthat late position entails. This last statementexpressesa conviction which also underlies all of Martin Heidegger's engagementswith Nietzsche. On the other hand, one of the things which holds togethermany of the French-languagereadingsof the sixties and beyond, and certainly appliesto the three figures who are the focus of this thesis, is precisely somethinglike a denial of such an assertion.What is in denial be borne this can out, supposedly, two more, different ways. Firstly, the commentator can identify passagesin Nietzsche which seemto

11

been denial it has this traditionally to the text the make and question as very conceptof understood,as a unified whole standingin a definite and securerelation to a single author. All three of the thinkers under considerationmake gesturesin this direction. And secondly, this rejection of the unity and autonomy of the text can be borne out by the approachtaken to the Nietzscheantext itself, an approachwhich may celebratethat text's aporias, is them; this to than perhapsa contradictionsand ambiguities rather seeking resolve reasonablecharacterizationof one aspectat least of Derrida's way of readingNietzsche. Derrida emphasizesplurality in Nietzsche, a plurality of styles in particular, and views Nietzschein terms of an affirmation of difference in principle irreducible to such a thing as a single "position" (it is perhapsworth noting in this context that an early book of interviews with Derrida interrogating the statusof his philosophy was given the title `Positions'). For Derrida Nietzsche always eludesin someway any attempt, such asthat of Heidegger,to pin him down, to interpret him definitively once and for all. Deleuzetoo is very clear that he is not interestedin coming up with a final, definitive reading of Nietzschebut rather in putting him to use for his own projects in line with his view of interpretationas, rather than "a scholarly exercisein searchof what is signified", "a productive use of the literary machine,a montageof desiring machines,a schizoid exercise that extractsfrom the text its literary force."12And Michel Foucault has remarked:"I do not believe there is a single Nietzscheanism.There are no groundsfor believing that there is a true Nietzscheanism,or that ours is any truer than the others.s13 Now to someextent I am entirely in agreementwith much of what theseclaims are asserting.I certainly do not believe there could ever be an interpretation of Nietzschethat said all that neededto be said once and for all, and I entirely acceptthat there will in the future be ways of readingNietzsche entirely unforeseeabletoday. And despitemuch of what has been said regarding Heidegger's approachto Nietzsche,I seeno reasonthat Heideggercould not also acceptthis. With Heideggerthings are a little more complicated, since Heidegger's thoughtson Nietzsche are intimately bound up with a history of philosophy which is definitely not seenby Heideggeras up for grabs.Nevertheless,I think what Heideggeris seekingout in Nietzsche is somethinglike "what Nietzschehasto say to us today" rather than "what Nietzschehas to say for all time".

12 Viewed in this way it is perhapslessclear how extensivethe disagreementbetween Heideggerand his French interlocutors is: are the latter not also interestedin "what Nietzschehasto say to us today"? Of courseHeidegger's answerto this questionis one which will placeNietzsche in a particular position in his own peculiar history of philosophy, but then exactly the samecan be said about the answersgiven by Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida. Is there then a suspicionthat the "Heideggereanstyle of interpretation" set up as an object of critique is somethingof a paper figure? The reason that it appearsboth to the French-languageinterpretersof Nietzscheand to many subsequentreadersthat there is a real disagreementhere over the statusof Nietzsche's text and perhapsover the very conceptof interpretation is, I think, the repeatedgestures,in the Frenchtexts and those inspired by them, in two directions: both denying the unity of Nietzsche's text and/or Nietzsche's thought and affirming the interpretability of Nietzsche's text and the possibility of an infinite number of other possible interpretations. As to the first of these,all I will say is that, eventhough it undoubtedly chimeswith certain remarksNietzschehimself made,it is far from clear to me what convincing reasonsthere could be to think that it is incoherentto talk of a single philosophy or a single position either with regardto Nietzscheor philosophersin general.To do so certainly neednot commit one to thinking that there could be a definitive interpretationof that position. And as for the second,while this generositysoundsvery well, it seemsdoubtful to what extent such an affirmation can really be built into anything which still claims the statusof being an interpretationof Nietzsche.Can a writer simultaneouslyaffirm all other interpretations of, say, a section of The Gay Sciencewhile accordingno special statusto the interpretation that writer herself gives of that passage?This doesnot seemlike a practicableethics of interpretation,and in fact I do not think any of the writers in questionachievesthis. And this is perhapsthe most important point: what we actually end up with from Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida, whatevertheir intentions, are highly individual, original readingsof Nietzschewhich co ipso asserttheir own claims over other competingreadings:the same thing as we get from Heidegger. Perhapsthere are a couple of other remarkswhich ought to be made concerningthe affirmation of alternative interpretations.If this affirmation is seriously assertedby the interpreterthen I do not believe there can be any reliable criteria by which one could count

13 as invalid readingseither Heidegger's interpretationnor the notoriousNazi appropriation againstwhich Heideggerwas reacting. Are thesenot just as valid utilizations of Nietzsche as that of Deleuze,eachbendingNietzscheto its own ends?And would Deleuzeand Foucaultbe willing to acceptthis validity? It is only Derrida, I think, who is preparedto in countenance, `Otobiographies',the thought that there is no definitve way to disqualify 14 is Nazi Nietzsche The interpretation. eventhe appropriationof secondremark that as an in practiceDeleuze,Foucault and Derrida implicitly or explicitly exclude certain interpretationsin the courseof their own readings.Deleuze,for example,is adamantthat "we must not make of the eternalreturn a return of the same";' 5 any interpretationwhich did precisely that would thereforebe on the wrong end of a prohibition from Deleuze. Foucault and Derrida, although they are perhapsnever as explicit as this quote from Deleuze,in the processof affirming interpretationswhich are quite definite on somepoints must thereby exclude others. So even Derrida doesnot seemto be able to endorsea reading, such as Heidegger's,which assertsthat Nietzsche's philosophy remainsentirely 16 subsumedunder Westernmetaphysics. Similarly Foucault could not affirm a readingof Nietzschewhich took genealogyto be a straightforward linear history tracing the "Ursprung" of our moral evaluations;'7 nor do I think he should. It is hard to seehow it is possibleto make a single interpretativemove without starting to exclude other interpretations;this is just part of the nature of what interpretationis, and I would take it that Derrida at least is well awareof this fact and quite preparedto face up to its consequences.But the point I am making is that any distinction between,on the one hand, `open' interpretationswhich claim not to be univocal or definitive, and, on the other, interpretationswhich do claim just this, doesnot amountto very much in practice. This is thereforenot a legitimate way of assertingthe superiority of the French-language interpretationsover, for one thing, that of Heidegger.The from be drawn to conclusions this confrontation, if there are any, must be sought elsewhere.

I shouldprobablysaya word or two regardingthe exclusivefocuson Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida as representatives the French-language of attempt to give an account of Nietzsche's philosophy in terms of "genealogy". Of course,with sufficient time it would have been interestingto have

explored further the readingsof Blanchot, SarahKofman, the

early Lyotard and others.At one stageI had plannedto have a chapterfocusedon Luce

14 Irigaray, but my initial researchon Irigaray led me to realisethat this chapterwould not be engagedwith the concernswhich are central to the thesis: the picture of Nietzscheas in in decisive genealogist-philosopherwhich emerges a way at a certain point Frenchpostfigures important just Really for have I three these thought. the criteria stuck with war why importance Nietzsche the the their of are concernednot with nor quality of readingsof their own philosophical positions but rather with influence.It is, I think, thesethree figures is, Nietzsche have kind influenced thinker of who most significantly our perceptionof the in And in French-speaking the world. especially continental philosophy circles outside belief I discuss, has the their to the evolution of particular, as will work contributed most that Nietzscheinaugurateda radical new way of doing philosophy called "genealogy"18,a discipline which might appearmore or lesshistorically orientated,more or less concerned with an abstractsystemof forces and more or less "deconstructive" accordingto various takes on their readingsof Nietzsche.(This is so notwithstandingthe fact that Derrida is not actually particularly interestedin "genealogy" as a concept,at least in his earlier texts; see below, chapter3.) What I will argueis that actually the very first premiseof this belief, as given above,is suspect,sinceNietzsche never proposesa philosophical or postphilosophical method entitled "genealogy" and that eachof the ways in which Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault align Nietzsche with their own intellectual interestsinvolves If Nietzsche's I overlooking someelementof philosophy which would consideressential. this soundslike a purely negativeand critical project I would arguethat, for example,in the processof establishingthat Nietzsc'he'sapproachto history is not a Foucauldeanone it startsto becomea lot more apparentto me precisely what statusthe historical possessesfor Nietzsche.And in general,perhapsit is only by becoming clear about what Nietzsche's philosophy is not can we hope to begin to discern its true originality, coherenceand uniqueness.

I would like to thank my supervisorPaul Davies for keeping me on track, posing intriguing questionswhich often led to new avenuesof inquiry, and helping me to always keep the thesis as a whole in mind. I am also grateful to the entire philosophy department at the University of Sussexfor the friendly atmospherethey have created;it has beena pleasureto study and work in this department.Of the faculty at SussexI would especially

15 like to thank Michael Morris and Tanja St hier for frequent encouragement and interest in the thesis. And I could not have even started this journey without the financial assistance of my father, David Ward, which has continued unstintingly for six and a half years.

Thanksare also due to my mother, Lindsay Ellis, who kindly proofreadthe Introduction in her for Finally I Cathy debt to thanks and opening chapter. support owe a very special of the last few yearsof the thesis; without this I might never have got over the final, formidable hurdlesthat everyoneperhapsencountersin completing a doctoral thesis.

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Chapter One: Deleuze, Nietzsche and Genealogy

Deleuze's fascinationwith the conceptof genealogyinauguratesa pervasivetheme in subsequentFrenchthought on Nietzsche,from Michel Foucaultto Luce Irigaray, such that debateaboutNietzsche in continental philosophy frequently becameconcernedwith little more than what genealogymeans,what kind of methodologyit might entail and how far its application might extend.But in many ways the stresswhich Deleuze's interpretationlays on this conceptis not easilyjustified from Nietzsche's own writings. Nietzscheusesthe word "Genealogie" in the title of one book, Zur Genealogieder Moral, apparentlyas a kind of metaphorfor a particular way of approachingthe history of morality. But the "Zur" of the title, usually translatedas "on" as in On the Genealogyof Morals but with the literal sensein Germanof "to", castsdoubt as to whetherNietzsche believeshe is writing a completely novel account"out of the blue" as it were, rather than writing about pre-existing attemptsat such a genealogyand how they ought to be revised. Nietzschedoesnot in the slightestreservethe word "genealogy" for his own project as if it were a specialtechniquediscoveredby him alone; on the contrary he attributesto the "englischenPsychologen"the composition of a "genealogy of morals" even as he attacks its "amateurism" (GM I 2: "Stümperei").19And it is to those who have previously attemptedto write histories of morality, thesesame"English psychologists",that Nietzsche appliesthe word "Moralgenealogen" - "genealogistsof morals", even though their genealogiesare bungled and erroneous(GM I 1-3; the phrase"Moralgenealogen" comes from GM I 2). But of courseit is important to bear in mind that thesegenealogist precursorsdid not themselvesuse any suchword as "genealogy" with respectto their histories of morality: they did not think they were writing family histories of morality becausethey derived morality straightforwardly from a utility either forgotten or enduring (seeGM I 3) and were blind to the familial relationshipsinvolved in what Nietzschesees as the true history of morality. Their genealogieswould recogniseonly two "relations" of any significance, a father, "utility", and, however many generationslater, his virtuous and

17 is family descendant "morality". Nietzsche's tree this esteemed enormously picture of more complex, as his short but loadedtext will demonstrate. Nietzschenever explicitly commentson his title, but thesereflections on Nietzsche's attitude to previous moral genealogiesalready suggestan interpretationof following by Nietzsche "Genealogie": the than a what means using word rather straightforwardpath of historical developmenttowards an end, a telos, morality has all kinds of different branchesand unexpectedissues;there may turn out to be unexpected (Michel in its family history, long-forgotten the ancestors. skeletons closet of embarrassing Foucaultwill go on to make a great deal out of the kinds of differencesfrom traditional historiographythis conceptionentails: I will explore this in chapter2.) Nietzscheaccuses the previous genealogistsof morals of, in addition to a lack of historical awareness(GM I 2), constructingtheories on the origin of morality which are psychologically untenable (GM I 3); we take it that Nietzsche's own approach,by contrast,will be thoroughly historical and psychologically perspicuous,and Nietzsche backsup his claims by immediately bringing in someetymological evidence,the alteration in meaningof the Germanword "schlecht" "around the time of the Thirty Years war" (GM I 4). That this is be by to the taken the to will give us a clue as new shape genealogyof morals confirmed by what Nietzsche immediately claims about this new evidence:"This seemsto me to be a fundamental insight with respectto the genealogyof morals." There is no doubt that the from different by insights look genealogyof morals undertaken way of such extremely will anything that has gonebefore. But whether we supposethat Nietzsche's text is something like a contribution to the genealogyof morals or, perhapsmore accurately,the genealogy of morals as it should have beenwritten, contra the "English psychologists",what we do not get is any senseof genealogyas a generaltechniquethat might be applied to all sorts of different concepts.The word "genealogy" is associatedin Nietzschewithout exceptionto the genealogyof morals. Even if Nietzsche's contribution to this genealogyis not regarded by him as the last word, even if this project be it in a stands needof completion, would still genealogyof morals which remainedto be written. If there is more to be said on the genealogyof morals then this is not somethingto be undertakenby Nietzsche himself, but rather by other researcherswho will supplementand expandon the basic structurelaid out by the Genealogy,as is suggestedby the note which concludesthe first essay,calling for

18 the promotion of the "historical study of morality" in academia.Whereasmany of Nietzsche's other texts come to be seenas contributions towards a larger project which remainsto be completed,Nietzsche conceivesof his genealogicaltask as finished and in it little is its limits this text: the text accomplished where where evokesother concedes Übermensch future that the questionswhich are not genealogical,the questionsof the and arise at the conclusion of the secondessayand are referred to Zarathustra (GM 1125). And nowherein Nietzsche's later writings, nor (to my knowledge) in the unpublishednotes, doesNietzsche suggesteither that his own philosophy is essentially"genealogical", nor that philosophy from now on should take the form of "genealogy". And in fact the reason that the word "Genealogie" might appearonly in the title of this one book is suggestedby this book itself: in effect it is morality which comesto call for its own genealogy,in a way which is perhapsvery specific to morality. Morality is not one subjectamongstothersfor Nietzsche.Rather,after Nietzsche's continuouspreoccupationwith morality from Daybreak onwards,the Genealogywill argue vehementlythat morality is the key meansby which Westernculture has come to be dominatedby the perspectiveof the powerlessand by the asceticideal, to the exclusion of all other ideals.Nietzsche frequently refers to a processby which the insistenceof Christian morality on the truth at all costs eventually leadsto the deathof the Christian God; he believesthat the next stagein this self-overcomingof Christianity involves a 2° radical critique of Christian morality, which could otherwise survive the deathof God. On the Genealogyof Morals might then be seenas the execution of the critique of morality from the standpointof truth, and "genealogy of morals" would thereforebe a name for the unique and urgent task which Nietzsche attemptsto carry out here. If he felt this task to have beenaccomplishedsuccessfullythere would be no needfor a genealogyof any other cultural phenomena,as any such project could only be subordinateto the genealogyof morality, given the central statusNietzsche grantsto morality. Ratherthan being a generalisableterm for a particular approachto the history of any phenomenongenealogy would then be the unique name for the historical critique of morality undertakenby Nietzsche in a specific text. This is certainly

what seemsmost consistentwith Nietzsche's

own approachto the word. Nietzsche's note inviting further etymological study of the history of morality (GM 117 ff. ) indicatesthat there is more to be done,but all of this, we

19 would assume,would take place accordingto the framework already set up in the Genealogy;but asNietzsche's subsequentphilosophy doesnot seeits own projects as "genealogical" we must also assumethat the philosophy of the future would consistof somethingquite different from genealogy.Far from being a unifying and pervasive conceptin Nietzsche,in fact no conceptis so strictly localised to a single text as this one. This uniquenessis reinforced if we think in terms of a different and celebrated aspectof this multi-faceted text. This is the circular structureevokedin the Genealogy, it is whereby precisely the philosopher,he who will accomplishthe genealogyof morals, by implication Nietzsche himself, who standsas the final product of the genealogical developmentof the ascetic;this also illustrates that morality is no arbitrary subjectof investigation.(My final chapterconsistsin part in a detailed discussionof this circularity and its limits. ) In uncovering the genealogyof morals the philosopheris uncoveringhis own history, that which constituteshim qua philosopher, so genealogyappearsalso to namethe unique project by meansof which the philosopher,the one who will determine values,becomesawareof the nexus of values by and through which he is himself determined.

The emergenceof a concept: genealogy as "differential element of values"

It perhapssupportsthe naturalness have I the outlinedabovethat no of reading interpreterof Nietzschethat I know of writing betweenNietzsche's deathand the nineteensixties makesof genealogya broad term describing somethingnovel in Nietzsche's approachto philosophy and history. This goesfor readerswho have an interest in matters with which the Genealogydeals,such as GeorgesBataille, who is particularly fascinated by the Genealogy'saccountsof cruelty in the history of the human intellect,21and for readerswho have no particular interest in this work; the extremeexampleof this is Martin Heidegger's interpretationof Nietzsche,

which builds a picture of the ontology underlying

Nietzsche's texts while taking no interest

in in either genealogyas a conceptnor On the

Genealogyof Morals as a book (the latter is perhapsthe most neglectedof all the mature publishedNietzsche texts in Heidegger's reading).

20 Gilles Deleuze's Nietzscheet la Philosophie (1962)22was one of a seriesof idiosyncratic studiesundertakenby Deleuzeon key figures in philosophy and literature, on, amongothers, Spinoza,Hume, Proust and Kant, in a seriesof books widely admiredif been by have least. These be thought to to to the also mainstreamscholars seem offbeat say the writers who most fascinatedDeleuze in his early careerand to have fed into the highly original philosophy which first finds expressionin Difference et repetition (1968)23.It is a lessthan novel comment on Deleuzeto suggestthat theseearly monographictexts are more enlightening with regard to Deleuze's own burgeoningphilosophy than they are with la Nietzsche it be helpful to the themselves; to respect et writers nevertheless may see Philosophie in the context of a philosopher finding his own voice and picking up on terms and conceptsthat may have had particular resonanceswith this voice rather than for the importancethey assumein the texts he was reading. This may begin to explain why it is that despiteits relative insignificance in the Nietzscheoeuvre and in previousNietzsche literature the conceptof genealogywill play a significant role in Nietzscheet la Philosophie; the opening pagesof the book, which are given the subtitle "Le conceptdu genealogie",give us a clear accountof this centralizing of "genealogy". Deleuzebeginsby assertingthat "Le projet le plus generalde Nietzsche consisteen ceci: introduire en philosophie les conceptsde senset de valeur." ("Nietzsche's most generalproject is the introduction of the conceptsof senseand value into philosophy.") (NP I 1)24This seemsa reasonableparaphraseof what it is that Nietzsche thinks is new and different about his own philosophy, although the introduction of the word "sens", with its connotationsof both direction and meaning,as well as of the sensual, gives a particular twist to this characterisation.This is a word which would come to play an absolutely central role in Deleuze's later philosophical texts; to explore any further here what Deleuzemight meanby attributing this conceptof "sens" to Nietzschewould take me beyondthe scopeof the current investigation, so let us grant Deleuzethe validity of this paraphrasefor now; it will not turn out to be so closely bound up with the conceptof genealogyas such. Deleuzethen insists that for Nietzsche such a philosophy must take the form of a critique, the completion of Kant's critical project: "Nietzsche n'ajamais cache que la philosophie du senset de valeurs düt etre une critique." ("Nietzsche madeno secret of the fact that the philosophy of senseand values had to be a critique.") Whereasmodern

21 do has instituted Nietzsche to so, a philosophy a new conformism, often making use of Nietzscheanphilosophy must always be critical: "la philosophie desvaleurs,telle qu'il l'instaure et la conroit, est la vraie realisation de la critique, la seulemanierede realiser la critique totale, c'est-ä-dire de faire de la philosophie ä `coupsde marteau"' ("the philosophy of values as envisagedand establishedby him is the true realisation of critique `philosophise in be to the total the only way and only way which a critique may realised, with a hammer"'). Deleuze goeson to outline the problem of the value of values,the creationof values: critique must determinewhat evaluationlies behind a particular system derive: from this life (or d'etre") "manieres the of values, which values originary ways of processof determining the value of values is what Deleuzeidentifies with "genealogy". So there are basically two stepswhich take Deleuze from "sens et valeurs" (sense and value) to "genealogie": firstly, that the philosophy of senseand values must be critical, and secondlythat for Nietzsche critique must take the form of genealogy:neither of these stepsis beyond dispute. In a senseDeleuzeis absolutelyright when he ascribesto Nietzschethe perception by limitations Kantian the to this the the of critique critique and attempt complete of But first its into for, Nietzsche believes, time. the placing underlying morality question as the questionremainsas to whetherNietzsche conceivesof philosophy as co-identical with critique, whether there might not be more to philosophy than critique; whether critique might be a particular phasewhich is called for in the history of philosophy by the particular circumstancesof the day; whether philosophy must be always and only critique. Certainly Nietzsche never usesany phrasewhich might be translatedas "la critique totale" and the remainderof this line posesthe questionfor us once again:Nietzsche's philosophy of values is the only way "de faire de la philosophie ä `coupsde marteau"'. This famous 25 derives from fact Twilight but Idols, the that the subtitle of phrase the once again of Nietzsche connectsit very specifically to this one text might suggestthat Nietzsche does not think that all philosophy must be undertakenwith the blows of a hammer.Is Ecce Homo, with its glowing hymn of thanks to the circumstancesof Nietzsche's own life, a perfect demonstrationof the principle of amorfati, to be characterisedin this way? Or perhapsEcce Homo is a special case,an indulgent autobiographywhich cannot be included amongstNietzsche's philosophy proper? But the question still remainswith respectto The

22 Antichrist, The Case of Wagner, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, not to mention the earlier works, in particular The Gay Science. Are these purely critical texts?

It is in The Gay Sciencethat one encounterswhat appearsto be Nietzsche's own introduces Nietzsche the In Four Book to the response such a question. opening section of conceptof amorfati and expandson it in the following terms: Amorfati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war againstwhat is ugly. I do not want to accuse;I do not evenwant to accusethosewho accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation.And all in all and on the whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer. (GS 276)26

Now of courseDeleuze could respondto this simply by commentingthat Nietzsche's thought had not reachedmaturity in The Gay Scienceand that all of his later books are it) do if (and I but this essentiallycritical; not accept the characterisation even one accepts suggestionthat I made earlier could apply here: critique might just be envisagedby Nietzsche as a temporary phaseof philosophy, a necessaryclearing of the ground prior to the constructionof a truly affirmative philosophy; in other words it could be that Nietzsche simply never reachedthe "some day" alluded to above,but that his conceptionof what 7 demands be this yes-saying. In fact Deleuzehimself makesthis very philosophy should la in Nietzsche Nietzsche few later (1965) than et point a short essayon published a years Philosophie when he writes of "two forces, two qualia, of the will to power, which are ultimate and fluent, deeperthan the forces that derive from them, for the will to power makesit that active forces affirm, and affirm their difference: in them affirmation is first, and negationis never but a consequence,a sort of surplus of pleasure."28This makes Deleuze's presentationof Nietzsche's philosophy in Nietzscheet la Philosophie, as first and above all critical, all the stranger. But Deleuzehas a more sophisticatedresponsethan this available, which is simply to contendthat Nietzscheancritique is entirely active and affirmative, since to exposethe originary evaluationson which systemsof values are erectedis necessarilyto intervene and participate in this creation of values, in "1'6lementpositif d'une creation" ("the

23 positive elementof a creation") (NP I 1). Such a responseis far more in keeping with the philosophy Deleuzewent on to develop in the texts which follow Nietzscheet la Philosophie,which, however multifarious and hard to pin down it is, is certainly an extendedattemptto combine radical critique with radical affirmation. Somethingof how this idea relatesto Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche will becomeclearerin thinking about if for is Deleuze be but first that to the thing one why critique must genealogical, consider were to go so far as to conceive of critique as itself a Yes-sayingit seemsdoubtful whether we would still be talking about critique here, or whether the conceptof critique would have beenstretchedout of all recognition. Deleuze's approachrecalls Nietzsche's adage,also in The Gay Science,that "we can destroy only as creators" (GS 58), but seemsto turn it upside down, for Nietzsche doesnot say: we createonly as destroyers,or only critique entails creation. So that the point would be not that a philosophy of senseand values must aboveall be a critical philosophy, as Deleuzehas it, but rather that it must first of all be an affirmative philosophy, and only as such can it be truly critical. The reversal of priorities is surely highly significant, as will emergein consideringthe critical aspectof Nietzsche's philosophy.

Whatevermy reservations aboutdescribingNietzsche'smaturephilosophyin toto as critique, it is certainly true that the idea of critique is encounteredfrequently in Nietzsche,unlike the conceptof genealogy.But Deleuze's reasonsfor privileging the latter are perhapsnot as unfounded as I have suggestedabove,for even if Nietzschedoesnot use the word "genealogy" at all in the majority of his texts it doesnot seemwholly unreasonableto describeNietzsche's continuousand ongoing fascinationwith the origins of morality, religion, the stateetc. as genealogical,in the senseof evoking a particular, non-linear kind of history of a phenomenon.And for Deleuzetoo it might seemfitting that Nietzschereservesthe word for the title On the Genealogy Morals since morality must of also be a special caseon Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche: all of Nietzsche's analysesof religious or political formations must be tracedback to value judgements, and genealogyis fundamentally concernedwith the origin and creation of values. "Genealogie signifie l'element differentiel desvaleurs dont decouleleur valeur elle-meme." ("Genealogy signifies the differential elementof values from which their value itself derives.") (NP I 1) It would be possible in principle to squarethis special senseof genealogywith a

24

descriptionof Nietzsche's other enquiriesas genealogicalin a more generalsense,since they can all be linked with this core meaning of genealogyas the originary "differential element". One could even arguethat if one defines genealogyin the broadestterms, as a historical method of uncovering the origin of somephenomenon,the term might cover virtually the entirety of Nietzsche's output, and not merely the later philosophy. For it 29, incontestable The Birth Traged, that seems of explicitly in its title, is concernedwith the origins of tragedy, and also with the origin of a kind of rationality which stifles tragedy (that of Socrates),whereasthe early essay"On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense"is a discourseon the origins of certain errors concerningour perceptionof the world30;even EcceHomo might be construedas an investigation into the origin of that phenomenon 31 is Friedrich Nietzsche ! But this very conceptof "origin" is problematic, and is the which locus of anotherdivergencebetweenNietzsche and Deleuze. In English translationsNietzsche makesit clear very near the beginning of On the Genealogyof Morals, in the secondsection of the preface,that the subject of the ensuing text will be "the origin of our moral prejudices" (GM Preface2), and even italicises this concernwith origin. But there are two Germanwords which get translatedinto English as "origin", "Ursprung" and "Herkunft", and althoughNietzsche employs both words throughoutthe Genealogy,at this crucial moment of defining his own project it is entirely 32 he that "Herkunft" "Ursprung" is the word which Paul Ree usesin the title of apt uses his book on the origins of morality, to which Nietzscherefers in this preface,"Der Ursprung der moralischenEmpfindungen" (GM Preface4), and Nietzsche also usesthis word to describehis own juvenile interest in the origins of good and evil, in talking of the essayhe pennedwhile in his teens:an enquiry into "welchen Ursprung eigentlich unser Gut und Bösehabe" (GM Preface3). "Ursprung", with its originary, fundamentalprefix "Ur", suggestsa real beginning, the place where a phenomenonoriginally leapsup or springs into being for the first time 33 "Herkunft", on the other hand, although in many contextscorrectly translatedas "origin", has a rather weaker senseas simply where somethinghas come from, the path it has taken to get here rather than necessarilyits starting point; one of its possibletranslationsis "descent", as in "of aristocratic descent" (although without the directional senseof "downward": this would require "Abkunft"). It is therefore entirely appropriatein conjunction with the conceptof "genealogy", and it is

25 surely significant that Nietzsche usesit here in contradistinctionto Paul Ree's use of the word "Ursprung" and its attribution to Nietzsche's own juvenilia. In drawing a family tree it does beyond back to trace to one which not usually expect one's roots a starting point would be meaninglessto trace them any further: to Adam, or to evolutionary theory's common humanancestor;rather the idea is to reach a kind of provisional "origin" which has somesignificance for us but which we know is not really the very start of the story, as when an Englishmantraceshis origins back to a Norman knight who cameover with the Conquest.I think it is precisely this kind of model of origin which Nietzschehas in mind in the Genealogy,not an original well-spring which throws out all of our possiblemoral evaluationsonce and for all but a particular point in history where the systemsof evaluationwhich have come to predominatefor us take on a particular shape.This has enormouslyimportant consequences,since it means,for one thing, that morality could take on quite different forms in different cultures,that it may have had different forms in earlier times and that it could come to take an entirely different shapein the future; it meansthat the Genealogyreally is a history, rather than a metaphysicaltreatiseon morals which happensto take a quasi-historicalform. (This of courseneednot meanthat it is nothing more than a history, that it doesnot have any philosophical bearing.) It is this historical elementwhich is missing from Deleuze's account,and for Deleuzeorigin meansorigin in 34 far it does for Nietzsche in a this context strongersensethan

Onemustthereforebe carefulhow onethinksof "genealogy",andnotethat the historical method employedin On the Genealogyof Morals may well mark an evolution from earlier texts, a more sophisticatedmethodology which doesnot presupposea singular fixed origin. But even if this is so, again I think it is important not to miss the specificity of the mew emphasison history and a historical methodlogy in the early pagesof the Genealogy'sfirst essay.It seemsincontestablethat this historical methodologyis important to Nietzsche, since it appearsto be the for Nietzsche to of utmost urgency introduce into philosophy this historical awarenessof the origin of conceptsof morality: the first criticism which is madeof the English genealogistsis that "they lack the historical spirit, that they have been abandonedby all the good spirits of history", and this is associatedwith the "amateurishness"("Stümperei") of their genealogies.And the very existenceof Nietzsche's book must testify to the fact that there is somethingimportant at

26 in stake getting this genealogyright, somethingwhich will have significant philosophical Where I differ from Deleuzeis that I seethis processas only a part of the consequences. creationof an affirmative philosophy, whereasfor Deleuzeit is the whole, or it entails the whole. As for the other part of Deleuze's initial move, we must also wonder whether in Nietzscheall critique is genealogical.A genealogicalcritique is for Deleuze,presumably, one which consistsin demonstratingthe originary differential elementof valuesreferredto above.But there are critiques in Nietzschebasedon internal inconsistency,inability to achieveresultspromised, damagingeffect on man etc. In the book which precededthe Genealogy,Beyond Good and Evil, one of Nietzsche's attackson Darwinism, albeit in the context of the history of philosophy and with an attribution to Spinoza,takesthe following form:

Physiologistsshould think again before postulating the drive to self-preservationas the cardinal drive in an organic being. A living thing desiresaboveall to vent its strength- life as suchis will to power -: self-preservationis only one of the indirect and most frequent consequencesof it. - In short, here as everywhere,bewareof superfluousteleological principles! - such as is the drive to self-preservation(we owe it to Spinoza's inconsistency).For this is a requirementof method,which has essentiallyto be economyof principles.

(BGE 13)35

So hereNietzschebaseshis criticism on a sound scientific methodologicalcriterion, on an "economy of principles", and in this instanceno other reasonis given for the advocated scepticismwith regardsto the "drive to self-preservation".But suchvarious, nongenealogicalcritiques are not limited to works earlier than the Genealogyin date.The impressionof the later philosophy is not that everything gets suckedup into a whirl of genealogywhich will finally spit out only what is active and affirmative but rather that a number of forms of critique remain active, none of which is guaranteedto be successful (the only thing which Nietzsche seemsto think might possessthis guaranteeis not

27 genealogybut eternal return, which for me is a quite separatematter, as will becomeclear by the end of this chapter); indeed,the refrain often arisesin Nietzschethat only the right instinct can lead one to the right kind of philosophy, with the feeling that neither logical argument,nor the poetic force of Zarathustra, nor any critique genealogicalor otherwise can ever replacethis instinct36.The processis a rather different one, wherebyNietzsche seeshis texts as seekingout and uniting thosewho possessthis instinct and giving them the strengthto comprehendand survive the onset of universal nihilism. Thus genealogy free be future, for to kind them effectively might seenas a allowing such men of the of aid themselvesfrom the effects of Christian morality, an aid essentialto the project of forging new values.This has taken us beyond the questionof whether the only successfulcritique for Nietzschecould be a "genealogical" one back to my earlier discussion:the suggestion is, once again,that no form of critique can be effective on its own but only as part of an affirmative philosophy. Admittedly in Daybreak Nietzsche doesgive one aphorismthe title "Historical refutation as the definitive refutation" and suggestsprecisely that a historical accountof how the belief in God arisesis decisive and that with it any other argumentagainstthe existenceof God becomessuperfluous(D 95)37;but such an argumentreally belongsto that earlier, positivistic phaseof Nietzsche's thought from which Daybreak only just beginsto break free, a phasein which a historical demonstrationcould figure as that kind of positivistic knowledge which could on its own constitutebelief or unbelief. But for the later Nietzschethis kind of "definitive refutation" is relatively unimportant since the important questionsdo not revolve aroundthe existenceor non-existenceof God but aroundthe fact that even if Western society comesno longer to believe in God all the forms of society and culture set up by Christianity, and above all morality, can remain intact. Thus from the perspectiveof Nietzsche's later philosophy this kind of refutation must be seenas an event comparableto the death of God, or perhapsthe sameevent, a historical processwhich leadsto a kind imply but does the of nihilism which not overcoming of Christian morality. The historical "refutation" of theism would thus possess the samestatusfor Nietzsche as the geological and evolutionary discoverieswhich precipitatedthe death of God: although they were in fact experiencedas an attack on faith, they leave all the accoutrementsof Christianity, and above all its morality, fundamentally

28

untouched.So even if one were to maintain that the historical accountwere nevertheless taken by the matureNietzscheto be decisive qua proof of God's non-existence(and I do be this this that not accept view), would not mean genealogicalor any other critique would regardedby the matureNietzsche as capableof overcoming the legacy of Christianity and effecting a revaluation of all values.Nor is the historical dimension seenby Nietzscheas crucial to his own atheistic beliefs; insteadhe explains these,in EcceHomo, as derived from an instinct: "I have absolutely no knowledge of atheismas an outcomeof reasoning, still less as an event: with me it is obvious by instinct." (EH "Why I am so clever" 1)38 Nietzsche's "refutation" of the Christian God, the critical project which forms a part of his maturephilosophy, can only then take the form of an attempt to show the need to purge Westernculture of post-Christianvalues.That this is not to be accomplishedby way of the Genealogy'shistorical critique is suggestedby the surprisingly modestsubtitle of On the Genealogyof Morals: "a supplementand clarification of my last book". No doubt there is ironic understatementhere and this irony makesany kind of Derridean worry about the statusof the "supplement" irrelevant here - but there is no reasonto supposethere is not also a certain sincerity: somethingin Beyond Good and Evil called for further explanation,and that is provided by the Genealogy.Might not the Genealogy genuinelypossessthe statusof a footnote to Beyond Good and Evil, albeit one of the most astoundingand far-reachingfootnotes ever written? If this is the casethen we must concludethat it is the much more multifarious and loosely structuredBeyond Good and Evil which is attributed with the greatersignificance here, and in relation to which the Genealogymust be assessed.It is this quite different book with its evocationof the realm which lies beyond Christian morality, as well as its diagnosesof history and of contemporarylife, which comesfirst, and which for Nietzsche demonstratesas clearly as necessaryin its own terms the needto overcomeChristian morality (as does,presumably, ThusSpokeZarathustra); whateverthe relation betweenthe two books it is definitely not that of thesis and proofs. It is not a caseof Beyond Good and Evil positing a move beyond a post-Christianheritageand the Genealogydemonstratingretrospectively why we must make this move, but of Beyond Good and Evil evoking the need for an overcoming of contemporarysociety quite sufficiently on its own terms the descriptive processesat work in this book are all that is neededby way of "proof' and the Genealogyfiguring as -

29 insight detailed historical the an appendixwhich expands picture and gives a much more into the forging of values. It is not history, even in the form of genealogy,that refuteshere. but they As I have insisted above,the Genealogyhas philosophical consequences, from belief decisive those are not consequences,not consequenceswhich will compel intent on anotherpath, and not in any way the final, irrefutable evidencefor the decadence for first keep for To the the to the essay of presentage and need a self-overcoming of man. simplicity's sake,what the Genealogydoespurport to show is that two forms of evaluation,"Good and Bad" and "Good and Evil", derive from very different processes, the first spontaneousand active, the secondreactive. But it cannoton its own qua history is favour forms Something these to else of morality compel us over another. one of required for this. If genealogyreally were for Nietzsche the completion of the Kantian critique, the processwhich would finally be capableof overcoming post-Christianmorality be Genealogy Morals the On thus then the and would effecting a revaluation of values, of triumphant end of the story for Nietzsche.That it was not so is indicated by the fact that Nietzschehad to move on after this book to quite different strategies,had to look once again to the eternal return as what he believed really could bring about such a revaluation, and had to conceive of somegreatmagnum opus which would achievewhat none of his previous books, even Zarathustra, had beencapableof. One needonly examinethe arguments,such as they are, in Twilight of the Idols, to realise that critique continuedto take numerousforms for Nietzsche.For example,the first of the four propositions which concludesthe section entitled "`Reason' in Philosophy" runs as follows: "The grounds upon which `this' world hasbeen designatedas apparentestablishrather its reality another kind of reality is absolutely undemonstrable." Insofar as there is an argument hinted at in this characteristicsentence,it is that of "undemonstrability", of something having beenassertedwhich cannot be demonstratedand therefore gives us no groundsfor believing in it. But nowherein Nietzsche's dismantling of idols will one find a genealogicalaccount,even in the famous "History of an Error" ("How the `Real World' at last becamea Myth"), which describes a processin the history of ideasand displaysno interest in primitive humanity, races of mastersand slavesor etymological demonstrations.

30 The systematisation of genealogy: Deleuze on force in Nietzsche

By making genealogya much more powerful and efficient motor than it can be for Nietzsche,Deleuzecreatesa dynamic, streamlinedand simplified critical project from Nietzsche's much broader,more various philosophy. This processof simplification, of the broadeningout of contexts and the levelling off - despiteDeleuze'stouted valorisation of difference and pluralism, both here and in his later philosophy - of the specific differences within and betweenNietzsche's texts, can also be seenat work as Deleuzegoeson to introduce anotherconceptwhich is of great importancein Nietzscheand Philosophy, that forces, back force. it is be According Deleuze, to that traced to of vital everything must that every phenomenonbe explained in terms of the forces which take possessionof it; this is what will give us the sense(sens)of that phenomenon: We will never find the senseof something(of a human, a biological or even a if do know force the physical phenomenon) we not which appropriatesthe thing, it is it. in it, takes which exploits which possessionof or expressed ("Nous ne trouveronsjamais le sensde quelquechose(phenomenehumain, biologique ou memephysique), si nous ne savonspas quelle est la force qui s'approprie la chose,qui l'exploite, qui s'en empareou s'exprime en eile.")

(NP 12) All phenomenahave a history, which is as much as to say that they have beenappropriated by different forces at different times, and bear the signs of thesedifferent appropriations, so that phenomenaare always multiple. Deleuze's analysishere draws heavily on a famous sectionin the Genealogyof Morals in which Nietzsche discussesthe various usesand meaningswhich punishmenthas been given in the history of Europe, a discussionhe orientatesby drawing an initial contrastbetweensomekind of origination of a thing, which gives it a certain form and constitutesit as a phenomenonas such, and its subsequent insertion into very different systems of use which give it quite diverse meaningsand

31 applications:

[... ] there is a world of difference betweenthe reasonfor somethingcoming into existencein the first place and the ultimate use to which it is put, its actual application and integration into a systemof goals; [... ] anything which exists, once it has somehowcome into being, can be reinterpretedin the serviceof new intentions, repossessed,repeatedlymodified to a new useby a power superiorto it; that everything which happensin the organic world is part of a processof is in that, turn, overpowering,mastering, and all overpowering and mastering a reinterpretation,a manipulation, in the courseof which the previous "meaning" and "aim" must necessarilybe obscuredor completely effaced.

(GM II 12)

It is interesting that Nietzschehere applies this point specifically to "everything which happensin the organic world" ("alles Geschehenin der organischenWelt"), and not beyondthis, which might seemto tell againstDeleuze's insistencethat this conceptionof forces extendseven to "phenomene[... ] physique". But thesedivisions are exceptionally fluid in Nietzsche,with the inorganic often defined in terms of the organic (as "will to power"39),and sometimesthe organic in terms of the inorganic40.The key specification in the Genealogyactually comesa phraseor two before the above extract, where Nietzsche prefaceshis argumentwith the remark that "there is... no more important principle for all typesof history" (my italics) than that referred to in the quote; thus for natural history, anthropologicalhistory and human history, and at leastpotentially for a kind of physical history. Wherever one conceivesof anything as having a history Nietzsche's point will apply, and if Deleuze can convince us we should think of physical phenomenaalso as having a history the broad application he wants for this point would bejustified. However, this rangeof applicability is also thrown into questiona few pages further on in the Genealogy,where Nietzsche is talking

specifically of punishment:

32 it is presupposedthat things are not as our naive genealogistsof morals and law ... havepreviously assumed,thinking as they all do that the procedurewas invented specifically for the purposeof punishment- just as it was formerly thought that the handwas invented in order to grasp.As for that other elementof punishment- the fluid aspect,its "meaning" - in a very late stageof cultural development(as, for example,in contemporaryEurope) the concept"punishment" no longer possessesa single meaning,but a whole synthesisof "meanings". The whole history of punishmentup to this point, the history of its exploitation to the most diverseends, finally crystallizes in a sort of unity which is difficult to unravel, difficult to definition. be beyond analyse,and -a point which must emphasized- completely (Nowadaysit is impossible to say why people are punished:all conceptsin which a whole processis summarizedin signs escapedefinition; only that which is without history [was keine Geschichtehat] can be defined.)

(GM II 13)

For Deleuzethere is a sensethat all "human, biological" and "physical" phenomenaare indeedundefineablesince the most important questionabout thesephenomenais to determinewhat forces they are under the sway of. Deleuzewould presumablyrespondto the last clausein the quote by commentingthat there is nothing which "has no history", to translatethe Germanphraseliterally. (Michel Foucault would perhapsagree;this is a crucially significant passagefor Foucault's conceptionof Nietzsche and what he took from Nietzsche, so I will be returning to it in the next chapter.) Nietzsche's comparisonof the human history of the conceptof punishmentwith the evolutionary history of the hand supportsDeleuze's caseand his insistencethat this multiplicity appliesbeyond the realm of specific human conceptssuch as "punishment": here it applies also to the biological developmentof the human animal, its developed"hand". However, Nietzsche does not seemto be saying that every phenomenonis plural and henceindefinable, and the structure of the middle clauseof the sentencein bracketsreally implies the opposite: "all conceptsin which... " ("alle Begriffe, in denen[... ]") would not usually mean "all conceptswithout exception". But on the whole I would be inclined to acceptDeleuze's reading at this point,

33 since it seemsunlikely that Nietzsche would want to posit the existenceof conceptswhich haveno history. Deleuzedevelopshis point by adding that the phenomenathemselvesare not neutral, sincethey are themselvesforces and there are someforces which have a more relevant application to them than others.This will provide the genealogistwith a criterion for deciding which interpretation of phenomenais to be preferredand affirmed; for has force discovers by its "essence" (its the example,philosophy only which appropriation the greatestaffinity with it, and which therefore enablesit to expressits full potential) when it has shakenoff its initial associationwith a force which, accordingto Deleuze,is foreign to it, that of religion and the asceticideal. This anticipatesDeleuze's later thought about decadenceoccurring where forces are separatedfrom what they can do, "ce qu'il peut", which has its principle sourcein anotherpart of the Genealogy,the fable of the lambs and the birds of prey from the first essay(GM 113). But the legitimacy of drawing togetherthesepoints from two different sections,and in fact two different essaysin the Genealogy,is challengedby the fact that it is hard to seehow this developmentof Deleuze's thought appliesto the passagefrom which the original conceptionof force and phenomenonis derived. For it is difficult to apprehendin what sensepunishmenthas what Deleuzecalls an "essence"(GM I 2), that is, a quality which gives it a particular affinity with one of the forces which take hold of it. There is in Nietzsche's accountof punishment no privileging of one interpretation or meaning of punishmentaboveany other, simply the observationthat its meaningis fluid and ever-changing,and this point is reinforced by the great list of usesof punishment,devoid of any normative structure,with which Nietzsche concludessection 13 of the Genealogy's secondessay. None of thesemoves by Deleuze is completely unwarrantableand they all have somejustification in Nietzsche's texts, even if, as I have suggested,the processof abstractinggeneralprinciples from different passagesandjuxtaposing them into a unified systemof forces sometimesresults in internal contradictions.The problem is that Nietzsche is often very much less clear than Deleuze how believe to seems concerningat universal a level he is thinking, and so it is far from certain that argumentsapplied to conceptsin the context of a history of a certain era of Westerncivilisation can be extended much beyond this. The strong cannot be other than strong, and the slave stratawas

34 mistaken when it attributed an extra agency (that of the "evil") to the urge to dominate; but is the separation of force from what it can do the sole explanation of decadencein all times? (Leaving aside the question of how this could be assessed.) Many phenomena have a history of different uses and cannot be defined by any one of these; but do all phenomena function like this, or only "organic" phenomena, or only human phenomena, or even only a handful of phenomena in human history? In particular, it is Deleuze's tendency to evoke a closed system of forces, entirely self-sufficient and abstracted from any other kind of history, which will have far-reaching consequencesfor his interpretation of Nietzsche. And beyond this, Deleuze's evocation of a closed system of forces will also feed into our modem understanding of what "genealogy" is, this peculiar practice supposedly adopted by Nietzsche as a way of reformulating the task of philosophy.

As for Deleuze'sattitudeto the statusof the historical in Nietzsche,this is given a ratherpeculiar exposition in his discussionof the "untimely", which accordingto Deleuze is neitherhistorical nor eternal: [... ] the philosophercreatesconceptsthat are neither eternalnor historical but untimely and not of the present[... ] And in the untimely there aretruths more durablethan all historical and eternaltruths put together:truths of times to come [... ] There is no eternalor historical philosophy.Eternity, like the historicity of philosophyamountsto this: philosophy alwaysuntimely, untimely at every epoch. (... le philosopheforme desconceptsqui ne sont ni eternelsni historiques,mais intempestifs et inactuels... Et dans l'intempestif, il ya des verites plus durables que les verites historiques et eternelles reunies: les verites du temps ä venir... Il n'y a pas de philosophie eternelle, ni de philosophie historique. L'eternite comme l'historicite de la philosophie se ramenent ä ceci: la philosophie, toujours intempestive, intempestive a chaque epoque.)

(NP III 15)

35 Attractive asthis attempt to evadethe opposition betweenthe historical and the eternal might appear,it is not easyto make much senseof it. Why should the "truths of times to come" be "more durable" (or, perhapscloser to the senseof Deleuze's "plus durables", "more enduring", "more lasting") than all historical and eternaltruths? But it is evenmore problematicto ask whether we could really apply this characterisationof the philosopher's activity to Deleuze's own book. Are such conceptsas genealogy,action and reaction,the dice-throw, eventhe untimely itself as Deleuzereconceivesit here,to be seenas "untimely" concepts,conceptsrelating only to future times and with no transcendentstatus whatsoever?This would meanthat it only makessensefor us to understandthe history of it in in future, that terms morality and presumably of action and reaction view of a certain would have beenmeaninglessfor the Greeksor Romansto have understoodthemselvesin suchterms, which seemsdifficult to maintain. Ultimately the categoryof the untimely cannotprovide any meaningful solution to the Nietzcheanproblematic of the historical. The problems inherent in Deleuze's way of readingNietzsche becomeapparent again in the celebratedsecondmain section of Nietzscheet la Philosophie, which bearsthe title of the opposition which now becomesthe most important way of distinguishing betweenforces: "Active and Reactive". Citing Spinoza,Deleuzeintroducesthis opposition by way of a discussionof the body, in which the forces which dominate (or should dominate) are active, thosewhich submit to them (or should do so) are reactive: In a body the superior or dominant forces are known as active and the inferior or dominatedforces are known as reactive. Active and reactive are precisely the original qualities which expressthe relation of force with force. (Dans un corps, les forces superieuresou dominantessont dites actives, les forces inferieures ou dominoessont dites reactives.Actif et reactif sont precisementles qualites originelles, qui expriment le rapport de la force avec la force.) (NP 111)

In accordancewith Nietzsche,Deleuze addsthat reactive forces are none the less forces, that they do

not ceaseto be forces by obeying and that they have their role to play

36 in an organic system:a role as obedientforces in the serviceof superior forces (NP 112). The problem, accordingto Deleuze,is that there is a modern prejudice in favour of reactive forces,suchthat in fact it is often only reactive forces which are recognisedand that they "adaptation" for in life is defined then that, terms of are generalisedso example, as a whole (NP 112). In this way the reactive is privileged over the active; the active in fact hardly his Although does Deleuze to this recognisedas such at all. point, according not say so at 41 for imperative it is definition decadence ill health this schema might serveas a and of or , the health of any organism- whether it be a state,a military force, a human body - that forces forces take their active proper place as superior and commanding,and reactive assumetheir proper subordinaterole. Forcescannot be assessedeither by simply quantitativemeansnor accordingto any quality other than that which expressestheir relationship one with another(113) so the distinction of active and reactive becomes absolutelydecisive in determining and measuringforces. It is no objection to this that reactive forces sometimestriumph over active forces and come to dominatein their turn (this is overwhelmingly the story of On the Genealogyof Morals) since they remain essentiallyreactive evenwhen they do so (118-9).

Sofar so good,andit might seemthat Deleuzehasgivenus a goodpracticablerule for determining the place of a force within a system,even if he also points out that the nuancesof suchrelationshipsof active and reactive are complex and that the weighing of force againstforce is a matter of great delicacy and expertise(113). But in the first place is it possibleeven to ascertainwhether a force is, properly speaking,active or reactive? Deleuzeconcedesthat "[i]t is no doubt more difficult to characterisetheseactive forces" ("est-il plus difficile de caracteriserces forces actives") because"by nature,they escape consciousness"("par nature, elles echappenta la conscience")(112); this seemsto be a bit of an easyway out, and leavesthe question of how we should recogniseactive forces hanging.The real problem is that anything which can be given as an exampleof an active force can easily be given an accountof a reactive force as in describable well: any event any of the sciences(leaving asidecertain phenomenadescribedby quantumphysics,which do not seemrelevant here) can be attributed

in with antecedentcauses,as can any action

history, in psychology, in geology etc. We might seemto have struck, in the determination of active or reactive, upon a parallel problem to the Kantian one concerningwhether any

37 definitively be action can apprehendedas free, but in this Nietzscheancontext we must is free do Kantian, the transcendent situation certainly without a will, so conceptionof in Nietzsche is later it for Deleuze When, to and more acute,and unable solve us. Philosophy.Deleuzewants to describethe purely active thought which he identifies with "critique", and the training and culture thought must undergoin order to becomeactive, he commentsthat thinking be it. Violence if forces do do to must violence will never attain this power not doneto it as thought, a power, theforce of thinking, must throw it into a becomingactive. (Penser,comme activite... n'atteindra jamais cette puissance,si des forces faut tant Il en eile sur violence s'exerce n'exercent sur eile une violence. qu'une devenirla force ä la jette dans il faut un que pensee, penser, qu'une puissance actif)

(NP III 15)42 According to this conception"a formation of thought" ("une formation de la pensee")only takesplace "sous faction de forces selectives"("through [more literally under] the action of selectiveforces"). But if active thought is only formed through its submissionto such selectiveforces then is it really clear that it would be wrong to say that thought reacts to the pressureof suchviolence? And if this is so then in what senseis this thought then active, in the senseof self-determining, not conditioned by responseand reaction? DoesNietzsche himself have any more satisfactoryanswersto suchproblems?The first thing to observeis that, as with "genealogy", we will find that there is surprisingly little of the Nietzscheancorpus in which the distinction active and reactive is clearly drawn. Outside of the Genealogythe only other real sourceis in the unpublishednotes, someof which are collected in The Will to Power, and even here there are only a handful of passagesto draw upon. The first of thesediagnosesa malaise of modernity whereby due to the huge influx of impressionsand information in contemporarylife modem man has becomea wholly reactive being: "A kind of adaptationto this flood of impressionstakes

38 place: men unlearn spontaneous action, they merely react to stimuli from outside"; Nietzsche goes on, fascinatingly, to assimilate the "reactive talents" that man has learnt as a result with "science" (WP 71). Then there is a passage from which Deleuze quotes:

What is "passive"? - To be hindered from moving forward: thus an act of resistanceand reaction. What is "active"? - reaching out for power. (WP 657)

Here it is passiveand active which are contrastedrather than active and reactive and there is little in any caseto connectthis with the previous passage:it would not appearthat the accountof the man of "reactive talents" has much in common with the idea of being "hindered from moving forward' 43 There is anothernote, on chance,which evokesthe is itself force in force, "the to the the need recognise creative chanceevent: - chance active only the clash of creative impulses" (WP 673); this is very much in the spirit of Deleuze's interpretation,although it also contraststhis active force not with a reactive force but with a misapprehensionof creative forces as "passive". There is one isolated sentencewhich doescreatea clear opposition betweenactive and reactive,but doesso only in the context of the classification of art: "Whether behind the antithesisclassic and romantic there does not lie hidden the antithesisactive and reactive?"

(WP 847); this context is one which is

of no particular interestto Deleuze in Nietzscheet la Philosophie (and it would be strange to develop a generalaccountof forces from notes such as this one). A more utilisable sourcefor Deleuzecan be found at the end of a sectionwhich discussesthe "Order of rank" betweenmen and the way in which this can be determinedand ascertained,in a sentencein the manuscriptomitted from earlier editions of The Will to Power but appendedin a note in Walter Kaufmann's translation: "One must have a standard:I distinguish the grand style; I distinguish activity and reactivity; I distinguish the excessive, the squanderingfrom the suffering who are also passionate(-the idealists)." (It is hard to know what Deleuzewould make

in last is ) Finally, this there of clause. one more passage

which the antithesisis drawn, and this is very close in its senseto the first note cited,

39 it is although specifically concernedwith the monastic exemption from over-stimulation, an exemptionwhich has beenruined by Christianity: "a detachmentfrom the tyranny of stimuli and influencesthat condemnsus to spendour strengthin nothing but reactionsand doesnot permit their accumulationto the point of spontaneousactivity (one should observe before from have i. they to they think they our scholars read close up: only reactively; e., can think)" (WP 916). So, a few odd fragmentsin which the distinction betweenactive and reactivehas someplace but in which it is used in diverseways and sometimesin the rather different from here is between the there guisewith not enough contrast active and passive;surely which to develop a generaltheory of force in which the distinction betweenactive and reactive forces is decisive. This must imply that once again the principle sourcefor what Deleuzewants to say about forces in Nietzsche must be On the Genealogyof Morals, in which this opposition would seemto play a crucial role. But even here the antithesisis hardly explicit, and where it is elaboratedit is problematic. There is essentiallyonly one section in the entire Genealogywhere the distinction betweenactive and reactive openly plays a part of any real significance,but it is one of the most difficult and provocative passagesin the entire book: it occurs in section 10 of the first essay.

-

The slave revolt in morals begins when ressentimentitself becomescreative and

ordainsvalues: the ressentimentof creaturesto whom the real reaction,that of the deed,is denied and who find compensationin an imaginary revenge.While all noble morality grows from a triumphant affirmation of itself, slave morality saysno to an "outside", to an "other", to a "non-self'; and this no is its creative act. The reversalof the evaluating gaze- this necessaryorientation outwardsrather than inwards to the self belongscharacteristicallyto all ressentiment.In order to exist at all, slave morality always needsan opposing,outer world; in physiological terms, it needsexternal stimuli in order to act its action is fundamentallyreaction. The oppositeis the casewith the aristocratic mode of evaluation: this acts and grows spontaneously,it only seeksout its antithesisin order to affirm itself more

40 thankfully and morejoyfully. Its negative concept,"low", "common", "bad", is only a derived, pale contrastto its positive basic conceptwhich is thoroughly in steeped life and passion- "we the noble, we the good, we the beautiful, we the happy ones!"

This passageis one of the most important sites for consideringthe possibility of a Derrideancritique of Nietzsche,since it restson the claim that the "good" of noble it is but in 4; it I to to morality posited without reference an other, and will return chapter is also central to Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche and is referredto in a number of placesin Nietzscheand Philosophy. If the fundamentaldistinction betweenactive and reactive in Deleuze'sbook is so heavily reliant on this moment in the Genealogy,as it appearsto be, then it is important to considerwhat is at stakehere and what Nietzsche's exposition demands. If the action of slavemorality is fundamentally reaction, the implication is that the action of noble morality is in no way reactive,but truly active, self-determiningand "spontaneous",and only incidentally, as it were, comesinto contactwith anotherstrataof humanbeings.This is why the argumentis closely bound up with the notion that the other only comesinto the equationafter the good has beenposited as noble, fortunate, victorious, as the final sentencedemonstrates.As I will explore further in discussing Derrida and Nietzsche,I think it is very difficult to conceiveof how one can posit somethingas "good" without simultaneouslypositing somethingelse as "bad"; and similarly, I am doubtful as to whether there could be any action which could be considered purely active and in no way a reaction. One other context in which suchan action is insisted on is in scholasticargumentson the Creation: God createdthe world as an absolute and spontaneousaction, not becausehe respondedto being lonely or bored or stood in needof creatureswho would praisehim. There is a casefor saying that the unique Creation is the only place such an argument can belong; anything that exists within that Creation,or within a physical universe,is always going to be impossible to extricate from a processof ongoing reaction. Even if one calls upon a Kantian conceptionof freedom of the will, which Nietzsche would of courserefuseto countenance,it is hard to seewhy one morality,

41 it Is by determined be the reaction. one systemof evaluation, can purely active and other knowing itself for being "yes" to to what without really comprehensible any or people say it would meanto say "no" to itself? Surely to understandthis that being must know what it is to say "no" to anotherkind of being, so that even this originary "yes" is in somemeasure fortunate fact to the that there and a reaction are otherswho are not so well-constituted, so happy. How can an aristocracyrecogniseitself as an aristocracywithout acknowledging that there are in existenceother beings of the samekind (so not animals or trees)who do fable belong The the to to the of not aristocracy? samecontention will arisewith reference the lambs and the birds of prey in section 14: Nietzsche's argumentrequiresthat there feed for be if lambs birds to them things there should such around of prey even were no as on: but how could a bird of prey be constitutedas such in the absenceof any prey? This suggeststhat the lambs are there right from the start, and that the noble morality only takes shapein reaction, to someextent at least,to the presenceof an other which is not noble. I will not come to any conclusionsover this quasi-Derrideanobjection here; rather I is here in final All I to to this will return chapter. want suggest and similar arguments my that such a distinction is inherently problematic and that Deleuze,rather than treading cautiously here, plays it for all its worth, shoring it up with a kind of systematicexposition of the complex relation betweenaction and reaction, and installs it as one of the keys to the understandingof Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. By making this highly contentious opposition seemso central to Nietzsche,Deleuze doesNietzsche a disserviceby making him appearparticularly vulnerable to an attack on Derridean grounds. Deleuzeappearsto make someheadwayin extricating Nietzsche from such a critique when he refines his conceptionsof active and reactive at the start of the fourth sectionof Nietzscheand Philosophy, in readinessfor a description of the emergenceof the phenomenonof bad consciencein Nietzsche. Here Deleuzebegins to discussthe "type actif', the "active type": the "type actif'contains both active and reactive forces,but they are in the healthy relationship where active forces are in commandand provoke a healthy, actedreaction: "The active type expressesa relation betweenactive and reactive forces suchthat the latter are themselvesacted." ("Le type actif exprime un rapport entre les forces actives et les forces reactives,tel IV dernieres (NP ") que ces sont elles-memesagies. 1) Ressentimentis describedhere the as statewhere reactive forces are not acted out but

42 forces: "If felt in ("senti" "ressentiment") inhibit to the only of active as action and come we ask what the man of ressentimentis, we must not forget this principle: he doesnot react." ("Si nous demandonsce qu'est 1'hommedu ressentiment,nous ne devonspas oublier ce principe: il ne re-agit pas.") (NP IV 1) In fact it comesto appearin this sectionthat the crucial distinction is not that betweenactive and reactive but rather that betweentwo types of reactive force, thosethat are acted and thosethat are not. This may serveDeleuzevery well in terms of the history of bad consciencehe now wants to relate, and it also correlates with certain remarksof Nietzsche such as that which Deleuzequoteshere, "The true reaction is that of action" (GM I 10), but it ultimately leadsto confusion when one tries to fact it forces. In has Deleuze as square with what previously said about active and reactive I noted aboveDeleuze stressesright at the start of his accountof active and reactive that the stateof health is not that in which reactive forces are absent,but that in which reactive forces occupy a properly subordinateposition (NP II 1; seeabove), and this is echoedhere where Deleuzecorrelatesthe idea of reactive forces that are actedin a healthy, spontaneousresponseor "riposte" (NP IV 1) with a quasi-Freudianpicture of the unconscious,the mnemonictrace and the systemof responseto presentstimuli (NP IV 2). But if this is the case,and if the important thing is not whether a force is reactiveper se but what kind of reactive force it is, then why was there such an emphasisplaced in the second chapteron the determinationof whether forces were active or reactive,with the genealogicalmethod the ultimate meansof ascertainingthis? And if, as Deleuzeexplicitly states,the eternalreturn eliminates reactive forces (NP II 15) then where doesthis leave us, and why should Nietzsche celebratethe advent of the thought of eternalreturn, given that the stateof health and the reactive type both demandthe existenceof reactive as well as active forces?There may be other readerswho can make senseof the convoluted story of active and reactive forces in Nietzscheand Philosophy but to me it seemsclear enoughthat the consequenceof pushingNietzscheannotions of action and reaction too far is simply confusion. What also emergesfrom consideringthe context of the distinction betweenactive and reactive in On the Genealogyof Morals is the limited sensein which the struggle betweenactive and reactive forces can have any application outside of human history. If it is not unreasonableto think the of whole of nature or even the entire universe in terms of

43 active and reactive forces, as Deleuzedoes,it is hard to seehow the special situation of decadence,in which reactive forces assumethe position of dominance,can be anything other than a particular problem of human existence.Reactiveforces are thosewhich, by definition, are subordinateto active forces in nature; this is what constitutesthem as reactive.Only in man can it be said that this relationship getsreversed:only in the Genealogy,which dealswith a particular period of human history, do we encounterthis situation in Nietzsche.(One should also note that in all of the passagesI have quoted from The Will to Power the terms active and reactive are only applied to human beingsor the humanactivity of art.) One might then be led to wonder whether man would be the site for the culmination of a processbegun in nature,whereby through the struggle against decadencereactive forces are not just reassignedto their proper subordinaterole but actually eliminated; this begins to make Deleuze's resolutely anti-dialectical reading of Nietzsche soundsuspiciouslyHegelian, as if the final destiny of the universewere some kind of self-actualisationof spirit. What actually should tell againstthis Hegelianismin interpreting Nietzsche is the eternalreturn, but Deleuze's interpretation of this idea makes it into the confirmation and actual engine of the elimination of reactive forces, as I will arguebelow. Of courseDeleuzedoesnot want in the least to tell this Hegelian story, but becauseNietzsche's accountof active and reactive forces is specific to humanity such a Hegelian accountmight seemlike the only coherentoutcomeof Deleuze's reading.My point here is that the struggle againstthe dominanceof reactive forces can only be thought of as a developmentof human history, of Europeanhistory at that, and becauseNietzsche really doesnot possessa Hegelian cosmology which will link the fate of the universewith that of man, this is not a processwhich can be generalisedas one concerningthe relation of active and reactive forces in the universe as a whole. BecauseDeleuzepossessesa single unified conceptionof a universal systemof forces this is how things must appearin Nietzscheet la Philosophie. All of this will becomeclearer still in coming to considerwhat Deleuzemakesof eternalreturn.

44 The concomitants of genealogy as system of forces: the eternal return

Deleuzefirst introduceseternalreturn in Nietzscheet la Philosophie by way of a commentaryon Nietzsche's relationship to science.Here Deleuzeperceptively comments that Nietzsche's stancetowards scienceis not solely determinedby whether or not science how is but the of will support eternalreturn, concernedmore generallywith questions scienceconceivesof force and its implication in the modern tendencyto egalitarianism: "[t]he scientific mania for seekingbalances,the utilitarianism and egalitarianismproper to l'utilitarianisme de des ("la et science" manie scientifique chercher compensations, 1'egalitarianismeproprementscientifiques") (NP 114). Sciencetendsto equaliseout differenceswhich for Nietzsche cannotbe so equalised,and thus tendstowards an "adiaphoria" (this is Nietzsche's own word). To diagnosethis in terms of forces amounts to saying that scienceconceivesof the world from the perspectiveof reactive forces. Deleuzegoeson to suggestthat whether scienceprovides support for the eternalreturn (as may appearto be the casein mechanistictheory) or deniesit (through thermodynamic theory) makesno difference sinceboth kinds of scienceparticipate in this "adiaphoria" and therefore conceiveof the eternalreturn in the wrong way. This leavesthe questionof Nietzsche's apparentinterest in physics and the way in which it might provide somekind of proof of eternal return open and ambiguous.It seemsto me that Nietzscheis markedly inconsistenton this point, since while it doesnot appearthat he was indifferent to what mechanistictheory might make of eternal return, he doesinsist in at least one place that if mechanistictheory required the conceptionof a final statethen it would be that theory and not, by implication, the eternal return, which would be refuted44.Perhapswe have to be satisfiedhere with saying that for Nietzsche it would have beenexpedientfor eternalreturn to be shown to be a consequenceof somephysical theory, since we would then be compelledto think the thought of eternal return, and its "selective" consequences(see below) would thereforebe accelerated;but the statusof this thought is in no way dependenton any kind of physics: rather the other way round. In one respectat least, however, Deleuzemisconstruesthis independence.He insists that both physical theory

and mechanistictheory must be rejectedbecausethey

demanda final state:"The two conceptionsagreeon one hypothesis,that of a final or

45 dans deux becoming" ("Les une terminal terminal state,a conceptionscommunient stateof 4). But 11 (NP devenir") du final d'un etat etat hypothese, terminal terminal, celle ou meme I would suggestthat the reasonmechanistictheory seemedpromising to Nietzscheis that it is not clear that it doesrequire any kind of final state.Deleuzeclaims that "[t]he mechanist idea affirms the eternalreturn but only by assumingthat differencesin quantity balanceor ("[1]'idee initial final between the and statesof a reversible system" canceleachother out de differences les l'eternel quantite se mecanisteaffirme retour, mais en supposantque 4). But 11 (NP final du l'etat why systemereversible") compensentou s'annulent entre in final initial be that there states a mechanisticsystem, and should we concede should any be that than singled out as could rather an ongoing recurrencewhich containsno moment initial or final, as the break where repetition starts?On this scoreat leastmechanistic theory seemsto satisfy Nietzsche's requirements. Nevertheless,there remainsthe problem, accordingto the mechanistictheory, of the undifferentiated state,a statewhich, despiteNietzsche's apparentinsistencethat forces for in identical Yet be is levelled to eternal order cannot equalisedor a prior state. out, is it, in Nietzsche hold in this to precisely what we the conceivesof return sway way which identical forces forces two and to are are required think: that while within a systemof no none can be said to be equivalent to any other, the systemas a whole doesrepeat,and that in a sensewe must therefore conceive of somekind of "adiaphoria" betweena moment but is its is there This the thought; and recurrence. what strangeand paradoxical about in little does demand it doubt Nietzsche this think that that way, as seems of precisely we the return of the same: Such an experimentallife as I live anticipatesexperimentally eventhe possibilities of the most fundamentalnihilism; but this doesnot meanthat it must halt at a negation,a No, a will to negation.It wants rather to crossover to the oppositeof this - to a Dionysian affirmation of the world as it is, without subtraction,exception, or selection- it wants the eternal circulation: - the samethings, the samelogic and illogic of entanglements.The highest statea philosopher can attain: to standin a Dionysian relationship to existence my formula for this is amorfati. (WP 1041)45

46

And yet I would suggestthat we might also like to agreewith Deleuzewhen he saysthat the eternalreturn "is not the permanenceof the same,the equilibrium stateor the resting la identical" 1'equilibre la l'etat de ("n'est du the ni place of pas permanence meme, demeurede 1'identique") (NP II 4). It is hard to think that Deleuzeis completely wrong to insist that we must not think of the return of a fixed, predeterminedstateof being, because being it is Nietzsche to the the on according statusof only eternalreturn which confers becoming46.Neverthelessthe abovequote from The Will to Power surely tells against Deleuze'sinsistencethat "[i]t is not the `same' or the `one' which comesback in the eternalreturn but return itself is the one which ought to belong to diversity and to that which differs" ("[d]ans 1'eternelretour, ce n'est pas le memeou l'un qui reviennent,mais le retour est lui-meme Fun qui se dit seulementdu divers et de ce qui differe") (NP 114). Perhapsa more consistentway of thinking of about this apparenttension or paradoxin Nietzsche's conceptionof the eternalreturn is to say that the return of a given moment never allows us to experiencethat moment in terms of stability or being but only ever in terms of becoming, becausewe have no experiential accessto its infinite previous and future occurrences.The moment only acquiresbeing by way of an eternalreturn about which we can theorize but that we can never experienceas such.The eternalreturn thereforeis the return of the same,but this samedoesnot return to us. Nevertheless,as the aboveextract and nearly all of Nietzsche's commentson eternal return in the published books make clear, Nietzschewants us to think of return as somethingto which the will has a relation. It is for the readerto decide whether this is at all tenable;what I want to investigateare the reasonsDeleuze sweepsthis difficulty to one side by drawing a picture of eternalreturn as the return of the sameas different. This first description of the eternal return in relation to the questionof science Deleuzecalls its "premier aspect",as "cosmological and physical doctrine" ("doctrine cosmologiqueet physique") (NP 115). In effect it functions as an introduction to Deleuze's conceptionof the eternalreturn as the return of the sameas different, and as an independentargumentto show that the eternal return cannot imply the return of the same as same,the return of the identical: since accordingto Nietzsche's own physics no two forces are identical, that is, can be

consideredequal to one another,how could we reacha

47 statewhere the entirety of forces exactly reproducesa prior state?As I have suggested,I do not find this argumentcompelling, since it flies in the face of what Nietzschehimself saysabout eternalreturn, and the texts which elaboratethe impossibility of equal forcesin Nietzscheare sketchy and tentative. 7 (If the paradox I have elaboratedaboveis untenable, then we must simply concludethat it is Nietzsche's physics which is inconsistentand contradictory.) But Deleuzehas other argumentsto supporthis contention,and the most important of theseemergeswhen he comesto what he calls the "second aspectof the eternalreturn: as ethical and selectivethought" ("deuxieme aspectde 1'eternelretour: commepenseeethique et selective") (NP 1114)48,where he makesthe famous and striking claim that the eternalreturn eliminates reactive forces and that only active forces return. Deleuze's reasonsfor believing this are, in a sense,solidly basedon certain texts, mostly in The Will to Power, where Nietzschetalks about the eternalreturn as a "selective" doctrine, for example: My philosophy brings the triumphant idea of which all other modesof thought will ultimately perish. It is the great cultivating idea: the racesthat cannotbear it stand condemned;thosewho find it the greatestbenefit are chosento rule.

(WP 1053)

According to Deleuze,the eternal return is selectivein two ways: firstly by giving the will a practical rule by which to live, "[a] rule as rigorous as the Kantian one" ("une regle aussi rigoureuseque la regle kantienne") (NP 1114). Deleuzegoeson to specify this rule in Nietzsche's own words, quoting from the selection of late Nietzschenotespublished in Frenchtranslation as La Monti de Puissance:"Si, danstout faire, tu tu ce que veux commencespar demander:est-il sür queje veuille le faire un nombre infini de fois, ce sera pour toi le centrede gravite le plus solide" ("If, in all that you will you begin by asking yourself: is it certain that I will to do it an infinite number of times? This should be your most solid centreof gravity"). But this selection is inadequatein itself for the elimination of reactive forces, so a secondmode of selection is required. This is the mode of selection which will eradicatethose reactive forces which "go to the limit of what they can do in

48 their own way, and which find a powerful motor in the nihilistic will" ("vont jusqu'au bout de ce qu'elles peuvent a leur maniere,et qui trouvent dansla volonte nihiliste un moteur puissant").Nietzsche claims that the eternalreturn is itself "the most extremeform of nihilism" (WP 55), and Deleuzeinterpretsthis to meanthat "(o)nly the eternalreturn makesthe nihilistic will whole and complete" ("[s]eul l'eternel retour fait de la volonte nihiliste une volonte completeet entiere"). But in this completedform nihilism no longer itself instead forces its but by turn preservesreactive against completion, must, virtue of and eliminate itself; this "negation active" is, for Deleuze,"the only way in which reactive forcesbecomeactive" ("la seulemaniere dont les forces reactivesdeviennentactives") (NP 1114). There is virtually nothing in this accountI would disagreewith: it seemsto me to captureperfectly, albeit in Deleuze's terminology, the way in which Nietzscheanticipates that the eternalreturn will operateas a selectivedoctrine. But I do not think it is then legitimate for Deleuzeto claim that becauseof this selection"reactive forces do not return" ("les forces reactivesne reviennentpas") (NP 1114; translation modified); the justification for this claim is bound up with the whole of Deleuze's conceptionof forces and of genealogy.

Theparticularproblemat this point in Nietzscheet la Philosophieis that Deleuzeis confusing two different notions of "selection". Leaving aside for the moment Deleuze's own splitting of selectioninto two, as discussedtwo paragraphsabove,to my mind there are two possibleways in which the eternal return might be thought to be selective.Firstly, purely as a thought, as somethingwhich forces us to think about existencein a particular way, and which thereby either transformsus or destroysus; secondly,as a universal, cosmologicalprocesswhich selectsthrough the very processof return. The former would be somethingwhich happenswithin the history the universe,the latter somethingwhich of only occursby virtue of the return of that entire history. Now it is clear to me that Nietzsche only ever thought of the eternal return as selectivein the first sense,and never in the second.Every passagein which Nietzsche intimates anything about how the eternal return is selectiveis discussingthe effects which this thought will have when it comesto pervadethe consciousnessof Europeanculture. And I am in completeconcurrencewith both of Deleuze's notions

of selection,as both practical rule for the affirmative will and

49 completion of the nihilistic will, but only becauseI think theseare both aspectsof selection in the first sense,both descriptionsof how the thought of return selects.But Deleuzewants to make his secondkind of selectioninto somethingmore than this, as if it were the elimination of reactive forces from the universe for all time, and he can thereforeclaim that reactive forces do not return, that "The small, petty, reactive man will not return" ("L'homme petit, mesquin,reactif ne reviendrapas") (NP 1114) which also implies, of course,that the eternal return is the return of the sameas different. But it seemsto me that there are at leasttwo reasonswhy this cannotbe so. Firstly, if the eternalreturn actually assuresus that reactive forces will not return then Nietzsche's greatthought, which he describedas "the greatestweight" (GS 341) ("Das grössteSchwergewicht"), becomessomethingblandly cheeringand optimistic. Surely this is not the senseof the passagein The Will to Power from which Deleuzehas alreadyquoted: "Let us think this thought [the thought of nihilism] in its most terrible form: existenceas it is, without meaningor aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness:the eternal recurrence" (WP 55). It is precisely the thought that the petty, reactive man doesreturn which makesthe thought so terrible for Nietzsche and causesthe disgustwhich crawls into the throat of the shepherdin ThusSpokeZarathustra (Z III, "Of the Vision and the Riddle", ii)49.This disgust is overcomewhen the shepherdbites the headoff the snakeand spits it out, but it is surely not overcomebecausehe realisesthat the reactiveman doesnot in fact return but becausehe learnsto affirm existencein spite of the fact that everything petty and meanwill return. Otherwise eternalreturn simply would not be the heavy, terrible thought that Nietzsche wants it to be. Secondly,there is Nietzsche's argumentfrom the infinity of past time, to which Deleuzehas alreadyreferred to demonstratewhy there can be no final or equilibrium state: "past time being infinite, becoming would have attainedits final stateif it had one" ("le tempspasseetant infini, le devenir aurait atteint son etat final, s'il en avait un") (115). But isn't it just as valid to arguethat if the eternal forces to return was going eliminate reactive from the universethen this would already have happened?And infinity the of past given time this would be so whether one consideredthis elimination a gradualprocess(a few more reactive forces eliminated eachtime they return) or somethingthat would happenas soon as return takes place even once, which seemscloser to what Deleuzethinks. And in

50 fact, the more one thinks about Deleuze;s conception,the more it seemsto unravel: for if this latter is the case,then two things follow: the fact that we do experiencereactive forces has Deleuze in be though must meanthat we would an originary phaseprior to return, even insistedthat there can be no initial or original state,and the infinity of past time would haveto be cancelledout through this; secondly,the "eternal" of eternalreturn would becomemeaningless:there would just be one return in which reactive forces were obliteratedand active forces cameto hold sway. But in fact the way Deleuzehas conceivedof forces in the first place compelshim to believe that the selective characterof the eternalreturn meansthat reactive forces do not return, and it is here that genealogy,active and reactive forces and eternalreturn come together. Before exploring this, however, it is worth noting that Deleuzehimself seemsto feel that a great deal is at stakein getting the interpretationof eternalreturn right. This themeis very much to the fore in the prefaceDeleuzewrote for the English translationof Nietzscheand Philosophy, and I will discussa little further on Deleuze's claim herethat there are two momentsin ThusSpokeZarathustra where Zarathustrarejects the wrong conceptionof eternal return. But even outside of Nietzscheand Philosophy this "controversy" over the eternalreturn is often prominent when Deleuzediscusses Nietzsche.For example,in the little essay"Nietzsche" originally published in 1965 Deleuzeinsists that "we must not make of the eternal return a return of the same."50There interpretation be Deleuze's to this that seems always an awarenesson erroneous part (which seemsto me quite natural and in fact correct) is going to precedehim and take a lot of shifting. And it is an index both of this difficulty and of the centrality of Deleuze's take on eternalreturn in his reading of Nietzsche that elsewhereDeleuzebecomessomewhat shrill and even doctrinaire on the matter. This happensin the text which was the next to be published by Deleuzefollowing Nietzscheand Philosophy, Difference and Repetition. Here, in one of the text's concluding sections,we find the now familiar polemic on eternal return, the disclaimer of the idea that this return brings back the "same": "Zarathustra [... ] deniesthat time is a circle"; he "knows that the does [... ] not causethe same eternalreturn and the similar to return s51A little further on Deleuzeworks himself up into a real . indignanceconcerningthe fact that be eternal return could so interpreted:

51

How could the readerbelieve that Nietzsche,who was the greatestcritic of these Equal, implicated Everything, Similar, Same, Identical, the the the the categories, the I and the Self in the eternal return? How could it be believed that he understood the eternalreturn as a cycle, when he opposed`his' hypothesisto every cyclical hypothesis? (DR 372)

The tone here is somethingclose to exasperation.And Deleuze's desireto securethe right interpretationof eternal return also results in a rather surprising decreeconcerningthe legitimate use of the Nachlass: We cannotmake use of the posthumousnotes,except in directions confirmed by Nietzsche's publishedworks, since thesenotes are reservedmaterial, as it were, put asidefor further elaboration.We know only that ThusSpokeZarathustra is unfinished [... ]

(DR 371) and therefore standsin needof Deleuze's completion of the thought of eternalreturn. This prohibition soundsodd coming from Deleuze for at least two reasons.Firstly becausehe is one of the greatproponentsof a mode of interpretation whish is conceivedmuch less as a "reconstruction" of a greatthinker's thought than of a utilisation of that thought and putting it to work; the abovedecreeseemsmuch more in keeping with the former conception.Secondly,this is particularly unexpectedwhen we considerthat almost the entirety of Deleuze's conceptionof force in the secondchapterof Nietzscheand Philosophy is drawn from notes in The Will to Power, which he referencesconscientiously throughout, with no real attemptto indicate that this is done, in Deleuze's admittedly vaguephrase,"in directions confirmed by Nietzsche's published works". It could be hypothesizedthat Deleuzewas driven into such exasperationand such doctrinaire positions by an initial reluctancein the reception of Nietzscheand Philosophy to acceptDeleuze's new formulation of the eternal return. That Deleuzefelt the needto

52 but form further in first himself book his the not of a monograph clarify of which takesthe importance indicates take this the the on of of presentationof an original philosophy eternalreturn, and perhapsevenmore of the recruiting of Nietzsche for a conceptionof difference and repetition that prefigures Deleuze's own.52 Let us now return to Nietzscheand Philosophy to seewhy this interpretationof he because just it here for he Deleuze. For not eternalreturn seemsso compelling to argues hashis eye on novel ideas concerningdifference and repetition but becauseit is quite justifiable and even natural on the basis of Deleuze's reading of "force" in Nietzsche. BecauseDeleuzeconceives,as I have said, of a closed systemof forces on the basisof his reading of the Genealogy,the elimination of reactive forces from such a systemprecludes their ever recurring within that system:for how would they ever get back into it? There are if different in levels happen Deleuze's things picture, so we add a no can at which conclusionto the story of On the Genealogyof Morals, which is in effect what Deleuze does,in which the eternalreturn roots out reactive forces,then we are left with the deals instead Genealogy if forces. But that the triumph with perpetual we concede of active is history European a particular period of and not a picture of the cosmosas a whole then there is no difficulty in seeingthat to posit a triumph of active forces in Westernculture, whether or not this is somethingwhich Nietzsche prophesies,doesnot constitutetheir forces from in be For there the elimination may other cultures which reactive universe. predominate,and there is no reasonthose cultures should not becomepowerful enoughto overwhelm contemporaryWestern culture; and more importantly, asNietzscherepeatedly stresses,there is no reasonto supposethat the existenceof the human race is anything other than transient:who knows what else might spring up in its stead?In terms of eternal return, it is even certain, accordingto Nietzsche's conception,that the universemust once again assumethe shapeit once took prior to the existenceof the human race, only for that race to arise again in precisely the sameway, so that the reactive man comesinto being oncemore. Only if one abstractsfrom the Genealogya general,cosmological picture of forces doesit come to appearthat when the Europeanculture the late nineteenthcentury of overcomesits reactivity that reactivity can never return. There is one other argumentDeleuzecan marshalagainstthe notion of eternal return as the return of the same,and this, unlike Deleuze's other argumentsconcerning

53 is eternalreturn, very definitely basedon Nietzsche's own text. In the prefacewhich Deleuzeprovided for the publication of the English translation he writes: Every time we understandthe eternalreturn as the return of a particular arrangementof things after all the other arrangementshave beenrealised,every time we interpret the eternal return as the return of the identical or the same,we in Nietzsche's hypotheses... On thought two replace occasions with childish Zarathustra Nietzsche explicitly deniesthat the eternal return is a circle which makesthe samereturn. (NP p. xi) Deleuzedoesnot specify here what thesetwo occasionsare, but remarkselsewherein Nietzscheand Philosophy (see,for example,the conclusion to 1115) and also in the discussionof eternal return in Difference and Repetition53lead us to the only possible candidatesin Nietzsche's text. The first of thesecomeswhen the eternalreturn makesits first explicit appearancein Zarathustra, as Zarathustraclimbs the mountain accompanied by his dwarf and reachesa gateway.Zarathustranow introducesthe eternalreturn for the first time in the book:

"Beholdthis gateway,dwarf!" I went on: "it hastwo aspects.Two pathscome togetherhere:no onehaseverreachedtheir end. "This long lane behind us: it goeson for an eternity. And that long lane aheadof us is that anothereternity. "They are in opposition to one another,thesepaths; they abut on one another: and it is here at this gatewaythat they come together.The name of the gatewayis written aboveit: `Moment'. "But if one were to follow them further and ever further and further: do you think, dwarf, that thesepathswould be in eternal opposition?"

(Z 3, "On the Vision and the Riddle", 2)

54 To this the dwarf replies with apparentcomplicity: "Everything straight lies", murmured the dwarf disdainfully. "All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle." But Zarathustrareactsviolently to this exposition: "Spirit of Gravity! " I said angrily, "do not treat this too lightly! Or I shall leave you squattingwhere you are, Lamefoot - and I have carried you high!" It is to be assumedthat Deleuzetakesthis angry responseto show that we must not think of eternalreturn as "a circle which makesthe samereturn" (seeabove). The other passageto which Deleuzemust be referring similarly takesthe form of the rejection of an exposition of the eternalreturn which is found to be somehow inadequateor defective:

dancefor "0 Zarathustra",saidthe animalsthen,"all thingsthemselves such as think as we: they come and offer their hand and laugh and flee - and return. "Everything goes,everything returns; the wheel of existencerolls for ever. Everything dies, everything blossomsanew; the year of existenceruns on for ever.

"Everythingbreaks,everythingis joined anew;the samehouseof existence builds itself for ever. Everything departs,everything meetsagain; the ring of existenceis true to itself for ever. "Existence begins in every instance;the ball There rolls aroundevery Here. The middle is everywhere.The path of eternity is crooked." (Z 3, "The Convalescent"2) Once again Zarathustraderidesthis way of describing the eternalreturn, although he reacts this time, to his animals,with affection rather than anger:

55 "0 you buffoons and barrel organs!" answeredZarathustraand smiled know "how again; well you what had to be fulfilled in sevendays... "And you - have already made a hurdy-gurdy song of it?... " Once again,it appearsthat for Deleuzethis rejection of the "hurdy-gurdy song", a repetitive ditty, suggeststhat we must not think of the eternal return as somethingwhich just goesround and round without variation, that it must insteadbe conceivedof as the return of the sameas different. But how clear is it that the reasonthesedescriptionsare rejectedis becausethey representreturn as return of the same?In the caseof the dwarf, what Zarathustrarails againstis the fact that the dwarf takes the idea of return "too lightly" ("mache dir es nicht zu leicht"), not that he has misconceivedit as such.And when he goeson to counterthe dwarf's version by expoundinghis own, nothing suggeststhat we should now be thinking of return in terms of the return of the sameas different:

"Beholdthis moment!" I went on. "From this gatewayMomenta long, eternallanerunsback.an eternitylies behindus "Must not all things that can run have already run along this lane?Must not all things that can happenhave already happened,beendone, run past?... "And this slow spider that creepsalong in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you at this gatewaywhispering together,whispering of eternal things - must we not all have beenhere before? "- and must we not return and run down that other lane out before us, down that long terrible lane - must we not return eternally?" (Z 3, "Of the Vision and the Riddle", 2) And might it not also be that the problem with the "hurdy-gurdy into which the song" animals have transformedthe eternal return is that it makesthe return too easy,too light and too trivial, not as suchthat it representsa return of the same?Then the issuewould be insteadthat to really think the eternal return it is just not enoughto say "everything turns in

56 a circle"; and specifically, one might only appreciatethe full significance of eternalreturn if one can really conceive of what it meansto exist within that circle and to know that one it. it better is how is for be This Martin Heidegger, there way of exists within can no and demonstratingthat Zarathustra'stwo objections neednot be interpretedalong Deleuze's lines than by quoting Heidegger's impressiveexegesisof thesepassages,which, in spite of Nietzsche, is interpretation held be Heidegger's to the of what generally caseconcerning issue. does Deleuze letter this Nietzsche's to the text than on pays much closer attention of Firstly, when discussingthe disagreementwith the dwarf in "On the Vision and the Riddle", Heideggercomments: It seemsas though Zarathustra'ssecondquestion ["must we not recur eternally?", quotedabove as "must we not return eternally?"] repeatsexactly what was containedin the dwarfs answerto the first question: Everything moves in a circle. It seemsso. Yet the dwarf fails to reply to the secondquestion.The very questionis posedin such a superior fashion that Zarathustracan no longer expect an answer from the dwarf. The superiority consistsin the fact that certain conditions of understandinghave beenbrought into play, conditions the dwarf cannot satisfy becausehe is a dwarf. Thesenew conditions derive from the realization that the secondquestionis basedon the "Moment". But such questioningrequiresthat one adopt a stanceof his own within the "Moment" itself, that is, in time and its 54 temporality.

And when Heideggergoeson to discussthe erroneousdescription of eternalreturn given by Zarathustra'sanimals, the elucidation of what is wrong with the dwarfs account deepensand intensifies; as I have assumedis the casealso with Deleuze,Heideggerbrings thesetwo episodestogether, since he too believesthat it must be fundamentallythe same thing which marks off both what the dwarf saysand what the animals say as erroneous.

Perhapsthe animals' talk is only more effervescent,more buoyant and playful than bottom identical yet at with - the talk of the dwarf, to whom Zarathustraobjects

57 that he makesthings too easyfor himself... They are barrel organs:they turn his words concerningthe eternal return of the same,words obtainedonly after the hardeststruggle, into a mere ditty; they crank it out, knowing what is essential about it as little as the dwarf does.For the dwarf vanisheswhen things take a seriousturn and all becomesforeboding, when the shepherdhas to bite off the head black the of snake.The dwarf experiencesnothing of the fact that really to know the ring of rings meansprecisely this: to overcomefrom the outsetand perpetually what is dark and horrid in the teaching as it is expressed,namely the fact that if everything recurs all decision and every effort and will to make things better is a matter of indifference; that if everything turns in a circle nothing is worth the trouble; so that the result of the teaching is disgust and ultimately the negationof life. In spite of their marveloustalk about the Ring of Being, Zarathustra'sanimals too seemto danceover and beyond what is essential.His animals too seemto want to treat the matter as men do. Like the dwarf they run away. Or they too act as mere spectators,telling what results if everything revolves. They perch before beingsand "have a look at" their eternaldisplacement,then describeit in the most resplendent images.They are not awareof what is going on there, not aware of what must be thought in the true thinking of being as a whole, namely, that suchthinking is a cry 55 distress, from of a calamity. arising Like Deleuze,Heideggerthinks that there is a way of understandingeternal return which trivialises it, makesthe thought all too easy,and that the purposeof the two passagescited is to reject this simplification of return. We might note that someof what Heidegger expoundsas being the content of this thought is in its turn speculativeand interpolative: for Nietzsche certainly doesnot say in so many words that, as Heideggerputs it, "what is dark and horrid in the teaching as it is expressed"is "the fact that if everything recurs all decision and effort and will to make things better is 56 a matter of indifference". But becausethis interpolation is insertedinto a close reading of Nietzsche's text, Heidegger's interpretation of eternal return in terms of will and the "Moment' 'is far more persuasive than that of Deleuzewhich, as I have suggested, runs againstthe grain of Nietzsche's own exposition and createsa number of internal difficulties. s7

58 In a senseI am not particularly concernedhere with precisely what one should highly in Even Heidegger's the there make of eternalreturn. remainssomething exposition enigmatic,mysterious and perhapseven unthinkable aboutNietzsche's thought. My own in is is kind think that the thought of suspicion eternalreturn of which one can only really the wrong way, as the dwarf and the animals think it, from the outside. I am not sure it is evenpossible to consistentlythink it from within the "Moment", sinceto do so means becomingembroiled in a kind of living paradox; certainly one could never experiencethe eternalreturn as return, since this would alter the content of what returns. What I am concernedwith here is Deleuze's entire interpretation of Nietzschean"genealogy", and the fact that the way Deleuze derives a self-consistentsystemof forces from Nietzsche's texts, in particular from On the Genealogyof Morals, ("genealogy" is for Deleuzenothing other than the mapping of theseforces) goeshand in hand with an interpretation of the eternal return which I think is untenable.There are two different stories in Nietzsche,and while they bear on one another in a number of ways, in an important respectNietzsche keeps them quite separatefrom one another,operating as they do at quite different levels. One story is that of Westerncivilisation, the story of our culture, with the particular moral, epistemologicaland ontological presuppositionsthat are to be derived from its history, and of which it is uncertainto what extent we can free ourselves.This is the story which is told in On the Genealogyof Morals. And on the other hand there is the story of the universeas a whole, the story of repetition and return for which Nietzsche argues,a story in which the whole history of self-consciousbeings appearsas in a certain sensea matter of indifference. The primary way in which thesetwo storiesare related is that the advent of a proper conceptionof the latter will bring about a radical changein the former. This gives Nietzsche an optimism for the future and might enableus to say, at most, that reactive forces could be eliminated from our culture, although I would be to more cautious prefer and say that Nietzsche believesthe idea of eternal return will undo the particular malaiseof post-Christian civilisation, the situation where reactive forces predominateover active forces, and the nihilism that results, that history human so will a more affirmative phaseof be usheredin. What I do not believe is that the description forces in the Genealogyis the of description of the only kinds

of relationship of forces that obtains in the universe for

Nietzsche,nor that anything

which transforms that relationship in the context of the

59 Genealogywould transformit onceand for all in all contexts.Everything returns, including Christianity, the pettyman, decadence,nihilism and the self-destructionof nihilism. With the eternalreturn,the greatarchitecturalstructureof Nietzscheand Philosophy seemsat the point of caving in on itself. If we wish to make use of Deleuze's readingof Nietzsche,then I believethat we should do so on the basis of the numerous insightful details and expositionsof certain conceptionsrather than taking too seriouslythe total picture of Nietzsche's philosophyit represents;and Deleuze's claims aboutNietzsche must always be read with caution.In order to inauguratehis grand narrative of the elimination of reactive forces,Deleuzehasto overlook much of the particularity of the Genealogyand of Nietzschein general,and aboveall losesthe historical sensewhich was so important for Nietzsche.For an interpretationof "genealogy" which certainly takesit to be historical in a far more concrete Michel in Deleuze, to turn than sense we must anything Foucault.

60

Chapter Two - Nietzsche and Foucault: History and the Unhistorical

Considerationof the use Deleuzemakesof the conceptof genealogyin his reading in Nietzsche leaves historical the the of per se open a generalquestionabout role of Nietzsche.Although I think I have outlined some seriousdifficulties for any reading of Nietzschewhich wants to place genealogyat the very centreof Nietzsche's philosophy, as the definitive discursive structureof his philosophy of the future, Deleuze's peculiar employmentof the term is so idiosyncratic that my critique of his proceduresmay have little bearing on what many other interpretershave to say about genealogy;there must necessarilybe much more to be said on the matter. And again, although I have raisedthe questionof whether any historical discoursecould have a decisive philosophical weight for Nietzsche,there is much that remainsunansweredas to the preciserole of the historical in Nietzsche's writings. What precisely is the purposeof the historical narrative that Nietzsche relatesin On the Genealogyof Morality, and what consequencesdoesit have for the future of philosophy? Why is it that a self-signalling awarenessof history, often of the detailed nature one might expect from a nineteenth-centuryGermanphilologist and highly knowledgeablestudentof certain erasof history, pervadesNietzsche's oeuvre,notably of coursein On the Genealogyof Morals itself but culminating in the impressiveknowledge of the era of Christ and the early Christians manifestedin TheAntichrist? Might there be an interpretationwhich picks up on precisely this historical aspectof Nietzsche and transformsit into a new kind of historico-philosophical project? And then the question becomes:Can this new project itself be described a Nietzschean if as one, and not then what is its relation to Nietzsche's philosophy? All of thesequestionslead me first of all to Michel Foucault, who, despitehis friendship with Gilles Deleuze and his sympathetic regard for the latter's philosophy, elicits an entirely different and far more recognisably historical methodology from his reading of Nietzsche.But one should also note that it is quite possibly becauseof Deleuzethat this reading is carried out in the name of "genealogy", even though Foucault's scholarly, archival senseof that word is a thousand

61 from Deleuze's description of an ecstatic,joyful processwhich penetratesthe miles away 58 determines its very origins of a concept and thus statusas active or reactive. Foucault's adoption of the term "genealogy" occurs at a stagein Foucault's career when the conceptionof his own methodology seemedto have reacheda crisis in terms of the persistentperceivedentanglementof his "archaeology" with structuralist techniques:a link which Foucault strenuouslydenied,but which continuedto haunt reception of his work, with, as I believe, somejustice. To outline the terms of this debatebriefly may help to situateFoucault's work with respectto a particular intellectual milieu and suggestwhy he might have consideredit appropriateto call upon the conceptof "genealogy" at a certain point in the developmentof his thought. This associationof Foucault with structuralismgoesright back to the reception of his early works in France, a reception which required him to make more and more explicit his own senseof distancefrom this movement,in languagewhich rangesin tone from the sardonicto somethingapproachingfury. And it seemsto be generally acceptedtoday that what Foucault was up to was somethingmuch richer, more complex and less easyto classify than any structuralism pure and simple, especially, in the English-speaking academicworld, since the publication of Dreyfus and Rabinow's influential study Michel Foucault: BeyondStructuralism and Hermeneutics.59So it might seemredundantfor me to drag up an old accusationlong since disregarded. But Dreyfus and Rabinow themselves are well awareof how close Foucault gets in his early works to structuralist procedures. And in the forewords of certain early works this closenessbecomesalmost an explicit avowal of a sharedmethodology. In the prefaceto TheBirth of the Clinic, for example,Foucault gives an accountof "commentary", as a kind of discoursewhich seeksa "deeper meaningof speech":in the Saussureanterms of signifier and signified, an excessof the signifier. (p. xviii)60 The overall idea here seemsto be that whenever speechor discourse("parole") is nothing more than "commentary" then what is demandedis the searchfor a hidden meaning"below" the level of the text: "the signifier is always offered to us in an abundancethat questionsus, in spite of ourselves,as to what it `means' (veut dire)". Thus the talk of signifier and signified here, and of a kind of excessand "superabundance" the of signifier, which might seemto hint at a kind of post-structuralism,is precisely what is played down. Foucault objects to

62 this kind of "abundance"as belonging in fact to a traditional method of exegesiswhich locatesmeaning"beneaththe surface" of a text. If writers like Derrida and Lacanwere also critical of such a model they were equally insistent that texts could not be thought of as simply a "determinate" set of words and nothing more. Here in Foucault's text, however, there is a much stronger sensethan in either of thosetwo writers of a self-enclosed integrity in the structure of discourse;this is what makessomekind of rapprochementwith structuralismnot only possible but likely. What Derrida or Lacan might claim is that this relationship betweensignifier and signified, if provoked far enoughor subjectedto a certain deconstruction,results in a discoursewhich can no longer be reducedto what Foucault calls "commentary"; neither of thesewriters would accepta characterisationof their text as "commentary". But Foucault cannotor doesnot envisageany suchprocedureswhich would not still be reducible to an exegesispurporting to give the hidden meaning,the "Word of God" (p.xix). Foucault's alternative is for a different kind of discoursewhich neither centreson this kind of signifying play nor dependsin any way on a biblical model of exegesis:"But must the things said, elsewhereand by others,be treatedexclusively in accordancewith the play of signifier and signified, as a seriesof themespresentmore or less implicitly to one another? Is it not possibleto make a structural analysisof discoursesthat would evadethe fate of commentaryby supposingno remainder,nothing in excessof what has beensaid, but only the fact of its historical appearance? " (p.xix) This refusal of excessand remainder,a kind of historical positivism, I take as paradigmaticof Foucault's approachto historical discourse,and it seemsto inform the design of his major early works at least. (It also clearly marks the site of a divergencefrom Derrida, who would never dismiss so quickly the relevanceof "excess" and "remainder"! ) It is this postulated"structural analysis" which brings Foucault extremely close to the structuralist project, especially given what immediately precedesit: for part of the it that could appealof structuralism was precisely free the analyst from a belief that analysis hidden in finding `true consisted meanings', depthsbeneaththe surfacestructure to discourse: its of a modus operandiwas precisely give an adequateanalysisof that very surfacestructure as a structure rather than as a code for what lay beneath.

63 Dreyfus and Rabinow are quite willing to acknowledgehow close Foucault comes to structuralismin theseearly texts, and Foucault himself was perhapseven more awareof this. The two authorsgive an attractive account in their prefaceof the evolution of their book and the responsesFoucault himself gaveto their attemptsto describetheir evolving conceptionsof his work. After one misconceivedeffort at summing up the path of Foucault's intellectual developmentthey seemto be getting nearerthe mark with a second heavily language his "Our that though and approachwere attempt: even story now was influencedby the vogue of structuralism in FranceFoucault never posited a universal theory of discourse,but rather soughtto describethe historical forms taken by discursive he he We Foucault that tried this was never a agreed practices. and version out on structuralistbut that perhapshe was not as resistantto the seductiveadvancesof in been. (pp. The have " he structuralistvocabulary as might xi-ii) note of worry Foucault's responseis striking, the sensethat he was really rather closer to something,to being "seduced"by something,than he later thought he should have been,and it is consistent with his guardedconcessionin TheArchaeology of Knowledge that his own approachwas "not entirely foreign to what is called structural analysis"61and also with the imperious, angry rejection of this associationin the English translation of Les Mots et les Choses:"In France,certain half-witted `commentators'persist in labelling me a `structuralist'. I have beenunable to get it into their tiny minds that I have usednone of the methods,concepts, or key terms that characterizestructural analysis."62This derisive dismissalis immediately followed by somecautiousconcessions,preservingthe ambiguity of this relationship: "There may well be certain similarities betweenthe works of the structuralistsand my own work. It would hardly behoveme, of all people, to claim that my discourseis independent of conditions of rules of which I am very largely unaware,and which determineother work that is being done today." So both Foucault and some of his most sympatheticcommentatorsare willing to acknowledgesomedegreeof common ground betweenFoucault's early writings at least and the structuralist methodsin vogue in Francewhen he was writing thesebooks. My contention is that a certain elementof this structuralist inheritanceremainswith Foucault throughout his career,and that despiteavowals to the contrary he always tends to think of historical periods in terms of coherent, in self-enclosedstructuresanalysable abstraction

64 both from the agencyof human beings and from longer historical patterns;both of these aspectsmight appearto bejustified from passagesin On the Genealogyof Morals, but as should alreadyhave becomeevident to someextent and will becomemore evident in what follows, I do not think either aspectis compatible with the way Nietzschethinks about history. My advocacyfor the continuity of Foucault's thought is supportedby Dreyfus and Rabinow themselveswho assert,quite rightly in my view, that "[t]here is no pre- and post63 in Foucault", Foucauldean"archaeology" being that aspectof archaeologyor genealogy Foucault's way of working which involves a kind of structural analysis,what Dreyfus and Rabinow briefly describehere as "a strict analysisof discourse".To Dreyfus and Rabinow this structuralist methodology is never an end in itself even in Foucault's earliestbooks, but only a tool in the service of a higher-level, subversiveperspectivewhich might be characterisedas "genealogical": one of the characteristicsof this Foucauldean"genealogy" is that it prioritises practice over theory, and regardstheory itself, including the genealogist'sown position, as in a certain sensejust anotherof an array of interlocking 64 practices.

However,it doesnot seemto me that Foucaulthimselfwasquiteso confidentas Dreyfus and Rabinow about the relationship betweenthe "genealogical" themesthe latter pick up on here and somethinglike "structural analysis"; there might be good reasonsfor this discomfort. For one thing it is hard to seewhere in Foucault's output one could get much of a senseof how this supposedgenealogicalemphasishas much of an effect on the tenor or statusof Foucault's historical analysesand their statusas critique. One thing that is clear is that nowhere doesFoucault attempt to justify critique in terms of any fixed 65 be foundation for thought of as the certainty which might traditional critique: insteadall suchconceptsare subjectedto a (structural?) historical analysis from which they emerge bereft of the capacity to provide such a grounding: metaphysics,the self, traditional ethics, "human nature"66.(There is a fairly prevalent be that thing the said could much view same of Nietzsche; but what I will arguein this chapteris that it is in no small part becauseof Foucault's appropriation of Nietzsche that

in Nietzsche this way.) tend to we perceive

"Genealogy" seemsto be thought of by Dreyfus and Rabinow as replacing the needfor suchjustification by supplying a higher perspectivewhich treats all questionsand institutions with an indiscriminate levity: "The interpreter as genealogistseesthings from

65 deepest be held finds He the to that the traditionally and afar. questionswhich were detect literally " (p. 107) But this truly the can we where murkiest are and most superficial. light-hearted"pathos of distance",to cite one of Nietzsche's favourite phrases,in Foucault's texts? If Dreyfus and Rabinow's "genealogy" implies a greaterawarenessof the is he the to the situation of writer of critiques with respect structuresand processes describingthen this would indeedbring Foucault closer to the Nietzsche of the Genealogy; but what sucha conception doesnot seemto do in any way is to impact on the tone or indeedthe approachof Foucault's historical writings. To take what is probably Foucault's best-knowntext, Discipline and Punish, a text which is generally taken to be a pre-eminent in Foucault's "genealogical" exampleof method action: most readerscome away mature, with very little senseof this higher-level perspective,which would exposethe superficiality and arbitrarinessof the penal systemand thus perhapspoint the way to its overcoming; rather they are left with an overwhelming senseof the intractable functioning of suchphenomenaas "Panopticism" as thesephenomenaare shown to disperseinto all kinds of institutions and lock into the generalstructuresof modernity. Given this, and if it is not clear what distinguishesFoucault's analysesfrom structuralist procedures,it remains hard to seehow much more there is to Foucault's approachthan a thoroughgoinghistorical structuralism.This approachalso seemsto feed into the way Foucault readsNietzsche, suchthat, if Dreyfus and Rabinow think "genealogy" namesa nexus in which can be found the justification for any given "archaeological" analysis,when Foucault readsNietzsche,as we shall see,"genealogy" doesnot seemto name anything other than this historical analytics itself. Foucault himself certainly seemedto feel the need at certain points in his careerto becomea little clearer about his own methodologiesand aims, most noticeably in The Archaeology of Knowledge (L'Archeologie du Savoir, 1969),67his greatmethodological treatise,and part of the purposeof theseclarifications seemsto be to becomea little more explicit about what he doesand doesnot sharewith the structuralist writers with whom his work was often linked early in his career.And a few years later Foucault found another way to attempt to give his work a markedly different orientation, or at least to bring to the fore an elementof his approachto history implicit, which was previously only and perhaps also once again to attemptto shakeoff the structuralist label: by redescribinghis own way

66 its is in history "genealogy". This terms most explicit of new approach given of writing la in ("Nietzsche, 1971 Genealogy, History" "Nietzsche, the genealogie, expression essay l'histoire"). But before examining this text in any detail it is first of all necessary to create basis Nietzsche's it for by the own of a context making my own assessment, solely on texts, of precisely what the significance of the historical might be for Nietzsche.

Life, the Unhistorical, the Suprahistorical: Nietzsche on history The obvious place to begin with any considerationof this issueis with the second UntimelyMeditation, `On the Use and Abuse of History for Life' (`Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für dasLeben'), which by generalconsensusamongNietzsche's interpretersis an essaywhich, despiteits early date,has far-reachingimplications for the whole of Nietzsche'sphilosophical path. In agreementwith this view, I believe that the thinking of history in terms of life offered by this piece is indispensablefor consideringthe he in historical is in Nietzsche; the to the that, way role of stark contrast my own sense cameto feel about TheBirth of Tragedy,for example,Nietzsche would never have felt the needto refute or reject any substantialelementof this early work. In particular, its categoriesof three different types of history, all of which can be of serviceto life and all of which are dangerousto life when they rule unchecked,remain pertinent for all of Nietzsche's maturewritings. Someevidenceof the continuity of Nietzsche's thought on thesemattersis given in section224 of Beyond Good and Evil, where Nietzsche also describesa superfluity of the "historical sense",although the content of this historical senseis expressedin terms which are alien to the Meditations and which clearly prefigure On the Genealogyof Morals. Such a historical senseis the capacity for divining quickly the order of rank of the evaluationsaccordingto which a people, a society, a human being has lived, the `divinatory instinct' for the relationshipsof theseevaluations,for the relation of the authority of values to the authority of effective forces [... ]68

67 The basic argumentsurroundingthis definition in this section is: that the current age data influx historical highly developed but historical this that the of possesses a sense, into kind the senseentails might come at a of "chaos" and price of plunging us "barbarism" and depriving us of what makesfor a "noble culture": thesekind of arguments So discover. be familiar has the to while will early essay,as we shall very anyonewho read he adaptshis terminology into the relations of force and degreesof rank he now finds, a history, before his be Genealogy, to the the year readingsof publishing at centreof Nietzsche's senseof what "the historical" representsin excessseemsto have enduredwith notableconsistency. At no point in `On the Use and Abuse of History' are we given a definition of history as such,but in this context the conceptof history is perhapsnot particularly be in itself, is historian there would who problematic or philosopher probably no and unhappyif we were to define history - history as a study or discipline rather than "the eventsthemselves",for Nietzsche is discussingthe former - as a discourseon the past which has somesignificance for us as such. One might arguethat the latter part of this definition is superfluoussince any discourseon the past must necessarilyhave some significancefor us in the present,but by retaining this clausewe can eliminate the possibility of, for instance,somenarrative of past eventsrelated purely for the value of entertainmentor some such, or an old tale told for the purposeof illustrating a moral lesson.We should also specify that we are talking about the past of human civilisation (leaving asidethe difficult issueof what could come under the classification of a precivilised prehistory) although of course(in English and in most Europeanlanguages)one can talk about the history of geological formations or the early history of the universe. One might circumvent this confusion by replacing "the past" with "our past" so that we are left with history being defined as: a discourseon our past which has significance for us as 69 such. I do not imagine that Nietzsche would raise any objection to such a definition of history, but the opening of the secondUntimely Meditation immediately placesthe emphasisnot on meaningor significance but on the potentiality or otherwise of history for activity, with the following quote from Goethe:"In any case,I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmentingor directly invigorating my activity. "70("Uebrigens ist

68 mir alles verhasst,was mich bloss belehrt, ohne meine Thätigkeit zu vermehrenoder beleben. in ") The it is this unmittelbar zu opening gestureof elaborated the essay,as paragraphsucceedingthis quote, is that of assertingthe value of history as to be thought in terms of its ability to augmentand "enliven" (as one might more literally translate "beleben") activity. Any history which is just an accumulationof datapassively absorbed must by this assertionbe viewed as valueless;in fact, as the meditation develops,such accumulationwill turn out to be positively detrimental. Only history which leadsto activity turns out to be in the serviceof life, and this is the ultimate criterion of value for Nietzschehere and elsewhere:"We want to servehistory only to the extent that history serveslife" (UM 59) ("Nur soweit die Historie dem Leben dient, wollen wir ihr dienen"). So while we are not given a definition of history as such,we are given a conceptionof the value of history which is absolutely indispensableto the way Nietzschethinks about history: history is that which is of value for life only when it augmentsmy activity, and detrimentalto it (thereforeto be "hated", as in the Goethequote) when it fails to do so. One might arguethat this is essentiallythe sameas the definition I have already given, since perhapsfor Nietzschenothing could be said to be "significant" or "meaningful" which did not bring about activity: if someonereadsa book of history and finds it soothing or diverting but seesnothing in it which has any bearing on his or her own existencethen it has failed to produce any activity in them,just as it has failed to be significant for them. But if one considersthe negative side of Nietzsche's thesis, that the wrong kind of history in the wrong proportion is harmful, it may appearthat this phenomenologicalemphasison meaning is out of place here. For if, for example,an excess of antiquarianhistory has led to an unthinking and stultifying mania for the preservationof the past,one might still believe that the past has here attaineda certain significance; but this would not constituteanything which would count as activity for Nietzsche.It is Nietzsche's perpetualreferenceto value for life which makeshis criteria that much more exactingand discriminative: only certain kinds of significance are to be affirmed as possessingvalue. However, the situation is not necessarilyas clear-cut as this, since if one had a different view of history it would certainly be possibleto turn the tables and introduce such a discriminatory element into significance itself, so that one could say: only certain kinds of historically inspired activity are to be regardedas meaningful. In view of

69 this problematic relation it is probably best to stick for the main part to Nietzsche's own terms of reference. But since Nietzsche does not offer a definition of history himself, I will preserve my own definition in the following way: everything which Nietzsche describes as history is an instance of our past being significant for us, but Nietzsche only attributes a positive value to such of these instances as lead to what counts for him as activity.

Nietzsche's mannerof expressionhere is negative: "We want to servehistory only to the extent that history serveslife" (my italics); the negativity is still strongerin the is "Nur", "Only", The the the original, where comesat start of sentence. entire meditation launchedby Goethe'shate, as if this negativerecoil is what Nietzscherequiresto propel him on his course.But this ought not to mislead us into believing that history is primarily or essentiallyproblematic for Nietzsche,that its basic thrust is to opposethe instincts of life, for while the secondparagraphof this foreword plays on Nietzsche'sfeeling of untimelinessin his senseof life as "stunted and degenerate"from an overvaluation of the study of history, its third and final paragraphmakesit clear that for Nietzschehistory is basically a powerful, positive force indispensablefor "acting counter to our time", "for the benefit of a time to come". With a subtle circular irony, only as a pupil of Hellenic history did Nietzschebecomeawareof what was wrong with the contemporaryobsessionwith history - thus only this obsessiongrantedNietzsche accessto that Greek past. Sucha circularity is encounteredagain in the Genealogy;I will explore this further in chapter4. But it is clear throughout his writings that Nietzsche never disguiseshis own inheritance from the cultural processeshe seeksto overcome.This indebtednessexplainswhy the current "cultivation of history" is describedas "something of which our time is rightly proud" (UM 60, my italics) ("worauf die Zeit mit Recht stolz ist"): it has storedup a great potentiality for activity, but the continual processof accumulationand storagehas left this culture ill-fitted to becomeactive itself, the excessof history has blocked off eventhe recognition of that which is neededto justify the existenceof history: activity. It is this senseof the greatpotential power of history as an affront to our times, even though in its contemporarydeploymentit stultifies and opposesactivity, which elucidatesthe constant presenceof the historical throughoutNietzsche's later oeuvre.71 In accordancewith this, one would have to believe that both the late the early and Nietzschewould regard On the Genealogy Morals just is kind history the of which as of

70 gearedtowards activity in the present,namely the overcoming of Christian morality; or how is book historian, by this than of an example rather, since a a philosopher rather a historical knowledge can be put to use in the service of a positive project orientedtowards history future. his have Michel Foucault to a seen own attempts write a of coursewould "of the present" in precisely the samelight, as in fact the only possibleway of coming to is kinds the the understand of structuresof which contemporaryworld composed,and thus making it possibleto transform them. But neither the Genealogynor Foucault's major been having historical both be in texts writings can seenas purely any simple sense, in by "historians" than themselves to any written men who came see as philosophersrather simple sense.So in the presentcontext it is interesting to consideras well the caseof a book which Nietzschewould have known and greatly admired, the Civilization of the Renaissancein Italy written by Nietzsche's colleagueand friend at the time of writing the UntimelyMeditations, Jakob Burckhardt. For what Nietzsche seemsto have in mind in this foreword is not that historians should at the sametime be philosophersor social reformers (Nietzsche'ssenseof his own statusin writing this text is not that of a historian nor a philosopher,but rather of somethinglike an untimely critic of culture, not to be identified with any one aspectof that culture), but rather that the writing of history is in itself neither good or bad, and that it is the quantity of history consumedand the way it is utilised which is important. Thus Burckhardt's book seemedimportant to Nietzsche not becauseof any agendawhich Burckhardt himself possessedbut becauseit gave us accessto a time very different from our own with an ethoswhich seemedopposedin certain important respects to Christian morality, and therefore had a great potential force of "acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time". But anyonemight at any time have picked up Burckhardt's book and merely found it an entertaining depiction of a colourful era long sincepast, as thousandsno doubt have done (by my definition it might be debatable whether such a personwould actually be reading history), or even found in its sometimes chilling descriptionsof the arbitrary violence and unjust acts of Renaissanceprincesthe justification for the triumph of Christian morality and a complacentself-satisfactionwith our own times (they would have done so, Nietzsche would of coursesay, on the basis of a Christian systemof values). Or again they might

perhapshave drawn a few incautious

parallelsbetweenthe Renaissancescholar and the nineteenth-centuryacademicand

71 concludedthat really things were not so different today. In all of thesecasesthe reading is interested. have kind in Nietzsche the would engenderednone of of activity which Nietzschedoesnot have his eye here on a particular way of writing history; it is what one doeswith history as a reader that matters at this point. However, even in theseinactive ways of reading Burckhardt's book it is clear that inescapably is fact is to the that the a and somerelationship man always past evoked, and historical animal, an animal with a relation to history, is one of the things Nietzsche sets out to demonstratein the first section of On the Usesand Abusesof History following the foreword. What the famous parableof the cattle is designedto do primarily is to introduce the notion of the unhistorical. The human being interrogatesthe animal, who intendsto answerbut instantaneouslyforgets its answerbecauseit lives so entirely in the present moment,with no relation to past events,which just fall away and ceaseto exist for it: "the animal lives unhistorically", and "unhistorically" is the first word Nietzsche emphasisesin this section.The human being is depictedas unhappy, envious of the animals,utterly excludedfrom their world and baffled by their silence.The narrative itself operatesby way of a self-consciousanthropomorphism:for it is clearly a joke and not a seriousattemptto describethe thought processesof cattle to say that they think of things to say and then forget them! This anthropomorphicgestureservesto heightenthe senseof alienation and exclusion from the animal world. And the accountwhich is given of man's enchainmentto the past is a melancholic, pathetic one: But he [man] also wonders at himself, that he cannot learn to forget but clings relentlesslyto the past: however far and fast he may run, this chain runs with him. And it is a matter for wonder: a moment, now here and then gone,nothing before it came,again nothing after it has gone, nonethelessreturns as a ghost and disturbs the peaceof a later moment. A leaf flutters from the scroll of time, floats away - and suddenlyfloats back again and falls into the man's lap. Then the man says"I remember" and enviesthe animal, who at once forgets and for whom every moment really dies, sinks back into night and fog and is extinguishedfor ever...

(UM 61)

72 Particularly tragical is the story of the child who will soon be called into the unhappy world of the historical: it affects him [man] like a vision of a lost paradiseto seethe herds grazing or, in ... closerproximity to him, a child which, having as yet nothing of the past to shake off, plays in blissful blindnessbetweenthe hedgesof past and future. Yet its play Then be forgetfulness. disturbed; it its be too must soon will stateof all called out of it will learn to understandthe phrase"it was": that passwordwhich gives conflict, suffering and satiety accessto man so as to remind him what his existence fundamentallyis an imperfect tensethat can never becomea perfect one. -

(UM 61) This entire paragraphis full of phrasesthat characteriseaccessto the historical in terms of loss, affliction, imprisonment, disturbanceand non-being: "If death at last brings the desiredforgetting, by that act it at the sametime extinguishesthe presentand all being and therewith setsthe seal on the knowledge that being is only an uninterrupted has-been,a thing that lives by negating,consumingand contradicting itself." (UM 61) It appearsat this momentthat man's historicism is simply a catastrophewhich he tries to resist in vain, and not a few readersof this essayquickly reachthe conclusion, no doubt derived from this paragraphand the one which follows it on the happinessof the Cynic, that Nietzsche is counsellingus to return to nature and flee into the unhistorical. But bearing in mind that much more positive opening foreword it is well worth giving this sectionanotherlook. For one thing, one ought not to forget the extremely lightheartedand quasi-comicaltone in which this section opens,with its leaping, ruminating cattle introducedwith the mock-seriousphilosophical gambit: "Consider the cattle... " ("Betrachte die Heerde"), and its celebrated,delightful confrontation betweenthe mournful, questioninghuman being and the well-intentioned animal who preparesand forgets his answer.Ought we really then to take all of this bemoaningof man'shistorical fate in the secondparagraphquite seriously? Certainly the imagery is in this passage used hardly original, the chain to the past, the ghost, the leaf which "flutters from the scroll of time", and on closer acquaintanceit begins to seemlike a pasticheof the worst excessesof

73 GermanRomantic poetry, a world on which Nietzsche drew but with which he could never identify himself, wholly combinedwith a hint of a parody of Schopenhauer'soccasional tendencytowards gloomy melodramatics,a tendencywith which Nietzschewas intimately familiar but which never squaredwith his own naturally exuberantstyle. Bearing in mind this adoptionof a wholly untypical style, the positive nature of the opening foreword and the absenceelsewherein Nietzsche of such a depressive,melancholic tenor, it seemsthat there is a deepirony intendedhere. What is the significance of this? While, as soon becomesclear, Nietzsche doesbelieve that man is fundamentally and essentiallyhistorical, this is not seriouslyto be seenas a causeof misery or a reproachagainstlife or human life in general.It is a fact that man will tend to envy the unhistorical natureof the animal but man would not be the creaturethat he is without his historical sense.

In the very next paragraphit becomesevidentthat manin fact alwaysretainssome contactwith and accessto the unhistorical, in the form of the momentaryhappinesswhich the Cynic celebrates,and without this contacthe would be incapableof either happinessor action, or ultimately of existing at all: "it is altogetherimpossible to live at all without forgetting." (UM 62). In excessivehistoricism Nietzsche seesa dangerwhich is detrimental and even potentially deadly: "there is a degreeof sleeplessness,of rumination, of the historical sense,which is harmful and ultimatelyfatal to the living thing [bei dem dasLebendigezu schadenkommt, und zuletzt zu grunde geht], whether this living thing be a man or a people or a culture." (62) All of this is reinforced by the succeedingparagraph, which stressesthat the amount of history which can safely be absorbedby a human being or a culture dependson its "plastic power" ("plastische Kraft"), its ability to assimilate alien influencesand make them a part of itself. The final moral of this preliminary discussionof the historical and the unhistorical, emphasisedthroughout, takesthe following balanced,Aristotelian form: "the unhistorical and the historical are necessaryin equal measurefor the health of an individual, of a people and of a culture." (63) So this is the next point to take into accountfor the way in which Nietzsche thinks of history: history is somethingwith which man is irrevocably bound up, but this is not an argumentagainst human life. Once again, I take it that Foucault would be fully consonantwith this conclusion,albeit for quite different reasons:although it may be felt to be depressingto find out that the human being as subject turns out to be nothing more than the product of

74 for disciplinary various medical, psychiatric, educational, and personal structures of power, Foucault there is no alternative space from which we can lament that man is not something else (such a space as Nietzsche provides in parodic, ironic form, as I have argued above); or rather if there is such a space it is itself a product of these very same structures, not an impervious, primordial region which exists prior to and outside of history. Consequently for Foucault there is no justification for despair, which could only be based on the myth of an ahistorical, pre-existing realm of freedom coming under threat; the only course of action open is to engage with these structures of power in a conscious and responsible way. For Nietzsche, by contrast, the reason we need not despair over man's inextricable involvement with the historical is because of the continual possibility of accessing the unhistorical, although at this point we can have only a minimal sense of what this might mean.

Havingobservedthe equilibriumwith which Nietzschecomesto statethe relation betweenthe historical and the unhistorical, it must be acknowledgedthat the succeeding paragraphseemsto want to tip the balancerather in the favour of the unhistorical. Here it is observedthat while a certain lack of historical knowledge doesnot seemto inhibit "superlative health and vigour", in someinstancesan excessof suchknowledge leadsto degenerationand collapse,"because[for a man suffering from an excessof historical knowledge] the lines of his horizon are always restlesslychanging,becausehe can no longer extricatehimself from the delicate net of his judiciousness and truth for a simple act of will and desire." (63) On the other hand there is the animal, which lives quite adequately completely in the unhistorical. Nietzsche's conclusion is that "we shall thus have to accountthe capacityto feel to a certain degreeunhistorically as being more vital and more fundamental,inasmuchas it constitutesthe foundation upon which alone anything sound, healthy and great,anything truly human, can grow" (63). So what is first of all necessary for all kinds of animal life is the unhistorical, the or capacity for forgetting asNietzsche sometimesthinks of it. (Confusingly at this point, since if somethinghas no power of rememberingin the first place, like the animal, how can it then forget anything? So it seemsodd that Nietzsche should apply this word to animal forgetfulness.) But without the historical life could never becomehuman life, since the historical is essentialand fundamentalto the human; asNietzsche it puts in that tragical, plaintive secondparagraph "the phrase`it was"' is "the password which gives conflict, suffering and satiety accessto

75 im Grunde him his fundamentally Dasein [was is to existence man so as remind what sein ist] - an imperfect tensethat can never becomea perfect one." (61, my italics.) And yet in is human life the to this order endureat all must retain contact with unhistorical, and what kind is depends be that to any of action upon renewing this particularly emphasised be "great" into back by the contact;that only unhistorical can anything way of a plunge accomplished,anything in fact "truly human" ("etwas wahrhaft Menschliches"): the introduction of the historical into the unhistorical transformsthe animal into man; but only by re-engagingwith the unhistorical can man survive, act and achievewhat is "truly human". (The "truly human" is roughly equivalent to what Nietzschelater describesas "self-overcoming", and thus evenhas a family connectionwith the "superhuman"or "Übermenschlich"; even here it is apparentthat to become"truly human" by meansof the few Nietzsche human, years a would unhistorical meanssurpassingthe merely or what later describeas the all-too-human, which at this point would be associatedwith the historical.) This process,togetherwith the current crisis causedby an excessof the historical, is well summedup by the following sentence:"it is true that only by imposing limits on this unhistorical element,by thinking, reflecting, comparing,distinguishing, drawing conclusions,only through the appearancewithin that encompassingcloud of a for the flash the light purposes of past the thus through vivid employing of of only power life and of again introducing into history that which has beendone and is gone- did man becomeman: but with an excessof history man again ceasesto exist, and without that (64) begin. " dared to begun envelopeof the unhistorical he would never have or It is this paragraphwhich provides the first instanceof somethingwhich one might think would be somewhatuncomfortable for Foucault to read: the (qualified) valorisation the This in history. the about with ignorance of unhistorical terms of an comes of descriptionalready alluded to of the healthy, happy individual who seemsto be so precisely through his obliviousnessto history: his horizon be as narrow historical limited, knowledge a man's very senseand can he injustice involve and may as that of a dweller in the Alps, all his judgementsmay falsely supposethat all his experiencesare original to him - yet in spite of this injustice and error he will nonethelessstandthere in superlativehealth and vigour, a

76 joy to all who see him; while close beside him a man far more just and instructed than he sickens and collapses because the lines of his horizon are always restlessly his delicate because he longer himself from the of net changing, can no extricate judiciousness and truth for a simple act of will and desire.

(63)

Now of courseNietzsche is not going to advocatethat we should all becomesuch blissfully ignorant Alp-dwellers, particularly as he is writing as a fully paid-up professorin his is least European the one of most prestigiousof partially addressing universities, and at colleaguesand peers.But the portrait is a strikingly attractive one, with much the same appealthat readersfind so attractive in the account of the cattle: simple, forgetful, in-thehow happiness, is it is Nietzsche the can moment a polemical one: making with and point the excessive,unboundedstudy of history be a good thing when we seethe stateof sicknessto which it reducesits studentin comparisonwith the health of the ignorant man who has lost none of his capacity for action?Nietzsche surely believesthat there is a way of combining the two figures, a sensein which we can becomeawareof and knowledgeableabout our history while retaining some of the qualities of the Alpine figure, the capacity for forgetting and therefore for acting, the ability to believe that our actions really are original and freely our own and not the result of somehistorical process(or a "genealogical" process,as it might be for the later Nietzsche). In fact bearing in mind Nietzsche's conceptionof the relationship betweenunhistorical and historical, of which this depiction forms a part, we might even be justified in supposingthat it is this first figure, he who is unawareof history, who should be central to our senseof ourselves,since it is only on the basis of such a way of thinking that action is possible at all, and if one were to let the historical invade this acting core of our being then it would be capableof destroyingthe very thing for the sakeof which history exists: is it And activity. not then surprisingthat an always ambivalentbut very real valorisation of ignorance,in the form of the praiseof physical activity over mental, an admiration for the resolutely anti-academic Ralph Waldo Emerson,72the prohibition in Ecce Homo of excessivereading, the prioritising of instinct over learning,73plays a part in the rest of Nietzsche's writings.

77 One hasto ask whether for Foucault there could ever be an occasionwhen it his be better historical know to writings of since all would about a certain process, not historically detail in be to towards of certain seem geared making us aware more and more kind imagine it is hard its form in Even to of any emergingstructures. most qualified interest Of in ignorance Foucault's having philosophy. particular valorisation of any place is the phrasefrom the abovequote: "he may falsely supposethat all his experiencesare original to him". Surely Foucault would have nothing positive to say about suchnaivety and would insist that wheneverwe think we are having an original experiencea whole Western bastion in is historical in discourses that of network of ultimate at work us, even be it is better but to Nietzsche not selfhood,sexuality. would maybe reply: undoubtedly, always awareof this. And the difference is far from trivial. On the basis of such an analysis Foucault's books might well appearasprecisely the kind of texts which constitute a dangerousabuseof history, making us far more consciousof our implication in preexisting structuresthan is healthy. By the time of the Genealogywe would have to become awarein readingNietzschethat all of the structuresFoucault describesare products of the Christian era and therefore worthy targets of that specialkind of critical history undertaken in the Genealogy;but this would still be, as I argue,only as part of a project to createthe be isn't for And to the this the conditions role a renewedsenseof also part of unhistorical. played by the doctrine of eternalreturn, to undermine a certain kind of historicism? For Foucault, of course,the point is once again that there is no part of ourselves which somehowprecedesand standsoutside of the historical process;Nietzsche's Alpine dweller must be seenas a piece of mythology which itself has a certain genealogy,and Foucaultmight wish to engagein an analysisof, for instance,the role of such figures as the noble savagein previous configurations of knowledge and how they develop into a general notion, in Nietzsche and elsewhere,of the healthy, spontaneouslyacting individual free of the glut of academicknowledge which accumulatedso rapidly in the nineteenthcentury. But this is precisely what marks the fundamentaland radical difference betweenNietzsche and Foucault.Nietzsche always retains a senseof the unhistorical, the possibility of living and thinking "unhistorically" and this is why by making the idea of genealogyan allembracingone Foucault distorts Nietzsche, for it is evident from the overall structureof Nietzsche's late works and the ways in which he

conceivedthe relations betweenthem that

78 74 On the Genealogyof Morals is just one particular part of a much broader philosophy. So if Foucault's reading of the term genealogydraws heavily and in some sensesfaithfully on the kind of history Nietzsche writes in this famous text, his can never be a Nietzschean in because the unhistorical is an integral part ofNietzsche's project any meaningful sense in Foucault, is force, history there transformative no space and conceptionof as a positive, that is to say in the conception of discourserepresentedby his major works, for the unhistorical. One way of understandingwhy it is that the "unhistorical" is an empty conceptfor Foucault is by way of Beatrice Han-Pile's extremely helpful description of a "transcendent"view of the historical in early Foucault.75On this account,because "history" definesthe modern epistemeit becomesthe only way in which our world can be understood,so that it comesto occupy for Foucault somethinglike the place attributed to the understandingin Kant's philosophy. As a result to talk about what lies outside of history, the "unhistorical", makesas much sensefor Foucault as does,for Kant, discussion of the noumenalworld lying beyond our own phenomenalapprehensionof it: in both cases the existenceof such a world is postulated,whether as an ineliminable possibility or even 76 logical for it lies beyond discussion. Thus but the as a certainty, scopeof meaningful Foucault there could exist an independentworld not to be apprehendedhistorically, but this is not somethingto which we can have any accessor which can shapeour thought in any constructiveway (with this latter clausethe parallel with Kant perhapsends);this mind-independentworld belongs instead,as it doesalso for Kant, perhapsin a slightly different sense,beyond the limits of thought. The resulting tension betweenNietzsche and Foucault is borne out again and in a new light by the ensuingpagesof the secondMeditation in which Nietzsche gives an accountof what he describesas the "suprahistorical" ("überhistorischen") perspective,that perspectivewhich results from having discernedthe role of chanceand arbitrarinessin all history, in all eventsand actions, and thus rid oneself of the illusion that there be can any significant changeor progressin history. One might supposethat this "überhistorischen" view might be as appealingto the young Nietzsche as was the "übermenschlich" to the writer of Zarathustra, that it might representa similarly privileged superiority over the alltoo-humanfolly of becoming a devoteeof the historical. This is bolstered by expectation the fact that this section contains a famous pre-echo of the doctrine of eternalreturn ("If

79 you ask your acquaintancesif they would like to relive the past ten or twenty years..." (65)), since one of the apparentconsequencesof eternal return is to make a mockery of any notion of a meaningful historical processin any conventional sense,of any teleological history, in much the sameway as doesthe suprahistoricalperspective.So it is not surprisingthat Nietzsche appearsto quote Niebhur's description of such a suprahistorical viewpoint with approval, approval not just of its accuratedescription of that perspective but also of the truth inherent in the perspectiveitself. Nietzsche'sown gloss on the quote is that the "viewer from this vantagepoint... would have recognisedthe essentialcondition of all happenings- this blindnessand injustice in the soul of him who acts" (65) ("er die Eine Bedingungalles Geschehens,jene Blindheit und Ungerechtigkeit in der Seeledes Handelnden,erkannthätte"). There is no sensein the text that this personcould be mistakenin what they have come to "recognize" (the German"erkannt''from "erkennen", with its close link to "kennen", "to know", is still more assured),no sensethat this is not indeedthe "Eine Bedingung alles Geschehens"(although Kaufmann rather overplaysthe point by introducing the word "essential" for "Eine"). But despitethis apparent concurrence,we are soon brought to realise that such a viewpoint leadsto precisely the kind of inactivity which Nietzsche has been decrying from the start of this essay;this suprahistoricalviewer "could no longer feel any temptation to go on living or to take part in history." (65) Bearing this in mind it might even seemthat Nietzsche would count himself amongstthe "historical men" who are the targetsof Hume's derision later in this paragraph,those who believe that the next twenty years could be better than the last twenty: they at least are actively engagedin trying to shapethe future, and as a result of this they "think and act unhistorically", "their occupationwith history standsin the service, not of pure knowledge, but of life. " (65) However, in giving such a description Nietzsche the author precludeshis entirely identifying himself with them, for the is point that thesehistorical men, who are preoccupiedwith history purely becausethey believe that it holds the keys to a brighter future, do not know that they are acting unhistorically and in the service of "life", and such ignoranceis obviously unavailableto the author of the essay.Nietzsche may, as I have suggestedabove,endorsea certain kind of ignorance or forgetting on some occasionsbut he could not here maintain his own ignorance

of that which he has already stated:those

80 ironising historical As truths this the of which suprahistorical men are unaware. a result of distanceNietzscheremains somewhataloof from their belief, expressedin such a way asto leaveno doubt asto its naivety, "that happinesslies behind the next hill they are advancing towards," and also aloof from the belief that "the meaning of existencewill come more and light in its history (65). Such Hegelian to the remained of more courseof process" a view alien to Nietzscheat every stageof his career,and this very essaycontainsone of the very few explicit discussionsand critiques of Hegel (or Hegelianism) in Nietzsche's writings. This comestowards the end of the text where Nietzsche is discussingthe idea of modern man feeling he is a "latecomer" ("Spätling") in history, and Nietzsche deridesthe Hegelian understandingof history for glorifying this statusof the latecomer. I believe that there has beenno dangerousvacillation or crisis of Germanculture this century that has not beenrenderedmore dangerousby the enormousand still continuing influence of this philosophy, the Hegelian. The belief that one is a latecomerof the age is, in any case,paralysing and depressing:but it must appear dreadful and devastatingwhen such a belief one day by a bold inversion raisesthis latecomerto godhoodas the true meaning and goal of all previous events,when his miserablecondition is equatedwith a completion of world-history. Such a point of view has accustomedthe Germansto talk of a "world-process" and to justify their own ageas the necessaryresult of this world-process; such a point of view has set history, insofar as history is "the conceptthat realizes itself', "the dialectics of the spirit of the peoples" and the "world-tribunal", in place of the other spiritual powers, art and religion, as the sole sovereignpower. (104)

So here,whereNietzsche is discussingmuch more specifically the

problems of the

contemporaryage,the idea of a "world-process" ("Weltprozess") appearsin Nietzsche's characteristicmocking quotation marks, which clearly indicate his scorn for and distance from such ideas.And yet in the earlier discussion this sameprocess("Prozesses")(66), of to which I shall come shortly, the quotation marks are absentand the only alternative to being a "historical man" seemsto be the suprahistoricalattitude which paralysesactivity.

81 So are we not compelled, after all, to take something from the ethos of the historical men? As in the caseof the Alpine dweller, a mode of existenceis describedto which we, as but full in to this access, essay,cannot and any casewould not want gain readersof Nietzscheinstils a seductiveallure in the descriptions of both figures which compelsus to feel that we must incorporate someaspectof these figures' way of thinking about the invites implicitly latter historical into In text the the this caseof men what world our own. hope is living "their that what they want to their them to courage go on us sharewith and will still happen",their wish "to understandthe presentand to desirethe future more himself Nietzsche (65). All these would always vehemently" sentimentsare oneswhich of cherishand promote. The senseof at least a partial identification with the historical men becomes strongerstill in the remainderof this section. After going on to describethe stateof mind to which the suprahistoricalsensefinally leads,a statecharacterisedby "satiety, oversatiety and finally... nausea"(66) Nietzsche begins the following paragraphwith a revealing use of the first personplural: But let us leave the suprahistoricalmen to their nauseaand their wisdom: today let us rejoice for once in our unwisdom and, as believers in deedsand progressand as honourersof the process,give ourselvesa holiday.

(66)

("Doch lassenwir den überhistorischenMenschenihren Ekel und ihre Weisheit: heutewollen wir vielmehr einmal unsrer Unweisheit von Herzen froh werden und uns als den Thätigen und Fortschreitenden,als den Verehren des Prozesses,einen guten Tag machen.") It should be noted that the identification, despitethe inclusive "uns", is still not complete sinceNietzsche seemsto be suggestingthat we are only temporarily, "for once" ("einmal"), going to celebrateour unwisdom and believe in the purposivenessof history, by way of having a "holiday" ("einen guten Tag machen"); and there is accordingly more than a hint of irony or even sarcasmin the phrase"honourers of the process" ("Verehren

82 desProzesses"):it is hard to seeNietzsche including himself in this brotherhoodfor in fleeting bearing but the most moment, particularly mind the passageon anything Hegelianismquoted above. (This irony may not be presentto the samedegreein the phrase "Thätigen und Fortschreitenden",which Kaufmann curiously translatesas "believers in deedsand progress"where the German saysnothing about belief: the "Thätigen und Fortschreitenden"are those who themselvesact and progressforward.) So Nietzsche appearsstill to be poking fun at the "historical men" to someextent, but at the sametime, crucially, he is counting himself as one of their number, albeit temporarily: for the use of the first personplural is surely not entirely ironical. There is perhapssomethingunresolvedin Nietzsche's thinking here, since he is unablefully to identify with either the historical or the suprahistoricalattitude, nor to offer any other alternatives,nor to effect a synthesisbetweenthe two: this would be a Hegelian move Nietzschewould be unwilling to countenance.Possibly the doctrine of eternalreturn is what will eventually dissolve this tension for the later Nietzsche and determineonce and for all a perspectiveon history which eludesboth categories.In the closing pagesof this essay,the suprahistoricalitself, along with the unhistorical, is namedas an "antidote" ("Gegenmittel") to the poison of excessivehistoricism, which might seemsurprising given what Nietzschehas said about it in the pagesdiscussed,where it is linked to "nausea" and "over-satiety". But as with the different modesof history, Nietzsche only appearsto think of the suprahistoricalas unhealthy in excess,when it comesto dominate our thinking about the world, and in the context of the mania for history raging in the era in which Nietzsche is writing, a little doseof suprahistoricalwisdom and calm might count as a valuable counter-measure.But the important thing to note for my purposes,in theseearly pages whereNietzsche is setting out in what is in fact a relatively "ahistorical" mannerthe different types of attitude to history and their dangers,is that Nietzsche is far closer to the historical men than to the suprahistorical,amongstwhom he doesnot once include himself in this section, retaining the third personplural wherever he talks of them; it is the propensity of the former for action which accordswith the dominant ethos of this essay. The sentenceswhich appearafter that quoted above make this even clearer, even as they slide over the difficulty of knowing with which set of historians we are meantto side, and

83 lead us on to the questionof the best use of history for life: Our valuation ["Schätzung": a positive valuation, even a "treasuring"] of the historical may be only an occidental prejudice: but let us at least make progress here] is ["within", "innerhalb" the this and not stand crucial word within prejudice life! Then better for learn how history least Let the to purposesof still! employ us at we will gladly acknowledgethat the suprahistoricaloutlook possessesmore wisdom than we do, provided that we can only be surethat we possessmore life: for then our unwisdom will at any rate have more future than their wisdom will.

(66) So there is no suggestionhere that we ought simply to renounceour Westernesteemfor history or that anything is to be gained from attempting to place oneself outside of it: on the contrary, we must work from "within" this prejudice. In such a passageit is clear that Nietzsche's identification with the "historical men" is far from a mere sham and a joke at their expense,far from completely ironic. Once again there is no avoiding the conclusion that Nietzschehas a genuineesteemfor the useful potential of history, that he seesit as having a vital role to play in the creation of a strong, life-affirming culture, in spite of the suprahistoricalknowledge that history is at bottom random and fortuitous. But doesthis double attitude not pose somethingof a problem for Nietzsche and for us as readers?How are we supposedto maintain a faith in the future and in the value of our own actionswhile at the sametime having come to somekind of recognition of the fact that the "suprahistorical men" are right, that it is chanceand arbitrarinesswhich hold sway in events,that nothing ever improves and there is no goal to history? The difficulty is similar to that we encounterwhen we read the passageon the ignorant dweller in the Alps and feel driven to aspireto somethingof his ignoranceand narrow horizons, even though for us this ignorancecannotbe genuineand any narrowing

be horizons of must effected

artificially by meansof our own resources.From the viewpoint of any philosophy which believesthat it is incoherentto supposethat we can, even as philosophers,"know" somethingin somesenseand yet act as if in complete ignorance of that knowledge Nietzscheis talking nonsensehere, but all that one can say in responseis that Nietzsche

84 human different levels Freud there that the psychewhich were were as of was as convinced not altogethertransparentto one another;and what perhapssetshim apart as a philosopher from almost every other philosopheris that he believed that thesedifferent levels of the " Of in be the courseat this psychewere and should at work very practice of philosophy. imagine in has but Nietzsche's this taken shape, we can still point explicitly careernone of the kind of train of thought which is already in place for Nietzsche here. While we cannot becomethe dweller in the Alps we can retain somethingof his ignorance and dynamically in is have least narrowedperspective,which after all somethingwe at possessed childhood, becausethe acquisition of a piece of knowledge doesnot mean for Nietzschethat it will then be there once and for all in the sameform in the structureof our consciousness.The from he for how disappear later invoke to one's mechanism will account somethingcan in loss being those the this cells which consciousnesswithout of a mere caseof amnesia,or the memory is contained,is active forgetting. Are we not implicitly being counselledin both the secondMeditation casescited to employ a certain kind of active forgetfulness,whereby, in the secondcase,in order to act effectively in the presentwe needto let the "suprahistorical" truths slip from the forefront of our mind? And if this is the case,bearing in mind the referencesto forgetting in the fable of the cattle, perhapswe have here an early anticipation of the accountof active forgetting which Nietzsche gives in On the Genealogyof Morals. 78If so, then the later accountof active forgetting might serveto fill in the gap which is left yawning here, the gap which requiresan explanation of how it is possible both to believe and not believe the gloomy, discouragingand paralysing truths of the suprahistoricalperspective,to believe that there is no meaningful progressivepattern in history and yet to act in the presentby meansof a belief in the future, even to be for a time "honourers of the process". On this subject,it should be noted that in one respectthere is an unmistakeable tensionbetweenthe view of history expoundedin the early Meditation and that expressed by the Genealogy.The earlier essayacknowledgesthe truth of suprahistoricalthinking: that there is no meaningful pattern to human history, and principally has in mind here the progressive,liberal histories of the nineteenthcentury which took much of their inspiration from Hegel. For the Nietzsche of the Genealogy, even though this kind of history is held in an evenmore unequivocal contempt, it seemsdoubtful that the suprahistoricalview which

85 in sees, a Schopenhaurean manner, essentially the same meaningless strivings and frustrations at every moment of history, would be held to be true. In the Genealogy it is clear that history, if it does not possess exactly a pattern, and certainly not that of progressive history, does nevertheless express fundamental changes in systems of values and in the status of the human species itself. The time in which Nietzsche is writing, and indeed the times of the Greeks and of the Renaissance are singular times, not instances of the self-same strivings of will in different contexts. 79This is why the later Nietzsche can maintain a faith in the future while being in no way a progressivist in his view of history. But this does not mean that Nietzsche's basic attitude to the utilization of history has changed: history is still of value only when utilized for the purposes of life; the difference is that in the Genealogy Nietzsche thinks he can accomplish this utilization by giving an account which shows the truth of human history - not a suprahistorical truth - at the most fundamental level, that of will to power. 80

What is also interestingto note in the Meditation is that Nietzsche can affirm the historical precisely by splitting "wisdom", which in this context meansa thorough understandingof history, from "life". This distinction is even clearer in the sentencewhich concludesthe next paragraph:"This power [the power of the historical phenomenon]has now lost its hold over him [he who "has understoodits power in history"] insofar as he is a man of knowledge: but perhapsit has not done so insofar as he is a man involved in life. " Life is the highest value throughout this essay,and only becausethe historical can be subordinatedto the unhistorical can it serve life in the right way. It is this splitting of "knowledge", "wisdom" and the "historical phenomenonknown clearly and completely and resolvedinto a phenomenonof knowledge" on the one side from "unwisdom", the "unhistorical" and "life" on the other which reminds us how far we have come from anything which we might find in Foucault. For Foucault there can be no questionof such a split, since it presupposesa conceptof "life" which standsoutside of history and the genealogicalprocess.In Nietzsche's writings it seemsabundantly clear to me that there is much that standsoutside of history and genealogicalanalysis, and that Nietzsche wanted it this way. Genealogicalanalysismight seemto be capableof reducing everything to a meaninglessness comparableto the suprahistorical:but in that casethen the very last thing that Nietzschewould want would be for all history and philosophy to be subsumedinto

86 is itself, task that it fact, which "genealogy". In or rather will turn out that genealogy in is Morals, Genealogy to certain in On which a philosophy the subordinate of undertaken in fact is the "life transcend to that the power" will assertion propositionssuchas historical, evenif it would be possibleto give a "genealogical" account of how they arise.

"Gray, meticulous and patiently documentary": Foucault on "genealogy" Given what I have said about the seemingdisparity betweenthe conceptionof history outlined in the secondUntimely Meditation and history as it is conceivedby Foucault,it might start to seemstrangethat Foucault wished to call on Nietzsche as a this In his to we Nietzsche's of sense make order own. with projects predecessorand align Foucault's from the I midst of needto turn to the essay referred to above as emerging is in It 1971. first this History', Genealogy, `Nietzsche, published methodologicalcrisis, his does Foucault Why the consider question: essaywhich enablesus to answer he does in be Nietzschean history to one, and why particular a reconceivedapproachto appropriatethe term "genealogy"? As was the casewith Deleuze's Nietzscheet la Philosophie, examining the opening gesturesof `Nietzsche,Genealogy,History' is illuminating. The first sentenceof the essay immediately suggestsa whole host of questions:"Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary." ("La genealogieest grise; eile est meticuleuseet patiemment documentaire.")81On the face of it this seemsa curious thing to say if we are talking about Nietzschehere. Who could be less "gray, meticulous and patiently documentary" than Nietzsche,in the Genealogyand elsewhere?Insteadone might be temptedto describe Nietzsche's style in general,and his approachto documentaryevidencein particular, as erratic, brilliant, haphazard,contentious.Sometimeshe will make extraordinarily sweeping claims about cultures and erasof history without any clear explanation or justification; sometimesthere seemsto be a great deal of material of a "documentary" nature in the background,but Nietzsche's interpretation of this material is controversial and often seeminglywilful, as with someof the etymological derivations in the first essayof the Genealogyand with the claims about the circumstancesof the rise of Christianity in The

87 Antichrist; both of thesedemonstrateNietzsche's penchantfor brandishing detailed specialistknowledgeof a kind not available to the non-scholarly reader (or perhapsthis is evidencethat Nietzsche still wished to addressand be respectedamong an academic in 25AC for in bullish but knowledgeable history Israel the readership), example given of 6. What is more there is never anything systematicabout the way Nietzsche works with this material; evenin the more sustainedtexts, of which the Genealogyis again the supremeexample,Nietzsche's thought seemsto fly from century to century, from culture to culture and from one idea to another,randomly calling on historical "evidence" or not as it proceeds.This will becomeevident below in an analysisof the historical framework of certain sectionsof the Genealogy. But for me the opening statementof `Nietzsche,Genealogy,History' is contentiousin a secondsense.For it is necessaryto rememberonce again that Nietzsche never claims that genealogy"is" anything at all, whereasFoucault's first sentenceseemsto assumegenealogyas an object ready to hand and up for discussion;this assumption persiststhrough this essay,in particular in theseopening paragraphs:"From these elements... genealogyretrieves an indispensablerestraint" (p. 76); "Genealogy doesnot opposeitself to history... " (p. 77); "In a sense,genealogyreturns to the three modalities of history... " (p. 97). But what is this object? If Foucault were proposing his own newly devisedhistoriological technique,to which he had assigned,for reasonsof his own, the word "genealogy" in a novel senseand without any referenceto Nietzsche,then that would be one thing. But it becomesclear almost immediately that Foucault is evoking Nietzsche'suse of the term in On the Genealogyof Morals, as he subtly draws the reader into his own reading of the Genealogyby aligning himself with Nietzsche's critique of Paul Ree,thus silently drawing alongsideNietzsche himself: "On this basis,it is obvious that Paul Ree was wrong to follow the English tendencyin describing the history of morality in terms of a linear development..." ("Paul Ree a tort, comme les Anglais, de decrire des geneseslineaires...")82So given this carefully executedcontextualisation which transportsus into the prefaceof the Genealogy,doesthe "la genealogie"of the openingthen refer to the book On the Genealogyof Morals? Is it this which is supposedto be "gray, meticulous and patiently documentary"? Or is it rather "genealogy" as a preexisting field or method of study towards which ("Zur") Nietzsche is making a critical

88 Surely Foucault this: Nietzsche's no to mean title cannot suggest? seems contribution, as interestin any of thesepre-Nietzschegenealogiesis manifestedin the remainderof the kind is So "genealogie" of new philosophical procedure,not explicitly essay. rather some in definite implied the but technique defined by Nietzsche, a as somehow prescribedor To in Nietzsche? Genealogy On someextent the and elsewhere modesand methodsof Foucault seemsto affirm at least the first and last of theseoptions, the last becausehe does draw on a number of texts other than the Genealogyitself in outlining his conceptionof "genealogy". For me it is problematic to claim what Foucault doesclaim for genealogyin For issues this is it but the that third to the these emerge. real any of respect senses, with essayis one of the sites where the idea originates, apparentlyquite unproblematically and be is discourse to is which without argumentor dispute,that genealogy a certain mode of be in Nietzsche's apprehendedat work philosophy and which can and maybe should employedas a model for post-structuralphilosophical practice. What Foucault actually sayshere, with respectto Ree, about the kind of history that Nietzscherelatesin On the Genealogyof Morals is a highly insightful, penetratingand beyond in text this the any pre-existing conception eloquentaccountof moves way which kept had history that their [Paul Ree] "He the that meaning, of words assumed of morality: desiresstill pointed in a single direction, and that ideasretained their logic; and he ignored the fact that the world of speechand desireshas known invasions, struggles,plundering, disguises,ploys." (p. 76) Although it is contentiousin many respects,`Nietzsche, Genealogy,History' is full of such elegantparaphrasesof Nietzsche's thought. As I see things, however,this is almost besidethe point since no matter how impressively Foucault analysesthe structuresof the Genealogythe more important question is whether these proceduresare generalisableinto an overall method and project; I can only conceive of them precisely as the proceduresof the Genealogyand I am unable to make senseof the claim that they are proceduresof "genealogy" per se. Once again I do not dispute that Nietzschethought that the techniquesemployed in the Genealogywent far beyond what any other historical critique had beencapableof achieving up to this point, but I do questionthe broaderapplication of such techniques,and in particular the extent to which they can standin for philosophy as such. So I am not particularly concernedto debate every claim and argumentin `Nietzsche,Genealogy,History', and insteadproposeto

89 considerwhat Foucault seemsin generalto think he can achievewith this reading of Nietzsche;I will return to this a little later on when I turn to Foucault's brief concluding discussionof the relation of genealogyas a method to the secondUntimely Meditation.

The status of the historical in Nietzsche: On the Genealogyof Morals Let us now return to Foucault's description of this discipline as "gray, meticulous is documentary" there and patiently any good reasonto apply these and considerwhether words to the historical methodology employedby Nietzsche in the one book where one discussions, Foucault's is the book the them to apply, the would expect centre of which at Genealogyitself. To get a real senseof exactly how Nietzsche's historicism comesinto it is in important for Genealogy in the play all sorts of reasons, somepassagescrucially appositeto examinethe first few sectionsof the secondessay,"`Guilt', `Bad Conscience' and RelatedMatters". This secondessaybegins with the celebrateddiscussionof "The breeding of an animal which is entitled to makepromises" (GM 111), a processin which an unhistorical "nature" setsitself the task of breeding somethingout of "man" in the abstract;there is no senseof any particular period of time here which could be historically identified, just the vague,unhistorical time that obtains in discussingman's relationship to nature as a whole. This indefinitenessallows for the possibilities both that the processin question is one which was accomplishedsometime ago, and that it is ongoing and not yet complete; only the ensuingsectionswill throw any light on this question.83The opening of the second sectioncharacterisesthe first section's portrait of the developmentof the "calculable, regular, necessary"man as "the long history of the origin of responsibility" (GM 112) but this is not a history which can be historically situatedwith any specificity. A hint arisesas to somehistorical bearingswhen Nietzsche describesthe labour which accountsfor this developmentas "the specialwork of man on himself throughout the longest era of the humanrace,his whole endeavourprior to the onset of history", with this last stressed phrasemaking it quite clear that this making calculable of man belongs to what Nietzsche thinks of as "prehistory".

90 The actual attainmentof the "sovereign individual" who is "entitled to make built basis the promises",as something of this presupposedmaking man calculable, on is in belong but is later to may any caseclear that this "sovereign a what period, individual" is somethingwhich has beenaccomplished,since this ripe fruit is not somethingwe can only postulatebut rather somethingwhich Nietzsche thinks is before our eyes:"there we find as the ripest fruit on their tree... " (ibid. ) I think it is not unreasonable to supposethat Nietzschethought such individuals existed in, for example,ancient Greece, and probably also in the Roman world, in the Renaissance,even in the contemporary world: someof the qualities he admiresin the sovereignindividual are similar to those for which he lauds Schopenhauerin the third Untimely Meditation, `Schopenhaueras Educator?': chiefly autonomy and independence.Nietzsche may by the time of the Genealogyhave changedhis mind about Schopenhauer,and may never have thought of him quite in the terms of the sovereignindividual anyway, but there is no reasonto supposethat decadentcultures might not yet produce occasionalsovereignindividuals, Nietzschehimself perhapsbeing a possible candidatein his own mind. But perhapsthe strongestsensethe readergets is that the appearanceof theseindividuals actually signals the end of the prehistorical and that they, in their recognition and acknowledgementof other sovereignindividuals, constitute the foundation of the ancient nobilities which perhapswould mark the start of "history" proper for Nietzsche. The `free' man the owner of an enduring, indestructible will possessesalso in this property his measureof value: looking out at others from his own vantagepoint, he bestowsrespector contempt.Necessarily, he respectsthose who are like him... " (GM II 2) That soundslike the inception of the value-giving noble of the first essay. Even though this attitude of the value-bestowingnoble is immanent and always possiblein later history, it is not simply the casethat it is equally presentthroughout humanhistory: there is a time in which it assumesa recognisableshapefor the first time (this is what Nietzsche is describing in this section the on sovereignindividual), a time

91 is it it is in its form, in dominant times weaker, when which and perhapsexists purest from (we Nietzsche's remarks elsewherethat the occasionalresurgences might assume Renaissanceis one such)84and overall a generaldecline culminating in its becoming it is kind by (Given this the not of narrative, completely subjugated good and evil morality. dialectic by that the the surprising masterand slave comparisonsare made with role played in Hegel's Phenomenologyof Spirit, a comparisonI shall discussshortly; for presumably somethingclosely parallel to this might be said with referenceto the phenomenaof master and slave.) The accountNietzsche gives here would undoubtedly have beenthought of by him as historical, but once again there is no definitely identifiable time-scale. When Nietzschestartsto recountthis history (still in section 2), and goeson to clarify the concept of "conscience"by meansof giving an accountof the forging of a memory for man (section3), we start to get a real senseof periods of time in which this forging has occurred,whereNietzsche adducesthe forms of punishmentand branding which were its basic techniques(113). Thus there is a list of the punishmentsused in the Germanmiddle in indicates forging in least Germany the that ageswhich of a memory was still ongoing at the medievalperiod. (This neednot meanthat the sovereignindividual might not have beenattainedin Greecetwo millennia before, of course:this is not a linear history, certainly at this point.) It is this list which is the closestNietzsche comesin this sectionto anything of a "documentary" nature, in Foucault's phrase,and in particular the parentheticalremark that boiling criminals in oil or wine occurred "even in the fourteenth and fifteenth century" indicatesthat Nietzsche thinks he knows his history here,that at somelevel theseclaims could be backedup with somekind of "documentary" evidence proving that they are valid. The problem ariseshere that Nietzsche may appearto be ascribing to the German middle agesthe characterof "prehistory", since it is to a prehistorical period that Nietzsche refersthe basic labour of making man calculable and predictable for which it was necessaryto breed in him a memory; however, I think it is perfectly reasonableto suppose that sucha processmight be one which neededreinforcing and reworking within later history, particularly in placeswhich perhaps were not so developedin this respect,and Nietzschemay have consideredmedieval Germany to be 85 such a place. So I think it is possibleto draw a genuinehistorical narrative out of this part of the Genealogy,but only

92 with the aid of a certain labour of reconstruction,particularly given the highly typical way in which Nietzscheskips from one period to another and at different levels of historical breeding itself from task the that of a abstraction: nature sets a very general,abstractclaim, man entitled to make promises,to processesidentified as pre-historical, to the final results of the entire breedingprocess,not given any temporal specification, back to the "prehistoric" processeswhich createa memory in the first place, this time positively identified, with somehistoric specificity, in Germany in the middle ages!As for the "documentary" aspectof Nietzsche's writing there are only a few lines, those on the Germanpunishments,which it is even plausible might be traced back to documentary evidence,and since he is not writing an academictext Nietzsche doesnot feel obliged to makereferencesto such documents.This in itself makesfor a striking contrastwith Foucault's own texts which aboundin footnotesrevealing the greatwealth and depth of Foucault's knowledge of the historical material relevant to his projects, however arbitrarily and selectivelyother historiansmay feel this material has beenused.For readersof Nietzschehis free ranging through history is not necessarilya weaknessof his style and indeed be one of its attractionsand strengths,but it doesseemto hinder its assumption may into a historical method describedas "meticulous and patiently documentary". This opening of the Genealogy's secondessayseemsto me a fairly typical instance of Nietzsche'sutilisation of history, typical in its lack of historical clarity. The third essay is the most loosely constructedof all in the senseof having any real kind of historical framework: what history of asceticismwould begin, following its fascinating preliminary meditation on the meaningof asceticism,with three or four pagesdevotedto Richard Wagner?Ratherthe third essayis much more an examination of the nature of asceticism and, explicitly in the title, the "meaning" of asceticideals throughout history, and displays very little interest in a historical developmentof asceticismuntil it comesto later structures which turn out to be heirs of the asceticideal and evolve from it in someway, such as science,academicscholarshipin generaland philosophy itself. But in order to give the most favourablecontext for Foucault's alignment of his own methodswith those of Nietzsche,to affirm that On the Genealogyof Morals really is at least in part a history and a historical critique, and to show that this historical statushas important consequencesfor how one readsthe Genealogy,I proposeto extricate the rather more coherenthistorical

93 narrative, such as it is, from the first essay. If the second essay seems to make forays into what Nietzsche identifies as human prehistory, the picture outlined from the first moment that Nietzsche tells us he is going to give us an account of the origins of morality, "the real origin of the concept `good"' (GM I 2), is one in which we have already entered the realm of the historical. For one thing it is clear that some kind of social organisation is already in place, since right from the beginning Nietzsche describes the bestowal of values as

somethingwhich is carried out either by a noble casteor, later, by an individual member of that nobility: "the `good' themselves- that is, the noble, the powerful, the superior, and the high-minded were the oneswho felt themselvesand their actions to be good... " (GM I 2); "the pathosof nobility and distance,the enduring, dominating, and fundamentalfeeling of a higher ruling kind in relation to a lower kind... " (GM I 2) The implication is that everythinghere occursafter the processesin the secondessaythat are describedas prehistorical,after, for example,the enslavementof a formless, nomadic people by the "race of conquerorsand masters"describedin 1117.86It is in keeping with the sensethat we are in a social, historical realm here that a well developedform of languageis very much to the fore, both as a demonstrationof the power of the nobles to confer values and consequentlyasNietzsche's evidencefor his claims: "The right of the mastersto confer namesextendsso far that one should allow oneself to graspthe origin of languageitself as the expressionof the power of the rulers" (GM I 2); "What pointed me in the right direction was actually the question of what the designationsof `good' in coined various languagesmeant from an etymological perspective." (GM I 4) So here again we enter a realm in which somethingin the nature of documentaryevidenceis hovering around in the background,if not cited explicitly: in this casein the philologist's speciality subject of etymology. The examplesthat Nietzsche gives are drawn from German,Persian,Slavic, Greek,Latin and Gaelic, thus all from European and near Easterncultures, which are the cultureson which one would expectNietzsche to be able to speakwith some authority, given his philological background.It is an interesting question whether Nietzsche would expectthe sameto be the casein ancient Chineseor Sanskrit; my guessis that, since he is alreadydealing with societiessomeof which he would have believed emerged independentlyof one another (for example Celtic and Persian)and had minimal contact with one other, he would expect this and that the claim being made here is really as much

94 it initially historical: that what we call civilisation appears everywhere anthropological as takes the form of a nobility in which the nobles decide what is good and the value concepts is be hypothesis (The this the language that take would alternative of shape accordingly. influence East in Europe things take the and as a result of mutual near shape and it is ) However, be the clear to me that after communication and need not case elsewhere. this posited anthropological starting point all that ensues in Nietzsche's account of different moralities is tied very specifically to one particular, linear narrative which can historical is be identified: thoroughly this and not anthropological. very easily story and

Nietzschecontinuesto speakin general,apparentlyuniversal terms as he now introducesthe idea of a society in which it is the priests who constitute the nobility: "To the rule that the political conceptof rank always transforms itself into a spiritual conceptof in it it first (although rank, at may turn occasionsuch exceptions) constitutesno exception if the highest casteis at the sametime the priestly caste..." (GM I 6) One wondershow many instancesof suchtransformationNietzsche draws upon to justify this "always", and there are clearly supposedto be multiple examplesof the later "exceptions" as well, so that againone may wonder precisely how broad the application of this "rule" is meant to be. It seemsfair to assumethat the evidencewhich justifies such an assertionis drawn mainly from the Europeanand Near Easternpast, although the foray of nineteenth-century Germanscholarshipinto Far Easternand particularly Indian culture and history meansthat it is possiblefor Nietzscheto invoke Hinduism and Buddhism in this section, as he does elsewherein his writings. Nevertheless,since Nietzsche makesno specific qualification here asto the applicability of this rule, it appearsthat its statusis once again anthropological,andNietzsche would anticipate that the samestatementscould be made with respectto, for example, South American civilisations of which he could have had very little knowledge. So the senseseemsto be: everywherewhere there emergewhat we canrecogniseas societiesin which there is a ruling and a subordinateclass (everywhere, that is, where there emergesanything which Nietzsche would recogniseas human civilisation and the advent of history) these statementsare valid. This is confirmed by the way Nietzschetalks at the opening of section 7: "- By now it will be clear how easily the priestly mode of evaluationmay diverge from the knightly-aristocratic mode and then developinto its opposite.This processreceives a particular impetus each time the priest

95 and warrior castesjealously confront eachother and are unwilling to strike a compromise." (my italics) We are led to believe that this confrontation occurs a number of times in quite different priestly societies,and that Nietzsche's word "priest", "Priester" (as is more obviously the casewith the more generalword "warrior", "Krieger") really doesmeana memberof the priesthoodof the dominant religion of any culture, and is not particularly meantto suggestChristianity. If one were to speculateon which particular cultures these might be one could suggestthat Nietzsche has in mind Egypt (a powerfully theocratic societysincethe warrior castein ancient Egypt were generally subordinateto the ruling priestly class),Brahminism (likewise), Judaism(particularly the Judaismof the Captivity during which time there were no longer any military rulers and the chief priests and prophetscameto have great sway), perhapsone or two other examplesfrom the Near East, suchas Mesopotamia.But for anyonewho knows the generalbent of Nietzsche's thought the suspicionwill alreadyhave arisenthat he is homing in here on one particular priestly nobility and its heritage,and within half a pageor so Nietzsche has effected a transition after which there will be only one people under examination and one story to be told. This occurswhen Nietzsche selectsthe Jewsas "the most important example" of "priestly revenge" on the warrior caste.It is the Jewswho will effect the "slave revolt in morals", and it is already clear at this point to what this Jewish revolt will lead: "There is no doubt as to who inherited this Jewish transvaluation." (GM I 7) This is reinforced by the openingof section 8: "But you are finding this hard to follow? You have no eyesfor somethingwhich took two thousandyears to triumph?" That "two thousandyears" means that Christianity has definitely been identified as the heart of the matter now. From this point on there is no longer the slightest interest in Brahminism or any other religions. It is important to emphasisethis transition becauseit can easily seemthat the entire first essay works at an anthropologicallevel and even quite plausibly at a broader,truly universal level, that it tells a story about the necessarydevelopment human of consciousness,or in Nietzsche'sterms human "will to power", in the same way as doesHegel's accountof 87 in Phenomenology. masterand slave the It becomesunavoidableat this point to consider explicitly the kind history of with which Nietzschepresentsus here in comparisonwith the philosophy of history which Foucaultwould have taken to be one of the most directly opposedto his own, that

96 huge in involved detail into too Without by Hegel. to or get much go wanting proposed debatesconcerningHegel and the historical, it is probably relatively uncontroversialto say history the holds the appears history world in of Hegel's and sway, that reason version of its incarnation in ("Begriff") "Idea" Hegelian as in the the rational as, essence, unfolding of lectures in the the is the This on Geist,human self-consciousness. case particularly clearly in Hegel's late history careerand were stage which are a product of a philosophy of describes introduction the influential in their the nineteenthcentury; extremely interpretationof history in the following terms: "The only thought which philosophy brings with it to the contemplationof history, is the simple conceptionof reason;that history therefore, the is presentsus the that world, the the of world; reason sovereignof just the is for Hegel philosopher "88 But something not reason a with rational process. brings to bear on a history which is in itself irrational, it is the very substanceof history his here, but that for does this Hegel reader assures the and not provide proofs universe. by is it "proved in have been speculative suchproofs provided philosophy, where investigating the here term this that without suffice us, may cognition, reason- and infinite is being divine by as relation sustained the universeto the - substance,as well it life its infinite which power; own material underlying all the natural and spiritual In in "89 form infinite this that motion. material which sets originates,as also the Idea's it is Geist development the coming to ever greater the particular on earth, of "It history: is focus beings, itself in the of universal consciousnessof which self-conscious history investigate be that the must observedat the outset, phenomenonwe - universal belongsto the realm of spirit [Geist]... On the stageon which we are observing it "90 Such history itself in its displays the are universal reality. concrete most spirit history least Foucault later Hegel's as at and, presuppositionsunderlying conceptionof knew well, much subsequenthistoriography. All of this is anathemato Foucault, as anyone familiar with his writings will immediately recognise:the rational principle underlying all history, the belief in a progressiveprocess,the role of self-consciousness,the very assumptionunderlying the term "universal history": that one could give a complete and definitive accountof a people,a nation, a continent or of history as a whole. It is not difficult to find passagesin Nietzsche which are equally critical of such Hegelian assumptions.But the questionwhich is of interest to me at this point is whether the kind of

97 history which Nietzsche seems to be writing in this part of the Genealogy is markedly distinct from that envisaged and carried out by Hegel, and whether it furnishes us with the in it. identify like Foucault to history kind of break from Hegelian would which

On in frequently to is In fact, the Hegelian conceptionwhich most cited referring Hegel's belong does to dialectic, / is Genealogy Morals the master slave not the which of 91 doubt is This Spirit. but Phenomenology history no of accountsof rather to the proper becauseit expressesa kind of unevenpower relationship which seemssomewhatakin to that betweenthe nobles and the slavesin those parts of the first essayof the Genealogy alreadyreferredto, a relationship which entails certain modes of recognition, conflict and it becomes One further the resolution. might also remark parallel which emergeswhen being into for be Hegel history that of too there to the apparent coming could no prior hierarchicaldistinctions, that is, for Hegel, classesin a state.It is the statewhich is the arenaof history for Hegel, as becomesclear when he discussessocietiesin which the family or clan is the basis of social organisation.92Any remembranceof the past or other discoursein such societiesdoesnot count as history for Hegel becauseit doesnot in itself "acts becoming freedom, a constitute of will self-conscious- of mirroring America North is, form, for itself the phenomenal state. and creating a proper reality", that neednot form a part of Hegel's universal history because"the generalobject of the firm for fixed determined, is the this existenceof necessity a and state not yet and combinationdoesnot yet exist; for a real stateand a real governmentarise only after a distinction of classeshas arisen,when wealth and poverty becomeextreme, and when such a condition of things presentsitself that a large portion of the people can no longer satisfy its necessitiesin the way in which it hasbeen accustomedto do."93For this reasonthe role 4 North future. But America in history belongs to the of of coursethe state only universal as conceivedby Hegel is somethingquite different from the society of nobles which Nietzscheimagines,and when it comesto the master/slaverelation, whatever the interestingparallels which might be drawn betweenthe two accounts,what are more significant for me are the disparitiesbetweenthe respectiveversions of history involved, and in particular betweenthe ways thesenarratives are presentedhistorically. The first obvious thing to note is that the Hegelian encounterwhich generatesthe relationshipof masterand slave is an encounterbetweentwo individuals95whereas,as I

98 have stressedabove,at the start of the Genealogy's first essaywe are already in a social world where classesor strataof society confront one another.This points the way to the fact that the two accountswork at rather different levels and have different roles to play in the respectivephilosophiesof their creators,and most pertinently in their philosophical histories.For Hegel the encounterwhich generatesthe master/slavedialectic would not be one that could be thought of as occurring at some definite time and place in history. By the time it becomespossibleto identify this relationship in history it is of course in a social context, in fact, as far as Hegel is concerned,it is quite specifically in China: "With China and the Mongols - the realm of theocratic despotism- History begins."96This is the realm wherethe master/slaverelation takes, according to Hegel, the initial social form where "One is free" and all othersare, to all intents and purposes,slaves.But the initial genesisof the master/slavedialectic doesnot take place in any specific time or place; it is the encounterbetweenself-consciousbeings which necessarilyfollows in the courseof the unfolding of the Idea. This is not to say that the master/slavedialectic is irrelevant in consideringHegel's philosophy of history; on the contrary, it is fundamentalto all his accounts,and the story of universal history is in a certain sensenothing more than the story of how this fundamentalrelation of masterand slave developsthrough history until it is given its full dialectical resolution in the modern state,with the result that all are now (in someimportant theoretical or potential respectif not defacto) free. So it is a relation which is presupposedbefore any given history but which itself lies outside the scopeof any history or even"prehistory". What I would claim is that there is no such structure in the Genealogyof Morals. Again this is not necessarilyto say that Nietzsche doesn't make statementselsewherewhich have a similarly universal and even metaphysicalstatus;such as, in particular, the claim that life is will to power, which develops in Nietzsche's later philosophy into the claim that the world is will to power.97And even in the Genealogy itself I have suggestedthat there are passages which seemto lay claim to a universal validity outsideof any given place and time, such as the account of how nature breedsa memory for man and createsthe sovereignindividual. But with respectto the crucial story which Nietzscheis going to tell in the first essayabout the clash betweenthe good/bad morality and the good/evil morality everything takes place within a real historical

99 framework, not as the exposition of some development of a "Begriff'

taken to be

necessary.

What is more this first essaybecomesmore and more convincingly historical as it historical from have What I the status progresses. above, emerges examining carefully, as of Nietzsche'sallusions to peoplesand languagesis that from generalclaims about the natureof human societiesand their hierarchical structuresNietzsche selectsone particular strandwhich will lead to an examination of the way our Western, Europeanculture develops.Possibly somethinganalogousto the slave revolt in morals happensin other culturesas well, maybe in a less virulent, dramatic, far-reaching form than that of the Jews, or maybeit doesn't: Nietzsche simply doesnot considerthis question. If Nietzsche was merely interestedin all the different possible relations betweenthe moralities of different strataof society wherever in the world they might occur then it would seemstrangethat he doesnot discussat this point the way Indian Brahmins comport themselvestowards lower castes,or the way the "chandala" may avengethemselvesfor their lowly dispossessed statuson thosebelonging to higher castes.Hegel has a long section on what the Indian 98 in castesystemmeans the context of his view of history, and theserelations were of some interestto Nietzscheelsewhere,99but at this point they are irrelevant becausethey would contributenothing to the history of this slave revolt in morals, which is the focus of the essay.And in fact when Nietzsche doesdiscussBuddhism in TheAntichrist the first thing he doesis to make it clear that his critique of Christianity doesnot apply to Buddhism,1°° and much of this text is taken up with drawing illuminating distinctions betweenthe two religions. So when, in the Genealogy,Nietzsche wants to suggest,in very generalterms, that civilisations initially take the form of hierarchieswith a dominant ruling class,and that this ruling classis sometimesa priestly class,Brahminism can be evoked; but when it is a caseof the specific history which unfolds in just one of thesepriestly aristocracies Brahminism disappears.Of courseNietzsche doesnot select the Jewish fortuitously, revolt but becausehe wants to tell the story of our culture, that the West, the of culture which, amongother things, has producedFriedrich Nietzsche; and absolutely central to this culture, asNietzsche seesit, is the Judaeo-Christianreligion. He does not select it because the path of history, rationally considered,leads this way "in itself' so to speak,as seemsto be the casefor Hegel. Further, it was becoming overwhelmingly apparentin the nineteenth

100 has (as dominate European did to to the that the world century means come culture possess become in but fait the past century), so that the ongoing story of arguably all a accompli Christian culture, including its projected overcoming, might go on to become the story of humanity generally. 101But this is still very different from supposing that we are talking difference in ineluctible One Geist the the about stages on earth. way of stating progress of might be to say that for Nietzsche the history of the West comes to have predominant importance defacto whereas for Hegel it does so also, in a sense, de jure.

Perhapsthe easiestway of formulating a questionwhich really indicates whether thereis a fundamentaldifference betweenthe philosophical statusof Hegel's master/slave dialectic andNietzsche's accountof slave and mastermorality is to ask: Do thesetwo texts necessarilyhave implications for cultures which have developedindependentlyof the West?Let us supposethat a copy of the Genealogyand one of the Phenomenologyof Spirit somehowturn up in Japanin the late nineteenthcentury and are picked up by a Japanesescholarwho, as it happens,can read German.What conclusionscould he draw abouthis own culture and philosophy, given a faithful reading of thesetexts, if he took their authorsat their word? If this scholarwas convinced by the argumentsin the opening sectionsof the Phenomenologythen he would have to conclude that the master/slave relation wasjust as fundamentalfor Japaneseculture and history as for European;that it is presupposedin all human civilisation. Of courselater sectionsof the Phenomenologydeal with definitely identifiable erasin Europeanhistory, but if the scholar was still following Hegel's logic (and perhapssupplementedby a copy of Hegel's history lectures)he would haveto come to the conclusion that his own culture now representeda static backwater which the evolution of Geist had left behind it, and that the only hope for the future lay in following the examplesof those statesin Europe which were now the setting for the realisationof freedom on earth. What I would like to think is that in reading the Genealogy the samescholarcould in fact come to the quite different conclusion that the conflict betweentwo different types of morality and the slave revolt in morals describedin the book belongedonly to Europeanhistory and had no relevanceto that of Japan;that in fact this first essay,and perhapseven the entire book, although this claim is certainly

more

problematicwith the third essay'sinquiry into the meaning of ascetic ideals, was simply a conciseand well-observedportrait of Europeanculture (perhapsexactly as he had

101 imaginedit), and was only of real interest to specialistsin that peculiar field; and I would like to think that the scholar could draw this conclusion with Nietzsche'sfull assent. It is immediately apparentthat one could construct a counter-argumentwhich in is deny in It the that to this even possible argue would very claim, a number of ways. first essay,with the description of the conflict betweentwo different possible value if its implications is broad in be describing Nietzsche even systems a structurewhich must it appearsto be situatedin certain near Easternregions; and after all, no other possible alternativesystemsare describedwhich might exist elsewhere.Indeed it is hard to think of any generalsystemof morality which couldn't be redescribedin terms of Nietzsche's two types.But even if this is true, it seemsclear to me that the specific shapethat these moralities take and more importantly still the specific nature of the conflict betweenthem, firmly embeddedby Nietzsche within the historical framework of the history of the Near Eastinvolving Greece,Judaeaand Rome, are determinateforms in one particular history: and it is theseforms in this history, the history which leadsto the evolution of Christianity, with which Nietzsche is centrally preoccupied.It would also be possible to develop a counter-argumentby saying that if one is preparedto concedethat Nietzsche possessesa metaphysicsof his own, which might reasonablybe said to centre around the claim that existenceis will to power, then in the entire arenaof world history Nietzsche is only going to focus on the place where will to power gives rise to a paradigmatic kind of conflict, so thatjust as for Hegel, given his particular conceptionof spirit, history begins in China, for Nietzschethe starting point for genealogymust be the Judaic world where this conflict emergesand where man thus becomesan "interesting animal" (see GM I 6) for the first time. This could lead one to the conclusion that because"will to power" effectively plays the samerole in Nietzsche's historical perspectiveas does Geist in Hegel's, Nietzsche's own kind of "universal history", in a courseparallel to that of Hegel, merely tracks the way the conceptof will to power begins to develop in a certain kind of way which will eventuallylead to its becoming consciousof itself: as it does when Nietzsche identifies "will to power" as the essenceof the human being. This counter-argumentis, it seemsto me, more telling. I think it must be conceded that as long as we believe that Nietzsche has a certain metaphysics(as I do) there will be somekind of resemblancebetweenhis view of history and that of Hegel along the lines

102 just indicated,but againstthis we must inventory once again the number of ways which really makeNietzsche's version of history substantially different from that of Hegel: there is no explicit claim that Nietzsche's starting point for the Genealogyis anything other than a contingentstarting point rather than a real origin or beginning of history such as one in being does lay Hegel; Nietzsche to encounters able to situatenonany claim nowhere Westernculturesin a determinateplace within a universal history in which the West plays a privileged contemporaryrole; although he does attribute great importance to his own in is itself, history history there the the writings very courseof of philosophy, of politics, of little sensein Nietzschethat the moment at which, in his own thinking, "will to power" becomesconsciousof itself plays anything like the crucial role the self-recognition of spirit with its essenceof freedom doesin Hegel, no sensethat this is what will to power has been aiming at and leading up to all along; and crucially there is not the slightest suggestionin Nietzsche,as there seemsto be in Hegel, that this moment of recognition could be anything like an end-point for history, and there is no reasonto assumethat even the Übermenschwould for Nietzsche- might not even the representsuch an end-point Übermenscheventually needalso to be overcome by a still higher species?So perhapsthe situation of the Japanesescholarand faithful studentof Nietzsche might finally more accuratelybe describedin the following terms: insofar as he believesNietzsche's claim that the world is will to power he will also believe that there is one particular historical narrative(the Europeanone) which displays a particularly significant phasein the evolution of the will to power, and from which the Übermenschmay emerge;but as for the precisestatusof his own culture and the role it may have to play in future developmentsof the will to power, all of this remains open.

Nietzsche's broader philosophy: placing the historical critique in context Thus far, then, I am assertingthat there really are some genuinely significant differencesbetweenwhat history is for Hegel and what it is for Nietzsche, and to this extentI concur with Foucault in finding in Nietzsche a substantially different conception of the relationshipbetweenhistory and philosophy. But what is then important is to be

clear

103 kind it in itself is the this constitutes aboutpreciselywhat relationship and whether really for fusion between history to of and philosophy which genealogyseems represent Foucault.I have already suggestedthat the historical project and critique which Nietzsche is is it it for be in On Genealogy Morals the when seen what can only really undertakes of designated itself be larger cannot seenaspart of a philosophical project which "genealogy". This historical critique, which Foucault names"genealogy", cannot come to standin for philosophy in the way that Foucault seemsto suggest,where philosophy as be been have to the timeless truths shown conventionallyconceived,as of reason,would untenablethrough its subjectionto genealogicalanalysis: the genealogist"refuses to extendhis faith in metaphysics"which, according to Foucault relies upon a belief in "a is `somethingaltogether history, he finds he listens "if there truth"; that to primordial different' behind things: not a timeless and essentialessence,but the secretthat they have no essenceor that their essencewas fabricated in a piecemealfashion from alien forms.s102 Nietzschedoesdemonstratesomethinglike this with respectto the fundamental concepts of morality in the Genealogy,but only as part of his attack on Christianity and its faith in origins; the consequencesfor philosophy or metaphysicsas such are secondaryand much lessstraightforward,and can only be thought about with respectto Nietzsche's own philosophyas a philosophy and not as history or genealogy.But given this view of Nietzscheand history a philosopher might then seemto be entitled to ask whether the Genealogy'shistorical critique was even pertinent to philosophy proper, whether it really hasany philosophical bearing whatsoever.For Nietzsche it surely must do: I have describedit as part of a philosophical project, which is what it must be for Nietzsche, and if it was philosophically impotent or irrelevant then it could not have been such a part; it would havebeena separatelittle task lying outside of that project insteadof being linked in with it by way of its subtitle and its allusion to Zarathustra.103What I want to assert, contraFoucault, is that it is not a text which can be thought to embody that project as a whole. Perhapsat this point I can provide a little more content to my repeatedclaims that Nietzsche'shistorical critiques, including the Genealogyitself, cannot in themselves accomplishthe revaluation of all values and that there is a broader project, more properly philosophical,of which they are a part. I think these claims can be quite adequately

104 demonstratedfrom my readingsof the texts in question, but there is much that remains unansweredabout what the role is of Nietzsche's historicism and how it would relate to this larger project. An attempt to answerthis question will also demonstratewhy no form '°4 history historical for Nietzsche. of or critique can come to take the place of philosophy Let us first considerhow we might think about Nietzsche's overall philosophical project. One possiblecandidatefor a description of such a project, the project that principally arisesin Nietzsche's last few years and often in his notebooks,is provided by Martin Heidegger.At the start of the last of the four lecture courseson Nietzsche which Heideggergavebetween 1936 and 1940he links with great clarity what he calls Nietzsche's"Five Major Rubrics" into a coherentstructurewhich representswhat HeideggerregardsasNietzsche's own "fundamental metaphysicalposition". The theme andtitle of this lecture courseis "EuropeanNihilism" and accordingly nihilism is the first of these"major rubrics" which Heideggerdiscusses:nihilism is what for Nietzsche, in its "perfected", "classical" form, "calls for freedomfrom values as freedomfor a revaluation los, (such) hitherto". "revaluation of all values" values giving a secondmajor rubric as of all The "new principle" such a revaluation has need of in order to ground itself is "the establishmentof a basis for defining beings as a whole"(p. 6) and "What Nietzsche perceivesand posits as the basic characterof being as a whole is what he calls the `will to power"'. (p. 6) Furthermore,

becauseall being as will to power that is, as incessantself-overpowering - must be a continual `becoming,'and becausesuch `becoming' cannot move `toward an end' outside its own `farther and farther,' but is ceaselesslycaught up in the cyclical increaseof power to which it reverts, then being as a whole too, as this power-conforming becoming, must itself always recur again and bring back the same Thus "the eternalrecurrenceof the same"joins the list Nietzsche's of major rubrics. And finally, "because`God is dead', only himself man can grant man his measureand centre, the `type,' the `model' of a certain kind of man who has assignedthe task of a revaluation of all valuesto the individual power of his will to power... Classical nihilism... must take

105 himself `over' he has been is, himself must and that of and now out until as man man fashion as his measure the figure of the `Overman. "' (p. 9) Without wanting to get involved in a debate about whether the conjunction of these "rubrics" indeed constitutes a "metaphysics" making Nietzsche the last metaphysician, or whether Nietzsche's thought it be, I he himself to am certain wanted constitutes an overcoming of metaphysics such as that Nietzsche must have felt there was some strong philosophical connection between "will to power", "eternal recurrence", "revaluation of all values hitherto", "nihilism"

and

"Overman" of a kind somewhat resembling that which Heidegger outlines here.

And if we were to take this, at least provisionally, as a description of Nietzsche's being in "Entwurf' the a reasonably maturephilosophical project, project senseof appropriateHeideggereanword, and especially given that the revaluation of all values was a task which always lay somewherein the future for Nietzsche,then we can assumethat the historical critical task of the Genealogyof Morals must form somepart of the groundworkfor the posited "revaluation of all values hitherto", or even part of that hitherto" "revaluation itself. how For of all values revaluation could one understandwhat a hitherto"? But "values into the valuation insight the these could meanwithout an nature of be derived determines is be is to task that this not merely which a which must undertaken from "within" a historical critique as somekind of direct "result" of that critique but from Nietzsche's"metaphysics", if one follows Heidegger, or, if one takesNietzsche at his word, from his philosophy which is not a metaphysics.If one examinesthe particular way in which Heideggergets from "revaluation of all values hitherto" to "will to power" we will get somesenseof how this derivation works. I have already referred to the passagein which Heideggerinsists that Nietzsche's posited "revaluation" must be "grounded" on a new definition of beings.The subsequentsentenceruns as follows: But if the interpretation of beings as a whole cannot issue from a transcendentthat is posited `over' them from the outset,then the new values and their standardof measurecan only be drawn from the realm of beings themselves.

(p. 6)

106

What Heideggeris pointing to is what it is that makesNietzsche believe (although not Heidegger!) that his philosophy has successfullyovercomePlatonic metaphysics:that his from derived in his the thought the are understandingof valuative world and particular idea beings from themselves the of somethingwhich standsover and natureof and not important But the "ideal" that them, word. above suchas an as we normally understand basis is his Nietzsche the that of a on point revaluation of all values can only posit Genealogy On if beings the time the of of writing reconceptionof as a whole, even at Morals he was only beginning to develop the full consequencesof a philosophy of "will to his in details Heidegger's I the and particular readings, power". might reject someof of alignmentof Nietzscheanwill to power with a machinetechnology that seeks technologicalmasteryover the earth, but I am in agreementwith him in that all of these major rubrics, while also throwing light on one another,must point towards someoverall understandingof beings as a whole, whether one calls that a "metaphysics" or not. In an earlier chapterI have referred to the basis of Nietzsche's systemof values as what he calls instances in "instinct"; Nietzsche but inclined believe I that to an could some what am also into insight be he instinct the nature of the world, that to took grasponly as an an was what natureto which he eventually gavethe name "will to power". What I should also like to note here is that although Heideggerhas no explicit interestin the unhistorical or forgetting as such, I think theseconceptionsmight reasonably be seento have connectionswith the "major rubrics": for eternal recurrenceleads one towardsa decidedly unhistorical experienceof the moment, the "Augenblick"; the revaluationof all values will require a kind of forgetting of previous values, an injustice to the past; and the "Übermensch" will surely needto plunge into the unhistorical in order to possessthosequalities of the child recommendedat the beginning of Zarathustra: "The child is innocenceand forgetfulness,a new beginning, a sport, a self-propelling wheel, a first motion, a sacredYes." (Z I, "Of the Three Metamorphoses")This is what enablesthe child to forge new values. And the suspicionremains that it is hard to seehow Foucault could countenancesuch unhistorical innocenceand forgetfulness,since that would seemto imply forgetfulnessof the very narrative of Europeanhistory he laboured hard to so constructand make available to us, make unforgettable for us.

107

Power, Appropriation

and Transformation:

Genealogy 1112

One passagefrom On the Genealogyof Morals which may give a fuller senseof to is 12 from the Foucault text appears this takes which essay, second section of what (Foucault interpretation for text the refers the as a whole. of presentsomethingof a puzzle I06 but it is overall the to this sectionexplicitly once in `Nietzsche,Genealogy,History', it be face to the most consonantwith Genealogy the the of on sectionof which appears Foucault's methodology.) This is a section I have already discussedin the chapter 1 with discussion from following Deleuze: to the of the role of a on point where, reference for Nietzsche forging in history the makes the man, of a memory punishment of guilt and the generaland very Foucauldeanpoint that the origin of a phenomenondoesnot serveto between difference is the its function in "there of world a explain a particular system: first for in to into the the which use ultimate and place reason somethingcoming existence it is put, its actual application and integration into a systemof goals" (GM 1112). There is, for history" important this than Nietzsche, types "no one. to all of according principle more I describethis point as Foucauldeansince it ties in with Foucault's frequent claims that, for example,the practicesof medicine, or psychiatry, or punishment,or sexuality, servequite different purposesin different eras,and the conviction, to which almost all of his texts testify, that in order to elucidatethe function of such practiceswhat is necessaryis to linear in than their the they supposed analyse overall structures which participate rather history. The puzzle which then emergesfor Nietzsche and perhapsalso for Foucault is that of determiningwhy it is then relevant, in the context of a critique of the contemporary,to discussphenomenawhich belong to previous erasand thus ought to be determinedpurely by the overall systemsin place in those eras.For Foucault, presumablythe point of making reference,in Madnessand Civilization, to the "free circulation" betweenmadnessand reasonin the Greek logos, is that it enablesus to seethat the relation betweenthe two need not be exclusive, that its modem form has no eternal validity and thus may be overcome: thus this move belongsto the methodology of Nietzscheancritical history. But this very claim points the way to the fact that there must after all be somethingwhich holds together the conceptof "madness"throughout its history, that it is in some sensethe "same"

108 is phenomenonwhich appropriatedand transformed over the centuries;otherwise any discussionof Greek"madness"really would be wholly irrelevant. The disjunction between the conceptof "madness"or "punishment" in different erasmust therefore be lessradical than Foucault often implies, and than Nietzsche appearsto be implying here. But with further if be Nietzsche to this respect we ask the specific questionof the point can clarified Genealogy:Why is it that the kind of morality made use of by Christianity, slave morality, itself be one of thosephenomenawhich can be given a new interpretation by a new cannot systemof goals?And if this is the casethen what is the purposeof describing its origins, in the first essay,in the slave revolt in morals? Why are they not as irrelevant to its eventual purposeas are the origins of punishmentto its later utilisation? And what critical bearing ' 07 Nietzsche's have? could narrative then The first thing to determinein respondingto thesequestionsis precisely what it is that Nietzschehas in mind in this section of the secondessay.As I have mentionedabove, Nietzschehasbeendiscussingpunishment,and in the ensuing section 13 Nietzsche returns to punishmentin a way which bearsout what he has been discussingin generalterms in section 12: "there are two aspectsof the problem [of punishment] to be distinguished:on the one hand,that aspectof punishmentwhich is relatively enduring - the custom, the act, the `drama', a certain strict sequenceof procedures- and, on the other hand, that aspect which isfluid - the meaning,the aim, the expectationwhich is attachedto the execution of suchprocedures." So here at least it is a question of a certain set of procedures which are availablefor appropriationand re-interpretation.Now the good and evil morality portrayed in the first essayof the Genealogydoesnot seemto consist of such a set of procedures; ratherit is describedin terms of affective structuresof evaluation, and it is questionable whetherone could legitimately regard theseaffective systemsas the kinds of things which are capableof being masteredand re-deployedin a different way. The word which Nietzscheusesin the abovequote from section 12 is "Ding": it is the "Entstehung eines Dings" and its "ultimate use" which is discussedby Nietzsche, and in the following clause it is "etwas Vorhandenes"which comesinto being in somemanner and is seizedby a power. Although "Ding" is a word which, like the English word "thing", can be applied to pretty much anything(!), it is not particularly appositefor designatingsuch a complex of affectsas the good and evil morality, and neither is "etwas Vorhandenes".Doesn't it rather

109 first in describes the Nietzsche be the good that to the essay constituting as what case seem itself, is than that rather constitutes an appropriating power which rather and evil morality the kind of thing which can be appropriatedby a power? And if the power in questionis the systemof morality which finds its true expressionas Christianity, then the morality of be designated is "thing" this can new power, which which good and evil not someneutral in its initial form as "the slave revolt in morals", mastersand makesuse of; it is rather that its So in lies basis the account the this essence. as very slave revolt morals, which at of Nietzschegives is far from irrelevant to his purposesince it tracesthe emergenceof that in his hold in West believes, Nietzsche to the own time, sway continued power which, as for be is be to andwhich overcome;and surely nothing could more apposite a critical history than to designatethe moment when an era of history, within which we still exist, but which we now judge to be detrimental to life, comesinto being and comesto usurp the minds, societies,cultures and social practicespreviously extant. Part of the reasonfor a disparity here betweenFoucault and Nietzsche is therefore simply a questionof the time-scalein question.Foucault tends to divide the history of the West into radically discreteperiodswhich actually conform fairly well to traditional divisions of Europeanhistory: Greek, Roman,medieval, Renaissance,baroque,classical, is in his Although frequently there texts. the modernare epochalterms which appearmost be fluidity for "modern" the thing, some era, our era, can and ambiguity about, one where said to begin (Foucault seemsgenerally to think of it, again quite traditionally, as emerging aroundthe time of the French Revolution, or in the early nineteenthcentury following the repercussionsof that event; but there is a question about how long it is in the making and how far its roots stretchback into the eighteenthcentury and beyond) it is only a question of two or three hundredyears,and since the overwhelming priority for Foucault is to designatethe outlines of this modern era in order that the possibility may arise of overcomingit and moving beyond it, questionsinvolving ancient Greek culture or the transition from the Renaissanceera to the classical era are of subsidiary importance, althoughin practice in Foucault's books the earlier histories of such things as punishment, 108 be madnessand sexuality prove still to pertinent. For Nietzsche all of theseinternal divisions of the history of the West, although recognisedand of somerelevance, particularly in the caseof the Renaissance,are ultimately just minor episodesin the much

110 broader picture of the dominance of Christianity over the entire history of Europe. What corresponds in Nietzsche to the two centuries of the modern era in Foucault is the two thousand years (not including its prehistory) of the Christian era; and although he seeks its 109 Nietzsche for overcoming also acknowledges that this era might endure some time yet.

This is one way in which the passagecan be squaredwith the Genealogy's first essayin a way which preservesa certain resemblance,in terms of methodology if not timescale,betweenFoucault and the Nietzsche of the Genealogy.But we should not lose sight of the other fact which becomesevident here, that Nietzsche thinks of the systemsof thought and feeling which underlie the forces which shapeculture in a way quite different from that in which he thinks of certain set proceduresand practiceswhich endurethrough a numberof different cultures and changetheir meaning in the process.Accordingly, Nietzscherarely even discussesthe actual practicesprescribedby Christianity, regular communalworship, observanceof the Sabbath(obviously common to Judaismand Islam aswell), monogamousmarriage,the sacramentand the particular ceremoniesof Catholicism,the confessionaletc; thesearejust not thought of by him as essentialto what Christianity really is. The big exception is of courseasceticismin general,but it is noticeablethat in this case,as in the few other instancesof such discussion,there is always ambiguity. In order to demonstratethis it is not even necessaryto draw on the Genealogy's third essay,in which it will emergethat what is particular to Christianity is not asceticism as suchbut a particular, heightenedversion of asceticismdevelopedby the priest, which then enablesthe asceticideal to roam uncheckedthough Western culture (I will discussthe asceticideal at much greaterlength in chapter4). Take the following passagefrom Beyond Good and Evil, which dealswith those things prescribedby religion in general,or rather religion in its extremeform, and not just by Christianity: Whereverthe religious neurosishas hitherto appearedon earth we find it tied to three dangerousdietary prescriptions: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence but without our being able to decidewith certainty which is causehere and which effect, or whether any relation of causeand effect is involved here at all... nowhere is it more necessaryto renounceinterpretations: around no other type has there grown up such an abundanceof nonsenseand superstition,none seemsto have

111 interestedmen, evenphilosophers,more - the time has come to cool down a little on this matter,to learn caution: better, to look away, to go away. (BGE 47)

So hereinterpretationof the practicesof asceticismis renounced,and it is never a question for Nietzscheof making any simplejudgements about the value of thesepracticesin general;rather critique is invariably directed towards what Christianity makesof its religious heritage,the way it turns thesepracticesagainstlife in a potentially fatal way. (Thus marriageis also ambivalent for Nietzsche; I will discussNietzsche's positive reappropriationof the conceptof marriage in chapter4.) All of this points the way to the real issuefor Nietzsche:the overcoming of the affective structureswhich indicate the continuing legacy of the slave revolt in morals.

Foucault on the "use and abuse of history" Hopefully this has servedto clarify what Nietzsche intends in GM 1112and to show that it is far from being a denial of all continuities or a description of the quasistructuralisthistorical approachadoptedby Foucault. But Foucault doesnot restrict his discussionsof Nietzscheto On the Genealogyof Morals; he also believeshe can draw on the secondUntimely Meditation, `On the use and abuseof history for life', which I have discussedextensively above.Foucault concludes`Nietzsche,Genealogy,History' with a coupleof paragraphsin which he suggests,as I have, that there is some link or connection between`On the use and abuseof history for life' and Nietzsche's later historical methodology,that to which Foucault gives the name "genealogy". The first of theseopens with an accurateand succinct summary of the way in which that text regardscritical history:

The Untimely Meditations discussedthe critical use of history: its just treatment of the past, its decisive cutting of roots, its rejection of traditional attitudes of reverence,its liberation of man by presentinghim with origins other than those in

112 which he prefersto seehimself. Nietzsche,however, reproachedcritical history ["A cettehistoire critique, Nietzsche reprochait"; to be accurateFoucault ought to say that Nietzschereproached"an excessof critical history"] for detachingus from every real sourceand for sacrificing the very moment of life to the exclusive concernfor truth. Somewhatlater, as we have seen,Nietzsche reconsidersthis line of thought he had at first refused,but directs it to altogetherdifferent ends.It is no longer a questionof judging the past in the name of a truth that we only possessin the present,but of risking the destruction of the subjectwho seeksknowledge in the endlessdeploymentof the will to knowledge. (pp. 96-7)

The "as we have seen"in this quote refers to three quotesand a paraphraseof one passage from Nietzschein the paragraphwhich immediately precedesthis one, all of which seemto advocatethe possibility of humanity being sacrificed for the sakeof knowledge (p. 96). Two of the quotesand the referencedparaphraserefer to passagesin Daybreak, where, in accordancewith the positivist ideals which I have earlier suggestedare deeply entrenched in this book as in Human, All-too-Human, there is indeed a theme of man sacrificing himself to knowledge, since in thesetexts knowledge has to a considerableextent temporarily becomethe supremevalue, higher even than that of "life". This at any rate is not the casein Nietzsche's later output in which the statusof knowledge is itself often underthe magnifying glass,so it seemsdubious to associatesuch a valorisation of knowledgewith "genealogy" if that is concept linked to the text of On the Genealogyof Morals. Although the theme of mankind's self-sacrifice remains in play in later Nietzsche texts, it is always in the name of a higher ideal which is not "knowledge": the Übermensch, a future, strongermankind, the will to power itself. Theseare what inherit the supreme value which attachesto the concept of "life" in the Untimely Meditations, and given that life often comesto mean somethinglike "existence as a whole" in Nietzsche,we can trace a circularity in this development,following the excursion of Human, All-too-Human, Daybreak and parts of The Gay Science:for thesehighest values of the later Nietzsche will then turn out to be, as in the earlier text, either life itself ("life is will to power") or higher versionsof life (the Übermensch).

113 As for the quotation from Beyond Good and Evil, a text which is indeed almost contemporaneous with the Genealogy,the translatorsof Foucault's text, quoting from Walter Kaufmann's translation of Beyond Good and Evil, give it as "to perish through absoluteknowledgemay well form a part of the basis of being." (p. 96) But in R. J. Hollingdale's translation this line comesout as "it could pertain to the fundamentalnature of existencethat a completeknowledge of it would destroy one" (BGE 39). In fact both of theseare feasibletranslationsof Nietzsche's "es könnte selbst [neither translator really takesaccountof this "selbst"] zur GrundbeschaffenheitdesDaseinsgehören,dassman an seiner völligen Erkenntnis zugrundegingen", although Hollingdale's is much closer to the phrasestructureof the German.Kaufmann's, quoted out of context and reversingthe order of clausesin the sentence,seemsto suggestthat what the nature of being entails is that we are destinedto perish through absoluteknowledge one day; this is the senseFoucault wantsto get out of this line in order to reachthe conclusion that Nietzsche'sreturn to critical history entails "risking the destruction of the subject who seeksknowledge in the endlessdeploymentof the will to knowledge." In fact Nietzsche meansnothing of the kind: neither Hollingdale's translation nor the original German give any sensethat this destructionthrough knowledge is somethingwhich either ought to happenor is going to happen,and the continuation of this sentencemakesthis fact quite clear: "so that the strengthof a spirit could be measuredby how much `truth' it could take, more clearly, to what degreeit neededit attenuated,veiled, sweetened,blunted and falsified." There is no suggestionthat anyonecould actually be strong enoughfor this "völligen Erkenntnis" which would destroythem, and the implication is that no such "complete knowledge" could thereforeever be attained;the theme of this section is what kinds of effects different kinds of truths and truths in different degreeshave on their knowers, and on the other hand what kind of knowers are capableof and fitted for what kinds and degreesof truths. This is certainly not a place where Nietzsche seriously posits man's self-sacrifice to an allpowerful will to knowledge; rather it is a "realistic" meditation on the acquisition of knowledgeby human beings.Here the relationship is much more conventional than Foucaultwould like, for it is man who is in control and admits only certain degreesof knowledge.

114 idea Evil the Good to in Beyond of is Thus there nothing this reference support and Nietzsche'smaturephilosophy "risking the destruction of the subjectwho seeks knowledgein the endlessdeploymentof the will to knowledge". In the Nietzschean"selfis 96) (p. knowledge" to it is "subject it is who that of a never stated overcoming" of man be overcome.The strongestsensethat the "subject who seeksknowledge" is in someway than in this itself, the third from Genealogy rather and essay, the particular at risk comes Without is these by Foucault the claims. the othertexts alluded to real sourceof surely his the into own realisation of wanting to get complex argumentsabout what effect knower (I to has related come the will a as status philosopher's genealogicalroots on is destroyed knowledge in does it 4), that the subject of arguments chapter not seemto me in this processor eventhat his destruction is seriously hazarded.And in the broader is he insofar be is Nietzsche's to a as not overcome man context of philosophy mature "subject of knowledge" but only insofar as he is post-Christian man, and in the name of a higher man. It might then be claimed that precisely the point of the third essayin the Genealogyis to demonstratethat the philosopher, the one who writes the genealogy,thus indeedthe "subject of knowledge" is himself a part of the post-Christian heritage,and I fully acceptthis. But it doesnot seemto me that Nietzsche feels this is going to mitigate in the slightestagainstthe validity of his critique; the critique is what remains valid and accomplishesa part of the revaluation of all values. If the tools that can accomplishthis implication by Christianity have been furnished then the nevertheless critique could only knower is kind be Christianity is the that and to of remains overcome,as perhaps himself Nietzsche and philosopherwho constructsthis post-Christian critique, and, maybe, us ashis readers;Nietzschewas never reticent about this fact. Does this meanrisking the destructionof the subject of knowledge?Would we not still have a subject of someother kind of knowledge,not of a Christian provenance:the knowledge of Zarathustra,for example? Let us follow Foucault's thought through to the end of this essay. In a sense,genealogyreturns to the three modalities of history that Nietzsche recognisedin 1874.It returns to them in spite of the objections that Nietzsche raised in the nameof the affirmative and creative powers of life. But they are

115 for becomes the the monuments parody; respect metamorphosed: veneration of injustices becomes dissociation; the the systematic critique of ancient continuities in destruction by by becomes held the the truth the of the man of past a men present injustice knowledge. knowledge by to the to the who maintains proper will

(p. 97)

What I would want to say about the relation between"On the Use and Abuse of History", the later Nietzscheand the Genealogyis that of the "three modalities" Foucault refers to it is the critical which must necessarilyassumethe leading role in the wake of Nietzsche's perceptionof how deeply we are embeddedin a nihilistic Christian and post-Christian era; thus the Genealogymust be thought of as almost entirely a critical history. As for the antiquarianmode,this can only remain positive if longer, older continuities can serveto undercutChristian culture, which might be thought to be the casewith respectto the noble good and bad morality, insofar as this is a mode of evaluation that we can still recognise, that hasin somesenseenduredin its subordinatestate.As for monumentalhistory, that can survive to the extent that there are monumentalforebearsin the struggle againstChristian culture: suchare,to variously limited degrees,Michelangelo, Goethe,Napoleon. Turning to Foucault's account,while one might recogniseelementsof parody in the Genealogy, and one certainly doesnot find much in the way of "veneration", I do not find any such thing as a "systematic dissociation". This assertionis presumablybasedon a reading of Genealogy1112 of a kind which I have arguedis misguided. In fact despitethe fact that Nietzschereally doeshave an interest,both in the Genealogyand elsewhere,in rupturing certainsupposedlines of continuity, one thing the Genealogydoes is to affirm that certain continuities do endure,even if they are not the oneswe might have liked to imagine: the slaverevolt in morals endures,perhapsthe formation of the sovereignindividual; certainly the asceticideal and its consequencesturn out to have much more extensivelines of descentthan we might have supposed. As for the third claim, for me Nietzsche is still much closer in this text to the posited"critique" than to a "destruction of the man who maintains knowledge"; Nietzsche'ssupposed"knowledge" about genealogical roots is "a truth held by men in the present",and none the less so for its deriving from those very "injustices" whose lineage

116 it is in its Genealogy For to the seen proper context seemsclear one wants eradicate. when that what is to be destroyedis the Christian heritage; and even if we as men of knowledge are implicated in this to someextent, if we too are to be overcome,then it remains important to get the reasonsfor this right and the priorities the right way round. Although Nietzscheacknowledgeshimself to be a descendantof the asceticideal he clearly doesnot think his own position as an authoritative knower and critic, as one who "maintains knowledge", is at all compromisedby this. And if we as knowers and partakersof this critique are to be overcomeit is as inheritors of the Christian heritage,not as knowersper se. Foucault's version of "genealogy" leadsto a destruction of the subject of knowledge is which surely a dismantling of the subject as such, leaving bare, de-anthropomorphised knowledgeasthe force which propels forward the history of the world; and readersof Foucaultmay well feel this is indeedthe generalimpression given by his major historical texts. I do not find any such structurein Nietzsche later than The Gay Science.Rather the story which is finally borne out by the Genealogyis that the Christian and post-Christian era finally furnishesthe tools for a critique which is capableof discerning the truth at the heartof its own origins and developmentand thereby of providing a crucial elementin the overcomingof this era. Perhapsprecisely what remains after this overcoming is knowledge and the subjectas knower. Although Foucault would disagreewith this suggestion,he would probably have assentedto the preceding sentence;but as I hope I have shown, there is the world of difference betweenthe kind of conceptionsof philosophy, history and the subjectwhich Foucault takesto be implied by "genealogy" and those conceptionsas they areto be traced in Nietzsche's own texts.

117

Chanter Three: Nietzsche, Derrida, Deconstruction,

Genealogy

In the caseof Derrida my mode of proceduremust necessarilybe rather different from that employedin the previous two chapters.The namesDerrida and Nietzsche have, known, been frequently began become Derrida's twinned to ever since very publications together,usually with Nietzsche featuring as a (more or less "primitive", naive, unaware, blind, unready)precursorof the radical re-opening of the central questionsof metaphysics undertakenby Derrida; and in particular as a precursor of "deconstruction" in a Derridean '10 sense. One of the questionsI would like to pose is precisely whether this "Derrida and Nietzsche" isn't anotherinstanceof the "infamous `and"' which Nietzsche so decriesin the ' 11 it in if it doesn't fact in "Goethe Schiller"; than caseof obfuscatemore other words and informs by confounding togethertwo writers who, whatever they might share,are fundamentallydistinct from if not opposedto one another in a number of crucial respects, just in their methodsbut also, I will suggest,in their aims. It seemsto me that it is not Nietzsche'stext in particular which suffers in this amalgamation:whereasthe breadthof Derrida's readingsand the carehe takes not to draw too close to any one previous philosophyprecludeany possibility of his work being seenas a mere reanimation of Nietzsche'sphilosophy, it doesseemto me that in this relation Nietzsche sometimes comesto be seenas nothing more than an early forerunner of the great post-structuralist revolution, remarkably aheadof his time but unable to furnish the requisite tools for the critique he soughtto undertakeand ultimately pulling up short in a heroic contradiction and evena heroic madness.What this view overrides is any sensethat there might be a specificity to Nietzsche's critique which has its own standardsof adequacyand success; that this critique might still have questionsto pose of even the most sophisticatedpoststructuralphilosophy; even that Nietzsche's philosophy may yet prove to be more radical and more truly critical than that of Derrida. To take the most notorious and ubiquitous word which circulatesin this context, I do not think there is any warrant for describing any of Nietzsche's approachesto the discourseof the past, and least of all that which has been termed"genealogy", as "deconstruction".

118 When one comesto considerthe sizeablecorpus of Derrida's writings it immediately strikes one as doubtful that Derrida himself consideredNietzsche to be as significant a precursoras commentatorsoften seemto assume.There are certain striking in passages the earlier Derrida texts which do invoke Nietzsche, often along with Freud and Heidegger,as highly important figures in a crucial era in the history of philosophy in important themes,selfto two which certain questionsand problems concernedwith, name consciousnessand the nature of language,arise. The further developmentof this era leads, on Derrida's account,to the emergenceof Derrida's own interestsin the phenomenaand processeshe designateswith the terms "granunatology", "deconstruction" and "differance". And yet there is strikingly little discussionat this stageof any Nietzschean texts. With Spurs and `Otobiographies'in TheEar of the Other we do get such discussions, but it is an open question,and one I will addressfurther on, whether thesetexts really deal ' 12 with questionswhich could be consideredcentral to Nietzsche's project. Referencesto Nietzschecontinueto crop up throughout Derrida's later oeuvre, in particular in Politics of Friendship, which draws on Nietzsche extensively; but this is a text which calls on some very specific elementsin Nietzsche important for the project outlined in its title, and overall I think it is reasonableto assertthat in comparisonwith Deleuze especially but also in comparisonwith Foucault, and despitewhat I will have to say about Spurs, there is lacking in Derrida a sustainedengagementwith the Nietzscheantext. What is more, it is very clear that both Deleuze and Foucault regardedNietzsche's philosophy as a sourceof the greatestsignificance for their own projects, and accordingly eachpublished texts which explorethe terms of this inheritance:Nietzscheand Philosophy and `Nietzsche,Genealogy, History' respectively.I think it is much harder to make the casefor Nietzsche playing any suchcentral role with respectto Derrida, for whom the writings of Husserl, Plato, Freud and especiallyHeideggerwould seemto be at least as significant if not more so. One might most plausibly seeHeideggeras the key predecessorhere, providing the figure of the masterwhom Derrida as disciple both follows and challengesradically. And this remains the caseeven if, as I will argue,one of the most telling ways in which Derrida looks to "go beyond" Heideggeris in challenging Heidegger's interpretation

of Nietzsche and thus in a

certainway and to a certain extent in attempting to reanimatethe Nietzscheantext. For this

119 form Nietzsche's does texts take the extended meditation on of any reanimationstill not leaving to one side once again the rather oblique approach of Spurs. per se,

The first methodologicalconsequenceof all this for the current project is that there is no one text of Derrida's to which one can turn for an overall senseof what Derrida takes from and makesof Nietzsche.Insteadit is necessaryto trace the different registersof the nameNietzschewithin the Derrideantext, from an early interest and acknowledgement through the somewhatlater texts which deal directly with someaspectof Nietzsche's writings to the honouredbut ambivalent place which Nietzsche occupiesin Derrida's later thought.Much of this doesnot concerndirectly the concept of "genealogy", but as "genealogy", for the most substantialpart of Derrida's writing life, had come to be taken, especiallyin France,as a name for Nietzsche's way of doing philosophy, a senseof how Nietzscheemergesfrom this encounterdoesfeed into the way in which readershave come to think about "genealogy" and On the Genealogyof Morals itself. And yet it is this text, as I will argue,which most clearly showsthe divergenceof Nietzsche's thought from that of Derrida. More generally, it will becomeapparentthat all considerationof Derrida's relation to Nietzscheas a "predecessor"of somekind is of vital importance for the current project since,in the expansionof the conceptof genealogywhich has taken place in Nietzschestudiesin the wake of Deleuze,Foucault, Derrida and others, one commonly deployedversion of this conceptis concernedwith the relationshipsbetweena philosopher andhis or her "predecessors","forebears" and "heirs". So the broad conception, covering both this notion and, I think, anything Nietzsche could possibly have meant by "genealogy", the conceptionaccordingto which it is most profitable to comparethe philosophicalenterprisesof Nietzsche and Derrida, is this: their (and our) relation to a tradition which precedesthem (and us).

The Shadow: Referencesto Nietzsche in the early Derrida

De la Grammatologieis a text which could be takenasthe place,"defacto if not de jure", to make a "first incision" in a reading of Derrida, according to Derrida's own responseto a questionposedby Henri Ronsein an interview published in Positions,

120 althoughhe also articulatesa number of other schemesin which De la Grammatologie figures as an insertion "into the middle of Writing and Difference" and also has to cedeto a 113 Speech Phenomena both the other texts! If we take positedpriority of and with regard to this seminalearly text, which at least could be seenas a potential starting point in reading Derrida, we will find emerginga pattern which repeatsitself in theseearly texts, with regardto referencesto Nietzsche.In the first chapterof De la Grammatologie, entitled "The end of the book and the beginning of writing", where Derrida lays out someof the most fundamentalencountersand analysesinvolved in the emergenceof the scienceof grammatologywhich the book adduces,we come acrossa passagewhich suddenly introducesthe nameof Nietzsche and situateshis texts in the context of this emergence: Radicalizing the conceptsof interpretation, perspective,evaluation, difference, and all the "empiricist" or nonphilosophical motifs that have constantly tormented philosophy throughout the history of the West, and besides,have had nothing but the inevitable weaknessof being producedin the field of philosophy, Nietzsche, far from remaining simply (with Hegel and as Heideggerwished) within metaphysics, contributeda great deal to the liberation of the signifier from its dependenceor derivation with respectto the logos and the related concept of truth or the primary 14 in is signified, whatever sensethat understood. Here is establisheda tenor and a characterisationof the Nietzscheantext which I would arguepervadesour senseof how that text relatesto that of Derrida: Nietzsche as an almostheroic forerunner of Derridean deconstructivecritique, the philosopher who "contributed a greatdeal" to a certain task, a task which it is hard to inferring avoid somehowculminatesin Derrida. There obviously is not spacehere, in an analysisprimarily devotedto the notion of genealogy,to go through Derrida's account of Nietzsche and his critiquespoint by point and to assesstheir relevance.Rather, I just want to get a sensehere of how Nietzschefigures as a forebearfor Derrida. One of the important aspectsof this relation is that Nietzsche is always seenby Derrida as evading in advance,as the parentheticalcommentabovehas already indicated, Heidegger's reductionist reading of his philosophy as the culmination of metaphysics,and thus as a philosopher safely subsumed

121 Nietzsche it "save describe to Derrida to what would mean goes on within metaphysics. from a reading of the Heideggerean type":

breakthrough `naievete' the which cannot attempt a step of a one must accentuate outsideof metaphysics,which cannot criticize metaphysicsradically without still in in utilizing a certain way, a certain type or a certain style of text, propositions illNietzsche is to to that that, readwithin the philosophic corpus, say according incoherent be "naivetes", been have signs of and will always read or unread, always "5 absoluteappurtenance. This sentencebrings with it anotherimportant aspectof Derrida's view of Nietzsche, lacked Nietzsche is ) (patronising? the tools that which a certain ambivalence,a suggestion he neededto make his critique of metaphysicstruly effective. As a result the redemption of Nietzschefrom Heidegger's critique is also ambivalent: "rather than protect Nietzsche from the Heideggerianreading, we should perhapsoffer him up to it completely [... ]"; in somesense"the conclusionsof Heideggerand Fink are irrefutable" (OG 19-20). Nietzsche,it seems,in an important and undecideablesense,both doesand doesnot fall victim to Heidegger'scritique; the latter aspectof this ambivalenceemergesagain much later in Of Grammatology:"in wishing to restore a truth and an origin or fundamental ontology in the thought of Nietzsche,one risks misunderstanding,perhapsat the expense of everything else,the axial intention of his concept of interpretation." (286-7) Again, I will not interrogatethe justice of such claims head-on,which would require an extensive study of Nietzsche's philosophy focusedon the theme of "interpretation". InsteadI would like to just make mention of a fact which might seemastonishingbearing in mind all that seemsto be at stakehere, and which surely suggestswe should retain a degreeof caution in assessingDerrida's deploymentof the nameNietzsche here: there is not a single quotationfrom Nietzsche,not only in the section discussed,but in the entire threehundred-pluspagesof Of Grammatology,if we except the one-line quotation which heads the first chapterof the book (6). Of the numerousreferencesto Nietzsche cited in the index, the only onesthat occur in the text itself refer to the passagesfrom which I have alreadyquoted.The remaindertake us to Gayatri Spivak's translator's preface,which does

122 for fathers discussion founding Nietzsche's the the contain an extensive of role as one of project espousedby Derrida. For a writer who is generally so attentive to the texts in Western philosophy he considers important, this is extremely surprising. It is true that there are texts of Derrida's, such as the short essay at the beginning of Of Grammatology which I have been discussing, which do not consist of close, patient, detailed analysis of an individual text, but rather range across a whole tradition identifying general movements and themes, and this might seem to be appropriate for this opening chapter which is at least partially concerned with situating grammatology with regard to a certain tradition. In such places we do not expect the same kind of attentiveness to the letter of the text. But then the question would be: where is the "... That Dangerous Supplement... " text on Nietzsche in these early Derrida writings, the text which will engage with Nietzsche in the way in which Derrida engages with Rousseau in this essay? Such a text does not exist. And even within this expository first chapter of Of Grammatology we find brief quotes at least from Aristotle, Hegel, Rousseau and Heidegger. Indeed the discussion of Heidegger which follows the couple of pages in Nietzsche discussed above is very much more closely concerned with Heidegger's specific vocabulary, with specific texts and parts of texts and specific issues in Heidegger, than anything Derrida has to say here about Nietzsche. It should go without saying that the suspicion here is not that Derrida has not read or is not reading Nietzsche as he writes these texts, but it might be that Derrida could have been more influenced by the conception of Nietzsche's philosophy emerging in contemporary French reinterpretations by writers such as Deleuze, Pautrat and Kofman, at least at this point, than by any real getting to grips with Nietzsche's writings themselves. One begins to wonder to what extent the "Nietzsche" who emerges in these early Derrida texts might consist in a patchwork of other thinkers' readings of Nietzsche rather than emerging from a direct encounter with the Nietzschean text itself. Of course we are never entirely innocent and devoid of the influence of previous interpretations in reading Nietzsche or any other writer; to put it in a Derridean phrase, Nietzsche comes to us as a writer and thinker who has always already been interpreted. But this is not to say that a direct engagement with Nietzsche's text is not still an indispensable aspect of any new interpretation worthy of the name, and Derrida's own awareness of this general point, his respect for the text, however

123 is his be it to turn analyses, under out may aporia with and riddled strange, contradictory deployment in his but of Derrida's in to not other writers: references of evident almost all the name of Nietzsche in Of Grammatology. There is no doubt that the prevalence of Nietzsche's name in certain strategically important passages in early Derrida texts give us But the for large Derrida. looms see shall as we this the the sensethat name shadow of is fleeting Spurs to Derrida's in and itself Nietzsche's prior writings text of any presence of fragmentary, indeed shadowy.

In the caseof Writing and Difference, we certainly do find in this very varied least does Nietzsche, to suggest at which collection of essaysquite a number of references kinds in in bore the Derrida of context of all that Nietzschewas a thinker whom mind often investigations.But that probably is a fairly accuratedescription of the stateof affairs: none Nietzsche's Nietzsche thought as a starting point; rather these takes of a of or essays issue the Derrida tendsto call on Nietzsche at certain points to give a particular slant on Metaphysics: in `Violence how be discussion. This and things stand under seemsto me to An Essayon the Thought of EmmanuelLevinas', in which Nietzsche gets a couple of 116 in `From Nietzsche for be to two Much the the samecould said references mentions. Restrictedto GeneralEconomy' (WD 265,269). But there is perhapssomethingrather different going on in the essaywhich opens Writing and Difference, `Force and Signification'. This is an essaywhich predatesthe publication of the text in which it five by Phenomena, Speech both Of Grammatology some and appears,as well as and Nietzsche in it having in 1963; in Critique years, and may reflect a period which appeared it in Derrida's forefront Nietzschean than thinking the when text were more to the and Derrida in texts to three the these and came were published weighty seminal years which burst onto the French intellectual scene.In this earlier essayDerrida contendsthat literary criticism in generaland structuralism in particular entail a way of thinking dominatedby passive,spatial models and unable to incorporate,for one thing, any notion of force. Hence the essay'stitle, which is a transformation of the title of the literary critical text under discussionhere,JeanRousset'sForme et Signification. Derrida makesit quite clear that he doesnot simply want to opposeforce to form or opposeany one set of conceptsto another in an important passageto which I will return later: "Our intention is not, through the simple notions of balancing,equilibration or overturning, to opposeduration to space,

124 figures. " depth form, force to the the to surfaceof of meaning or value quality to quantity, (WD 19) Rather,what Derrida is interestedin is an "economy" which escapesthesevery have terms However, the which consciouspromotion of certain structuresof opposition. beenregardedas the inferior side of a hierarchical pairing is a necessarypart of this very from it is because the the "If to within to other, process: we appear opposeone series to the the granted to naively privilege noncritical classicalsystemwe wish make apparent force the 20) All " (WD the by this, at on emphasis of other series a certain structuralism. expenseof form, the setting up of an opposition which neverthelessaims at something beyondthis very structureof opposition, perhapshelps to clarify why it is that Derrida Flaubert, between Nietzsche by kind who the and of confrontation ends essay staging a "form" "force" initially terms least, the and might, at seemto standas representativesof respectively. This move was no doubt prompted by Derrida's reflections on Nietzsche's wellknown antipathytowards Flaubert. Derrida quotestwo of Nietzsche's swipes at the novelist and then Nietzsche's aspiration for his own writing to take on the characterof dance(WD 29). In this way the confrontation becomesone betweenFlaubert the "sedentary"writer and Nietzschethe dancer.But asNietzsche is also suspiciousof writing be has trusted to whereas, thoughts that the are walking when one as suchand claims only bends", Derrida Derrida it, first is "writing as puts and always somethingover which one takesit that Nietzsche's fantasy of writing as dancing is really a wish for a writing which is in becomes implicated Nietzsche is In the "in this thus not writing and way vain". logocentrismDerrida takes as endemicto the Westernphilosophical tradition, so that the outcomehere would seemto favour Flaubert: "Flaubert was aware,and he was right, that writing cannotbe thoroughly Dionysiac." (WD 29) But, as so often in reading Derrida, things are not quite that simple. For although Nietzsche denigrateswriting as such, Zarathustraknows that writing is indispensablefor the inscription of new tables of law, so that therewill be a necessityfor bending down in order to write, a necessarydescent,going down and even going under,Niedergang and Untergang. So that finally Nietzsche cannot help but affirm writing and the other for whom one writes. Yet becauseNietzsche's reservationsabout writing and its inability to danceand his preference(echoedby Derrida for strategicreasons)of "force" over "form" remain in place, this leavesNietzsche in a

125 despising for the dilemma, to the writing while need committed somewhat melancholy bending and Untergang it requires. The only way out of this dilemma, according to by in the kind be and Derrida, would constituted to posit a of writing which was not familiar metaphysical oppositions, such as force and form, and could not be contained by by bring Derrida to is about attempts this generally, more what, course of such oppositions: way of such terms as "differance".

juxtaposing here, Derrida Nietzsche that The number of different texts of references Zarathustra Spoke Thus Idols The Twilight Wagner, from the Case The and of extracts of (evenif the first two may have beenprompted by the Flaubert connection) at least suggests that Derrida knows his way aroundthe Nietzscheancorpus. It is also significant that Derrida turns to Nietzsche at the end of this text, perhaps,as I have suggested,to provide that accountof "force" which he finds lacking in structuralist analyses;"force" would then be associatedwith the Dionysian, with activity and movement and disdain for the is final In there decadent the something analysis sedentaryand therefore art of writing. Nietzsche is it for in Nietzsche's this, not quite clear whether ambivalentabout role all of merely providesthat neededopposition, promoting and celebrating all of those concepts Nietzsche is biased, Western tradition or whether againstwhich the structuralism of the himself beginsto seethe way towards an economy which goesbeyond the opposition himself, sincehe doesrecognizethe necessityof sedentarywriting even as he rails against it. Is this recognition of a kind that alreadypoints the way towards the overcoming of this kind find We this This of echoesof will opposition? questionremainsunanswered. is Nietzsche. And discussions in there Derrida's also yet ambivalence almost all of of into Nietzsche, this somethingunsatisfying about which might not excursion all-too-brief unreasonablybe regardedby somereadersasjust a few lines taken out of context and pressedinto servicein order to createa satisfactorily ambiguousconclusion. The immediatereaction I have to it is to regret that there is nowhere in Derrida a more extended andthorough discussionof Nietzsche on speechand writing, rather than just the suggestive skeletonwe have here. Finally in Writing and Difference, there is a passagetoward the end of `Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourseof the Human Sciences' which is well-known and often takenas summing up Derrida's affirmation of Nietzsche's text. It concernsthe affirmation

126 desire to "nostalgia" Levi-Strauss's and Rousseau's in to and of a certainplay contrast arrestthe freedomof play: this impossible the lost origin, Turnedtowards the absent presentof or is negative, the immediacy broken therefore saddened, structuralistthematic of would side other thinking whose Rousseauistic the of play side of nostalgic,guilty, the the joyous of is play be the Nietzscheanaffirmation, that the affirmation of signs becoming, of innocence the world a of the affirmation of world and of is to active an fault, truth, offered which origin and without without without interpretation.

(WD 292)

involving a is Sincedeconstruction generally taken, perhapsnot without warrant, as also himself here Derrida aligns certain affirmation of play, most readersseemto assumethat "sides" Derrida's However, his two ought talk this of alternative. project with second and to put us on our guardwith respectto such a reading, since thesemay well turn out, like that be logic, familiar Derridean to to coin a of something sides according a the belong choosing together and of which one cannot chooseone without also necessarily just Thus logocentrism by cannot reverse other. one championing writing over speech: because it leavesthe structure of the opposition changes nothing sucha simple reversal itself intact. And if we read on to the end of `Structure, Sign and Play' we will find that, just as at the end of `Force and Signification' where we are offered a choice which we does Derrida here not think it makes sensesimply to "opt" for affirmation cannotmake, so of play rather than nostalgic ressentimentagainst play, to chooseNietzsche over Rousseau:

[... ] thesetwo interpretationsof interpretation which irreconcilable areabsolutely evenif we live them simultaneouslyandreconcilethem in an obscureeconomytogethersharethe field which we call, in sucha problematicfashion,the social sciences. For my part, although thesetwo interpretations

must acknowledgeand difference their accentuate and define their irreducibility, I do not believe that there

127 is any questionof choosing- in the first place becausewe are in a region (let us historicity) where the category of choice seems say,provisionally, a region of first because in try to conceive of the trivial; the second, we must particularly and irreducible difference. differance the this common ground, and of (WD 293)

Thus an ambivalencein Derrida's attitude to Nietzsche, which will be conspicuousin almost everything Derrida writes concerningNietzsche, is maintained. But we must also take note that once again there is no detailed argumentaround or discussionof Nietzsche, broad is designating from his Nietzsche's taken texts; a nor anything quoted as name rather thematic,the affirmation of play, and it is left at that. Thus any detailed discussionof how much sensethis designationmakesis out of place, since Derrida has not even openedup the groundon which such a discussioncould take place. Suchmisgivings do not abatewhen one turns to Speechand Phenomenaand in 117 is Grammatology little (Although Of `Differance'. particular to the cited essayentitled aboveas one possiblefirst point of entry in reading Derrida essayssuch as these,relatively short and in somesense,although the very conception is one of the most problematic for Derrida, "self-contained", are often the actual loci, defacto, for philosophy students' initial encounterswith Derrida.) Following a brief discussionof Heidegger's interrogation of the notion of "presence",a "soliciting" of its value which, on Derrida's reading, leads Heideggerto inscribe consciousnesswithin "a systemwhich is no longer that of presence but of differance" (MP 16) Derrida claims that: Before being so radically and purposely the gestureof Heidegger,this gesturewas also madeby Nietzsche and Freud, both of whom, as is well known, and sometimes in very similar fashion, put consciousnessinto question in its assuredcertainty of itself. Now is it not remarkablethat they both did so on the basis of the motif of differance?

(MP 17)

128 The first assertionabout Freud and Nietzsche is uncontroversial, as the "as is well known" indicates;the second,however, containedin the rhetorical question, is far from obviously valid in the stark form it takes here. The next claim, which opensthe following paragraph, is perhapsevenbolder in its inscription of "differance" at the heart of both the Freudian and the Nietzscheantext: "D ferance appearsalmost by name in their texts, and in those placeswhere everything is at stake." (MP 17) What will justify such claims? Well, an explication by Derrida is deferredat this point, presumably,tacitly, for reasonsof space: this short and wide-ranging essayis not the place where we will get such an explication: "I cannotexpandupon this here". But this of courseinvites the question once again: where doesDerrida ever expandon this suggestivelink betweendifferance and Nietzsche's philosophy?Not, as I have already stated,anywherein theseearly texts; but not, in my in view, Spursor in any of the other later texts in which Nietzsche plays a central role either. What we precisely do not get in such texts, however much else we may find that is richly and subtly evocativeof Nietzsche, are the kind of expositionary accountslinking Nietzsche'stexts with the themesand motifs most prominent in Derrida's project as they 118 in his are presented earlier texts: the gramme, the releve, the supplement,most notably differance itself. The postulated"expansion" is, it would appear,perpetually deferred. However, we are not left entirely in the dark here. Although a full length explanation"cannot" be given here, we are granted a brief hint: I cannot expandupon this here; I will only recall that for Nietzsche "the greatprincipal activity is unconscious," and that consciousnessis the effect of forces whose essence,byways and modalities are not proper to it. Force itself is never present;it is only a play of differences and quantities. There would be no force in generalwithout the difference betweenforces; and here the difference of quantity counts more than the content of the quantity, more than absolutesize itself.

(MP 17) The phrasein quotation marks may be a citation from Nietzsche, but if it is so unacknowledged;this is anothercurious instanceof how remote the Nietzscheantext

129 in dominant is here, this strain a perfectly reasonable paraphrase of a seems although Nietzsche's thought about consciousness and force; this might, if we did some of the work differance, between Nietzsche lead towards and of connection some sense a ourselves, us is intermediary follows, however, being What the term. the with critique of consciousness fully longer in elaborated reference: quotation marks and with a a rather extract,

"Quantity itself, therefore, is not separablefrom the difference of quantity. The difference of quantity is the essenceof force, the relation of force to force. The dream of two equal forces, even if they are grantedan opposition dream, dream, is plunged a statistical of meaning, an approximate and crude into by the living but dispelled by chemistry." (MP 17)

The carelessreader,who is not intimately acquaintedwith Nietzsche and doesnot check out the footnote, might naturally assume,given the context, that this must be a direct quote from Nietzsche.But in fact it is a citation from Deleuze's Nietzscheet la Philosophie! I havediscussedabovemy reservationsabout Deleuze's description of a systemof abstract forces,largely basedon a decontextualizedreading of certain statementsin the Genealogy; accordingly, it makessomealarm bells ring for me when at the moment we would expect a direct quotation of Nietzsche it is Deleuzewho stepsin and speaksin his place (if I may makeuse of an unreformedly logocentric turn of phrase). The influence of Deleuzeon Derrida's interpretation of Nietzsche is evinced again a few lines further on when Derrida suggeststhe provenanceof differance in thinking aboutthe eternalreturn, but in terms which make it clear that what Derrida has in mind is Deleuze'sversion of the eternalreturn: the return of the sameas different, notwithstanding the nuancesintroducedby using the term "differance". And on the basis of this unfolding of the sameas differance, we seeannouncedthe samenessof differance and repetition in the eternal return.

(MP 17)

130 Again, I have stressedin my first chapterthat I think Deleuze's interpretation of the eternal Derridean in flawed, is eternal of the exposition of a novel, absence and return seriously it hard Derrida's find the I take to eternal return with therefore of association return differancevery seriously.That Derrida continuedto think of the eternal return along the lines of Deleuze'sreading of it is amply demonstratedby Derrida's responseto a question in Other, in Ear The discussion in although the which, of the reprinted posed round-table ' 19deferring a full, Derridean reading of the eternal later, onceagain,someelevenyears been have it in fact full is Deleuzean does could easily echoes; of say return, what Derrida pennedby Deleuzehimself: Although I cannotundertakehere an interpretation of the thought of the eternal is Rather least the in I that Nietzsche, selective. eternal return mention will at return differential be a than a repetition of the same,the return must selectivewithin 120 forces. relation of So in the caseof eternalreturn at least, Derrida continues,a decadelater, to withhold his follow Deleuze interpretation happy to quite uncritically. own and seems Returning to "Differance", in betweenthesetwo post-Deleuzianmomentsthere are by? is how Nietzsche's hints to mastered a numberof other work related - or even -a as to thematicof differance. I will quote the whole passagethat follows the quote from Deleuze: Is not all of Nietzsche's thought a critique of philosophy as an active indifference to difference, as the systemof adiaphoristic reduction or repression?Which according to the samelogic, accordingto logic itself, doesnot exclude that philosophy lives in and on differance, thereby blinding itself to the same,which is not the identical. The same,precisely, is differance (with an a) as the displacedand equivocal passageof one different thing to another,from one term of an opposition to the other. Thus one could reconsiderall the pairs of oppositeson which philosophy is constructedand on which our discourselives, not in order to seeopposition eraseitself but to see what indicatesthat eachof the terms must appearas the differance of the other, as

131 the other different and deferredin the economy of the same [... ] (MP 17)

There follows a long parenthesisin which a number of examplesare given of the pairs of oppositesto which this thesis would apply, such as "culture as nature different and deferred".Although the influence of Deleuze can still be felt here in Derrida's employment of a Deleuzian"le meme", "the same,which is not the identical", it is here if anywherein the early Derrida texts that there emergessomethinglike a distinctively Derridean reading of Nietzsche,or the beginningsof one at least. In the context I take it that Derrida's "One could reconsider"("On pourrait ainsi reprendre", M 18) indicates that what follows is Derrida's accountof one mode of operation he considersdistinctive to Nietzsche, and indeedit seemsa not implausible conception of Nietzsche's relationship to traditional philosophyand its concepts.Accordingly it is in part around this short passageand what it hasto say about "opposition" that I will, in the following chapter,orient my questions aroundreadingthe Genealogyas a quasi-Derrideantext. But in generalthe problem is that we are left with nothing more than hints here, suggestivestatementswhich would seemto require a substantialessayin order to be effectively dealt with, an essaywhich doesnot materialise.This is true of the first sentence of the aboveextract: there is simply not enoughcontext to go with the claim that "all of Nietzsche'sthought" is "a critique of philosophy as an active indifference to difference, as the systemof adiaphoristic reduction or repression''even to decide whether this is an original reading of Nietzsche, let alone whether it is justified or not. There is certainly somethingplausible and appealingabout the first clause,but I think it might turn out to be entirely consonantwith a number of other, independentinterpretationsof Nietzsche, and thus to be saying nothing very distinctive; such a thought is strikingly similar to some of Deleuze'saccountsof Nietzsche's project, for one thing, Derrida as seemstacitly to acknowledgewith his quote from Deleuze. So it doesnot seemto require an initiation into "differance" in order to make senseof this idea. Something similar can be said about the themeof interpretationwhich Derrida picks up a little further on in a single clause,a theme which undoubtedly is significant for Nietzsche. The "differance" implied by the eternal return is also linked, we are told, to Nietzsche's "entire thematic of active interpretation,

132 the incessant for deciphering the of truth the presentation as which substitutes unveiling of thing in its presence,etc." (18) Certainly sucha themeis very much presentin the Nietzscheantext, but Derrida's own "etc." indicatesthat thereis more to be said here, and '21 this more is what we do not get at this point: not until Spursappearsa few yearslater, indeed the does line I discuss, its despite address which, as shall of approach unexpected themesof interpretation,unveiling (in a multiple play of veils and sails, "voiles"), and truth. Onehasto rememberthat the essay`Differance' datesback to 1968, and that very few, if any, English-languagewriters had got so far as to takethe theme of interpretationin Nietzschevery seriouslyat this point. But subsequentfigures in the Anglo-American tradition havecometo such an appreciation,sometimeson the basis of somesort of 122 contactwith the Derrideanreading,but sometimesmore-or-lessindependently. It was alwaysthereto be discoveredin Nietzsche, oncethe English and American suspicionand hostility to Nietzschehad died down and academicsactually cameto read the texts again. So one can wonder whether Derrida has contributed anything very significant in this respecteither.

Thelimited natureof Derrida'sengagement with Nietzschehereis againreflected by the fact that,asin De la Grammatologie, thereis not a singlequotationfrom Nietzsche in `Differance'.And it is strikingthat,whenwe come,immediatelyfollowing the passage interrogationof presence, on Nietzsche,to Freud,the otherforerunnerof the Heideggerean not only do we have(seeMP 18-19)quotesanddiscussionsof specificGermanwordsin Freud'svocabulary,we canalsobe referredbackto the essayon Freudin Writing and Difference,`Freudandthe Sceneof Writing'. The contrastis onceagainstriking. This is not to saythat therearenot perfectlyplausible ways

of elaboratingrelevant betweenDerrida'sprojectandthe Nietzscheantext. For connections Gayatri example, Spivak,perhapsawareat somelevel of the absenceof suchdiscussionin Derrida'stext, devotesa full eighteenpagesof his translator'sprefaceto Of Grammatology to the relation betweenDerridaandNietzsche(OG pp. xxi-xxxvii). The explicit reasonhe givesto justify this procedure,however,hasnothingto do with the paucity of suchdiscussionin Of Grammatologyitself:

133 Now I speak of [Derrida's] acknowledged `precursors' - Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Husserl. I shall attend in greatest detail to Nietzsche because our is from because him different Derrida's, so and received version of

Derrida's relationship to him is so inescapable. (OG p. xxi) One might grant the first justification, although on the basis of the early Derrida texts, it is hard to seewhether "Derrida's version" of Nietzsche really amountsto very much, but as for the second,we have already seenthat there is little enoughin either Of Grammatology justify in late the the adjective texts the or other sixties which would which appeared "inescapable".It often appearsthat such a relationship subsistsmore in the eyesof commentatorsthan in those of Derrida himself. Or, if we grant that the name of Nietzsche doesindeedpossessthe distinction of being "acknowledged" by Derrida as in some sensea precursor,it is curious that commentatorsdo not seemto notice or acknowledgehow strikingly fragmentaryand sparseare the manifestationsof the Nietzscheantext within that of Derrida.

Spivakgoeson to outlinea numberof respectsin which Nietzscheanticipates Derrida: in stressingthe importanceof the sign, the text and metaphoricity (in the context of his accountof morality) (pp. xxii-xxiv); in a questioning of every possible subjectwhich effectively placesall metaphysicalconcepts"sous rature" ("under erasure") (pp. xxivxxviii); in a problematizationof oppositions and opposition as such (as a falsifying), with the specific examplesof truth and error, good and evil, subject and object etc. (I have noted Derrida's referenceto such a thematic of opposition above and will return to this). In connectionwith this, Spivak picks up on Derrida's interest in the interdependenceof knowledgeand forgetfulnessin Nietzsche (as expressedin `The Ends of Man', which I discussbelow), and a couple of sentences,relating to this duality and evoking Spurs, eloquently sum up Spivak's reading of Nietzsche and how it relatesto Derrida: The most common predicamentin the reading of Nietzsche is to defeatoneself in the effort to establisha coherencebetweenthe two [knowledge and forgetfulness]. But the sustainingof the incoherence,to make the two poles in a curious way

134 interdependent,that is Nietzsche's superbtrick. What Nietzsche's style brings off here is, to borrow a Derridean pun, what the stylus performs when, in the gestureof `sousrature', it deletesand leaveslegible at the sametime. (OG p. xxxii)

And finally, in Spivak's highly appreciativeaccountof what Nietzsche achievedalong theselines, we come to a point where, in discussingthe attitude of Nietzsche, Freud, Heideggerand Derrida towards their inheritance from the very metaphysicsthey want to if finds Nietzsche's Spivak it approachmore seems as offer a critique of, almost including Derrida: the than that others, convincing of any of The will to knowledge is not easyto discard. When Derrida claims for himself that he is within yet without the cloture of metaphysics,is the difference not precisely that he knowsit at least?It is difficult to imagine a solution to the problem that forget, know beyond Nietzsche's: to then to convincingly to actively and would go offer in his text his own misreading.

(OG p. xxxviii) Again I do not intend to explore theseclaims for Nietzsche's philosophy directly. Their validity and the scopeof their referencewill hopefully becomeclear in my reading of the Genealogyin the following chapter. Of courseI am not claiming that structuresthat relate Nietzsche to Derrida are wholly the fantasy of commentators.For example,Alexander Nehamas,writing in what is certainly not an exclusively or self-consciously"continental" tradition, in a well-known study which makesjust a few passingand not altogetherlaudatory referencesto Derrida, arguespersuasivelyand mainly on the basis of fragmentsfrom the NietzscheanNachlass that the Saussureanconceptionof the sign as constituted purely by negative differentials is alreadyin place in Nietzschewith referencenot just to languagebut to how Nietzsche thinks about the entire world. 123Such an argumentwould be very much at home in Spivak's preface,and it would also fit quite neatly into the structure of the essay `Differance' itself, which moves from Saussureto Nietzsche. To find this in Nehamasdoes

135 indeed between links Nietzsche that there and the post-structuralist are suggest figure. But including for Derrida, Saussure once whom was such a critical philosophers, again,at the risk of repetition, it does seemcurious that we do not actually find such argumentsin Derrida's influential early texts themselvesrather than just suggestive is difficult to assess. the comments value and relevanceof which The stateof affairs with regard to Nietzsche and the early Derrida can of coursebe given any number of different slants.Michel Haar, in an essayentitled `The Play of Nietzschein Derrida', quotesmany of the samepassagesas I have but from a quite different perspective;for Haar the absenceof detailed discussionon Nietzsche is quite deliberateand in fact signals the special statuswhich Nietzsche possessesfor Derrida: WhereasFreud, Levinas, and especially Heidegger, are, to a greateror lesser degree,convicted in turn of belonging to metaphysics,Nietzsche alone, if not 124 absolutelyspared,is, as we shall see,at least subtly accommodated.

This specialstatusentailsthe creationof a reserve,a savingup of theNietzscheantext in advanceby Derrida: programmed Thus somehowopening up an unlimited future trust in the Nietzscheantext, Derrida prefers- at least in his first writings - to borrow grand motifs from it, themes,a program, an overall interpretation.

(p. 55) Haar goeson to explore further what he seesas the later yield which falls to Derrida from this "unlimited future trust": primarily the element of play in the Nietzscheantext, inscribed in Nietzsche's style somewhatin spite of his own suspectmetaphysics,and ultimately appropriatedby Derrida by meansof a strategywhich Haar describesas "hyperNietzschean"since it "goes to the extreme" with regard to the Nietzscheanheritage (p. 60). Derrida's approachto Nietzsche entails, on this reading, that Nietzsche is acquitted in advanceof his own logocentrism and also savedfrom the Heideggereanreading: Nietzsche's "writing, its disruptive play, saveshim straightaway, him from the wrests

136 from interpretation. (p. " 53) I Heideggerian think this the exemption of reductive grid Heidegger is stated far too unequivocally by Haar; I will return to this below. And in general terms, needless to say, I do not find this take on Derrida's early approach Nietzsche at all convincing. In fact, it rather resembles a certain kind of "restricted in Hegel, discussed by Derrida to which everything an economy economy" with reference "system" "master", the the the to the philosophical must return philosopher, profit of his dispersion; by loss Derrida, to own contrast, wants situate without any possibility of or writing in terms of the possibility of a quite different "general economy" which affirms loss and dispersion as an integral part of itself. 125In other words, by viewing Derrida's philosophy in the manner of a "restricted economy", Haar is unable to conceive of anything in that philosophy which could be deficient or profitless, so Derrida's relative silence on Nietzsche can only be a calculated silence from which he will later reap the benefit, receive his dividends.

Ultimately it seemsto me difficult to justify that there is anything much more in thesecrucial, foundational early Derrida texts than passinggesturestowards a Nietzsche who, as Derrida seesit, anticipatessomeaspectsof the opening up of the era of differance in which the latter situateshis own text. As I have made clear above, I am not suggesting that Derrida had not read Nietzsche extensively at this point in his career,but I do not think he was readingNietzsche,during thesepivotal years,with anything like the intensity and deepattentivenesswith which he was clearly reading Heidegger, Saussure,Rousseau, Mallarme and Freud. And for this reasonI would seriously question what some commentatorsseemto take for granted,that Nietzsche was a significant influence on Derrida's early work. It seemsmore than plausible to me to proposethat Derrida's early work owes very little to a direct engagementwith Nietzsche, and much more to Heidegger and to someextent Husserl.And I would further suggestthat there were probably two things which impelled Derrida towards a more extensiveand detailed reading of Nietzsche sometime aroundthe late sixties, when the three major early texts were published and the 126 "Differance" essay appeared. Firstly, one ought not to overlook the role played by the specialprominenceof Nietzsche in the text of Heidegger,which no doubt called for a thorough reconsiderationof Heidegger's positing of Nietzsche as the culmination of Westernmetaphysics.Although it is quite possible, even probable, that Derrida had at

137 independently Nietzsche of Heidegger's interpretation,I think a someearlierpoint read for deal the a more thoroughgoing reading of Nietzsche,that which motivation of great Spurs, derives in lead to particular at least initially from this Heideggereanaxis. would And this is perhapswhy, as Spivak notes: Almost on every occasion that Derrida writes of Nietzsche,Heidegger's invoked. is is It as if Derrida discovers his Nietzsche through and reading Heidegger. against (0G p. xxxiii) Spivak's prefacedatesfrom the mid-seventies, and what he writes here is certainly true of the texts Derrida had written up to this point, including Spurs. The first statement, however,is not necessarilyaccuratewith regard to later Nietzsche references,suchas thosein Politics of Friendship; this only tends to strengthenthe veracity of the second statement,at least if one incorporatesthe word "initially" into it somewhere. The other likely impetus in directing Derrida's focus of reading towards Nietzsche at this time is the celebratedefflorescenceof books and articles on Nietzsche in the course of the sixties in France,to which Derrida explicitly pays tribute near the beginning of Spurs,127in particular, I would suggest,that of Gilles Deleuze from which, as I have noted 128 above,Derrida quotesin `Differance'. No doubt for Derrida, as is the casefor most of us, therewere at least two modesof "reading": one a more generalisedreading around, a stayingabreastof things, and the other the focused,rigorous reading of certain specific texts undertakenwith a view to writing. And I am not suggestinganything particularly surprisingor novel if I proposethat with Derrida the latter kind was always particularly painstaking,attentive and thus time-consuming: this attentivenessis one of his great strengthsas a writer. My hypothesisis that Derrida only made the time for this kind of readingwhen certain questionsabout Nietzsche becamepressing for him for the reasonsI have outlined above. One may wonder as to whether such a hypothesisis really pointing to anything very important, but as Derrida himself tended to include the name of Nietzsche amongthose who beganto open up the spacewithin which he was writing (seethe discussionsof Of Grammatology above) and as commentatorsaccordingly tend

138 important Derrida's Nietzsche to predecessors, rivalled as one of most unhesitatingly count it does discussion Spivak (see by Freud Husserl Heidegger, the seem to of above), and only be for Something Derrida. Nietzsche said about might similar accord a rather curious status Marx vis-ä-vis Derrida, and Spivak does suggest, in a note, that what I have suggested with had Derrida be Marx: in to Nietzsche Derrida that the to not case with respect may regard had time for the requisite detailed reading (G, note 19). This reading comes even later in 129 difference (1993). The Spectres Marx finally the case of Marx, only of culminating with is that Derrida never, in his early texts, claims Marx as a forebear.

The hypothesisthat only at this point, only in the late sixties and early seventies, doesDerrida start to readNietzsche with the rigour and thoroughnesswhich he had already brought to much of the rest of the canon of Westernphilosophy, finds further support when one comesto considerDerrida's next book to be published, Marges de la Philosophie (1972). The essayscontainedin this volume all made their first appearanceas either lecturesor texts published in journals, with the exception of the prefatory `Tympan', between1968and 1971, and although there is still no extendedtext on Nietzsche,there are in is in that severalscatteredreferencesand even short supply the earlier texts, a which Valery's in Quelle: Sources' `Qual Thus direct from Nietzsche's texts. number of citations Derrida proposesNietzsche as, along with Freud, one of Valery's two important "setaside" sources(MP 305) and proceedsto suggestprecisely what Valery would have found in Nietzscheto draw upon, a list which also may give us a good idea of the importance of what Derrida finds in Nietzsche:

the systematicmistrust as concernsthe entirety of metaphysics,the formal vision of philosophical discourse,the conceptof the philosopher-artist,the rhetorical and philological questionsput to the history of philosophy, the suspiciousness concerningthe values of truth ('a well applied convention'), of meaning and of Being, of the `meaningof Being', the attention to the economic phenomenaof force and the difference of forces, etc. (MP 305)

139 None of theseitems is really in the slightest contentious, although I would arguethat the if it it looks from for Nietzsche aside last is far from central the notebooks; once again as in So from Deleuze. be derived this reference,as one might expect a might primarily in is the is Valery, focus Paul those earlier most of the with on a par contextwhere primary derivative, in brief, but nonpart perhaps texts: and unoriginal, general rather suggestive first, Nietzsche texts, two early text-specific. In `White Mythology' there are referencesto in passing,to `Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks' (MP 214) and then, more Given (216-7,227). the Sense' that in Normoral Lies `On Truth to a and extensively, it, its in "metaphor is the text of philosophy", as subtitle puts context an extendedessayon it is hardly surprising to find this text invoked here, and, what is more, quoted from. But Derrida's interesthere is limited to Nietzsche on metaphorand Nietzsche's gestureof "amounts, locus, its beyond which a gesture classical extendingthe realm of metaphor (227 the and signified" strangelyenough,to making every signifier a metaphorof footnote). There is no considerationof how this perhapsunsatisfactorymove might relate to Nietzsche'sphilosophy as a whole, and no further referencesin the remainderof this long essay.Thesereferencesand quotationsmight seemto have been forced on Derrida by the focus of this particular text. It is only in "The Ends of Man", in which Nietzsche makes an appearancein the last two pages,that we have evidencefor a reading of Nietzsche which has the potential to form part of the basis for the more extendedstudy which is Spurs. Here Derrida once more least. In Nietzsche this Heidegger, to concluding section of a at pitches some extent against lecture given on the theme of "Philosophy and Anthropology" (MP 109) and which considersany number of registersof the word "man", and of his "ends", his telos and possibly his death,Derrida gives three "very generalrubrics" concernedwith the "total trembling" ("ebranlementtotal") which is both called for and underway within "what I have called, for convenience,and with the necessaryquotation marks or precautions, `France' or French thought." (MP 134, M 161) In the secondof these,Derrida setsup two possible ways of attempting to provoke a "radical trembling" in the humanistic, Westerntradition. The first is to "attempt an exit and a deconstructionwithout changingterrain", by remaining in some ambiguousway inside the tradition and "using againstthe edifice the instrumentsor stonesavailable in the

140 house,that is, equally, in language." (MP 135) But this risks "ceaselesslyconfirming, depth, (relever), that which one allegedly certain at an always more consolidating,relifting deconstructs. " In order to evade(or more accurately minimise) this risk a secondstrategy is necessarywhich involves "brutally placing oneself outside" and "affirming an absolute break and difference". The particular danger in this strategy is that "the simple practice of languageceaselesslyreinstatesthe new terrain on the oldest ground." Derrida goeson to two that these characterise suppose could might already one which point out strategies, different aspectsof Nietzsche's thought, are not simply opposedto one anotherand must be combinedwith one another:"the choice betweenthesetwo forms of deconstruction interlace be A thesetwo motifs of and weave cannot simple and unique. new writing must deconstruction." But in order to confront the seconddanger,that of "the simple practice of language",what is neededis "perhaps,as Nietzsche said, [... ] a changeof `style'; and if thereis style, Nietzschereminded us, it must be plural. " Here is one of the major motifs of, Styles. Such Nietzsche's indeed Spurs: in the that the of, and subtitle appears one of words for has importance that the such a question assumed a context makesoverwhelmingly clear Derrida. It is a questionwhich goesto the heart of "what is to be done" in Francepost1968. This referenceto Nietzsche seguesneatly into the third of Derrida's rubrics, entitled "The difference betweenthe superior man and the superman",which is concerned directly with Nietzsche, "superior man" as well as, of course,"superman" being phrases taken from Zarathustra, "höhere Mensch" and "Übermensch" respectively. It is here that Derrida talks of a contemporary"increasingly insistent and increasingly rigorous recourse to Nietzschein France" and one gets a strong sensehere, for the first time in Derrida, of the necessityof this recourse,and perhapsa sensethat it is a recoursewhich will become exigent on Derrida himself in the near future. It is interesting to note that of the two strategiesof "shaking" describedabove Derrida describesthe "style" of the first, "repeatingwhat is implicit in the founding conceptsand the original problematic" as "mostly that of the Heideggereanquestions" whereasthat of the second,"affirming an absolutebreak and difference" is "mostly the one which dominatesFrancetoday." (MP 135) Is this secondstrategyalso to be associatedwith Nietzsche?Derrida doesnot explicitly say so, but it seemsto be implied by the context to a large extent. The idea of

141 "chang[ing] terrain, in a discontinuous and irruptive fashion, by brutally placing oneself by outside,and affirming an absolutebreak and difference" seemsdistinctively characteristicof Nietzsche when one thinks of his plurality of styles, none of which, the early texts aside,correspondsto that of traditional metaphysicsunless in the kind of parody form of the academicessaywhich makesup the Genealogy,and of his denominationof himself, at times, as "anti-metaphysician", "immoralist", "Antichrist": at the sametime, in the German,as "Antichristian". But then, just as "there are also breaksand changesof terrain in texts of the Heideggereantype" (ibid. ) so there are in Nietzsche instancesof the first strategy,which is somethinglike that of so-called imminent critique, such as, perhaps, the critique of the asceticideal in the handsof one of its descendantsin the third essayof the Genealogy;or, as a more ambitious thesis, how the demandsof decadentmorality for its own groundsresult in a "contribution" from Nietzsche ("Zur Genealogie...") which exposeits origins in a slave revolt which displaced an earlier, nobler mode of evaluation. But if the dominant respectivestrategiesare neverthelessto be aligned in the way I have suggested,then it is interesting that Derrida seems,in his concluding scene employing the terminology of Zarathustra, to be favouring that predominantly associated with Nietzsche.It is of coursethe Übermenschwho is associatedwith the strategyof the radical break, it being inscribed in his very name, whereasthe "higher man" might seemto have somethingin common with a strategywhich preservesat the sametime as it would advancebeyond, a pattern which is also embodied in the very phrase.And, following Nietzsche,Derrida would seemto side with and affirm the Übermensch: The former [the superior man, höhere Mensch] is abandonedto his distressin a last movementof pity. The latter [the Übermensch]- who is not the last man - awakens and leaves,without turning back to what he leavesbehind him. Ile burns his text and erasesthe tracesof his steps.His laughter will then burst out, directed towards a return which no longer will have the form of a metaphysicalrepetition of humanism,nor, doubtless,"beyond" metaphysics,the form of a memorial or a guarding of the meaningof Being, the form of the houseand of the truth of Being. He will dance,outsidethe house,the aktive Vergesslichkeit,the "active forgetting" and the cruel (grausam) feast of which the Genealogyof Morals speaks.No doubt

142 that Nietzschecalled for an active forgetting of Being: it would not havethe form imputed it by Heidegger. to metaphysical (MP 135)

This apparentcelebrationof Zarathustra'slaughter and dance,of Nietzsche's radical, Derrida forgetting Being the active are reminiscent of other passageswhere of question of in face laughing Nietzsche's the to the of attitude seems affirm aspectof playful, have I in Sign Play", "Structure, to the and which metaphysicalquestions,such as moment referredabove,where Derrida contraststhe "saddened,negative,nostalgic, guilty, Rousseauisticside of the thinking of play" with "the Nietzscheanaffirmation, that is the joyous affirmation of the play of the world and the innocenceof becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without truth and without origin which is offered to an active interpretation." Here the seemingopponentis Heidegger,who is unmistakably evokedby the phrase"a memorial or a guarding of the houseand of the truth of Being". And the final sentenceof the aboveextract seemsdecisively to reject the Heideggerean readingof Nietzsche.However, if Derrida appearsto side with Nietzsche here against Heidegger,this may be in part becausehe needsto flesh out an alternative interpretation of Nietzscheto counterbalancethat which already exists in the form of Heidegger's "grand livre", as Derrida will refer to it in Spurs (72), and not becauseDerrida unconditionally endorsesthis new interpretation. Accordingly, Derrida turns the tables on Heideggerby readingthe latter's position into Zarathustra and aligning him with Nietzsche's "höhere Mensch"; but he has already stated,just before the cited extract above,that the distinction betweenthe "höhere Mensch" and the "Übermensch" is made in Zarathustra "in the greatestproximity, in a strangeresemblanceand an ultimate complicity" (135), which of coursemust compromiseand disturb any simple opposition betweenHeidegger and the "Übermensch",and also betweenHeidegger and Nietzsche. And the remainder of Derrida's text restoresa full senseof the ambiguity and many-sidednessof the relation betweenNietzsche and Heideggerand the two "eves" ("veilles") they have come to represent,by way of, initially, open-ended,irreducibly rhetorical questions.The concluding seriesof questionsand in particular the suggestivesentencewhich precedesthe final question("Perhaps...") makesit clear that we should not be satisfied with the simple

143 basis the be the to tempted of on give to these questionswhich we might answers Zarathustranscenewhich has precededthem: Must one readNietzsche,with Heidegger, as the last of the great truth the of the take to Or, of the question we are contrary, metaphysicians? on Being as the last sleeping shudderof the superior man? Are we to understandthe is day that the to house the the awakening as or the around guard mounted eve as the Is there eve? of economy an are? we coming, at whose eve Perhapswe are betweenthesetwo eves,which are also two endsof man. But who, we?

(S 136)

Thus ultimately the sameambivalent attitude to the Heideggereanreading of Nietzschein the earlier texts, as discussedabove, subsistshere also, and we will find much have is here be final that in And not thing to we still the samesituation Spurs. the noted Nietzsche's output as a whole which we thorough that of reading embarkedon attentive havebeenanticipating sincethoseportentousreferencesin De la Grammatologie. The in Zarathustra, the far from here is repassage to obscure only reference one short and telling of which Derrida prefaceswith the words "We know... " (135) ("On sait", M, 162).

Culmination and Departure: Spurs With Spurs we finally do have a text which is in some sensefocusedon Nietzsche andwhich certainly shows evidenceof an extremely detailed and thorough reading of the Nietzscheanoeuvre.When it comesto taking the measureof this text as an interpretation by have, been Nietzsche I the Nietzsche think, of somewhatmisled scholars a number of sectiontowards the end of Spurs headed"I have forgotten my umbrella" in which Derrida plays on this isolated statementtaken from one of Nietzsche's notebooks,commenting on it that

144 is, it detached forgotten have "I it is always possible that the not as my umbrella", intention from but it, from that or meaning on the milieu any also produced only Nietzsche's part, should remain so, once and for all, without any other context. The inaccessible. in it that principle appropriates remain meaning and the signature

(S 125)

Derrida will go on to state,somewhatnotoriously, that "the hypothesisthat the totality of Nietzsche'stext, in somemonstrousway, might well be of the type `I have forgotten my in in is 133) It denied. " (S be this note should statement, which, we umbrella' cannot have hypothesis, to fact that in Derrida does stuck seems claim to adopt such a passing, not in the minds of a number of readersof this text, with the result that it has come to be seen Truth in Nietzsche Clark Maudemarie Thus Spurs. basic and on as expressingthe claim of Philosophybasesher discussionof Derrida almost entirely on this moment in Spurs and had Derrida if to say on Derrida's "undecidability this thesis" were all as writes of Nietzsche.130But if this were the casethen one would have to conclude that Derrida really had nothing to say about Nietzsche,since what he saysabout Nietzsche here is in a sense far fact I In to "authors" texts. he their so as go would and simply what will say about all "I he the the Derrida that sentence statusof say would regard everything saysconcerning have forgotten my umbrella" in the Nietzscheantext as applying in principle to every (including in to that text all writing statement,phraseor scribbled note any whatsoever, know however is the the is The that context, about much we writing which speech). claim author's elsewherestatedintentions, etc. there is never any completely sure route which would take us back to the original, unitary, wholly demonstrable"original meaning" of a sentence(or a paragraph,or a book), so that a text can have in principle no final determinatemeaningand the signatureof an author can never be complete.This claim is relatedto, for one thing, the conceptof "iterability" which Derrida evolves elsewhere,the inbuilt potential of all discourseto wrest itself away from its "original context", an errancy which is part of the structureof all discourseeven when the "original context''call be 131 satisfactorily reconstructed. The aphoristic styles of Nietzsche's oeuvre,his tendencyto separatediscretepassagesoff from one another so that there is no clearly determined prescription of how they relate to one another (which is not, of course,to deny that they

145 Nachlass be the to the as chaotic stateof can and should related one another), and above all it has comedown to us, all of thesethings tend to push this generaliterability of writing to the foreground,and this is what Derrida is picking up on in this section, although what it hasto say doesnot end there. None of this implies that the interpreter ought not to be highly aware of such bring in is frequently in fact in Nietzsche Spurs Derrida to concerned contextsand reading determined by for to the out particular contexts, example calling attention authorially juxtapositions and proximities of certain passagesin Nietzsche's published works, and in citing Nietzscheat length and paying close attention to such things as the specific words Nietzscheitalicises. The irony is that those readerswho have taken the "I have forgotten my umbrella" sectionin isolation as representingDerrida's entire thesis on Nietzschehave completelyoverlooked the most important of its contexts, the precedingsixty pagesof Spurs,thus very neatly demonstratingthe notion of "iterability", the ineliminable potential of all texts to drift free from their contexts and generatenew meanings;Derrida has to affirm this possibility as part of the very structure of writing. However, if we do consider this sectionin the light of what has precededit what emergesis a much richer and more interestingengagementwith Nietzsche.What then becomesapparentis the interplay which takesplace betweenthe operation of this isolated fragment and the themesthat have played a major role in Spurs up to this point. Such a reading will not miss the fact that the umbrella itself is a highly opportune object to make an appearancein this sentencesince it combineswithin itself the two most important imageson which Derrida plays in Spurs, the spur itself, the sharp,pointed, penetrating,ripping protrusion, and the sail or veil (voile) which can be vulnerable to the ripping actions of the spur but could also be the sail which propels the spurring prow of the ship and which could be a veil which dissimulatesand defies any attempt to penetrate beyondit. Thesesymbols, as well as the umbrella itself as a familiar Freudian symbol of the phallus, are intimately bound up with the psychoanalytic themeswith which Spurs is frequently preoccupied,as Derrida makesexplicit in this very section (S 129-31), and with the absolutely central theme of gender.And more generally the meditation on interpretationand truth demandedby the status this "fragment" have of already been discussedat length not just with referenceto how one readsNietzsche but, indissociably,

146 find himself. it is Nietzsche So to that then themes as not surprising which preoccupied that a claim concerningthe resistanceof the Nietzscheantext to a definitive final meaning and closedauthorial signaturefinally emergesas Nietzsche's very own theme, in the title of section371 of The Gay Sciencewhich Derrida cites at the very end of this section:"Wir Unverständlichen"("We Unintelligible Ones") (see S 135). What the "I have forgotten my is is linking in doing, has this theme then, of which umbrella" section succeeded been has for Spurs in Nietzsche to the conspicuoussignificance and concernswith which indicate be from to the the preoccupied psychoanalytic referencesshould enough start, and that Derrida also thinks such concernscannot be divorced from the question which is quite centralto Spurs from the outset,the question of woman. In fact Derrida has earlier stated quite explicitly that "[i]t is impossible to dissociatethe questionsof art, style and truth from the questionof the woman." (S 71) This is what I will go on to explore by retracing Derrida's route through the Nietzscheantext in Spurs. On the face of it the statementjust quoted makesa strangeclaim, somethingone would not have anticipatedfrom any of Derrida's previous referencesto Nietzsche, and one might well remain unconvincedby it at the end of reading Spurs, except in the more generaland trivial sensethat perhapsnone of the questionswhich preoccupy a thinker can in the final analysishave nothing whatsoeverto so with one another;perhapsthis is part of Derrida's point. At any rate, I do not think this is a claim which Derrida would have made at the time of writing De la Grammatologie, for example,but rather somethingwhich emergedfor him having once determinedto centre a reading of Nietzsche around the questionof woman. So I think the reasonsfor this decision lie elsewhere,and we can perhapsderive a clue to thesereasonsfrom Spivak's quote above, in which he suggests that it is "as if Denida discovershis Nietzsche through and againstHeidegger". Spurs is, as many readershave noted, almost as much a responseto the Heideggereanreading of Nietzscheas a reading of Nietzsche; it is both, indistinguishably. And although Heidegger doesnot make an appearanceuntil somewherenear the middle of Spurs there is a sense that Derrida's discussionsof Heideggeron Nietzsche are at the very heart of the text (S 73 and ff. ). The first specific instanceof the Heideggereanreading dealt with by Derrida is Heidegger'scommentaryon the passagefrom Twilight of the Idols entitled "The History of an Error". Famously, Derrida points out that Heidegger omits entirely in his analysis any

147 referenceto the line of

history in this Nietzsche'sin which he saysthat at a particular point

her there" idea "skirts female". Heidegger "becomes the the thus woman,abandons ("contournela femme") (S 85) and

in Spurs. this omission comesto play a significant part

What I would like to proposefurther to this is that Derrida's encounterwith Heidegger's text from kernel the been have entire Error' the `The History which readingof might of an Nietzsche's Heidegger's and Spurs Derrida woman on silence of evolved,with noting figure the deployment down Nietzsche's the woman of track to of manifold proceeding 132 his throughout texts. Before proceedingany further with my reading of SpursI would like to pursuea little further this Derrida-Heidegger-Nietzscheaxis, since I believe it has been frequently Derrida how have Michel Haar, I views misconceived. as mentionedabove, commentson the stateof play betweenHeideggerand Nietzsche, and insists that, for Derrida, the

in deflect Heideggerean his "style", Nietzsche's the reading playfulnessof writing, will advance.At onepoint he citesthreeof Derrida'sremarkson the Heidegger-Nietzsche from from Of Grammatology have I (see two nexus, alreadycited which above)andone TheEar of the Other,notingthatthey all involve a "perhaps":"Perhaps,therefore,rather thanprotectNietzschefrom the Heideggerean reading[...]", etc. Haargoeson to comment: The `perhaps'in thesethreecasesconcernsthe validity of the Heideggerean is It reading. completelyright.. .if oneabstractsfrom the mannerin which Nietzsche haswrittenwhat he haswritten, from his style which is impossiblel Thusfrom the beginningthe doubtwasonly apparent,andmoreoverwill becomeprogressivelyeffaced;henceno more `perhaps'in Spurs[... ]133 This seemsa strangeway to readthe Derridean"perhaps".SomehowHaar seemsto think thatthis gestureof the "perhaps",which Derridamay well havetakenfrom Nietzsche, he length at since comments some on Nietzsche'suseof it in politics of Friendship,canbe happilyresolvedinto a "perhaps"that never was,that somehowmeant"without doubt"or "it is definitelynot the casethat", thus instantly is neutralisingthe undecideabilitywhich important for Derridain so many contexts.(Derrida so might like to posethe question: Whatdoesit meanfor a doubtto havebeen"only apparent"?) This makesthe overcoming

148 instant: like there interpretation the really never was Heideggerean work of an the sound of And in its Nietzschean text would elude grip advance. any doubt that the stylishnessof the Heideggerean Derrida be the does thought it that reading to the case not seem yet certainly in Spurs: he from judge to be dismissed to say on go what will so straightforwardly, could however, interpretation], [the In taking the measureof that question question of for. be Nietzsche which must accounted there is still the Heideggereanreading of have it, for have been that the Whateverthe allowancesthat efforts whatever made its delay in France to beenexerted(and for recognizablereasons) conceal,evadeor falling due, this accounttoo remains unsettled. (S 73)

So the burdenof the Heideggereanreading certainly could not have been evadedby any including (1972), before in France time had this presumably readingsthat appeared Derrida's own scatteredremarks. Is it then supposedto be the casethat Spurs itself will for Such final a claim all? constitutea settling of this account,with no remainder,once and Derrida. be highly of would uncharacteristic Haar's insistencethat Nietzsche's multifarious style instantly negatesthe Heideggereaninterpretation is, I think, a widespreadmisconception of how Derrida deals with the Heideggereanreading of Nietzsche. If it were really the casethat any reading be invalid ipso there then "abstracts" from "style" would the which of an author were eo is Although Derrida interpretation little that could still count as certainly at all. very interestedin, and values,the multiplicity of Nietzsche's styles, as I will discussa little further on with referenceto both "The Ends of Man" and Spurs, he never makes any such claim with respectto Nietzsche nor, to my knowledge, any other writer. Indeed,wouldn't Derrida insist that to "abstract" from the text of the other, the other text, including from its is is if, Haar in Even happens this style, always what claims, and especially as reading? "impossible"? Otherwisewhat could any commentatordo but ape or imitate the other text? Spursitself of coursecannotreproduceall the styles of Nietzsche, and nor can Haar's essaybegin to reconstructfor us the style(s) of Spurs let alone those of Nietzsche and Heidegger.Does that make it a travesty of all of those authors' texts? And of coursejust to

149 include in one's interpretation some kind of account or "appreciation" of the author's style, Heidegger Nietzsche, do easily Haar Derrida to could changes nothing; respect with as and havedone so in his Nietzsche lectures without this affecting his reading in the slightest. Haar's argumenthere, a quick way of dealing with Heidegger on Nietzsche, seems insufficient, and this is one reasonthat the "burden" of the Heideggereanreading must be in Spurs Nietzsche Derrida's influence and reading of on seenas a major, continuous beyond. One of the very few English-languagecommentatorswho is attentive enoughto discernaccuratelythe tenor of Derrida's attitude to Heidegger on Nietzsche is Alan D. Schrift, who notesthat, with regard to earlier interpretationsof Nietzsche, and particularly that of Heidegger,Derrida's own interpretation "provides a supplementto theseearlier both this Derridean question questionsof supplementarity, readingsand, as with other 134 dependsupon and exceedswhat it supplements." This double attitude of Derrida with Heideggerean Derrida's the reading to on comments respect earlier readingssquareswith he Derrida's Schrift I Nietzsche in Spurs, think attitude well when captures of and again it [Derrida] "[w]hile to that make clear that the question of style exceeds suggests wants the Heideggereanreading,he at the sametime wants to make it no less clear to his French Heideggerean Heidegger, the that that and things compatriots are not so simple with defenseof presenceremains a `profound' and `powerful' problematic for interpretation." Leaving behind for the moment the issueof Heidegger's Nietzsche I think it is important to emphasizea link betweenSpurs and the earlier Derridean interest in Nietzscheand suggestthat some of the questionsposedin the texts I have discussedabove I (the) in by For Spurs. the woman, as question of are reopened certain respects although have suggestedabove,may seemlike a strangeway into the Nietzscheantext, what Derrida attemptsto show, contra Heidegger although not simply so, is that this question is absolutelyinseparablefrom those questionswe would generally considerto be the most significant in Nietzsche: questionsof truth, interpretation and the relation to an inherited discourse,the very questionsDerrida picks up on in his earlier referencesto Nietzsche. After someinitial meditations on the "question of style" and the spur, on sails and veils ("voiles"), Spurs seemsto get into full stride with the citation of a section of The Gay Science,"Woman and their Effect in the Distance" (41-7). This citation gives Derrida

150 much of the stylistic (! ) paraphernaliaon which he will play in the remainderof the text: the imagesof sea,the ship, various versions of the spur, the "eperon", the significance of the ear and hearing and of coursewoman herself. But it also provides him with an opportunity to discussthe very idea this Gay Scienceparagraphseeksto convey, that of the "effect at a distance"which is, Nietzsche says,the "enchantmentand the most powerful effect of woman" and to which "belongs [... ] primarily and above all-distance! " (GS 60, cited S 47) This idea and this sentence,which doubles the demandfor distanceby use of the hyphenwhich, in Derrida's words, "suspendsthe word Distanz" and "serves as a sort of warning to us to keep our distancefrom thesemultifarious veils and their shadowy dreamof death" (49), already evoke conceptionswhich are central not just to Nietzsche as Derrida readshim but to Derrida's own philosophical enterprise.This begins to become apparentas Derrida's musings on this passageunfold: If it is necessaryto keep one's distancefrom the feminine operation, from the actio in distans[... ] it is perhapsbecausethe "woman" is not a determinableidentity. Perhapswoman is not something which announcesitself from a distance,at a distancefrom someother thing. In that caseit would not be a matter of retreat and approach.Perhapswoman -a non-identity, a non-figure, a simulacrum - is distance'svery chasm,the out-distancing of distance,the interval's cadence, distanceitself, if we could still say such a thing, distanceitself.

(50) This irreducible distancing of distanceleads Derrida to draw on the Heideggerean "Entfernung: at once divergence,distanceand the distantiation of distance,the deferment of the distant, the de-ferment [... ]" (50). Anyone familiar with Nietzsche will recognise here,in connectionwith this theme of woman and the "feminine operation", a Nietzschean motif revolving around a challengeto the unity and integrity of identity. And anyone familiar with Derrida will not fail to note how close we have come here, particularly in the referenceto Heideggerean"Entfernung", to an evocation of Derridean "differance", deferral and difference. Two projects which attempt to contestthe traditional metaphysical conceptsof presenceand identity seemto be drawn together here in Derrida's

151

in flesh blood Nietzsche's the seascape, contemplationof which actual presenceof the and womanwould dissolve everything we would have sought for in that presence;accordingly, the identity of this woman seen"from a distance" must necessarilybe fraught with ambiguities.And it is only a step further for Derrida to introduce into this scenethe draws intimate between in important the truth, conceptof connections passagewhich an figure of woman in Nietzsche and Nietzsche's radical critique of traditional philosophical concepts,such as that of "essence". The remoteproximity in Entfernung's outbreak gives way to truth, and here woman too, of herself,averts. There is no suchthing as the essenceof woman becausewoman averts, she is avertedout of herself. Out of the depths,endlessand unfathomable,she engulfs and distorts all vestige of essentiality, of identity, of property. And the philosophical discourse,blinded, founders on theseshoalsand is hurled down thesedepthless depthsto its ruin. There is no such thing as the truth of woman, but it is becauseof that abyssaldivergenceof the truth, becausethat untruth is "truth. " Woman is but one namefor that untruth of truth.

(S 51) It is important not to overlook the significance of this last sentence,which seemsto concedethat Derrida's focusing on the woman in Nietzsche is to someextent an arbitrary one,that even if the question of woman is inseparablein Nietzsche from the question of truth this doesnot necessarilyhold the other way round. In fact the translator, Barbara Harlow, seemsto have wanted to make this point particularly clear since the translation is notably more emphatic in this respectthan the French version which simply states: "Femme est un nom de cette non-verite de la veritd"; the "but" of the English is an interesting"supplement" here,to recall Derrida's 135 fascination features. own with such Nevertheless,the samebasic claim can be derived from the French sentence:there might be many ways in to the problematic of truth in Nietzsche,

is the the and question of woman

one of them. Promptedperhapsby Heidegger's omission of the woman in reading

152 Nietzsche's "History of an Error" Derrida takes this particular, seemingly peculiar path into the Nietzschean text. But justifying this path is not a problem for Derrida, since all he it is having to that chosen all of the great Heideggerean questions surrounding needs assert Nietzsche's work, questions traditionally held to be of great metaphysical import, are fully implicated in the reading which then develops.

Derrida will go on to draw out the many and varied consequencesof the use Nietzschemakesof the figure of the woman, which is in somesensea very traditional one, ladenwith associations("... Nietzsche revives that barely allegorical figure (of woman) in his own interest" (51)) and yet which must develop into somethingquite different in the from Nietzsche's to a certain metaphysical escape context of critique of and attempt tradition. I do not intend to pursuehim all the way along this path, only to note the way in Derrida's linked is, the earlier evocationsof with which questionof woman convincingly, Nietzsche;even if I do not think it would make senseto say that one cannot think about or discussthe major themesof Nietzsche's philosophy in its absence.What we will finally get from Spurs is a far more specific account,although always in terms of this question of from does does Nietzsche traditional in the emerge and not woman, of way which in Nietzsche Of Derrida in saysof metaphysics, a way which also accordswith what Grammatology.

Accordingto Derrida,Nietzsche'sdeploymentof the figure of the womanis double-edged.In one respectit is a following of tradition, a re-endorsementof the figure has to the the traditionally to of woman use which attributes ascribed woman and of beenemployedin the text of Europeanmetaphysicsand elsewhere,and it is on the basis of this that "woman" is aligned with "truth", in line with that tradition: On the one hand (and in a way which will have to be qualified) Nietzsche revives that barely allegorical figure (of woman) [cette figure ä peine allegorique] in his own interest.For him, truth is like a woman. It resemblesthe veiled movement of feminine modesty.

(51)

153 I take it that Derrida's "barely allegorical", "a peine allegorique", points to a suggestion that this identification of the figure of woman is not confined to the safe realms of a been has in for implications has inevitably but the "mere" allegory way which woman it. before in both in Nietzsche's the in time in centuries and perceived the world general, it feminist indeed Thus one could not say, and commentatorwould rightly consider any 'a is "just! in Nietzsche traditional figure illegitimate the that to of woman say, quite for how Nietzsche thought has about real women. actually no consequences allegory which letter Nietzsche's the by in the at Derrida's text constantly, and particular meansof of use figure between the boundaries the of posit one might start of the text, problematizesany "real" Nietzsche's "historical" in with Nietzsche's the relationships text and woman women. But there is anotheraspectto the way Nietzsche employs the figure of woman. This follows from the fact that Nietzsche has such a strange,unconventionalnotion of truth, which not infrequently figures truth as non-truth. But, on the other hand, the credulousand dogmatic philosopher who believesin the has He has is understood truth that woman, this philosopher understoodnothing. if indeed, is truth, Because, she at woman truth, nothing of nor anything of woman. leastknows that there is no truth, that truth has no place here and that no one has a is la And lieu la for [que she truth et qu'on n'a pas verite]. place verite n'a pas in itself, because believe does herself truth because she not she woman precisely doesnot believe in what she is, in what sheis believed to be, in what shethus is not.

(S 53) As a result of this strangesituation Nietzsche's perspectiveon the woman is necessarilya complex one. This structure,in which Derrida's Nietzsche both follows the tradition and simultaneouslyattemptsthe most radical critique of that tradition, has a great deal in commonwith Derrida's own strategyof "double reading", which entails "going along" with the text, following it faithfully, to a certain extent in order to be able at the sametime to departfrom it and engagein a critique of it; given this strategy it is hardly surprising that many feminist readersof Spurs find it offensive: Derrida's reading of Nietzsche on

154 136 Both level Nietzsche's perspectiveon women. repeatand restate womenmust on one it is Nietzsche described Derrida's to that attributed strategy and with with explicitly discussion, text the the tradition, to up under and/or absolutelynecessary align oneself with to a point, in order for a critique of that tradition to be in any way effective, so that Nietzschecould not abandonthe traditional tropes of women he employs without the critique he wants to make in drawing on thesetropes collapsing. The resemblanceSpurs evokesbetweenthe figure of woman in Nietzsche, as Derrida construesit, and certain of Derrida's own figures, such as differance, is further into introduces Derrida the picture the stylus, the pen and the theme of enhancedwhen also differed, deferred is is but in truth never and endlessly sought writing: with writing, which presentto itself, aligned with the woman: Nietzsche's writing is compelled to suspendtruth betweenthe tenter-hooksof is Nietzsche's the truth there all rest. with quotation marks - and suspended inscription, if do And is inscription the truth. even we not such an writing an of feminine "operation. " itself, is indeed feminine it far the the to venture so as call Becausewoman is (her own) writing, style must return to her. In other words, it is Freud (much be if to the the penis, according as could said that style were a man "normal prototype of fetishes;'), then writing would be a woman.

(S 57) Thus we now have an explicit link betweenNietzsche's woman and the major concern of much of Derrida's early work: writing, writing as what cannot be thought within a metaphysicsof presence. None of theseconfigurations should be taken as having anything to do with what Derrida thinks about women, the woman "as such", or even woman in the Western philosophical tradition in general.Rather,Derrida's contention would be that he is merely drawing out the consequencesof what he seesas inevitable as a result of Nietzsche's unique position vis-a-vis metaphysicsand the concept of truth and Nietzsche's utilisation of the figure of woman in his critique of metaphysics.This, according to Derrida, leads Nietzscheto an ambivalent attitude towards the woman which may appearsimply

155 irreconcilable. Nietzsche's In contradictory, more notorious and particular, someof seeminglymisogynistic pronouncementson women might appearto be wholly incompatiblewith what Derrida has been outlining; Derrida now acknowledgesthis and insists on an underlying "congruence": Must not theseapparentlyfeminist propositions be reconciled with the overwhelming corpus of Nietzsche's venomousanti-feminism? Their congruence(a notion which I opposeby convention to that of coherence), althoughineluctably enigmatic, is just as rigorously necessary.

(S 57) And this, accordingto Derrida, is the "thesis of the presentcommunication". Such a thesis eventuallyleadsDerrida, via the Heideggereanomission and the introduction of a psychoanalyticelement,to a famous formulation of the three conflicting propositions which must belong together in Nietzsche's perspectiveon the woman. Although the languagehasbecomein part that of psychoanalysis,it is nonethelessthe casethat these propositionscan be thought of in terms of the woman's differing relation to the "truth" which sherepresentsand the divergent possible attitudes which Nietzsche can adopt vis-Avis this woman.

He was, he dreadedthis castratedwoman. He was, he dreadedthis castratingwoman. He was, he loved this affirming woman. (S 101)

But one thing which should also be noted here is a familiar ambivalencein Derrida's attitude to Nietzsche. On the one hand, Derrida seemsto admire and endorsethe way in which the plurality of Nietzsche's styles surrendersin advanceany attempt to masterthe uncertaintiesof the figure of woman, the figure of truth; insteadit gives itself up to the uncertainplay of the feminine and the hymen.

156 That Nietzschehad no illusions that he might ever know anything of theseeffects called woman, truth, castration,nor of those ontological effects of presenceor absence,is manifest in the very heterogeneityof his text. Indeed it is just such an illusion that he was analyzing even as he took care to avoid the precipitate negation wherehe might erect a simple discourseagainst castrationand its system.For the reversal,if it is not accompaniedby a discreteparody, a strategy of writing, or difference or deviation in quills, if there is no style, no grand style, this is finally but the samething, nothing more than a clamorous declaration of the antithesis. (S 95)

And yet at the sametime Nietzsche's mastery of these gesturesof non-masteryremains incompleteand aboveall he himself becomesjust a little "lost" in the multifarious, labyrinthine text he has created;Nietzsche is perhapsjust not quite self-awareenoughto avoid the many pitfalls here. This inability to assimilate- even among themselves- the aphorismsand the rest perhapsit must simply be admitted that Nietzsche himself did not seehis way too clearly there.No[r] could he, in the instantaneousblink of an eye. Rather a regular, rhythmic blindnesstakes place in the text. One will never have done with it. Nietzschetoo is a little lost there. But that there is a loss, that anyway is ascertainable,as soon as there is hymen. Nietzschemight well be a little lost in the web of his text, lost much as a spider who finds he is unequalto the web he has spun. (S 101) Although the final sentenceof the first paragraphmight make one think that such "loss", sucha being lost might be structurally inevitable within any such text, and even if such a lostnesswas unavoidablefor Nietzsche in the "blink of an eye" in which he had to see everything,there is neverthelesssomesenseof a regret here that Nietzsche did not quite achievewhat he might have done: this comesout in the "Il faut se dire, betement'with which the Frenchversion of this extract opens,and this effect is once again exaggeratedby

157 the Englishtranslation:"perhapsit must simply be admitted that... ". So again we find the samecontentionwith which we are familiar from the earlier references:Nietzsche takes greatstepstowardsliberating himself from a certain tradition, opposing in the subtlestof ways the systemsof truth, castration,presenceand mastery, and yet these stepsare always a little too much for him so that the critique can only ever be partly successful.The questionthenarisesof what it would look like for a philosopher to overcomethese drawbacksof the Nietzscheancritique, really to seeclearly throughout and to have a completeknowledgeof and masteryover the web of the text shehas spun, albeit a web which in principle makesimpossible any mastery or fully omniscient knowledge. Is there any candidatefor such a description other than Derrida himself? Does Derrida finally accomplishwhat Nietzschecould only attempt?This might seemto be a reasonable inferenceto draw from suchpassages. Thereis much more that could be said about Spurs, and in particular the full developmentof the Nietzsche-Heidegger-Derridaencounterhere would require a lengthy exposition.What I have chiefly wanted to demonstrateis the continuity, despite first impressions, the Nietzsche Spurs in brief Nietzsche the of with who emerges, glimpses, of in the earlier Derrida texts. This is Nietzsche whose uncompromising analysesof a interpretation it is limit, truth to the to these and a place where not clear that push concepts they could ever be recoupedby metaphysics,and yet it is also a Nietzsche who, being (perhapsnecessarily) unable to seethe entirety of this processor what it points towards, is always prone to a recapturewhich draws him back within metaphysics,whether this recaptureis to be executedby Heidegger or not. Derrida doesnot explicitly discussthe conceptof "genealogy" at any point in Spurs; but on the basis of such interpretation an one might suspectthat "genealogy" was the name, for the engine of such a or one name, critique, the never quite adequatetracing of conceptsback to their "differantial" origin, which perhapsmust fail becauseit can never be that total "trembling" of the field of conceptswhich "deconstruction" perhapswould aspire to. For a more particular, explicitly spelledout conception "genealogy" of we have to look to later Derrida texts.

158 The question of genealogy: Nietzsche and the later Derrida

As one would expect,referencesto Nietzsche are not difficult to locate in Derrida's later oeuvre.But as I believe that the main lines of this relation have been fully stakedout in the texts I have examinedso far, I will not explore each and every instanceof Derrida's evocationof Nietzsche.In particular, I do not proposeto say very much at all about anothertext of Derrida's which is centrally concernedwith Nietzsche and his legacy, "Otobiographies",published in TheEar of the Other.137The issuesDerrida raiseshere, concernedwith the useto which Nietzsche puts his own body and his own identity to work in his texts, notably in Ecce Homo, the way he "puts his body and his name out front even though he advancesbehind masksor pseudonymswithout proper names" (EO 7) and the in "great in this terms the consequences of politics" and terms of stateand writing of Nietzsche'slegacy, all raise fascinating questions,but there is no spaceto discussthem here.The one remark I will make, however, is that in terms of the statusof Nietzsche's text in relation to Derrida's own we find the samefamiliar pattern. For almost all of the important points Derrida makes,for examplethat the completion of Nietzsche's identity is deferredand awaits the seal of the eternal return, that Nietzsche's text invites, even programmesin advance,the very readingsone might also want to repudiateon Nietzscheangrounds,including the Nazi "appropriation" of Nietzsche, which is not thereforea wholly arbitrary "misreading", that no readerwill be able to understandwhat Nietzsche's"grand politics" meansuntil the era of grand politics has dawned,theseare all things statedby Nietzsche himself, as Derrida is well aware; Derrida is engagedin teasing them out, juxtaposing them and considering what follows from them. At one point Derrida seemsto acknowledgethis, precisely on the issue of the Nazi interpretation of Nietzsche: [... ] even if Nazism, far from being the regenerationcalled for by those lectures of 1872,were only a symptom of the accelerateddecomposition of European culture and society as diagnosed,it still remains to be explained how reactive degeneration could exploit the samelanguage,the samewords, the sameutterances,the same rallying cries as the active forces to which it standsopposed.Of course,neither this phenomenonnor this spectacularruse eluded Nietzsche.

159 (EO 29)

The last sentenceis telling. Almost throughout this essay,as so often for Derrida on Nietzsche,it doesnot seemas though Derrida is claiming to call the reader's attention to anything which "eluded" Nietzscheas such. This is not to say that things don't look somewhatdifferent in the wake of Derrida's reading; as so often, Derrida's analysesof a text seemto transform that text to a considerableextent. But in this particular essay Derrida doesseemto be preparedto "follow" Nietzsche to quite a significant degree,so that, reciprocally, we are once again left with a situation in which Nietzsche is represented as going quite a long way along the path which Derrida himself wants to traversein his own name,so to speak.The one point at which Derrida might seemto hint at a departure from Nietzscheis on the final pageof this text, when having noted the "temptation" for the gatheredacademicsto "recognize" themselvesin the damning picture of the academy drawn by Nietzschein TheFuture of Our Educational Institutions Derrida calls attention to the fact that there is no "woman or trace of woman" in all of this scene(EO 38). Derrida saysin conclusionto "The Ear of the Other" in effect nothing more than this, but the implication may be that if woman is excluded she also remains unmasteredby this aspect of Nietzsche'stext, that which it cannot fully control or assignto a particular place, an invisible "other" with an ear of her own. Thus Derrida points the way once again towards Nietzsche'sfigure of the woman as traced in Spurs, hinting, as I read it, that this may be a basisfor interrogating and perhapsgoing beyond Nietzsche. So we have, as seemsto be the rule when Derrida readsNietzsche, both the "faithful" discipleship and the gesture pointing beyondthe limitations of Nietzsche's approach. I will also make only the briefest mention of another fascinating text of Derrida's which further reflects on the complex relationship betweenNietzsche and Heidegger: "Interpreting Signatures(Nietzsche/ Heidegger): Two Questions".138Here find Derrida we onceagain musing on the possibility of strategiesin Nietzsche which evadeall possibility of containmentby the Heideggereaninterpretation. One of the important claims is that Nietzsche'sthoughts on life-death, rather than being secondaryto (Heideggerean) a conceptionof totality, questionthat totality in a way which Heidegger is unwilling or unableto take into account,with the implication that Nietzsche may be a more profoundly

160 blow Nietzsche "In Heidegger: that thwarts than thinker governs all one anti-metaphysical the thought or eventhe anticipation of totality, namely, the relationship of genusand Heidegger's here " (71) And to the there too of validity are certain concessions species. yet Heidegger's "demonstrate" "one Derrida, that to position vis-areading: could", according if it is in Nietzschean is that is Nietzsche "there thought "not not even a unity vis wrong": Signatures" "Interpreting in " (59) Nevertheless, the remains of a system classicalsense. in Nietzsche's thought Derrida's texts the structures one of regarding most positive of is Heidegger in in further than the capableof. critique of metaphysics which somesensego There is one other text, basedon a seriesof seminarswhich took place in 1990 and Politics in figures in in Nietzsche English 1997, prominently: particularly published which 139 in is deployed Friendship. Nietzsche how briefly this text I the of consider name of will in order to seewhether anything has changedover the considerableperiod of intervening time and whether any new insights are to be gainedhere. What the reader encountersin the days from familiar book is the this the of early early parts of admiration with which we are Derrida's encounterwith Nietzsche.In the tradition which is under scrutiny in this book, that linking the political, and especiallythe democratic,with the concept of the friend, Nietzschefamously transforms Socrates's"Oh my friends, there is no friend! " into the sentence"Oh my enemies,there is no enemy!" The claims that Derrida makes for the importanceof this reversal are, on the face of it, extravagant,but in part this is becausethis gesturemust be relatedto Nietzsche's more generalproject: Nietzsche, who "parodies the quotationby reversing it", is the site of an "upheaval," a political revolution which is more discreet- but no less disruptive - than the revolutions known under that name; it is, perhaps,a revolution of the political (PF 27)

For the rest of the chapterfrom which this quote comesDerrida is concernedto trace this upheavaland what it entails. There is no doubt that Derrida takes extremely seriously the challengeposedby Nietzscheto the philosophical tradition, in one instanceby way of Nietzsche'suse of the "perhaps", a word which would have no place in philosophy as

161 '40 traditionally conceived. That same"radicalizing" Nietzsche admired by Derrida in De la Grammatologieis in evidenceonce again. But then we will not be surprisedto find the now altogether unsurprising caution on Derrida's part in not endorsingthe Nietzscheanmoves without qualification. In fact it may be the fact that Derrida's portrait of Nietzsche in the early part of this book is so enthusiasticand affirmative which leads Derrida at one point to quite explicitly deny, parentheticallyand with someurgency,that this endorsementis total: (Of course,we must quickly inform the reader that we will not follow Nietzsche here.Not in any simple manner.We will not follow him in order to follow him comewhat may. He never demandedsuch a thing anyway without freeing us, in the samemove, from his very demand,following the well-known paradoxesof any fidelity. We will follow him here to the best of our ability in order, perhaps,to stop following him at one particular moment; and to stop following those who follow him - Nietzsche's sons.Or those who still accompanyhim to them we shall return much later - as his brothers or the brothers of his brothers. [... ]

(PF 33) What emergesa little further on is the extent to which, according to Derrida, these"sons" and"brothers" of Nietzsche constitute a major branch of French thought in this area,taking their cue from Nietzsche's revolutionary gesture.A few pagesfurther on a line quoted from Bataille, "community of those without community" (37), provides the occasion for a long footnote detailing the way Nietzsche's role as a forebear for a whole tradition

of

Frenchthought hasplayed itself out. Bataille, Blanchot and Nancy are evoked by name here.

I would [... ] like to situatemy subject with regard to what they [Bataille and Blanchot in this instance]have stakedout: to pre-name,singularly around the texts of Nietzschethat I am attempting to read here, a seismic event whose "new logic" leavesits mark on all the necessarilycontradictory and undecidablestatementsthat organizethesediscoursesand give them their paradoxical force [... ] These

162 thoughtsinvent themselvesby countersigning,according to the teleiopoesisthat we havebeenreferring to, the eventsigned "Nietzsche". They belong - but the word is Nietzsche. belonging belong to time the they of untimely not appropriatewithout (PF 47)

The most important thing I want to pick up on from thesetwo lengthy quotes,aside from the way in which Derrida subtly but unmistakably distanceshimself from this lineage,is an extensionof the conceptof "genealogy" which remains implicit but is now impossibleto resist.In a text in which family relations figure extensively there can be little doubt that somenotion of genealogyis already in play, and it is that which is most closely associatedwith what I have describedabove as the most meaningful way in which it is possibleto setNietzscheand Derrida againstone another:their relation to a tradition, be it philosophical,moral or religious. The notion of genealogywhich always seemsin the backgroundwhen Derrida discussesNietzsche in Politics of Friendship is one which had by this time becomecommon currency, especially in France: genealogyas the relation of a philosopher,scholaror writer of any kind to his predecessors,the community of those writers he considersto be his brothers,fathers and sons,living or dead,even if this were a "community of those

from Bataille. Derrida's thinking quote of without community",

But the genealogicalrelation could also be thought of as a relation with those of whom a writer knows nothing but who exert a tremendoussway over his or her writings nevertheless,or a relation to thosehidden eventswhich play the determinative role in the forming of civilisations such as the "slave revolt in morals". In fact only if genealogywere to take on this broader meaningwould it really start to look like genealogyas we know it in Nietzsche.For Nietzsche is really very little interestedin the relationship with those whom one consciouslydraws on as ancestors and fellow spirits; or rather, he is interested in identifying such figures with regard to his own writing but he never, to my knowledge, usesfamilial terms such "father" and "brother" to denote such relationships, preferring as the language "fellow "free of or spirit" spirit", and certainly would never have spokenof "genealogy" in such a context. The only context from which we can say anything about Nietzsche's use of the word "genealogy", On the Genealogyof Morals, suggeststhat the term applies to great, unknown cultural eventswhich operatethroughout Western society

163 without our having ever beenaware of them - until now. Even when Nietzsche draws himself into the story in the third essayit seemsonly reasonableto assumethat he has not beenworking for all of his life in the full knowledgeof the philosophical family tree which links him to the asceticideal. "We are unknown to ourselves,we seekersafter knowledge...", as the prefaceopens.But in Politics of Friendship the family relation, with respectto the Nietzscheanlegacy, is always of the other sort: it is always a question, certainly in Bataille and Blacnhot, of the explicit laying claim to this legacy, of writing in the nameof the father. As we have seenDerrida wants to distancehimself from any implication in sucha genealogicalmodel; but it should also have becomeclear that such a model is quite alien to anything Nietzsche could have meant by "Genealogie". Nothing suggeststhat Derrida is really aware of this; it is a fact which perhapsought not to surprise us given our experienceof the earlier texts, that Derrida doesnot quote a single line from On the Genealogyof Morals itself. And what happensin the absenceof such awarenessis that Nietzschetendsto becomeimplicated in this familial model, on which a considerable amountof suspicionis cast in Politics of Friendship, as if he instigated it all by way of his useof the terminology of the family tree in the title of his book. Perhaps,historically, this is indeedwhat hashappened.But surely one ought to leave room, as Derrida doesnot, for an attentivereading of Nietzsche, and specifically of the Genealogyof Morals itself, to challengesuch a model precisely by demonstratingthat it has no legitimate roots in the writings of the figure who supposedlystandsat the head of the family tree, that the father is not who he is claimed to be. So if this familial model seemsto be at the heart of how Derrida thinks of Nietzscheand his inheritance,if genealogyseemsto thus take on certain connotations which it doesnot have in the Nietzscheantext, one then has to wonder what to make of it when Derrida talks, somewhatin passing,of a "genealogical deconstruction" (PF 105). Sucha pairing of words cannotbe overlooked. It must imply, at the least, that genealogy and deconstructionare compatible in some sense,and that there is a continuity betweenthe respectiveprojects of Nietzsche and Derrida. What, then, is the final sensewe have of the kind of "genealogy", in the broad sensediscussedabove,which figures the relation betweenDerrida and his predecessor Nietzsche?Derrida's Nietzsche is one who is wrested, although never perhapswithout

164 for behind, from freed Heideggerean the a celebrationand somethingremaining reading, affirmation of the plurality of styles, an opposition to the metaphysicaltradition which knows better than to set itself up as a direct opposition and thus affirms a certain play and heterogeneity.However, as we have repeatedlyseen,Derrida finds somethinga little wanting in this gesture,a falling short which tends to prevent the full successof Nietzsche's critiques and allows him to be drawn back into metaphysicsby way of the Heideggereanreading.And perhapsit is only Derrida himself who can devise a way of doing philosophy that will avoid all such pitfalls. But whatever the nuancesof such issues, there is one thing that never seemsto be in question, and perhapsit cannot be otherwise from Derrida's perspective:Nietzsche must be engagedon the "very same" project as is Derrida; his efforts must appearas stepson the way to a philosophy which explicitly reckonswith "differance" and his critiques are effective only to the extent that they participatein that "radical trembling" of the metaphysicaltradition at which Derrida aims. So in Derrida's genealogyNietzsche featuresas one of those ancestorswho incites his heirs to surpasshim, and everything seemsto fall to the favoured heir, Derrida, to enable him to accomplishthis. But to seewhether Nietzsche's "genealogy" really was a stageon the way to somethinglike "deconstruction", by way of an investigation which must also challengethis very genealogicalmodel itself, we neednow to turn to On the Genealogyof Morals itself.

165

Chanter Four - Derrida and the Nietzschean heritage: Two test cases

The sentencewith which, famously, the preface to On the Genealogyof Morals knowledge, is: "We to after even to seekers ourselves, we opens remain unknown Genealogy in There " the are any number of ways which ourselves:and with good reason. in it: follows be to this the statementand paragraphwhich could construedas a response the interestNietzschetakes in previous genealogistsof morals "[a]s living and breathing ideal influence in 1); (GM I the the on the modern scholar, ascetic continuing of enigmas" scientistand philosopher,and perhapsalso on Nietzsche himself; or perhapsthe reader is held "with to the that good obtain might ultimately conclude stateof affairs which book: in just by in the the this as securely end of reason" opening sentenceremains place that one thing the Genealogyaccomplishesis to uphold and confirm this skepticism as to self-knowledgein the pursuer of knowledge. Any of theseapproachesto the question favour here I be justified I to them might as which of would and will not make any remarks it is just if I to that easyto overlook the perhapsall-toosuggest myself, any. would prefer for first is being in it time the test the to that this put obvious way which might seem claim in the book: in the sectionsof the prefacewhich immediately follow it, in which Nietzsche is in interest This his the to trace the attempts critique of morality. own youthful origins of somethingwhich seemsto be close to the heart of Nietzsche's self-identity as a thinker, sinceNietzsche describesa "reservation" ("Bedenklichkeit") concerning morality "which emergedso unsolicited, so early and inexorably, so in contradiction with my environment, age,models, and origins, [Herkunft] that I might almost be entitled to call it my `A priori'. " (Preface,3) Nietzsche goeson to detail the "nature of this reservation": "I found that my curiosity and suspicionwere soon drawn up short at the question of the real origin of our notions of good and evil [welchen Ursprung eigentlich unser Gut und Böse habe]." It is the questioningof this fundamentalmoral opposition, that between"good" and "evil", which setsthe young Nietzsche on his path as an interrogator of morality. The Genealogy'sfirst essayseemsto constitute the successorto theseearly thoughts,an extendedmeditation on this moral opposition of two terms and on another suchopposition with whose history, it will turn out, that of the former is subtly interwoven:

166 the title specifiesthesetwo moral pairings: "`Good and Evil', `Good and Bad"'. And as well as thesetwo oppositions,Nietzsche's essaywill also be centrally concernedwith the oppositionbetweenthe two modes of valuing they represent,so that the essayis one in which at leastthree oppositions, of different kinds, play off one another in a complex fashion. Let us now recall what Derrida saysabout Nietzsche on opposition in `Differance': Is not all of Nietzsche's thought a critique of philosophy as an active indifference to difference,as the systemof adiaphoristic reduction or repression?Which according to the samelogic, according to logic itself, doesnot exclude that philosophy lives in and on diffrance, thereby blinding itself to the same,which is not the identical. The same,precisely, is differance (with an a) as the displacedand equivocal passageof one different thing to another, from one term of an opposition to the other. Thus one could reconsiderall the pairs of oppositeson which philosophy is constructedand on which our discourselives, not in order to seeopposition eraseitself but to see indicates that eachof the terms must appearas the differance of the other, as what the other different and deferred in the economy of the same[... ]

(MP 17) One of the curious things about this passageis that it is not entirely clear what is being attributedto Nietzsche and how much is presentedby Derrida "in his own voice"; the notion of a writer's own voice, or rather, to avoid a phonocentrictrope, that which falls under the signatureof an author, being of courseamong those conceptionswith which Derrida was most preoccupied.141(That said, and for all Derrida's playing with the status of his own authorship,it is relatively unusual to find instancesin Derrida's text of the blurring of this particular line: Derrida is usually remarkably

clear about what he is

attributing to anotherauthor and what he is "supplementing" of his own, even if the status of such supplementationis left very much an open question. I take this as part of Derrida's characteristicscholarly rigour, his willingness to follow the rules of academicwriting, up to a point. This seemsto me to characterizeDerrida's approachin, for example, `Plato's

167 142) Pharmacy'. After the first question, which hypothesizesexplicitly about "Nietzsche's thought", the sentencethat follows merely statesthat something (Derridean?) ("that lives in dffferance") is philosophy and on not excluded by this (Nietzschean?) logic. And yet bearingin mind Derrida's interest in Deleuze's Nietzscheet la Philosophie, the is "same" to the references which not the "identical" might well seemto be presenting what Derrida, along with Deleuze, seesas a core structure of Nietzsche's thought, a structurewhich Deleuze associatesin particular with the eternal return; this structure,the non-identicalsame,is in the ensuing sentencegiven the name "differance", a namewhich of coursedoesnot appearin Nietzsche's texts. This interaction of the Derridean term with ideasthat seemto be ascribedto Nietzsche preparesus for the final ambiguity: the notably anonymous"one could reconsider [... ]"("On pourrait ainsi reprendre"). But if "one could reconsider"things in this manner, is this what Derrida doeshere on the basis of a few hints from Nietzsche?Is he now, in the presentof this essay,reconsideringthese"pairs of opposites",or is this a project which Derrida will undertakein the future? The future conditional tenseseemsto point this way, but on the other hand the list of oppositions which immediately follow make us wonder if the point isn't rather that this was what Nietzschewent on to do on the basis of his notion of the same: the intelligible as differing-deferring the sensible,as the sensibledifferent and deferred;the conceptas different and deferred,differing-deferring intuition; culture as naturedifferent and deferred, differing-deferring; all the others of physistekhne,nomos,thesis, society, freedom, history, mind, etc. - as physis different and deferred,or asphysis differing and deferring, Physis in differance. All of thesethemeshave at the least analoguesin Nietzsche, but is Derrida actually suggestingthat theseare Nietzsche's themes?They also are or will becomeDerrida's themes.The ambiguity is, perhapsquite deliberately, irresolvable, undecideable. If we bear in mind the context of this passage,however, this special ambiguity and blurring of the project of Derrida with that attributed to Nietzsche will perhapsseem unsurprising.This is the essay"Differance", in which Derrida attemptsto elucidate some of what led him to coin this titular term by way of a philosophical-historical accountof the

168 in it, Derrida that, carefully selected writers as sees prefigure or even elements certain in Heidegger, least "differance"; these this announce principally essay, predecessors are, at Freud and Nietzsche, as I have discussed above in Chapter 3. Derrida is here picking up on what he perceives as a notion of differance already at work in Nietzsche, and this is why Nietzsche and Derrida appear to be cosignatories of the passage in question, with Derrida seamlessly and undecideably either carrying out, reiterating, underlining or clarifying a project foreseen and perhaps also undertaken by Nietzsche. Given this, it seems reasonable to associatewhat Derrida says about Nietzsche on opposition here with some of Derrida's own writing on opposition; this will give us the basis to consider whether Nietzsche really is in this respect the forerunner to Derridean deconstruction he seems to be represented as.

"A Force of Dislocation": Derrida on Nietzsche's critique of opposition An initial set of remarks on opposition from Derrida's early essay"Force and Signification", published in 1963,would seemto set the tone for Derrida's approachto the history of metaphysics,at this period and beyond. This is also the essaywhich turns to Nietzschetowards its end, perhapsas providing a responseto the structuralist ethosunder discussionin this essay,as I have remarkedabove; when it does so, however, opposition is no longer specifically the focus. What Derrida writes about opposition occurs in one of thoseunexpectedmethodological asidesone sometimesfinds in Derrida's texts in which the view suddenlywidens out and we are presentedwith somebroad, suggestive statementsconcerningDerrida's overall project and its aims. In seemingto promote notions suchas duration, force, depth and quality as againstRousset'sstructuralist emphaseson space,form, surfaceand quantity, Derrida writes, his intention is not simply to set up an opposition: To counterthis simple alternative [... ] we maintain that it is necessaryto seeknew conceptsand new models, an economyescapingthis systemof metaphysical oppositions. [... ] If we appearto opposeone seriesto the other, it is becausefrom within the classical systemwe wish to make apparentthe noncritical privilege

169 by discourse Our to the granted other series a certain structuralism. naively irreducibly belongs to the system of metaphysical oppositions. The break with this structure of belonging can be announced only through a certain organization, a certain strategic arrangement which, within the field of metaphysical opposition, its field it, to turn the the own stratagems against producing a uses strengths of force of dislocation that spreads itself through the entire system, fissuring it in every direction and thoroughly delimiting it.

(WD 19-20)

A numberof highly important elementsin Derrida's thinking about opposition, elements which I believe continued to play a central role in this thinking throughout Derrida's later philosophy, can be derived from this one paragraph.The number of emphasizedwords in this passagein itself seemsto indicate how much stressDerrida wished to place on it and on what is important in it. Firstly, there is the explicit insistencethat Derrida has no desire simply to valorize one side of an opposition or set of oppositions over the other, even if part of his approachto thesesetsof oppositions involves an emphasison the devaluedside of the opposition in order to highlight the "noncritical privilege" afforded to it by the Westernphilosophical (in this instancea "structuralist") tradition. Secondly,there is Derrida's concessionthat his own writing, "our discourse" cannot simply place itself outsideof the "system of oppositions" but instead"irreducibly belongs" to it. And thirdly, it is worth noting the totalizing vocabulary in play here: even if individual essaysof Derrida, such as this one, are concernedwith certain specific setsof oppositions in different kinds of discourse,they are essentiallyconceivedas part of a much broader project with the aim (and this notwithstanding the previous point) of dislocating and fissuring an all-embracing "system of metaphysicaloppositions". It is the secondhalf of the paragraphwhich makesthis apparent.That this systemis conceivedof as "allembracing", as I have put it, is demonstratedby the very fact that "[o]ur discourse irreducibly belongsto the systemof metaphysicaloppositions",

since the implication is

that no discoursecan be conceivedof which could stand outside of this systemof oppositions.What I also think is implicit in this, although it is not statedas such, is that "metaphysics" is thought of as co-extensive with a seriesof oppositions; to questionthe

170

"system of metaphysicaloppositions" is not just to question a region of metaphysicsor a it is been by has to question validated metaphysics: set of cultural assumptionswhich metaphysicsitself. (It of coursedoesnot follow from this, on Derrida's view, that when theseoppositionsare employed in a discoursewhich is not of the type classified as "metaphysics",the discourseof popular culture for example, or science,or literary ) And this they thereby given the metaphysical system. escape criticism, would impossibility of any accessto a languageoutside this system,the overall aim of the "strategic" measuresDerrida employs must likewise be total in scope,"producing a force of dislocation that spreadsitself through the entire system" (my emphasis). It is striking that this last, totalizing aspectof this methodological outline is also to be found in the strategyDerrida ambiguously ascribesto Nietzsche. It is "all the pairs of discourse lives" is our which are oppositeson which philosophy constructedand on which to be reconsideredin the envisionedproject which may be Nietzsche's or Derrida's or both in "philosophy" Their instances just isolated few to relation or neither,not of opposition. a this instance,by which Derrida no doubt meansWesternphilosophy and which he, like Heidegger,often gives the generalname "metaphysics", is not here co-extensivebut foundational:philosophy "is constructed" on them. And "our discourse", any discoursewe in the West can consider"ours" and in which we can speakor write, is likewise dependent differences Fundamentally, basis the these the on slight of philosophy. very oppositions at in vocabularybetweenthe two passagesdo not amount to anything very significant and the implication is the same:what is neededis a strategywhich aims at transforming the total is based.To discourse systemof oppositions on which metaphysicsand all of our demonstrate"that eachof the terms must appearas the differance of the other" in the case of eachopposition may sound quietist in comparisonto "producing a force of dislocation that spreadsitself through the entire system,fissuring it in every direction and thoroughly delimiting it", but the former could just as plausibly, on Derrida's terms, be thought of as a profoundly transformative procedurewith far-reaching, indefinitely extended This senseof a parallel betweenthe two texts only reinforces my sensethat consequences. what the early Derrida finds in Nietzsche a propos of opposition is somethingvery similar to what we find in the early Derrida a propos of opposition.

171 Suchan impression of Derrida's relation to Nietzsche at this stageis reinforced if in interview between Henri Ronse Derrida turn to the we published a sectionof and Positions.Firstly we find a confirmation of the suggestionthat philosophy as we know it in the West is unthinkable aside from a certain set of oppositions: "[... ] the limit on the basis itself defined functioning became the as within a of which philosophy possible, episteme, systemof fundamentalconstraints,conceptualoppositions outside of which philosophy becomesimpracticable." 143Derrida goeson to outline the methodology he employs in view of this characterizationof the philosophical tradition, a kind of "double gesture" both in disrupting text the the structure of question,by meansof which, preservingand radically Derrida claims, he will "[... ] try to respectas rigorously as possible the internal, regulated play of philosophemesor epistememesby making them slide-without mistreating themto the point of their nonpertinence,their exhaustion,their closure." Derrida then goeson to sum all of this up in a sentencewhich brings together the notion of "deconstruction", the concernwith oppositions,and even the Nietzscheanword "genealogy": To "deconstruct" philosophy, thus, would be to think-in

the most faithful, interior

but at the sametime to way-the structuredgenealogyof philosophy's concepts, determine-from a certain exterior that is unqualifiable or unnameableby philosophy-what this history has been able to dissimulate or forbid, making itself into a history by meansof this somewheremotivated repression. That "genealogy" here seemsto be associatedwith the conservative,reproducing aspectof the double gestureneednot imply that Nietzsche's philosophy would itself lie only on this side: for Derrida would have been as aware as anyoneof the "Zur" in the title of Nietzsche's book, Zur Genealogieder Moral, which thus doesnot just presenta genealogy of morals but expressesan attitude to and a challenge to this genealogyjust as doesthe approachDerrida describeshere. ("Nietzscheangenealogy", as the phrasehas generally cometo be usedin continental philosophy, implies all of theseelementsas well. ) That Nietzsche's approachin the Genealogyis also concernedwith "what this history [of morals] has beenable to dissimulate or forbid" is not in dispute. The question that remains

172 is whethersucha challengeinvolves a comparablethinking about opposition and a comparabletransformation of oppositional structures. Guy Houberdine Jean-Louis in interview in Positions, Further on and with an Scarpetta,Derrida begins to outline what he calls a "general strategy of deconstruction", at "opposition" in 1971); interview (the took place work in both his early and current works binary both the "is is immediately to the fore: this strategy to avoid simply neutralizing field these the of closed within oppositionsof metaphysicsand simply residing describe the it. (P 41) Derrida " to again once on goes oppositions,thereby confirming "double "double which science", for "double a or writing" gesture", a resulting necessity a is is follows The so not initial "phase one which which point overturning". of entails an by implied is but discussed this have I in Derrida texts which the explicitly stated other in is justice that do to "To this for a classical to "overturning": recognize necessity need an dealing the peaceful coexistenceof a vis-a-vis, with not are philosophical opposition we but ratherwith a violent hierarchy. One of the terms governsthe other (axiologically, logically etc.), or has the upper hand." This fact is crucially important in understanding Derrida's thinking on opposition, since it makes it clear why one of the first stagesin the disruption of an opposition is a challengeto the order of this hierarchy, the "overturning" Derrida speaksof here. And it is also important with respectto how Derrida thinks of the balanced Western they pairings one side of are not oppositionsthat make up metaphysics: hierarchical, but its the for just sites of rather which we can opt as easily as opposite violently maintained subjugations.

Perhapsthe mostfamousof the particularoppositionsin which Derrida'sthoughts In is in be the a recurrent writing. to about opposition are pairing of speechand seen play themeof Derrida's early work this opposition is subjectedto a procedurewhich, rightly or is be "deconstruction" for blueprint has become to the carried way wrongly, somethingof a kind just be for (wrongly Derrida deconstruction in that the sensethat of thing out would for which no blueprint could exist, although he doestalk, as we havejust seen,of a "general strategyof deconstruction"in Positions). As we would expect from what we have just discoveredof Derrida on opposition, this is of coursenothing so crude as a mere reversalof terms, sincethis would simply reinstate and reinforce the self-sameopposition. So the point is not that writing is somehow"better", more interesting, or a "truer" concept

173 than speech;rather it is that those qualities which have been condemnedby the is just in tradition the what philosophical under name of writing are as surely at work called "speech"; thus the whole structure of this opposition is shaken,even if it doesnot thereby"dissolve". This seemsto be one way of attaining the desideratumDerrida describesin the previous extract and, however ambiguously, attributes to Nietzsche: "to seewhat indicatesthat eachof the terms must appearas the differance of the other, as the other different and deferred in the economy of the same". The "same" in this passage would in the instanceof the speech/ writing opposition be "writing" in its broadestsense, that which is "iterable", which functions in the absenceand after the deathof its "author", whosemeaningcannotbe guaranteedby appealto such an author etc. And this "same" is divided into at leasttwo non-identical parts, known as "speech" and "writing", the latter of which is seenas importantly "different" from the former in any number of ways but also as be later Thus "deferral" it, to a at saved up reanimated a point. and of as speechpreserved the namefor their relation, in Derrida's terms, is precisely "differance". Our recent encounterwith Positions will remind us of another important aspectof this relation: it is one in which the two elementshave not beenthought of as equals;writing has been consistentlysubordinatedto speech,seenas derivative and at times even condemned,most famously in Plato's Phaedrus,a sceneon which Derrida focusesintently in `Plato's Pharmacy'144.For that reasonDerrida's deconstructionof the opposition betweenspeech and writing doeshave the initial effect of reversing this hierarchy, chiefly by pointing out that everything which has traditionally beenpredicatedof writing and sometimesbeen usedto condemnit is also true of speech,so that in this sensespeechis just anotherkind of writing. The overall aim of this procedure,however, is to challengethe very structure of this opposition, so it is absurdto supposethat Derrida is somehowmore interestedin writing than speechas a practice and activity. In the deconstructionof the speechand writing opposition we seemalso to have, to recall once again the passagefrom `Differance' a "displaced and equivocal passageof one different thing to another, from one term of an opposition to the other" since Derrida's strategy introducesprecisely a "passage"betweenspeechand writing, in which "speech" turns out to be a kind of writing just as much as "writing" might traditionally have beenheld to be kind in a of speech, terms of this samewhich is writing in a broad Derridean sense.This passageis "displaced"

174 in the senseof being deliberately obscured,covered over, by the philosophical tradition for least in be "equivocal" the very and might considered any number of ways, and not same reason.

Drawing all of this together it becomesapparentthat the passagefrom `Differance' begins hypothesis "Nietzsche's thought" ultimately presentsus with concerning which as a And in "differance". fully-fledged Derrida's terms to approach oppositions of a accountof his is "critique of it finally "Nietzsche's to thought", what present accomplishes philosophy", in terms of a deconstructive,Derridean logic of "differance", either as an anticipation of thesestructuresor perhapseven as a full-blown implementation of the very strategiesDerrida himself intends to employ in his critique of Westernthought. Now given that "genealogy" becomes,in continental thought during the sixties and seventies, somethinglike the name given to the single strategyby which Nietzsche attemptshis "critique of philosophy", and given the way in which Derrida characterizesthis critique here and elsewhereand also the powerful influence of Derrida's thought then and since, it is perhapsnot so surprising that Nietzscheangenealogycomesto be seenas precisely a kind of forerunner of Derridean deconstruction,particularly in terms of this questionof is be deconstruction. What deferred different to oppositions;as, perhaps, seen remains and whetherNietzsche's strategiesconcernedwith opposition and the oppositions that have played such a crucial role in Western culture (for I think it is undeniablethat Nietzsche thought that there were such oppositions) really have such a close relationship to those of Derrida with regard to opposition and oppositions.And, primarily, this question must be posedwith referenceto the one book that speaksof "genealogy" in its title.

Oppositions opposed: The Genealogy's first essay

The oppositionsto which Nietzsche is calling our attention in the first essayof the Genealogyare certainly amongthose on which one might supposethat much Western philosophy of morality is "constructed", and in particular the first of the two pairs mentionedin its title, "good and evil". Indeed it is Nietzsche's own contention that this pairing has come to dominatemoral thinking in Christian and post-Christian Europe, as

175 fitted in These to match the the text. the pairings also seemwell courseof will emerge descriptionof being amongstthose "on which our discourselives", taking "our" here to imply not simply the discourseof philosophersbut discoursein a much wider, nonspecializedcontext. What would one then expect to find in the Genealogya proposthese moral pairs of opposing terms, if Derrida's claims concerningNietzsche on opposition in Western here? That treated to these previous philosophy as oppositions, were apply opposingpoles,turn out to operateby meansof "differance": that what is therefore have in is "the their the generallyoverlooked same", commonality which such oppositions root; this is what allows "the displacedand equivocal passageof one different thing to be impossible from " Such to to term another, a passageought one of an opposition another. on the model of a strictly conceivednotion of "opposition". That it is possiblerevealsthe workings of differance and allows us to seethat "each of the terms must appearas the differance of the other, as the other different and deferred in the economy of the same". "Evil", then, to take one term, ought to come to appearnot as the polar opposite of "good", that with which the "good" has nothing in common; rather, in short, as "good" differed and deferred.

In fact it might seemthat certainaspectsof the structureandstrategyof the Genealogymatch this Derridean description fairly well. For one thing Nietzsche is very much concernedto show that some of the moral phenomenamost revered in his day originate in ways which are taken to be morally abhorrent.Thus the "conscience" was formed by meansof often brutal techniquesusedto forge a memory in man, including somevery specific forms of torture listed by Nietzsche in section 3 of the secondessay; and our own, post-Christian notion of the "good" derives, according to Nietzsche, from the instincts of revengeand resentmentin the slave revolt in morals (seefirst essay,7 and ff. ). This might well be construedas an exposition of the workings of diffcrance: showing the elementof the "same" from which quite contrary value judgements evolve and indicating a passagefrom one side of the opposition to the other. Nietzsche's approachmakesthis passagea historical one; thus what figures as the "same" in the caseof the value judgments "good" and "evil" is a historical event: the slave revolt in morals. Perhapswe should not overlook the most general,basic point that Nietzsche's account allows us to see:

176 that "good and evil", although opposites,have a certain common root, they are both the productsof the same"slave revolt in morals". What is more, one might consider the particular strategy Nietzsche employs in the first essay to accomplish what Derrida suggests in a very particular way. Part of Nietzsche's strategy here consists in showing that the "evil" of the "good and evil" system in bad" "good" "good the the of values some sense coincides with system of of and valuing, since it attaches to the same object, and that accordingly the two concepts of good be must radically at odds with one another:

What a difference there is betweenthesetwo words `bad' and `evil', in spite of the fact that they both appearto stand in opposition to one and the sameconcept `good'! But it is not the sameconcept of `good' which is involved in eachcase:the is is be questionwhich should asked rather: who actually `evil' according to the morality of ressentiment?In all strictness,the answeris: none other than the `good man' of the other morality [... ]

(GMI11) What is held to be "good" in one systemis held to be "evil" according to the other, which then appropriatesthe word "good" for the opposite of that "evil". This certainly suggests that there is a kind of "passage"or "slippage" within the word "good" itself, whereby it seemsto becomeconfoundedwith at least one of its opposites,"evil". One might then conclude on a reading of the Genealogy's first essayoriented in this way that what Nietzsche achieveshere is the disruption, within the specific field of Westernmoral values but in a way which must surely have consequencesbeyond this field, of an entire systemof binary oppositions.The words "good", "bad" and "evil" seemto have becomedeeply compromisedin their relation to one another,and even to have becomeinterchangeable:the samepersonwho is "good" according to one systemof evaluationis "evil" accordingto another,and likewise the personwho is "bad" according to the nobles, inferior, unfortunate and unhappy, is "good" according to the slave perspective:non-aggressive,meek and patiently suffering. Has Nietzsche not then accomplisheda part of the project Derrida endorsesin the passagefrom "Force and

177 Signification" quoted above? If Nietzsche appears to favour and even celebrate the noble in be by in instituted this that the explained can system of values over slave revolt morals Derrida's way as serving to "make apparent the noncritical privilege naively granted to the Nietzsche's is, Christian the that to of other series", prevailing or post-Christian morality day. By his strategic pitting of one system of values against another Nietzsche would its have field field, "use[d] to turn to the the the own strengths of appear, within moral stratagems against it, producing a force of dislocation that spreads itself through the entire by direction delimiting it. fissuring it " And in thus pushing thoroughly system, and every our systems of values up against their limits Nietzsche might seem to have made manifest the inadequacy of all the binary oppositions on which these systems are based and thus to have demonstrated the need for a new "economy escaping this system of metaphysical [here in the first instance moral] oppositions".

However,therearea numberof reasonsfor us to be cautiousaboutacceptingsuch a reading.In particular, it is the suggestionthat Nietzsche's target is the entire systemof binary oppositionsthat makesup Western systemsof values which must come under scrutiny. As I have suggested,the one-sidednessof the first essay,the almost blatant glorying of the noble systemof evaluation (not necessarilyof the brutal nobles themselves, as commentatorshave rightly pointed out) over the despisedslave morality of good and evil, could at least initially be thought of as that redressingof the balance,that initial reversalof hierarchieswhich Derrida advocatesas a part of the deconstructiveprocess.But on analysisthis favouritism proves to be somethingfar more significant than an initial step on the way to an overcoming of the entire economy of moral oppositions; rather it is the assertionof a difference in kind which aims precisely at the exclusion of the noble morality from any such deconstructiveprocess. One of the very first things Nietzsche saysabout the noble morality, in the course of rejecting the hypothesesof the "English psychologists" and hinting at the contrasthe is later going to draw betweenit and slave morality, relatesto the origins of the conceptof "good":

the `good' themselves- that is, the noble, the powerful, the superior, the highminded - were the oneswho felt themselvesand their actions to be good - that is,

178 lowlow, first in them to the rank - and posited as such, contrast everything as of minded, common and plebeian. (GM I 2) ("sind es `die Guten' selber gewesen,das heißt die Vornehmen, Mächtigen, Höhergestelltenund Hoch-gesinnten,welche sich selbst und ihr Tun als gut, nämlich als erstenRangesempfandenund ansetzten,im Gegensatzzu allem Niedrigen, Niedrig-Gesinnten, Gemeinenund Pöbelhaften.") All the really important characteristicsNietzsche wants to attribute to the noble morality are alreadyhere in this little preview. The first important thing to note is that the quality of the "good" is self-posited,both felt ("empfanden") and posited ("ansetzten") by the "good" for themselves,as "sich selbst" in the Germanindicates. Indeed this is the very point Nietzscheis making here againstthe "English psychologists", who maintain that the word "good" originally designatesthe usefulnessof an action for the society in which it takes place,and thus is precisely not employed by the personwho performs the action. Nietzsche insists that it is those who perform the action ("ihr Tun") who also designateit as "good". Secondly,we have here the characterizationof what is originally thought of as "good": noble virtues having nothing to do with utility or Christian meekness:the good are "the noble, the powerful, the superior, the high-minded; along with this come the contrasted characteristicsof what is not good, what will later be labeled bad ("schlecht"): "everything low, low-minded, common and plebeian." And finally, and not least significantly, there is the order of eventswhich the sentenceposits: firstly, the self-affirmation of the good, the good first feeling themselvesto be good and then positing themselvesas good, which, the implication is, entails naming themselves"the good"; and only after this event, after the interval of a comma, doesthere emergea "contrast", "Gegensatz" with what is not good. In fact, this interval might turn out to be barely sufficient for the separationNietzsche will go on to posit betweenthesetwo events;I will return to this question below. In the remainderof the first essayNietzsche expandsconsiderablyon thesethree characteristicsof noble morality. For my purposeshere I am not particularly concerned with the secondof them, with what it is that constitutesthe powerful, the noble as "good" as such.The first and third characteristics,the self-affirming characterof the noble "good"

179 (temporal the the this the of affirmation over recognition or otherwise) of and priority imply "bad", to times one another, or at might seem contrasting are closely related, and at the very least support one another. The point where these characteristics are given their fullest exposition occurs when Nietzsche lays out in full the contrast between the noble in have in discussing Deleuze I the already quoted morality and slave morality, a passage the first chapter:

The

itself becomes begins in creative and when ressentiment slave revolt morals

ordainsvalues: the ressentimentof creaturesto whom the real reaction, that of the deed,is denied and who find compensationin an imaginary revenge.While all itself, from from triumphant slave morality affirmation of a noble morality grows the outsetsaysno to an `outside', to an `other', to a 'non-self: and this no is its from ] [... In the outset always to morality slave creative act. order exist at all, in it in terms, needsexternal stimuli needsan opposing, outer world; physiological is is fundamentally The to opposite the casewith the reaction. order act-its action it this acts and grows spontaneously, only seeksout aristocraticmode of evaluation: its antithesisin order to affirm itself more thankfully and more joyfully. Its its basic derived, is `bad', `low', to positive pale contrast only a negativeconcept, conceptwhich is thoroughly steepedin life and passion-'we the noble, we the good, we the beautiful, we the happy ones!'

(I 10) In the first instanceI am concernedhere with the elaboration of the nature of the noble morality, as given here by way of contrast with that of the "slave revolt in morals". Everything Nietzsche saysabout it here is concernedwith the first of the characteristics identified in the abovepassage:that, as it is explicitly statedhere, "noble morality grows from a triumphant affirmation of itself'. Among the other key words and phraseswhich give further colour to this characterizationare "spontaneously" ("spontan") in relation to this samegrowth of the noble morality and "derived" ("nachgebornes")with respectto its concept"bad". This latter word, with its "nach", is an indication that in connectionwith the primacy of affirmation a temporal aspectis never far away; it is just more explicit in

180 Germanthan in English that "derived" also implies "later in time". This temporal gap is ] [... in insistence "aristocratic that the the only seeks mode of evaluation also suggested out its antithesisin order to affirm itself more thankfully and more joyfully. " First a containedself-affirming, then a supplementaryseeking-out.It is also worth noting the descriptionof the noble "good" as noble morality's "positive, basic concept" ("positiven [... ] Grundbegriff') and also, of great significance, the vocabulary of active and reactive so crucial to Deleuzein Nietzscheet la Philosophie (Seechapter 1). One might already start to wonder at this point what Derrida would make of not here but Nietzsche's last to createa this also of generalattempt only oppositional pairing before kinds But different between binary distinction two the of morality. rigorous, exploring this any further, what must first be recognizedis the fact that what Nietzsche its its here "good" to the the the other, noble morality and relation says of about concept of "bad", also applies at a different level, in certain crucial respects,to the noble morality itself and its relation to slave morality. For if the "good" of noble morality is fundamentallya piece of self-affirmation, and the "bad" can only be posited by reference to this affirmed, good self, then the noble morality is itself a morality centred on selfbe by that the can only posited affirmation, whereas slave morality, of good and evil, 145 referenceto the noble morality, as an inversion of and reaction againstthat morality. As Nietzschedoesnot tire of stressing,the slave revolt in morals is thoroughly imbued with a reactive character,as to be seenin the tracing of its roots in the "most intelligent revenge" of the Jews,"the people of the most downtroddenpriestly vindictiveness." (I 7) And the fact that this morality is a reactive, derivative one in this sensealso implies, although perhapsnot as an absolutenecessity,that such a morality, like the "bad" of the noble 146 it defines itself least later At than that which morality, must appearon the scene against. it could not be the other way round. And if it is assertedthat the noble morality can exist without referenceto a slave morality but not the latter without the former, then the fact that the noble morality predatesthat of the slaves,if it is correct, "proves" the first of these assertions(although not the second). A brief reflection on the historical structure of the first essayshowsthat this is indeedhow Nietzsche consistentlyrepresentsthe relations betweenthe two In moralities. this essayNietzschehas no interest in and doesnot make any referenceto any kind of

181

lower, distinction between higher, "noble" to societywhich existsprior a orders and "plebeian" orders.In all of the ancient cultures and languageswhich Nietzschemakes reference,there seemto be, right from the start, a nobility which knows itself to be a ruling classand a word which standsfor their designationof themselvesas the "good" (seeGM I 5). This is the basic backdrop, the basic settled stateof affairs against which the slave dateable is in latter historically this takes almost revolt morals a quite specific, place, and event,requiring as its preconditions the particular priestly aristocracy of Judaism,its captivity (with the result that the Jews as a whole became"downtrodden" and sought a "way of exacting satisfaction from its enemiesand conquerors"; the Judaismof the days of the kings could not have accomplishedthis), and its fulfillment with the culmination of Judaicressentimentin Christianity. All of this is related in section 7 of the first essay. Suchis Nietzsche's historical narrative: not only is the slave morality reactive in from derivative, it is follow based this, natureand appearing also, as must on ressentiment; at a later time than the noble morality and only capableof coming into being in reaction to this alreadyextant morality. I shall not concernmyself with the historical plausibility of this thesis,but I have alreadyhinted that there might be difficulties with the supposedly "derivative" noble conceptof "bad", difficulties which will also find resonancesin this historical account.Considerationof thesedifficulties should make it evident how far Nietzscheis here from Derrida's thinking on opposition. Firstly, let us reconsiderthe earlieststatementson noble morality in the first essay,as discussedabove: "the `good' themselves",saysNietzsche,"were the oneswho felt themselvesand their actions to be good [... ] and posited them as such, in contrastto everything low, low-minded, common and plebeian." I have suggestedabovethat this comma before the "in contrast", which is a precisetranslation of what happensin the German("welche sich selbstund ihr Tun als gut, [... ] empfandenund ansetzten,im Gegensatzzu allem Niedrigen, [... ]") might be inadequatefor Nietzsche's purposes,and hopefully the preceding paragraphsshould now make it clear why this is so. Nietzsche needsthe positing of the "bad" to be a subsequent, derivative, later addendumto the isolated, self-sufficient self-affirming of the "good" (in Derrideanterms: a kind of supplement).The punctuation is if in Only this crucial respect. Nietzschehad insertedat this point, after "empfanden full in German, the und ansetzten" a stop and then starteda new sentencewith something like "By way of a contrast,these

182 noblesthen posit the low, low-minded etc. as `bad"', would we have somethingmatching the structureof Nietzsche's argumentproper in the first essay. This may seemlike a trivial point quite overlooking the fact that Nietzscheis speakingelliptically and provisionally here, prior to arriving at his real argument.But I only call attentionto this aspectof the passagebecauseI think that it reflects a significant tensionin Nietzsche's thinking and a potential difficulty in his main argument.The questionwhich is at the heart of all this could be phrasedas follows: Is it really plausible to supposethat there is such a thing as a pure self-affirmation involving an evaluative term, "good", without referenceto any non-affirmed other, to any "bad"? That there might be a pure kind of self-affirmation without referenceto an other is not anything I would want to challengeper se at this point. Rather it is the kind of affirmation which Nietzsche wants to assertwith referenceto the noble "good", an affirmation involving the sameconcept "good" which is to becomethe opposite of "bad" and yet which is to be thought of as formed in completeignoranceof that "bad": this is what seemsto me potentially dubious. And to considersome of the specific qualities in which, according to Nietzsche, the nobles saw their goodness,it seemseven less feasible to supposethat a nobility could label itself as "masters" without co-positing otherswhom they were mastersof, or as "wealthy" without bearing in mind that there were others who possessedless, or as "truthful" without any conceptof what it would meanto be "deceitful" (seeGM I 5). Surely the former conceptsare empty and meaninglesswithout the latter? And yet it seemsas though this is what Nietzsche expectsus to believe, if we are to take seriously his contention that "the noble mode of evaluation [... ] only seeksout its antithesisin order to affirm itself more thankfully and morejoyfully. " I would suggestthen that the sentencein question is structuredthe way it is because,in the absenceof such claims, this is much the most natural believable and way to describethe positing of a "good": "the `good' themselves[... ] were the ones who felt themselvesand their actions to be good [... ] and posited them as such, in contrast to everything low, low-minded, common and plebeian." Precisely becausethis is all containedin a single sentence,the contrast,the referenceto the other, to the "bad", is built into the self-positing of the "good": the clause"in contrast to everything low [... ]" qualifies the main clausewhose subject is "the `good' themselves"and whose main verb is

183 their "positing" of themselves; the comma might represent an effort to hinder this qualification, but it is only partially successful. The "bad" are co-posited with the "good". In fact the senseof this co-positing is reinforced in an even more problematic way in the sentencewhich follows: "On the basis of this pathos of distance, they [the `good'] first der diesem Pathos " ("Aus to the the to arrogated coin names of values. right create values, Distanz heraus haben sie das Recht, Werte zu schaffen, Namen der Werte auszuprägen, erst genommen... ") So only on the basis of this sense of distance between the good man and his lowly other is there evaluation at all, including the creation and naming of values, including, we are to presume, the name "good". The good only evaluate and name themselves as "good" by contrasting themselves with what is not good, the inferior and lowly; not at all then in ignorance and isolation of their other, the bad. This account, it seemsto me, makes perfect sense and matches our intuitions on such matters, but it is something Nietzsche strenuously denies in the later passages, and this subsequent absence of the other is one of the main ways in which he upholds key distinctions both between the "good" and "bad" of the nobles and between the noble morality and that of the slaves.

In spite of my argumenthere, I do not necessarilywant to suggestthat this first essayis fatally flawed and its argumentuntenable,only that the kind of self-affirmation involved in the noble morality is highly counter-intuitive and difficult for us to make sense of and that the text itself exhibits somesigns of this strain to uphold consistentlythe positing of a valuative affirming of the self which requires no referenceto an other. What is more significant for my purposeshere is that precisely this positing is fundamentally at oddswith all of Derrida's thinking on opposition. This can be seenclearly enough from the passagefrom "Differance" quoted above,which gives, seemingly as a Nietzscheanproject, a whole seriesof oppositions in which it is said that one thing can be shown to be its opposite"differed and deferred, different-deferring". This might indeed be a way of describingNietzsche's account of the slave morality, which "differs" from the noble morality by inverting its terms and is a deferral of that morality in the sensethat it is derivative, an interval of time being required in order for reaction and ressentimentto get to work. But, as should be clear by now, this doesnot work in reverse,as it surely should do in any accountone would describeas "deconstructive": the noble morality doesnot differ from the slave morality in the way that the slave morality does from the noble

184 morality for Nietzsche.Rather this noble morality and its conceptof "good" are posited as requiring no relation to an other with referenceto which there could be difference and deferral,differance.147Indeed, I have used something very like a Derridean argumentto point out the way in which Nietzsche protects his preferred moral terms from the effects of differance,which effects would tend towards undermining all of thesestructures,that of "good and bad" just as much as that of "good and evil".

A "selective deconstruction": Nietzsche on opposition It is not, then, that something like a kind of deconstructivelogic is not in play at all in the Genealogy'sfirst essaywith regard to the conceptsof "good", "evil" and "bad" and the two opposedsystemsof evaluation in which they are enshrined.But there are noticeabledissymmetriesin the way Nietzsche applies this logic suchthat only the slave morality is submittedto it and the noble morality is allowed to remain uncontaminatedby its relation to its other. Nietzsche usesthis kind of deconstructionselectively then (and, I would argue,not just here but throughout his writing), as a tool to critique those oppositionshe wants to attack while assertingother oppositions all the more strongly. In the first essaythis culminatesin the famous assertion,which endsthe essayproper (a long note follows it) that "`Beyond Good and Evil'... This at the very least does not mean `Beyond Good and Bad'. " (117) This sentenceis an obvious stumbling-block for those interpretationswhich want to claim that Nietzsche actually rejects both moralities tout court, or that he is looking for a way of valuing which would leave theseparticular oppositional pairs behind; and it must also be a stumbling block for any interpretation which insists that Nietzsche really wants to attack the entire realm of binary oppositions not just in the field of morality but elsewhere,such as, perhaps,Derrida's. What he says here very specifically mitigates againsttheseinterpretations,almost if Nietzsche had as alreadyforeseenthe possibility of being misread along theselines. And Nietzsche also, by meansof this assertion,arrogatesto himself the right to judge that things are "good" (lifeand self-affirming) or "bad" (lacking in this quality), as he continuesto do throughout his maturephilosophy. Precisely as we would expect from the quite different ways he has

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treatedthe two morality systems,Nietzsche wants to keep that of the nobles in play, even if he is not advocatingmerely reproducing it, while he attemptsto go beyond that of the slaves. I think this selective approach to oppositions is characteristic of Nietzsche's entire

deconstructive Nietzsche Those takes that to a more radical, who want assert philosophy. line with opposition in generalcan point to a number of placeswhere Nietzsche suggests that thinking in terms of opposition falsifies the world, such as his contention that "languagecannot get over its coarsenessand continuesto speakof antitheseswhere there is Nietzsche's 24) There (BGE degrees also are only and many subtletiesof gradation". Nietzsche faith [from fundamental "[t]he the that whom of metaphysicians assertion appearsto want to distancehimself] is thefaith in antithetical values" and the suggestion that "it may be doubted [... ] whether there exist any antithesesat all" (BGE 2). Perhapsthe first thing which should be pointed out with respectto such quotesis that the contention that opposition falsifies the world is not one which Derrida would hold, at least in any such simple form, since it makesmetaphysicalclaims about the world to which Derrida would be very reluctant to commit himself. I will not get into the extremely complex questionof the kind of "metaphysics" to which statementssuch as the first of these,which seemsto is, it the the seemto commit say somethingsubstantiveabout world as really nature of Nietzsche,or whether this is a metaphysicswhich holds over the entirety of Nietzsche's maturephilosophy. Perhapsthe only thing which needsto be said here is that even if Nietzschebelievesthat oppositions falsify the world this doesnot mean either that we could ever overcomethis falsification (I will not needto remind the readerthat there are any number of passageswhere Nietzsche suggestjust the opposite) nor that it would even be desirable to overcomeopposition tout court in either our languageor our thinking even if it were possible. The secondof theseextracts is particularly pertinent to the Genealogyas it is concernedwith antithetical "values", but we must first note that everything it saysis purely hypothetical: Nietzsche merely wants the faith in such values to be suspendedso that it can be sustainedas a hypothesisthat there could be no antithetical values. In any caseit is rather hard to say what this extract from Beyond Good and Evil is proposing, even hypothetically. If there really seemsto be a doubt about whether there are such things as

186 "antithetical values", taking this to mean modes of valuing antithetically, existing in the world then the Genealogyseemsamply to demonstratethat there are at leasttwo such sets of values,"good and bad" and "good and evil". If the suggestionis that theseantithetical inherently moralities are unstable,that the antithesesthey set up cannot be maintainedas be into have then, this tend to might true of one another as we seen, antithesesand collapse the slavemorality on Nietzsche's analysis, but not of the noble morality nor of the opposition set up betweenthe two moralities (although this latter is not at issuehere). Nothing in the Genealogysuggeststhat Nietzsche thinks the noble morality is inherently flawed or ineffectual in setting up its antithetical system.The only thing that undoesit is a willful and violent revolt and reversal of values on the part of the slaves,under particular circumstances.In fact it is more plausible to supposethat the concernin the Beyond Good and Evil extract is with whether such antithetical values do justice to the world, whether there are things in the world which really are opposite in their (intrinsic?) value (for us?); this links this passageto the later extract from Beyond Good and Evil quoted above. But, as I have suggested,even if Nietzsche thinks that antithesesdo distort and misrepresentthe world this is not a problem for the accountsgiven in the Genealogy,since precisely what Nietzscheassertsthere is that the noble mode of valuing falsifies, at least with respectto the derivative side of the opposition, to the "bad": If the aristocratic mode of evaluation errs and sins againstreality, this happensin it is familiar, to the relation not sufficiently and againstreal spherewith which knowledge of which it stubbornly defendsitself: it misjudges on occasionthe sphereit despises- that of the common man, of the lower people.

(GMI 11) But there is no reasonto supposethat this in any way disqualifies or tells against the noble morality as a systemof valuing, basically becausethere are more important questions concerninga systemof valuing for Nietzsche than whether it representsthe world accurately:namely whether it is life- and self-affirming. So it seemsquite consonantto supposethat Nietzschemaintains that antithetical values falsify the world, whether that world is conceivedas existing "in itself' or as the world we experiencethrough perception

187 is his the time to own and some affirm and yet at same quite prepared or some other way, denigrating in his certain while pre-existing sets of antitheses expositions of morality, others. This point, however, does not refer only to Nietzsche's attitude to morality.

Without being able to speakin any detail about Nietzsche's use of oppositional pairs Nietzsche just listing few it is the affirms, oppositions which a of elsewhere, worth perhaps albeit often with deepambiguities; yet they are not, in my opinion, such ambiguities as seriouslyto threatenthe oppositional structure of the pairings asNietzsche generally deploysthem: good and bad, free and unfree, East and West, noble and base,man and in does Nietzsche Free think of a somewhat woman. often and unfree are conceptswhich deconstructivemanner,particularly when he suggeststhat once one has abandonedthe further do "enlightenment" "free take this a stage and conceptof will" one should also doing is Derridean 21). This (BGE "unfree the move: result of away with a will" as well it is is in fact "free is that the then away with unfree; all our willing acceptance will" not the rejection of the opposition as a whole. Nietzsche also derides,of course,certain kinds of supposedfreedom such as that of the "free-thinker". However, this certainly doesn't for in fairly "free" his the manner: conventional example entail abandoning use of a word in the coining of the term "free spirit". And however fascinating the question of woman and man may reveal itself to be under Derrida's masterful analysesin Spurs it remainsthe casethat Nietzsche makes an awful lot both from playing with this opposition and its associationsand, it must be said, from exploiting it in a fairly unreconstructedway. Neither the play nor the exploitation suggestto me that the sexual opposition is one which Nietzschehas the slightest interest in challenging it at its roots. Alan D. Schrift also notes the apparenttension betweenNietzsche's apparent antipathy towards "binary concepts" and his willingness, throughout his career,to promote and even coin such binary conceptsin his own writings, and describesthis apparent 148. Nietzsche's is in "use dualistic Schrift paradoxas of concepts a non-oppositional way" specifically concernedwith the use which Deleuze and Guattari make of this feature of Nietzsche's writing, but the parallel he draws clearly ought also to have implications for how we think about Nietzsche in generalwith regard to this question. Deleuze and Guattari, Schrift argues,"follow Nietzsche in their willingness to binary concepts utilize

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" This "using dualisms but in to amounts strategically. only order to challengeother dualisms",working "within the framework of a certain kind of binarism, one which seeks not to dissolvebut to multiply dualistic concepts." The aim of such a strategyis to move "beyond dualismsto the realization of a pluralist monism." However good a summarythis in be Guattari's it is illuminating Deleuze and may of one aspectof project, particularly terms of clarifying how this project diverges from that of Nietzsche. As we have seen, Nietzschecertainly uses"dualisms [... ] in order to challenge other dualisms"; but the omission I have made in re-citing this line is a necessaryone, since I am not persuadedthat this is the "only" reasonNietzsche doesthis: one further reasonmight be because Nietzschethinks dualisms are indispensablematerials to be employed in the construction of new life-affirming systemsof valuing. Neither am I convinced (and this is not what Schrift is contendinghere) that Nietzsche "seeks [... ] to multiply dualistic concepts". In fact, with the possible exceptionsof Dionysiac and Apollonian and "Dionysus versusthe crucified", most of the oppositions Nietzsche affirms are either quite traditional (good and bad) or just pre-existing oppositions given a new twist (slave and master,free and unfree, Christ and Antichrist). And in the caseof the Genealogy's first essayit is just a caseof affirming one opposition over another;there is no multiplication of dualisms here, and if anything perhapsa sought-for subtractionof one: "`Beyond Good and Evil'... This at the very least doesnot mean `Beyond Good and Bad'. " (117) I also think the evidenceis lacking in Nietzsche for an eventual aim of moving "beyond dualisms to the realization of a pluralist monism". The doctrine of will to power might be a monistic one but I sec very little warrant for describing it as "pluralist" in Deleuze and Guattari's sense;in fact it might even be arguedthat it would be better thought of as a "dualistic" monism, a monism which tendsto split off into dualistic oppositions such as that betweenmastermorality and slave morality, Christ and Dionysus. Certainly the latter formulation is at least as plausible asthe former. This points us towards the central questionhere: is it accurateto say that Nietzsche usesbinary concepts"strategically" at all? With respectto this it seemsnecessaryto note that there are at least two possiblemeaningsof this claim. It could mean that Nietzsche's use of binary conceptsis strategicin the sensethat they are used only to serve a certain strategywith the prevision that once they have servedthis purposethey will be dispensed

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with, not being valid in themselves.This seemsto correspondto the way Schrift outlines Deleuzeand Guattari's project. But strategic use could alsojust meanthat theseconcepts are deployedat particular points in order to achieve certain aims, including the routing of other, life-negating oppositions, but without any suggestionthat they will be expendedby sucha use or that they would not be a permanentpart of one's armoury or even one's it to this personnel, so speak:on view would be better to think of binary oppositionsas valued troops rather than ballistic missiles. It is only in this sensethat Nietzsche's use of oppositionalconceptsseemsto me "strategic", but I think that Schrift's employmentof the term wants to suggestsomethinglike the former sense,somethinglike "merely strategic", with the implication that once these conceptshave achievedtheir strategicaims they would be relinquished.The difference is a hugely significant one. Let us now think about this issue in relation to Derrida. One of the things Schrift doesnot register is that such a strategicuse of oppositions for the sakeof overcoming all oppositionsis fundamentally alien to Derrida and indeed somethingone would expect Derrida to be quite distrustful of. We have already seenthat Derrida's approachto the oppositionsembeddedin Western culture has nothing to do with the multiplication of opposition nor with using one opposition against anotherbut is much more concernedwith locating the troubling workings of differance right at the heart of eachand every opposition. This is what Derrida believeswill radically challengethe very structure of opposition. I think Derrida would have been extremely sceptical about the very idea of that which Schrift attributesto Nietzsche here, the "use of dualistic conceptsin a nonoppositional way". How is it possible to use a dualistic concept in a way which is wholly "non-oppositional"? How would it then be "dualistic" at all? And would not Derrida also have wanted to questionthe boundariesbetween"strategic use" and "non-strategic

use"

and wonder whether it was ever possibleto use a conceptin a way which was wholly "strategic" and in which the validity of that very conceptwas simultaneously cancelled,or programmedto be cancelled? Schrift's DeleuzianNietzsche,then, is already at odds with Derrida, and with the DerrideanNietzsche who, accordingto Schrift, conducts "Protodeconstruction a of Oppositional Thinking". 149In accordwith Derrida, I am also distrustful of this idea of a purely strategicuse of oppositional concepts.However, for me Nietzsche's use of

190 in is described the only strategic alternative sense oppositions above, pitting opposition but in knowledge have the that against opposition no oppositions any absolute validity, intention toward the overcoming of opposition tout court. Such a nevertheless with no strategy is, by reason of this last clause, even more clearly opposed to that of Derrida than the Deleuzian project linked by Schrift to Nietzsche.

It might be argued,however, that even if Derrida has misreadNietzsche in seeing him as anticipating Derrida's own project in this respectthe important thing would be that Nietzschehad neverthelessanticipatedthe techniquesof deconstruction,albeit without either knowing how to or wanting to apply them universally. The problem with this is that deconstructionwhich is employed selectively like this really is not deconstructionat all in any Derrideansensebecause,as we have already seen,deconstructionas Derrida conceives it is always orientatedtowards a total overcoming of binary oppositions,"an economy escapingthis systemof metaphysicaloppositions", "within the field of metaphysical opposition [... ] a force of dislocation that spreadsitself through the entire system". After all therehave beenany number of philosopherswho have claimed that one or more particular binary opposition or oppositions is or are inadequateand proposedothers.And if this is ultimately what Nietzsche is doing, albeit with a sensethat none of theseoppositions are ultimately valid in sich, then our conceptionof him as a forerunner of Derrida must be seriouslycompromised.

Derrida, Nietzsche and the self-referential circle There is anotherrespectin which the namesof Derrida and Nietzsche are often brought together, and certainly in connectionwith the concept of genealogy,and this is somethingI have explored from the perspectiveof Derrida's writings in chapter 3: the attitude which they adopt respectivelytowards the tradition, philosophical or more broadly cultural, which precedesthem. Both, to someextent, seemto take a critical stancetowards this tradition and yet both appearfully to acknowledgethat their own philosophical positions could only have developedin the wake of that tradition. I think this description of the two projects is incontestableas it stands,but it is when further inferencesare drawn

191 from it that, to my mind, crucial differences betweenthe respectivepositions ought to in important the The critique of theseperhapsconcernsthe resulting statusof most emerge. is it is, that Derridean In the emerges what of critical project, such as question. my reading for Derrida there really could not be any philosophical move which could force its way outsideof the cloture of metaphysics;all philosophical moves can only remain is known by as their to the that govern what adherence rules philosophicalmoves virtue of Westernmetaphysics.But such rules neverthelessdo not enclosein an impermeableway a beyond disseminate known domain they philosophical as metaphysics:rather particular in is discursive this into Western the available realm of culture; no specialismand entirety discourse", is do "outside There "rules" these of metaphysical not apply. no culture where ), have does "outside"? least in (and Western Western any more an culture even at culture '5° for Derrida. This doesnot necessarilymean that than there is an "outside-of-language" Derrida cannotbe truly critical of Western metaphysicsand, for example,its complicity by developed he do from but "metaphysics the ground can so only with a of presence", Westernmetaphysicsitself. In a sensehe is then always, in the kind of image we are familiar with in a number of versions of postmodernism,digging away at the foundations be his feet. Nor beneath there the envisioneda moment when the of can very ground its from be closureof metaphysicswould at an end, when we could suddenly emerge shadowand leave the metaphysicsof presencebehind us once and for all, given a certain continuity of culture (i. e. as long as "we" remains, in some sense,a continuous identity). And yet this also doesnot make it meaninglessto posit somethinglike a beyond, such as '5' the notion of the "democracy to come" which permeatesSpectresof Marx. Whether all of this amountsto a cogent,tenableposition is not really my concernhere. What is important is whether a comparableposition ought to be attributed to the mature Nietzsche. There are a number of related passagesin Nietzsche's writings which are evoked to support such a conclusion, but by far the most important is that which occurs in the Third essayof the Genealogywith regard to the "Will to Truth" at the heart of the asceticideal. As I will arguethere are in fact two instancesof a kind of self-referential circularity in this Third essay,and as is appropriateto the aims of the presentessayI will focus almost exclusively on thesetwo moments.

192 Let us examinethe first of thesetwo instances,occurring in the early part of the Third essay.The Essay startswith a quote from ThusSpokeZarathustra and then the questionwhich lies at the core of the essayand gives it its title: "What is the meaningof asceticideals?" This initially gives rise to a bewildering array of possibleanswersand different instances,from which Nietzsche famously draws the moral that the humanwill "must havea goal - and it would even will nothingnessrather than not will at all". The investigationproper, however, gets under way by considering the caseof artists and the asceticideal, and firstly the specific caseof Richard Wagner. Thesepagesare relatively literature, in the neglected and they do indeed turn out to be, asNietzsche himself critical makesclear, somethingof a false start in terms of coming to grips with the questionof asceticideals. But of courseNietzsche has deliberately embarkedon this false start knowing it would prove to be so; he did not strike it through, tear up the paper and start again.This ought to suggestto us that there is more to thesesectionsthan a spleneticrant concerningWagner and Parsifal which Nietzsche could not resist venting, and which has delighted,baffled and infuriated musicologists dependingon their persuasionsever since. In particular it is the way the questionof marriage arisesin theseearly pageswhich will tie in with important aspectsof the relationship betweenthe philosopher and the asceticideal. Nietzsche begins his reflections on Wagner by asking what it means"when an artist like Richard Wagner pays homageto chastity in his old age?" (GM 1112) Chastity represents,of course,one of the cardinal prescriptionsof the asceticideal. Nietzsche claims that through this late gestureWagner "at a single stroke transformedhimself into his opposite" and perhapsin part to justify this claim Nietzsche then calls our attention to an earlier time in Wagner's career,"what was perhapsthe best, strongest,happiest,most courageoustime in Wagner's life [... ] the time when he was profoundly occupied with the thought of Luther's wedding." Nietzsche cannot but lament the fact that this Luther's Weddingoperanever took shape,becausehe believesthat at the projected opera's heart would have been a denial of the opposition betweenspirituality and sensuality,an opposition which is indispensablefor the asceticideal. Nietzsche insists that, on the contrary, "there is no necessaryopposition betweenchastity and sensuality; every good marriage,every real love from the heart is beyond this opposition." ["zwischen Keuschheit und Sinnlichkeit gibt es keinen notwendigen Gegensatz;jede gute Ehe,jede eigentliche

193 152 ist diesen hinaus. Gegensatz "] A kind of tribute to and Herzensliebschaft über in best fact is Nietzsche Wagnerian truly the this sense,that what considers recognition of his operas could be a "hymn to chastity" and a "hymn to sensuality" at the same time. In writing Parsifal, in which the hero's worthiness to restore the Order of the Grail is proved by his chaste resistance to sexual seduction, this blending of chastity and spirituality disappears and instead the ascetic opposition asserts itself. This is why Nietzsche insists, in late "in homage in Wagner that this to this an opera chastity earlier pays same section, ascetic sense" for the first time. So Nietzsche at least holds out here the very real possibility of a way of thinking about chastity and sensuality which resists the ascetic ideal's drive to oppose one to another and insist on chastity to the exclusion of sensuality; this posited resistance is closely associated with the idea of love and of marriage, "every find here is (This to that we an ideal which opposes the ascetic good marriage". say not ideal, an issue which becomes more pressing as the essay develops. )

Nietzschehas much more to say on Wagner and Parsifal but I will passover it, and also passover, while just noting, the suggestionin this samesectionthat even if there is an opposition betweenchastity and sensualityit "need no longer be a tragic one" and can

insteadbe construedasa `further stimulusto life". This denialof thetragic in the opposition chastity/sensualityis presumablya different form of resistanceto the ascetic ideal, but it is the previous suggestion,that which deniesthe opposition as such that interestsme here. (It might also be noted that this latter idea, the non-tragic opposition

betweenchastityandsensuality,couldalsobe thoughtof ascompatiblewith a certain ) Nietzschefinally concludesthat in the "caseof conceptionof andaffirmationof marriage. an artist" asceticideals mean "absolutely nothing!... Or so many things as to amount to absolutelynothing!" (GM 1115) and accordingly eliminates the artists from his inquiry and moves on to the more important caseof the philosopher. Philosophers,it will emerge,turn out to have a particularly close relationship with the asceticideal, not necessarily,at this stagein Nietzsche's investigation, becausethey believe in it, but becauseits decrees provide the best conditions under which the philosopher can exist. The philosopher's affirmation of the asceticideal, such as it is, is not a denial of life but an affirmation of the his particular existenceand of his will to power: "in beholding the ideal, the ascetic philosopherseesbefore him the optimum conditions for the highest and boldest

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but his deny does `existence', he in the rather affirms not process, spirituality, and smilesown existenceand nothing but his own existence..." (GM 1117) Nietzsche's way of formulating this makesthe philosopher's advocacy of the ascetic ideal into an affirmative in is life-denouncing this the than standpoint: respect philosopher rather a condemnatory, designed to ideals in they to the expressand were using ascetic valuations a way opposed Nietzsche is does However, the the this of story; end not so not embraceasceticismper se. will havemuch more to say about the relationship betweenthe philosopher and the ascetic ideal further on. It is at this point that this fairly straightforward narrative begins to become complicatedin a particular way, and this is becauseit is here that the question of Nietzsche'sown implication in this processstartsto becomeexplicit: the anonymous his into Nietzsche's own particular of affirmation philosopher'sself-affirmation merges describing "from been has life. Nietzsche the Up this a process way of really point, until for he is famous. derisive For detachment the outside", with a critical wit which sharp, and example,in this samesectionhe has declaimedthat: As long as philosophershave existed on earth, regardlessof their location (from India to England, to take the oppositepoles of the talent for philosophy), there is no disputing the fact that they have harbouredfeelings of irritation and rancour towards sensuality [... ]

(GM III 7) It is clear enoughthat Nietzsche would not considerhimself implicated in this generalizationsincehe would never have concededthat he harbouredany such feelings with regardto sensuality;indeedNietzsche consideredit to be one of his great originalities as a philosopherthat he had kind and appreciativethings to say about sensuality, somethingwe have already seenat work in this very text aproposof marriage. And when Nietzsche goeson to say that "there exists among philosophersa bias real and warmth [eine eigentliche Philosophen-Voreingenommenheitund in favour the of -Herzlichkeit] entire asceticideal" and that "if both [the bias and the warmth] are lacking in a philosopher,then he will never be anything more than a `so-called' philosopher [ein

195 `sogennanter']"we will accordingly assumethat Nietzsche is himself one of thosewho frequently be indeed be Nietzsche "`so-called' (as taken to was will merely a philosopher" is for different In "philosophers" Nietzsche this point at and reasons). sum, when says he clearly means"all philosophersbefore me". But in the following section the tone of Nietzsche's descriptionsof the way the philosopheradoptsan asceticway of life changesand at the sametime we start to realise that many characteristicsof this way of life are things Nietzschepraiseselsewherein his writings. The philosophers from freedom indispensable is to thinking them: compulsion, are of what most disturbance,noise, business,duties, worries: clear-headedness; the dance,leap, and flight of thought; good air, thin, clear, free, dry, like air at altitude, in which all being becomes animal more spiritual and grows wings; all undergroundcellars silent; all dogs nicely on a leash;no hostile barking and shaggyrancour; no gnawing worms of injured ambition; modest and submissiveintestines,diligent as mills, but distant; the heart remote, pregnantwith the future, posthumous. (GM III 9)

Even if one sensesa certain irony in such phrasesas "all dogs nicely on a leash", the overall impression is that theseare all things which Nietzsche has sought in his own life as philosopher,and the concluding words have very strongNietzscheanresonances, particularly as the Secondessayconcludedwith an invocation of Zarathustrain which that prophet is describedby Nietzsche as "someone `more pregnantwith the future' [than himself]". It is therefore no surprisewhen Nietzsche takesthis identification with the philosophical lifestyle a stagefurther with a description of the ascetic"desert" to which the philosopherwithdraws, ending with a clausewhich cannot but be mistaken for a thumbnail sketchof Nietzsche's own itinerant existenceat this stageof his life, as the final remark makeseven more apparent:"[... ] possibly even a room in a busy, run-of-the-mill guesthouse,where one can be confident of going unrecognizedand talk to everyonewith impunity that is what `desert' meanshere: it is lonely enough,believe me!" oh, -

196 Here then is the first instance in the Genealogy's third essayof the self-referential inclusion is famous, Nietzsche's the for the this of critique within essay which circularity have life the ideal his the writing possible made and very conditions which own of ascetic back little if But this a we can consider somethingwhich will give us step we of critique. ideal the One the the which this to ascetic of prescriptions of circularity. pausewith respect be is by Nietzsche his for to not only own purposes stated philosophermakesuse of loathes ] "[... but the the marriage philosopher rejection of marriage: celibacy specifically disaster its favour in to the path on the as obstacle and marriage along with all arguments the optimum. Which of the great philosophersup to now has beenmarried? [... ] A married is [... ]" (GM 111 7) The belongs in philosopher, my proposition philosopher comedy,such it he but ideal, in the not through reasons marriage; rejects rejects ascetic again accordwith him function kind for to to harmful by ideal but the allows existence which of given that as the highestlevel as a philosopher. The first questionthat ariseshere is: What relation does this rejection of marriage bear to the fact that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed 153 by Nietzsche be Of in 1883? Lou Salome this to could viewed, and also marriage course himself, as an aberration,an autobiographicalirrelevance,a freak occurrencewhich, had the proposalbeen successful,would have meant a betrayal of Nietzsche's destiny as a in this But that then very essay,as noted above, philosopher. remember we must also Nietzschehas suggesteda way beyond the asceticideal by insisting that there is no necessaryopposition betweenchastity and celibacy, and that "every good marriage, every is it 2; So (GM 111 love " from is heart beyond this the above) perhaps see real opposition. the casethat Nietzsche, even if he did not know it at the time of that proposal, was on the brink of taking a step which would have taken him as a philosopher beyond the ascetic ideal in a crucial respect:the advent of the married philosopher (and not, like Socrates, married "ironice" (GM 1117)). Why should Nietzsche not have seenthis as a bold way of demonstratingthat philosophy neednot embracethe asceticslanderingof sensualityand marriage? And yet a few pageslater Nietzsche insists that the philosopher in general,and as we have seendefinitely himself included, remains an ally of the asceticideal in precisely this respect.Why is this? Nietzsche has already given a full account of the first reason:like all animals,philosophers"strive[s] instinctively for an optimum combination of favourable

197 feeling their their them to maximum energy and achieve expend all conditionswhich allow be have ideal Does to this (GM 111 7), these the provides conditions. ascetic and of power" just for by "philosopher" for time, the the case any animal which goes or all name of in Nietzsche's "up that questionabove appears note such a phrase until now"; philosophers "Which of the great philosophersup until now has been married?" ("Welcher große Philosophwar bisher verheiratet?") At the very least there is an ambiguity here and the implicit possibility of something different "from now on". However, Nietzsche goeson to links ideal, further for the a reasonwhich ascetic give a reason philosophy's advocacyof Nietzsche claims, was only able closely: more philosophy, even asceticismand philosophy to come into being at all under the protection of the asceticideal. "It might be said that it its its first learnt ideal to take that this steps, philosophy was only at the apron-strings of details 9). I 111 the first (GM the account of go over all will not very stepson earth" Nietzschegives in sections9 and 10 concerning the fact that philosophy, as implicitly in its is initially true guise. to to on earth opposed conventional morality, unable appear The final summaryNietzsche gives is quite sufficient to make the situation clear: For a long time, the ascetic ideal has servedthe philosopher as a form in which to in it he to himself, was obliged represent manifest as a pre-condition of existencebe in it in believe he to be to to to able order order obliged and was a philosopher, representit.

(GM III 11) Nietzsche goeson to claim that "throughout most of history philosophy would not have beenat all possible on earth without an asceticshell and disguise,without an asceticselfmisunderstanding"and concludesthe sectionby posing the question of whether this in fact still remainsthe case: To expressthis clearly in concreteterms: until very recently the asceticpriest has dark, form the assumed repulsive of a caterpillar, the only form in which philosophy was allowed to live, creeping around... Has this really changed?Has the bright and dangerouswinged creature,the `spirit' which this caterpillar

198 brighter itself, finally, to thanks world, really a sunnier, warmer, concealedwithin daring, its into light? Is the there enoughpride, cocoon and escaped sloughedoff boldness,self-assurance,enoughspiritual will, will to responsibility,freedom of for be from `the to today philosopher' now on really -possible on available will earth?... Now given that Nietzsche has already describedhis own lifestyle in asceticterms be `no', feel that the that the to this this must question answer we might well reading upon asceticideal extendsits hegemonyeven into the life of the philosopher who has come to here, Nietzsche it for is. it But the metaphor employs can any readerreally see what given doubt that Nietzsche believesthat such an emergenceis imminent, historically imminent following the "death of God"? For such is the teleology of the caterpillar; things would be in a sorry stateindeed if the caterpillar were to remain only a caterpillar, and nothing in this passagemakesus imagine that this will be the case.The readermight even speculate that Zarathustra,with his overcoming of the Spirit of Gravity, might representan emergent Übermensch if him he foretells. flying free the then the creature or not cocoon; ascetic of But if thesefigures seemtoo distant, like Messiahswhose arrival would always be anticipated,always lie in the future, then we could redescribesuch a possibility in biographical terms: had Lou SalomeacceptedNietzsche's proposalthen Nietzsche would have beenentitled to talk of his own life as that of a philosopher who had gone beyond the asceticideal in at least one important respect:by being married, and thus eschewingthe asceticopposition betweenchastity and sensuality.And all that this turned upon was the contingentfactor of how Lou Salomefelt about Friedrich Nietzsche and his proposal! In any case,even if many studentsof Nietzsche will think all of this biographical speculationto be irrelevant, I don't think any reader getting to this point in the Third essay will infer that philosophy could never emergefrom the cocoon of the ascetic ideal, that it is doomedalwaysjust to dream of such an emergence.The natural responsehere is rather to say that if philosophy has not wriggled free of the ascetic ideal then that does indeedshow how powerful and pervasivethis ideal is; its shadow,like that the Buddha described of as in The Gay Science(108), will endurefor many years after the body it originally assumed has beenvanquished.But it doesnot show that philosophy can never escapeits grip:

199 himself forever. If Nietzsche last by Nietzsche is to remains an neither shadow supposed is indication the that is just the time that and then that yet ripe not another surely ascetic is its from perhapsto say much the same grip, or, which philosophercannotyet emerge thing, perhapsa sign of the decadentimpulses which Nietzsche fully acknowledgesare does image Precisely the in him in Homo'54 Ecce the not resemble cocoon of what present is anything like Derrida's "cloture" of philosophy, a cloture which has no such definite image, Nietzsche's the clarity and visibility of cocoon conditions of emergence,unlike it describing "[a]nschaulich he draws to und augenscheinlich as which attention, our in imprecisely, "expressed in (translated the concrete as extract above,very ausgedrückt" terms"). The important questionnow is: doeswhat Nietzsche has to say about the will to truth further on in this Third essaymean we have to re-think this image and completely instance from this of self-reference? the earlier overturn reading which naturally emerges Or will we find insteadthat the later instanceis in fact quite consonantand compatible with what we find here?

The knot of self-reference: The will to truth The crucial twist in Nieztsche's accountof the asceticideal occurs when he identifies the "will to truth" as an integral part of that ideal, in fact as its "core" (GM 11127: "sein Kern"). Nietzsche has up until this point in the Third essaybeen discussingthe asceticideal and the asceticpriest who administersit "from the outside" as it were, often in the most colourful and vitriolic terms. For example: Broadly speaking,the asceticideal and its cult of sublime morality, this most ingenious,most unscrupulous,and most dangeroussystematizationof all the means towards excessof emotion concealedbeneaththe cloak of holy intentions, has thus carved its fearful and unforgettable inscription into the whole history of mankind; and, unfortunately, into more than just its history... I would be hard pressedto find anything else which has insinuated itself into the health and strength of a race- of the Europeans,that is - to the samedestructive extent as this ideal; one might

200 health disaster in history the this the the true of of without exaggeration call European man.

(GM III 21)

Even though earlier in this essayNietzsche has concededa necessaryrole to the ascetic intention do for (without being to the thus that a conscious priest, sick and of a shepherd for but from he have healthy the to the so) protecting contempt unhealthy, seems nothing the asceticideal once it has, as Nietzsche seesit, broken loose from this specific role, run amok in Europeanculture and poisonedmuch that possessedthe possibility of healthy growth. Nothing before section 24 of the 28 that make up this third essaywould lead us to suspectthat Nietzsche could considerhis own project to owe anything to the asceticideal. But in section23 there arisesthe questionwhich concerns,accordingto Nietzsche, "the most terrifying sight which the investigation of the meaning of this ideal holds for me" (GM 11123): "The asceticideal expressesa will: where is the opposing will which expressesan opposing ideal?" (GM 11123) A number of candidatesare then offered for suchan opposition to the asceticideal. The first of theseis "modern science [Wissenschaft]",sciencein the broad, German senseof "Wissenschaft" including all social sciencesand humanities.Nietzsche's basic responseto the suggestionthat scienceoffers an opposingideal is that scienceprecisely lacks an overall will which could generatean opposingideal; insteadcontemporaryscienceis by and large "a hiding-place for all kinds of discontent,lack of conviction, gnawing worm, despectiosui [self-contempt], bad conscience- it is none other than the restlessnesswhich results from lack of ideals [... ]" (GM 11123) All of the things itemized in the first part of this list are either symptomsof the sicknesswhich the asceticideal confronts or consequencesof that ideal itself. Nietzsche is thereforealigning and allying modern sciencewith the asceticideal, as a way of dealing with man's sickness.(This alliance is describedin greaterdetail in section 25.) The beginning of the sentencefrom which I havejust quoted seems,in a somewhat confusing and ambiguousway, to give two possibilities for how we should then view sciencevis-a-vis the asceticideal:

201 da handelt ist des jüngste Ideals die Erscheinung sich asketischen wo sie nicht - es das Gesamturteil da[sz] damit Fälle, als um zu seltne,vornehme, ausgesuchte Art für könnte ist die heute Versteck Wissenschaft alle ein umgebogenwerden -, Mi[sz]mut, Unglauben,Nagewurm, despectiosui, schlechtesGewissen[... ] DouglasSmith translatesthe start of this sentence,being quite faithful to its construction, as follows: ideal instances it is the the the ascetic most recent manifestation of where not involved here are too few, refined, and exceptional to refute the generalcase] for [... kinds discontent, lack hiding-place is today conviction all of of a science What is at least initially puzzling in reading this sentenceis that the exceptionsconceded by Nietzscheto the "general case" ("das Gesamturteil") might seemon first reading to be exceptionsto the "judgement", as the Germanhas it ("Gesamturteil"), that scienceis "the ideal"; but the only cogent way of reading the the most recentmanifestation of ascetic sentenceas a whole is to take the generalcaseto be that of sciencebeing a "hiding-place" ("Versteck"). The exceptionstherefore,the few refined ("vornehme") and exceptional ("ausgesuchte")"instances" ("Fälle") are exceptionsto this "hiding-place" case:they are instancesin which scienceis the "most recent manifestation of the asceticideal". (The ambiguity of this sentence'sconstruction at least seemto hold out the possibility, even if it turns out to be an empty one, of a third case,scienceexceptional to both phenomena describedhere.) Readthis way, we have to conclude that sciencepredominantly does not come directly under the aegisof the asceticideal, as one of its "manifestations" (an "Erscheinung"). Rather in the majority of casesit is somethinglike an unconsciousally of this ideal, since it provides an alternative meansof achieving the samethings, such as "self-anaesthesis"("Selbst-Betaiibung"). I think this is worth stressingsince it is often assumedthat the Third essayis basically a story of how the whole of Western culture comesto be subsumedunder the asceticideal. (One of the implications is that scienceitself is not predominantly driven by a "will to truth". ) Nietzsche's account is rather more subtle

202 inclined be is in bearing I then think this so than this, and mind since we might not worth to think of the asceticideal as a kind of black hole out of which nothing in Westernculture it; it is be for Science, to the under subsumed most part, not necessarily could ever escape. is just that it cannot provide an alternative gravitational pull to competewith that of the ideal. For under whichever of thesetwo alternative aspectsone thinks of science, ascetic it does its is ideal So does this still remain the own. at point of what science not possess an least it is dominant in ideal Western is ideal the that the at culture; going case only ascetic in this respect. In the following sectionNietzsche turns again to theseexceptionsamong "scientists" (again in a very broad sense): last I look the those take spoke, surviving cases of which rarer at a -And now idealists amongphilosophersand scholarstoday: are they perhapsthe sought-for its ideal, the counter-idealists? opponentsof ascetic (GM III 24)

But Nietzschehas already given us the answerto this question in the problematic sentence I have discussedabove,for if my reading of this sentenceis correct he has already describedthese"rarer cases"as in fact constituting "the most recent manifestation of the asceticideal". And indeed what else would we expect at this point? If, as Nietzsche has seemedto maintain up until now, the asceticideal is the only ideal in town, then any "idealist" must be a servantof the asceticideal. We can therefore anticipate the negative answerNietzsche is going to give to this question.Nietzsche first elaboratesthe view that the fact that all of thesepeople believethemselvesto be opponentsof the ascetic ideal only servesto make it probable that they are deceivedabout this. He then gives us a more detailed characterizationof who these"idealists" are: thesehard, severe,abstemious,heroic spirits, who constitute the pride of our age, all thesepale atheists,anti-Christians, immoralists, nihilists, [diese harten, strengen, enthaltsamen,heroischenGeister, welche die Ehre unsrer Zeit ausmachen,alle dieseblassenAtheisten, Antichristen, Immoralisten, Nihilisten] these spiritual

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in is (for hectic other); they this or sense some are all what ones ephectics, skeptics, is intellectual in knowledge, idealists the last thesemen whom conscience these of [... ] dwells today alone embodiedand is Nietzsche those We can note here that at least some of these characterizationsare among is Nietzsche to begin that to going suspect at times willing to assume;we may already is he What they that himself also serve this explicit now makes group. of number as one the asceticideal: its ideal is ideal themselves too, they their are most spiritualized this self-same insidious, its its most product, most advancedparty of warriors and scouts, most delicate,least tangible form of seductionAnd following the conclusion of this long sentenceNietzsche delivers the coup de theatre which tells us why this must be so: if I am a solver of enigmas,then let me be so now with this proposition!.. .These believe for in free from far the truth!... they still spirits: men are The insistent questionwhich immediately ariseshere then is: Does Nietzsche also believe in the truth? Is he just as unfree as thesesupposedlyfree spirits in this respect?As I have mentionedabove,there is a certain amount of what we might call circumstantial evidenceto suggestthat this is indeed the case,since Nietzsche has listed "atheists" and "anti-Christians" among those who still servethe asceticideal, and he never demurredto identify himself in theseterms. We should also be aware,however, that Nietzsche doesnot say explicitly "all atheists,all anti-Christians" but insteadpoints to a particular group ("these", "diese") and qualifies that group with the adjective "pale" ("blassen"). Nietzsche is an atheist but is he a "pale atheist"? Perhapsmore significant evidencecomesfrom Nietzsche's use of the term "free spirits" in the last phraseof the extract: the term with '55 he denotes himself his in in Gay Science, The which and would-be companions deliberatecontradistinction to a term towards which Nietzsche was consistently derisory:

204 "free thinkers". Then again Nietzsche's claim in the Genealogyis that thesepeople are not free spirits: not, or not explicitly, that all who claim to be free spirits are unfree in this be identification Nietzsche's in Also the own way of earlier our minds will particular way. have in discussed But I life 9, arguedabove,this as above. as of as an asceticone section identification neednot be seenas a thoroughgoing one, one which condemnsthe just be it for ideal the particular time; to the might all now and philosopher serve ascetic circumstancesof Nietzsche's life which prevent him from breaking free of the ascetic ideal, or prevent him from doing so for the moment. In fact what Nietzsche immediately goeson to say here strongly suggeststhat he doesnot sharethe viewpoint of this belief in the truth. It initially takes the form of an anecdote: When the Christian crusadersin the Orient cameupon that invincible order of the Assassins,that order of free spirits par excellence,whose lowest grade lived in an obediencewhich no order of monks has attained,they somehowreceived a hint of that symbol and watchword which was reservedfor only the highest gradesas their freedom is Well is `Nothing that true, now, was permitted'... secretum: everything of spirit indeed,thus even the belief in truth was dismissed... Has any European, any Christian free spirit ever strayedwithin this proposition and its labyrinthine fron: does he know this the cave consequences? experience?... I doubt minotaur of it [... ]

What is the implication? Quite clearly, that Nietzsche doesknow this labyrinth and its minotaur, that he at least has "strayed" there, even if temporarily, as an experiment. How could he even talk about such a minotaur if he hadn't penetratedsomeway into this cave? Has he then gone beyond truth, beyond the belief in truth, and beyond the asceticideal? Or hashe at least seena way beyond truth, even if it was not a realm he could fully attain, or could remain in, or perhapsfrom which he could speakto us? For after all, Nietzsche seemsto be writing in a languagewhich consistsof propositions which one has to believe are meantto be taken as true. The very writing of Nietzsche's narrative seemsto testify to a belief in the truth, as numerouscommentatorson Nietzsche have observed.

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Here,however, Nietzsche continuesto talk for the moment as if he is describing a phenomenonfrom the outside. "Perhaps," he writes, continuing to talk of "these so-called `free spirits"' who believe in the truth, "I am too familiar with all of this"; but the familiarity is follows "this" this that this suggests not that of someone expositionwhich from knows who within, as what animatesthem as well: a phenomenon the venerableabstemiousnesswhich such a belief requires of philosophers,the stoicism of the intellect which renouncesnegation with the sameseverity as fatalism factual, factum brutum, desire the that to the the stop short at affirmation, is faitalisme, it), in I French faits' (ce `petit as call which science now of petit German over science,the complete renunciation of superiority seekinga moral interpretation [... ] - all this expresses,broadly speaking,the asceticismof virtue as much as it expressessomekind of denial of sensuality [... ] Nothing could be more alien to the tenor of nearly all of Nietzsche's writings than this descriptionof the proceduresof modern science.But the real twist in this section 24 comes with what, after passageslike the above, seemsa very surprising introduction of the first personplural, in an extendedself-quotation from The Gay Science(334): The belief upon which our sciencerestsremains a metaphysicalbelief. We seekers after knowledge today, we godlessonesand anti-metaphysicians,we too continue to take our flame from that fire ignited by a belief which is millennia old, that Christian belief, which was also Plato's belief, that God is the truth, that the truth is divine...

Insofar asNietzsche himself is a "seeker after knowledge" he too must be animatedby the will to truth, the kernel of the asceticideal. And yet the story of this section doesnot quite end here. What Nietzsche now turns his attention to is the possibility of somethingwhich will take us beyond the will to truth: sincethis will can no longer be justified by its associationwith God and the divine it stands in needof "justification"; or, to put it anotherway, it is vulnerable to a critique.

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From the moment when the belief in the God of the asceticideal is denied,a new let The the truth. to truth that will of value of requirescritique problem exists: in for by define the truth this task way once, way of value of must us our own experiment,be called into question... Who is it, do we suppose,who has already attemptedthis critique, who has at the very leasttaken the first steps,stepsno previous philosopher could have taken, in calling the value of truth into question?Who is it that has posited for the first time the possibility of sucha critique? None other than Nietzsche himself. So if Nietzsche remains an asceticthen he is certainly not just one more asceticlike all the others; rather he is a member of the order who posits the possibility of its downfall and thinks he can begin to put in place the critique which will bring that downfall about. In this pivotal section 24 the voice of the narrator Nietzsche fluctuatesbetweenthe voice of an outsider observing a phenomenonperhapscoming to its end but which still exertsa powerful sway, and a voice which concedesthat the asceticideal must remain that voice's own ideal, there being no other ideal available to set philosophy in motion. Neither voice attains mastery.If we think in terms of the imagery of the earlier passagein this essayas discussedaboveperhapsthe best way to conceive of the position that Nietzsche's own philosophy, his own writing, finds itself in would be as emerging from the cocoon of the asceticideal but not yet free of it, being able to seethe possibilities which lie beyond and feel the potency of nascentwings but not yet being able to use them or fulfill such possibilities. This is how it seemsto me Nietzsche views philosophy in his own time, and mostly by way of his own writings: wriggling away from the cocoon of asceticism,not by any meansfree of its influence. This later section of the Genealogyis far from reducing Nietzsche's own position to just anotherinstanceof the will to truth working in service of the asceticideal; it is therefore quite consonantwith the implications of the earlier passages and the image of the cocoon. Once again I want to stressthe disparity betweenthis cocoon image and a Derridean notion of the cloture of philosophy, which would posit no decisive emergence,no moment at which the philosophical tradition could be left behind once and for all. Nietzsche,whether one wants to follow him or not in this respect,does posit such

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its free is, it become truly the of creature an emergence,a moment when philosophy will it ideal has incubation the the made resemble ascetic which protection of under necessary he Whether is imminent. is he different: thinks this what more, emergence somethingquite if he he have to this, were alive today, would come conclude, or whether was right about that the sway of the asceticideal would turn out to last another century and more beyond his own demise,is anotherquestion. I take it I have establishedthat the kind of self-referential structureswith which Nietzscheworks are far looser and lessthoroughgoing than those one finds in Derrida. In fact Nietzschealways leaveshimself a clear way out of the self-referential circle, even if it influence have beyond "If I be the towards. of the got not yet quite can only gestured it have for least ideal I the philosophersto come after me then made possible ascetic will at to leave it behind altogether": such is Nietzsche's attitude as I seeit. But is this even a coherentposition? There is, after all, another aspectto the French `sixties reading of Nietzscheand in particular the Derridean reading of Nietzsche which runs somethinglike this: Nietzschewas well on the way to the positions we occupy now, but ultimately he lacked the last thing (or the time was not yet ripe) which would have allowed him to reach thesepositions: he turned back to metaphysicsat the last in positing a beyond which can ideal". have I "beyond beyond, the only ever remain a outlined ascetic an other-worldly abovesomeof the instancesof Derrida's apprehensionof a somewhat"naive" Nietzsche. Couldn't Nietzsche's position here be just anotherinstanceof this naivety? That he posited a kind of philosophy that would not servethe will to truth soundsall very well, but what could such a philosophy look like? Isn't it an empty ideal? And what could be more ascetic than that? The scopeof the current investigation preventsme from attempting to answer thesequestionshere. All I will say is that I do think there is a way of establishinga coherentposition in Nietzsche which is neither that of a closed self-referential circle nor just a simultaneouslyhopeful and hopelessgesturing at a beyond which could never becomereal. I will just suggesttwo hints which for me are the springboardfor further research. Firstly, as we have already seenin section 24, Nietzsche doesnot consistently subsumehis own position under the aegis of the ascetic ideal, even within this section.On the one hand he is just another seekerafter knowledge inspired by the will to truth; on the

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to for first truth the is time a he hand the of value the subject who will philosopher other ideal. the If foot this in foot has the He as regard we ascetic out of and one one critique. least it follows in Nietzsche's that Janus-headed someof at philosophy general statusof it it this philosophy or some aspectsof could serve as exemplarsof what might meanto go beyondthe asceticideal. For one thing I do not think it is at all far-fetchedto arguethat by by inspired the is to truth, Nietzsche's or a will not philosophy primarily much of Schopenhauer, Wagner, the Greek is "what tragedy, or truth the or or about question, history of morality?" but rather by questionssuch as "What is to be done?How can we latter inspiring? " In Europe) (or this future Germany case more vital and makethe of Nietzsche'stexts becomeinvestigations into truth only secondarily,in subordinationto thesemore pressingquestions.It would therefore be contentiousto claim that theseworks does from this truth, to fire inspiration the not mean eo of course take their although will of ipso that they are written under the aegis of a new and independentideal opposedto that of ideal in denying Nietzsche the to very existenceof such an asceticism. comesclose be The then in Genealogy's third would whether question essay. contemporaryculture the Nietzschediscoversin the courseof his writings a genuinely new ideal to opposethat of I it is here the important The to thing stress samequestionwith which asceticism. - and have beendealing throughout the current chapter- is that Nietzsche's bleak survey of his does include in Genealogy's Third the own not necessarily contemporaryculture essay Spoke Zarathustra, And Thus how it despite previous writings, may appearat somepoints. the book to which Nietzsche refers us, crucially, at the end of the Genealogy's second essayand which Nietzsche consistentlyheld to be his highest achievementto date throughouthis mature writings, is probably the best place to look for Nietzsche's new ideals. Secondly,and even more briefly, even if one acceptsmy reading of Nietzsche's philosophy vis-a-vis the asceticideal in this respectthere remains a potential problem with the conceptof truth. For if going beyond the ascetic ideal involves not only going beyond the will to truth but beyond the very "belief in truth" itself then we are back in the midst of problems of self-referenceand the claim to truth of Nietzsche's own genealogical accounts,problems which seemto me insuperable.The only approachwhich to my mind gives Nietzsche's philosophy any kind of purchasehere, which makes it a dynamic and

209 it is just is than to that a particular a paradoxical puzzle, argue powerful philosophy rather ideal is be dispensed the that to truth concept which serves ascetic with, conceptof which by making truth into something"beyond", "divine", not really of this world: Nietzsche's in is image for Platonic truth truth, that as the always of primary such a conception of be he in Genealogy (see But from Science The Gay there the a might above). quotes extract be figured in this way and which a "philosopher of the truth version of which would not future" could invoke in order not to descendinto etymological self-contradiction. A kind in truth the phenomenologicalconception of of which emerges Husserl and Heidegger,which attemptsto integrate truth inseparably into the world and how it manifest itself to us, would be a possible candidate. My suggestionis that such routes of inquiry might open up a reading of Nietzsche which speaksto us in a voice which is freed from the inflections of Derrida or of Deleuze or Foucault: perhaps,if this is not altogethertoo presumptuous,not to mention hopelessly phonocentric,somethingakin to Nietzsche's own voice.

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Conclusion: the question of Heidegger's Nietzsche

The Nietzsche who has emergedin the courseof my reflections on the readingsof Deleuze,Foucault and Derrida is, I think, a philosopher whose profile must be seenas quite distinct from the FrenchNietzsche who emergedin the twenty years or so which followed the publication of Deleuze's Nietzscheand Philosophy. He is no Deleuzian materialist with a developedphysical model of force, action and reaction and the elimination of reactive forces through the eternal return. Neither is he a Foucauldian genealogistfor whom questionsof historical emergencemust take priority over those which have traditionally guided metaphysics.And the true statusof his philosophy is not to be discoveredby seeingit in the light of the opening of an era in which the conceptsof "differance", "deconstruction" and "grammotology" emergein the writings of Jacques Derrida. If this is not, for me, who Nietzsche is, it seemsimperative to return to an issue that was touchedon in my Introduction: that of Heidegger's Nietzsche. After all, one of the things which has always seemedattractive in the Deleuzian and post-Deleuziantakes on Nietzscheis that they seemedto suggestthat Nietzsche's novel methods,in particular his deploymentof "genealogy", were at least as radical and "anti-metaphysical" as anything Heideggerhimself conceived,and that thereforeNietzsche could not be subsumedby Heideggeron Nietzsche.As I have arguedthat there is no such revolutionary philosophical method in the matureNietzsche entitled "genealogy" and that Nietzsche's historical analysesare ascribeda statusin his philosophy subordinateto what, if it is not to be describedas a "metaphysics", can only be denominatedan "ontology", it may be asked whether I am not just relinquishing Nietzsche into the gapingjaws of the awaiting Heideggereaninterpretation?In order to answerthis, I first to dwell a little once again want on how this interpretation is generally characterized. Heidegger's famous attempt to ascribeto Nietzsche an appropriate

in place the

Heideggereanhistory of philosophy, as the nonplus ultra of metaphysics,has becomea byword for violent, appropriative reading, for a biased focus on certain passagesin the Nachlassto the exclusion of most Nietzsche's of published texts, and also for a reading

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I Nietzsche's is blind to the style. playfulness and rhetorical self-awarenessof all which havetouchedon someof these questions,especially that of style, in the final chapteron Derrida. But to be brief at this point I just do not seethat any such chargesas thesecan totally debilitate Heidegger's reading, and Derrida at least seemsto concedethat they do '56 Nietzsche's is fashion, in is What Heidegger the of essence aiming at, characteristic not. thought,whether it is expressedin his published works or not. And however problematic sucha project might be thought to be, it would take a quite separateargumentto demonstratethat such a focus on the "essence"of a thinker's thought, unfashionableas it may have becomein the wake of thinkers such as Derrida, is untenable:I have yet to come it is. for Heidegger's As that the text supposed violence me acrossa which convinces approachsupposedlydoesto Nietzsche's text, one may well wonder at IHeidegger's but from Nachlass, lengthy the one might also ask extremely analysesof very short phrases interpretation how does Derridean I be think ever what question: could considereda quite get under way except by violence and appropriation, by ripping texts out of context and do be in Otherwise different to reproduce them making all we could would way? speak a the text in its entirety.

We arethenleft with a situationstructuredin termsof a "more or less".Some interpretationsappearto take into account a large proportion of Nietzsche's published and unpublishedwritings, although no interpretation could have them all in mind at once; othersbasean enormousamount on a single line. We might feel the former approachis preferable,but is there really a point on the continuum betweenthesetwo positions at which a reading becomeseo ipso invalid? Furthermore,it is fairly certain that all Nietzsche scholarswill have encounteredexamplesof the former which they consider entirely misguided and examplesof the latter which they feel to be deeply insightful with regard to Nietzsche's entire oeuvre. An effective challengeto Heidegger,then, would have to take a different form. For example, if what Heideggerhas to say about what the Uberinensch representscould be shown to conflict with remarks made by Nietzsche in texts I Ieidegger appearsnot to have taken into accountthere would be the basis for a critique of Heidegger on this point. Such challengesare hard to get under way, however, and I have not read an effective critique of Heidegger's Nietzsche carried out in this way. Or one could challenge Heidegger's reading of a particular passage;this has been done frequently but in never, my

212 157 be it fatal detriment Or Heidegger to the the possible to might of again opinion, reading. show that the critiques of metaphysicsfound in Nietzsche's published texts would make invalid the positing of any such metaphysicsas Heidegger attributes to the later Nietzsche. There are certainly tracesof such an approachin all three of the readingsI have been have I in to these this thesis; the third examining approaches,much of what with regard of beenarguing has been concernedwith my scepticism as to the way this caseis made in terms of "genealogy". But from anotherperspectiveit might appearthat all of thesecriticisms of Heidegger'sreading of Nietzsche are really besidethe point. For if Heidegger's philosophy as a whole is held to be valid then his reading of Nietzsche must be right. This philosophy is inseparablefrom a particular reading of the history of Westernphilosophy as the forgetting of the question of Being, and if Heidegger is right about this, and right that his post-Husserlianconstruction of a fundamentalontology is the only way to begin to revive this question,then Nietzsche as, as Heidegger seesit, the last great thinker and immediate predecessorof Husserlian phenomenology,must belong to the limit conditions of Western metaphysics,as its final culmination. And if this is true then it is simply a questionof discovering in his texts confirmation of this position. The opponentof Heidegger's reading then respondsthat precisely this is the point, that Heideggerhas made up his mind where Nietzschebelongsbefore even engagingwith Nietzsche's text on its own terms. But a further questionremains: doesHeidegger's reading, whatever we think of its way of proceeding,neverthelessprovide a convincing account of the developmentof a philosopher's thought and sufficient evidencefor that being the developmentof Nietzsche's thought? I think there is a good casefor thinking that it does,and Derrida's attitude to the Heideggereanreading, as discussedin chapter3 in relation to Spurs, inclines me to think that Derrida also finds this to be the case.This is not to say that one must acceptHeidegger's reading of Nietzsche at every point, but it does imply that the only meaningful refutation of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche would be a refutation of Heidegger's history of Westernphilosophy as a whole. The resourcesfor contestingthis history are indeed themselvesto be found in Nietzsche's writings: doesn't Nietzsche,just like Heidegger, in is he doing seewhat as, part, an attempt, partly by employing the resourcesof the pre-Socratic Greeks,to move

213 beyond a conception of philosophy which has held sway since Plato? And what reasons are there for preferring Heidegger's take on this to Nietzsche's? These reasons only exist if the Heidegger's history the redescription of with of philosophy as the reader concurs

forgetting of the question of Being. Without such concurrencethe problem of Nietzsche's disappears. how So Heidegger simply would Nietzsche seethis subsumptionunder despite As, Heidegger's? appearances,an attempt to paperover, with that old, narrative of life history "Being", the thought theological and word real of comforting and respectably its between development the to with attendant systemsof struggles as power, of will have in Heidegger to much say responseto such a charge; evaluation? would of course be But this to through the thinking confrontation remains accomplished. clearly project of it is evident to me that for Nietzsche to have the resourcesto effectively contendwith Heideggeron this doesnot require that Nietzsche's philosophy be interpretedunder the auspicesof a supposedmethodological approachknown as "genealogy".

214 Bibliography

Nietzsche's texts

Citations from the original German of Nietzsche's texts are taken from: Sämtliche Werke.Kritische Studienausgabe,Colli, G. & Montinari, M. (eds.), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1980.

All quotesin English are from the following translations, except where stated: Birth of Tragedy, The Whiteside, S. (trans.), Penguin, London, 1993. BeyondGood and Evil, Hollingdale, R. J. (trans.), Penguin, London, 1990. Daybreak, Clark, M. & Leiter, B. (eds.), Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1997. Ecce Homo, Hollingdale, R. J. (trans.), Penguin, London, 1979. Gay Science,The, Kaufmann, W. (trans.), Vintage Books, New York, 1974. On the Genealogyof Morals, Smith, D. (trans.), Oxford University Press,Oxford, 1996. Philosophy and Truth: Selectionsfrom Nietzsche'sNotebooksof the Early 1870s, Breazeale,D. (ed. & trans.), Humanities Press,Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1979. ThusSpokeZarathustra, Hollingdale, R. J. (trans.), Penguin, London, 1974. Twilight of the Idols & TheAntichrist, Hollingdale, R.J., (trans.), Penguin, London, 1990. Untimely Meditations, Hollingdale, R. J. (trans.), Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1983. Will to Power, The, Kaufmann, W. & Hollingdale, R. J. (trans.), Vintage Books, New York, 1967. Writingsfrom the Late Notebooks,Bittner, R. (ed.), Sturge,K. (trans.), Cambridge University Press,2003.

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Other texts cited

Ansell Pearson,K. (ed.), Deleuzeand Philosophy: The Difference Engineer, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. Aschheim, S. E., TheNietzscheLegacy in Germany 1890-1990,University of California Press,Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992. Bataille, Georges,On Nietzsche,trans. Boone, B., Athlone Press,London, 1992. Bennington,G. & Derrida, J., JacquesDerrida, University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1999. Camap,R., `The Elimination of Metaphysicsthrough Logical Analysis of Language' in Logical Positivism, Ayer, A. J. (ed.), Free Press,Glencoe, Illinois, 1959. Clark, M., Nietzscheon Truth and Philosophy, CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridge, 1990. Cook, D., `Nietzscheand Foucault on Ursprung and Genealogy' in CLIO, Volume 19, no. 4,1990.

Danto,A. C., Nietzscheas Philosopher,ColumbiaUniversityPress,1965. Deleuze,G., Difference et Repetition, PressesUniversitaires de France, 1968. Deleuze,G., Difference and Repetition, Patton, P. (trans.), Athlone Press,London, 1994.

Universitairesde France,Paris,1962. Deleuze,G., Nietzscheet la philosophie,Presses Deleuze,G., Nietzscheand Philosophy, Tomlinson, H. (trans.), Athlone Press,London, 1983. Deleuze,G., Pure Immanence:Essayson a Life, Boyman, A. (trans.), Zone Books, New York, 2001. Deleuze,G. & Guattari, F., Anti-Oedipus, Hurley, R., Seem,M. & Lane, 11.R., University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, 1986. Derrida, J., De la Grammatologie,Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1997. Derrida, J., Dissemination, Johnson,B. (trans.), Chicago University Press,Chicago & London, 1981.

216 Derrida, J., Ear of the Other, The, SchockenBooks, New York, 1985. in Dialogue Questions' Two / Heidegger): (Nietzsche Signatures Derrida, J., `Interpreting E. R. Palmer, & P. D. Michelfelder, Gadamer-Derrida Deconstruction: the encounter, and (eds.), State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.

Northwestern ), (trans. S. & Weber, J. ), (ed. Mehluran, G. Graff, Inc, Derrida, J., Limited University Press,Chicago, 1977. Derrida, J., Marges de la Philosophie, Editions de Minuit, 1972. Derrida, J., Margins of Philosophy, Bass,A. (trans.), Harvester Wheatsheaf,Hertfordshire, 1982. Derrida, J., Of Grammatology, Spivak, G. C. (trans.), John Hopkins University Press, London, 1976. York, New London ), Verso, G. (trans. Collins, The, and Derrida, J., Politics of Friendship, 1997. Derrida, J., Positions, Bass,A. (trans.), The Athlone Press,London, 1981. Derrida, J., Spectresde Marx: l'etat de la dette, le travail du deuil et la nouvelle Internationale, Galilee, Paris, 1993. Derrida, J., Spectresof Marx, Kauruf, P. (trans.), Routledge,London, 1994. Derrida, J., Speechand Phenomena,Allison, D. B. (trans.), Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1973. Derrida, J., Spurs: Nietzsche'sstyles/Eperons: Les Stylesde Nietzsche,Harlow, B. (trans.), University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1981. Derrida, J., Writing and Difference, Bass,A. (trans.), University of Chicago, Chicago, 1978. Dreyfus, H. L. & Rabinow, P., Michel Foucault: BeyondStructuralism and Hermeneutics, University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1982. Ferry, L. & Renaut,A. (eds.), Pourquoi nous ne sommespas nietzscHens, Livres dc Poche,Paris, 1991. Ferry, L. & Renaut,A. (eds.), Whywe are not Nietzscheans,de Loaiza, R. (trans.), University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1997.

217 Foucault,M., Archaeology of Knowledge, The SheridanSmith, A. M. (trans.), Harper Colophon,New York, 1972. Foucault, M., Birth of the Clinic, The Sheridan Smith, A. M. (trans.), Routledge, London, 1973.

Foucault,M., Discipline and Punish, Sheridan, A. (trans.), Penguin, London, 1991. Foucault,M., Dits et Ecrits (3 vols), Gallimard, Paris, 1994. Foucault,M., Order of Things, The, Tavistock, London, 1970. Foucault,M., Foucault Reader, The Rabinow, P. (ed.), Penguin, 1984. Han, B., Foucault's Critical Project: Betweenthe Transcendentaland the Historical, Pile, E. (trans.), Stanford University Press,Stanford, California, 2002. Han-Pile, B., `Is Early Foucault an Historian ? History, history and the Analytic of Finitude', Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2005, vol 31. Hayman,R., Nietzsche:A Critical Life, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1980. Hegel, G. W. F., Phenomenologyof Spirit, The, Miller, A. V. (trans.), Oxford University Press,1977.

Hegel,G. W. F., Philosophyof History, The,Sibree,J. (trans.), Dover,New York, 1965. Heidegger,M., Basic Writings, Krell, D. F. (trans.), Routledge,London, 1993. Heidegger,M., Nietzsche: VolumeI: The Will to Power as Art, Krell, D. F. (trans.), Harper and Row, New York, 1979. Heidegger,M., Nietzsche: Vol II: The Eternal Recurrenceof the Same,Krell, D. F. (trans.), Harper & Row, 1984. Heidegger,M., Nietzsche: VolumeIV, Nihilism, Capuzzi, F. A. (trans), Krell, D. F. (cd.) Harper & Row, SanFrancisco, 1982. Irigaray, L., Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche,Gill, C. G. (trans.), New York, Columbia University Press,1991. Kaufmann, W., Nietzsche:Philosopher, Pcyshologist, Antichrist, Princeton University Press,1975. Klossowski, P., Nietzscheand the Vicious Circle, Smith, D. W. (trans.), Athlone Press, London, 1997.

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1993. London, Press, ), Athlone (trans. Kofman, S., Nietzscheand Metaphor, Large, D., Other Interviews Culture. and Kritzman, L. D. (ed.), Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy Writings 1977-1984,Routledge,New York, 1988. Faber, Faber ), (trans. H. M. Heim, The, and Kundera,M., Unbearable Lightness of Being, London, 2000. Journal in Morality' Übermensch Genealogy in Nietzsche's of Loeb, Paul S., `Finding the 30,2005. Issue Studies, Nietzsche of in ' Morals? Genealogy in Nietzsche's Fallacy Genetic of Loeb, Paul S., `Is There a International Studiesin Philosophy 27:3,1995. 1985. London, Press, University Harvard Literature, Life Nietzsche: Nehamas,A., as 1991. London, York New Routledge, Practice, and Norris, C., Deconstruction: Theory and Rajchman,J., The DeleuzeConnections,MIT Press,Cambridge,Massachusetts,2000. Schacht,R. (ed.), Nietzsche,Genealogy,Morality: Essayson Nietzsche's Genealogyof Morals, University of California Press,Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994. Schrift, A. D., Nietzche and the Questionof Interpretation: BetweenHermeneuticsand Deconstruction, Routledge,New York & London, 1990. Schrift, A. D., Nietzsche'sFrench Legacy: A Genealogyof Poststructuralisnt, Routledge, New York & London, 1995. On Terrain Political Plotting the Sedgwick,P., `Violence, Economy and Temporality: of the Genealogyof Morals' in Nietzsche-Studien,Band 34,2005. Tanner,M., Nietzsche,Oxford University Press,1995. Wood, D. (ed.), Derrida: A Critical Reader,Blackwell, Cambridge, 1992.

11useboth of these by familiar imprecise in broad with: senseswe are all and unavoidably phrases the analytic I mean,roughly, any approachwhich thinks philosophy is to be undertakenby meansof arguments involving premisesand logically valid conclusions,whether theseare explicitly spelled out and syllogistic in form or just implicit; by continentalphilosophy I meana philosophy which, at the very least, doesnot think this can be the whole story of how philosophy proceeds.It goeswithout saying that both forms of philosophy proliferate today, to someextent, in all geographicareasof the academicworld. For both of theseperiods seeStevenE. Aschheim, TheNietzscheLegacy in Germany 1890-1990, University of California Press,Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992,pp. 17-50. 3For a concise and penetratingaccountof the former seeAschheim, pp. 232-271 For the latter seeGeorges Bataille, On Nietzsche,trans. Bruce Boone, Athlone Press,London, 1992.

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4 Gilles Deleuze,Nietzscheet laphilosophie, PressesUniversitaires de France,Paris, 1962.

s Pourquoi nous ne sommes pas nietzscheens, ed. Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, Livres de Poche, Paris, 1991. Translated as Why we are not Nietzscheans, ed. Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, trans. Robert de Loaiza, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997.

6 SeeRudolf Carnap,`The Elimination of Metaphysicsthrough Logical Analysis of Language'in Logical Positivism,ed. A. J. Ayer, Free Press,Glencoe,Illinois, 1959. SeeWalter Kaufmann,Nietzsche:Philosopher, Psychologist,Antichrist, PrincetonUniversity Press,1975 (fourth ed.). 8Arthur Danto, Nietzscheas Philosopher, Columbia University Press,1965. 9 See,for example,David CouzensHoy, `Nietzsche,Hume and the GenealogicalMethod' in Nietzsche, Genealogy,Morality: Essayson Nietzsche'sGenealogyof Morals, ed. Richard Schacht,University of California Press,Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994.This collection of essaysprovides a useful indication of how, by the mid 1990s,"genealogy" had come to be taken as the name for an authenticallyNietzschean it but in Nietzsche just in since containsessayswritten studies, also analytic continental methodology,not from both perspectives;this is the very preconceptionI want to challengein this thesis.Almost all of the in 11 Part Scheier B. Allison) Leiter, Claus-Artur David by Brian (excepting of this text, those and essays `Genealogyand Philosophy', operateon the basisof such an assumption. lo Clark, Nietzscheon Truth and Philosophy, CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridge, 1990.Seein particular Chapter4. 1For exampleAlan D. Shrift; seebibliography and my referencesto his texts in chapters3 and 4. 12Gilles Deleuzeand Felix Guattari,Anti-Oedipus, trans.Robert Hurley, Mark Seem& Helen R. Lane, University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, 1986. 13Michel Foucault, `Critical Theory/Intellectual History', Trans.J. Harding, in Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy Culture. Interviews and Other Writings 1977-1984,ed. Lawrence.D. Kritzman, Routledge,New York, 1988. 14In Derrida, TheEar the Other, SchockenBooks, New York, 1985. of is Deleuze,Pure Immanence:Essays 87. Zone Books, New York, 2001, Boyman, Anne Life, trans. p. on a Seealso chapter 1. 16Seechapter3, sectionentitled `The Shadow:Referencesto Nietzschein the early Derrida'. 17See`Nietzsche,Genealogy,History' in TheFoucault Reader,ed. Paul Rabinow, Penguin, 1984. 18As I have in Nietzsche become has belief in 5 this analytic studies. widespread also suggested note above, It is difficult to assesshow much of this is due to the (in many casesindirect) influence of the French languagereadings;my guesswould be rather more than the analytic Nietzschescholarswould be likely to be preparedto concede. 9Nietzsche,On the Genealogy Morals, trans.Douglas Smith, Oxford University Press,Oxford, 1996.All of quotesfrom Nietzsche's original Germantext are taken from Colli & Montinari's complete Kritische Studienausgabeof Nietzsche's works, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1980.For the sakeof brevity I have not always quotedthe original Germanbut I have verified the translationsof passagesI have quoted by reference to this edition. 20For an accountof how the Christian will to truth comesto turn againstChristian morality (as againstthe "English" tendencyto do away with God and reassertall the more ardently a Christian morality) seeTI, "Expeditions of an Untimely Man" 5; on the needfor an overcoming of false Christian conceptionsof nature and history seeGS 357. Thesetwo themesare combinedin a famouspassagefrom the end of the Genealogy, GM 11127. Also in the GenealogyNietzscheposits a further stage:the critique of the value of truth itself. Sec GM 11124 and my discussionof this call for a critique of truth in chapter4. 21SeeBataille, On Nietzsche, op. cit. 22Gilles Deleuze,Nietzsche laphilosophie, PressesUniversitaires de France,Paris, 1962.Translatedinto et English asNietzscheand Philosophy,trans. Hugh Tomlinson, Athlone Press,London, 1983. 23Gilles Deleuze,Diference Repetition,PressesUniversitaires de France, 1968. et 24In most citations from Nietzscheand Philosophy I will quote the French original and the English translation sinceDeleuze'sFrenchterminology often gives important nuancesof meaning inevitably missing in translation."NP" refers to both the English Nietzsche la Philosophy French Nietzsche the and et and Philosophie sincethe divisions are the samein both. 25Twilight the Idols & TheAntichrist, trans. Hollingdale, R.J., Penguin,London, 1990. of 26Nietzsche,The Gay Science,trans. Walter Kaufmann, Vintage Books, New York, 1974.

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27A numberof commentatorspick up on Nietzsche's apparentfailure to live up to this invocationof

But 38,79-80. for Michael Tanner, Nietzsche, Oxford University 1995, See Press, pp. example affi mation. the question then is whether this is an inevitable failure of Nietzschean philosophy or just a failure contingent on Nietzsche's own poor health, his precipitate collapse or the times in which he was writing.

28"Nietzsche"in Gilles Deleuze,Pure Immanence:Essayson A Life, Zone books,New York, 2001, p. 74. In la introduction Deleuze Deleuze Nietzsche find I to than this et attractive on short essaya more general Philosophiesincewhat it lacks is precisely the systematisingof Nietzschean"force" which, as will emerge, marsthe longer text for me. 29Nietzsche,TheBirth of Tragedy,trans. ShaunWhiteside, Penguin,London, 1993. 30Nietzsche,Philosophy and Truth: Selectionsfrom Nietzsche'sNotebooksof the Early 1870's,ed. and trans.by Daniel Breazeale,Humanities Press,Atlantic Highlands,New Jersey,1979. 31Nietzsche,EcceHomo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin,London, 1979. 32Usesof "Herkunft": 14,15, Il 4; "Ursprung": II 11,1116,1117. 33As hasbeenpointed out to me, "Ursprung" is roughly equivalentto the Greek"archae", so a study of the "Ursprung" of a phenomenonmight well be termed either in English or Germanan "archaeology" ("Archäologie") rather than a "genealogy"; again,this will have consequencesfor the relation between Nietzscheand Foucault, given that one word which Foucault usesto describehis historiography is precisely "arch6ologie", as in TheArchaeology of Knowledge. 34Michel Foucaultmakesa similar point about the use of the word "Ursprung" at the beginning of his essay "Nietzsche,Genealogy,History", describingboth an "unstressed"and a "stressed"usageof the word throughoutNietzsche's oeuvre,and making particular referenceto the prefaceof the Genealogy(The Foucault Reader,ed. Rabinow, Penguin, 1984,pp. 77-9), where a distinction between"Ilerkunft" and "Ursprung" is clearly marked for the first time: "It would seemthat at this point in the GenealogyNietzsche wishedto validate an opposition betweenHerkunft and Ursprung that did not exist ten years earlier" (p. 78). Foucaultbelieves,as I do, that Nietzscheis making an important point here about different conceptionsof the "origin", and rejecting a "search" which "assumesthe existenceof immobile forms that precedethe external world of accidentand succession"(p. 78). (DeborahCook points out that looking at Nietzsche's texts as a whole there is no consistentdistinction in Nietzsche's use of "Herkunft" and "Ursprung": DeborahCook, 'Nietzscheand Foucault on Ursprung and Genealogy' in CLIO vol. 19 no.4,1990. Nevertheless,I think that Nietzscheis making an important distinction at this point in the preface.) However, I would wish to emphasisenot just this rejection of a "metaphysical" or metahistoricalorigin beyond spaceand time but also a scepticismabout any conceptionof an origin in any way singular or unique. Despitethe similarity of the point I have madeaboutthe use of "Ursprung", my own analysiswas carried out quite independently;I will discussFoucault's essayextensively in the following chapter.It is striking that Deleuzeand Foucault, who never seemedto acknowledgeany conflict betweentheir respectivephilosophical positions, to my mind construeNietzsche's "Herkunft" quite differently and even incompatibly. 35Nietzsche,BeyondGood and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin,London, 1990. 36See,for example,BGE 231: "at the bottom of us, `right down deep', there is, to be sure,something unteachable,a granite stratumof spiritual fate, of predetermineddecision and answerto predetermined selectedquestions." 37Nietzsche,Daybreak, ed. MaudemarieClark & Brian Leiter, CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridge, 1997. 38Nietzsche,Ecce Homo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin,London, 1979. 39For example,in a late note Nietzscheclaims that in describingthe world the physical concept of force must be supplemented:"it [the world] must be ascribedan inner world which I call `will to power', i.e. an insatiablecraving to manifest power; or to employ, exercise power, as a creative drive, etc." In the same fragmentNietzschestatesexplicitly that we "must [... ] usethe human analogy consistentlyto the end." Writingsfrom the Late Notebooks,ed. Rüdiger Bittner, trans. Kate Sturge,CambridgeUniversity Press, 2003,36[31] (pp. 26-7.). 40In TheGay ScienceNietzschefamously assertsthat "life is only a speciesof the dead,and a rare speciesat that": GS 109. 41Such definition is a given explicitly in NP IV 1: "Ressentimentd6signeun type oü les forces rtactives l'emportent sur les forcesactives." ("Ressentimentdesignates a type in which reactive forces prevail over active forces.")

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42Because this section of Nietzsche et la Philosophie is unusually long I will also give the page numbers for these extracts. In the original: pp. 123-4; in the translation: p. 108.

43Thereis a somewhatsimilar note amongthe extractsfrom Nietzsche's notebooksin Writingsfrom the Late Notebooks,op. cit., 7[48], (p. 137): What do active andpassive mean?Is it not becomingmaster and being defeated? and subject and object? 44Nietzsche,The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann & R. J. Hollingdale, Vintage Books, New York, 1967:section 1066. asIn orderto flesh out Nietzsche's conceptionof the eternalreturn I have had recourseagainto the Nachlass here,or that part of it publishedin The Will to Power. Given how little Nietzschesaysaboutthe eternal return in his publishedworks and yet how great a significancehe attributesit in thosesameworks this seems to me an indispendablerecourse.There have of coursebeenmany commentatorswho have beensuspicious is It in Anglo-American Nachlass, tradition. those the the a mostly working of making any suchuse of notableexceptionto this that Deleuzealso in at least one place castsaspersionson the unwarranteduse of the Nachlassin a way unconnectedwith the published works; I will discussthis in the main text a little further on. 46"That everythingrecurs" is, accordingto Nietzsche,"the closestapproximationof a world of becomingto a world of being" (WP 617). 47And derived from the Nachlass;seenote 12 and my discussionof this a little further on. 48I have decapitalisedthe sectionheading in Tomlinson's translationto better parallel the original. 49Nietzsche,ThusSpokeZarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin,London, 1974. 50This essayappearedin English translation in Deleuze,Pure Immanence:Essayson a Life, trans. Anne Boyman, Zone Books, New York, 2001; the quote is from p. 87 of this text. 51Deleuze,Difference 371. Press, London, 1994, P. Patton, Athlone Repetition, trans. p. and 52Deleuze's avowed closenessto Nietzsche,which probably motivatesthe rhetoric of his appropriationof eternalreturn, is seenby at least one commentatoras weakeningDeleuze'sphilosophy by tying it to the failure of the Nietzscheanproject: seeDaniel W. Conway, `Tumbling Dice: Gilles Deleuzeand the Economy of Repetition' in Keith Ansell Pearson(ed.), Deleuzeand Philosophy: TheDifference Engineer, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. 53In Difference and RepetitionDeleuzeclearly links his rejection of the wrong conceptionof eternalreturn with the first of the passagesI am about to quote from Zarathustra:"Zarathustradeniesthat time is a circle [... ] By contrasthe holds that time is a straight line in two opposingdirections. If a'strangelydecentredcircle should form, this will only be `at the end' of the straight line [... ]" (371). saHeidegger,M., Nietzsche: Vol II: TheEternal Recurrence the Same,Krell, D. F. (trans.), I larper & Row, of 1984,pp. 43-44. sspp. 54-5. 56In fact there are groundsfor believing the opposite.When Nietzscheentitles the first exposition of eternal return in The Gay Science"The greatestweight", one of the possibletranslationsof the German "Schwergewicht" is "emphasis" or "stress". If Nietzscheeven partially hasthis connotation in mind then it seemsthat what is horrifying about the eternalreturn is not that it makesevery act of will a matter of indifferencebut rather that it makesit so overwhelmingly significant, since it will be repeatedfor all time. This is approximatelythe interpretationof the eternalreturn given by Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightnessof Being (trans.M. H. Heim, Faberand Faber,London, 2000), as conferring a requisite weight and heavinesson being in order to counterits tendencyto lightnessand insignificance. But it will be recalled that Deleuzetoo emphasisesthe aspectof eternalreturn which gives to the will a rule which preventsit from any half-heartedwilling: everything you do must be willed for all time. Deleuze is right to bring out this point, but Heidegger'sunwarrantedinterpolation here doesnot count againstthe generalthrust of his interpretation of the passagesin question;it is just that the "cry of distress" may arise for different reasonsand the consequences of thinking oneselfwithin the eternal return may be different to thosehe adduces. " The interpretation of eternalreturn given by Pierre Klossowski in Nietzscheand the Vicious Circle (trans. D. W. Smith, Athlone Press,London, 1997),which is highly complex but seemsprincipally to revolve arounda kind of rupture in identity which the eternalreturn implies, also seemsto me consonantwith these passagesin Zarathustra and with what Nietzsche saysabout eternal return elsewhere;thus it provides an

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little Heideggerean have I here. Nietzsche to the about the eternal so one account promoted writes alternative return that there must necessarily be quite a number of interpretations of it which would count as reasonable. But to reiterate: I just do not think that Deleuze's reading is one of these interpretations! 58Beatrice Han points out that precisely this means of discriminating in terms of active and reactive, or in her terms "affirmative" and "negative", is lacking in the Foucault's appropriation of Nietzsche, leaving him her See for justifying truth-power over any other. any one system of a preference without a means of Foucault's Critical Project: Between the Transcendental and the Historical, trans. Edward Pile, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2002, pp. 128,131.

59University of ChicagoPress,Chicago, 1982. 60TheBirth of the Clinic, tr. A. M. SheridanSmith, Routledge,London, 1973. 61TheArchaeologyof Knowledge,tr. A. M. SheridanSmith, Harper Colophon,New York, 1972,p. 15. 62`Forewordto the English edition', The Order of Things,Tavistock, London, 1970,p. xiv. 63p. 104. 64Seepp. 102-3. 63Seenote 1 above. 66For Foucaulton "human nature" seethe accountof a Dutch television debateinvolving Noam Chomsky given at the start of the introduction to TheFoucault Reader,ed. Paul Rabinow, Penguin,London, 1984,pp. 3-4. The entire Frenchtranscript of this debateis given in Michel Foucault,Dits et Ecrits, Vol 11:1960-75, Gallimard, 1994,p. 471 as "De la naturehumaine:justice contre pouvoir". 67Foucault, TheArchaeology of Knowledge,trans.A. M. SheridanSmith, Harper Colophon, New York, 1972. 68BGE 224. 69In fact in terms of the field of knowledge and activity in question,the word "history", "Geschichte" operatesin much the sameway in Nietzscheas it doesfor Hegel, i.e. as the self-conscious,written account given by self-consciousbeings of their own past. This should not surpriseus when we considerthat Nietzscheis discussingthe academichistory of contemporaryGermanyand its effects on Germansociety. 70Nietzsche,Untimely Meditations, trans.R. J. Hollingdale, CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridge, 1983. 71At this stage,however, between history deduced is be the to andphilosophy as about relationship nothing such.One reasonfor this is that althoughNietzschewas at the time of writing the Untimely Meditations alreadydeeply interestedin such issuesasthe philosopher'srelation to culture, as demonstratedby both the Meditation on Schopenhauerand the writings which eventuallybecameknown as the Philosophenbuch,at leastwithin the Meditations themselveshe hasyet to identify himself as a philosopher.For an accountof Nietzsche'swriting activities aroundthis time, while he was still lecturing at Basel, seeDaniel Breazeale's Introduction to his translation of Nietzsche's 1870snotebooks:Philosophy and Truth, translatedDaniel Breazeale,Humanity Books, New York, 1979. 72For Nietzsche Emerson on seeGS 92 and especiallyTI 13. 73For this see,for example,BGE 231. 74I have alreadymentionedthe Genealogy'ssubtitle describing it as "supplementand clarification" to BeyondGood and Evil. The other crucial evidencefor the subordinatestatusof the Genealogyis Nietzsche's invocation of ThusSpokeZarathustra at the end of the secondessay,where historical analysishas gone as far as it can and Nietzschehasbegunto talk of his hopesfor the future (GM I124-5): at this point it is clear that somethingmore is needed,and that this is only to be soughtin Zarathustra, a text almost entirely unconcernedwith history. 'S`Is Early Foucault Historian ? History, history an and the Analytic of Finitude', Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2005, vol 31, n° 5-6, pp. 585-609.As the title indicates,this is a thesiswhich Ilan-Pile applies solely to Foucault's early texts, but there doesnot seemto be any particular reasonto think that this position hasbeenabandonedin the later Foucault.As I have already madeclear, despiteshifts of emphasis, vocabularyand approach,it seemsto me that much of the structureof Foucault's early position remainedin ?lace throughouthis career. 6 Which, if either, of thesetwo positions would apply to Kant and Foucault respectively would be a matter of contentionamongcommentators. " This can clearly be seenfrom, for one thing, Nietzsche's discussionof the hidden "instincts" at work in philosophersin BGE 3-6. Nietzschewas never shy of identifying the his forces shaping role of unconscious own views. 78GMI11.

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79This remains so even in conjunction with the thought of eternal return: these eras would then become is in terms the the times, eternal return. which of repetition of whole unrepeatable except repeated singular 80The early Meditation remains entirely neutral with regard to the question of historical truth and can countenance the value for life of histories which must be held to be in some respect false: given the upheld truth of suprahistoricism all histories which detect any pattern in history, which would have to include all it is acknowledged that some of these are useful. in false histories, this respect; yet precisely are monumental 81`Nietzsche, Genealogy, History' in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow, Penguin, 1984, p. 76. All English quotes are taken from this translation unless otherwise stated. The French is taken from Michel Foucault, Dits et Ecrits, Vol 11: 1970-75, Gallimard, Paris, 1994.

82As will be seenthis is a rather anxious over-translationof the French,as is frequently the casein this English version of the essay,as if the translator frequently felt it necessaryto shoreup the connectionsand argumentsin Foucault's text. The words "On this basis, it is obvious that" have no equivalent in the original. 83It is partly this uncertaintywhich has led to someof the disputeover whetherthe "sovereign individual" comesto supplantthe place of the "Overman" in Nietzsche's thought, or whether,on the contrary, it remains for this sovereignindividual to be overcomein the name of the Overman.This latter is the view of, for Übermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogyof Morality", Journal of Paul S. Loeb, "Finding the example, NietzscheStudies, Issue30,2005. In fact, and in agreementwith Loeb's conclusions,it will be seenin what follows the sovereignindividual is a past fait accompli, and thereforenot somethingwhich could standin for the ÜbermenschasNietzscheconceivesthat figure. 84One of Nietzsche's late notes concludesby linking together antiquity, morality and the Renaissancein a terms somewhatreminiscentof the "sovereign individual": "For certainly, in the world of antiquity a different and more masterful morality ruled from today's; and the man of antiquity, under the educatingspell of his morality, was a strongerand more profound man than the man of today - he was the only 'wellformed' man there hasbeen.But the seductionexertedby antiquity on well-formed, i.e., strong and enterprising,soulstoday remainsthe most subtle and effective of all anti-democraticand anti-Christian " Writingsfrom the Late Notebooks,37[8] (p. 33). seductions,as it was in the days of the Renaissance. 85There is also a correspondingdifficulty concerninghow the mnemonictechniquesNietzschedescribes could havebeenimplementedin societiesbelonging to times we could think of as "prehistoric"; their operationwould seemto require a level of complexity and organisationbeyondthe prehistoric. There seems to be little doubt that this is what Nietzscheis claiming here.Nietzsche's histories are far from being free of paradoxesand potential difficulties; but my point is that they are neverthelesshistories. 6 For an account the of relation betweenthe first and secondessaysin agreementwith my own interpretation of the inverted time sequenceseePeter Sedgwick, `Violence, Economy and Temporality: Plotting the Political Terrain of On the Genealogyof Morals' in Nietzsche-Studien,Band 34,2005, pp. 163-85. 87Hegel, ThePhenomenology Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, Oxford University Press,1977,B 'Self. of Consciousness'IV B, pp. 111-9.Miller's terms are "lordship" and "bondage". 11Hegel, ThePhilosophy History, tr, J. Sibree,Dover, New York, 1965, 9, p. superfluouscapitals removed! of 89Ibid. 90p. 16. 91Seenote 6. 92Philosophy History, of pp. 62-3 9app. 85-6. pp. 86-7. 95It is "two self-consciousnesses" which confront one anotherand eventually developthe relation of master and slave.Phenomenologyof Spirit, p. 112. %Philosophy History, 112. of p. 97The genesisof the former claim can be seenin passagessuch as the following piece of anti-Darwinism from TheGay Science,althoughthis claim is not expressly statedthere: "The struggle for existenceis only an exception,a temporaryrestriction of the will to life. The great and small struggle always evolves around superiority, around growth and expansion,aroundpower - in accordancewith the will to power which is the will of life. " (GS 349) For the claim that the world is will to power, seeWP 1067. 98Philosophy History, 144-54. of pp. 99 See, for example, the long section on Buddhism in Antichrist 20-23, in particular 57. and 100Antichrist, 20.

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101A kind of call for the global dominance of a particular kind of European can be heard in the following is hear Good Evil: "I Fatherlands' from Beyond that `Peoples sun our the and section of and pithy section in this hope in direction Hercules: I the the the that will earth constellation of men on of and moving rapidly Nowhere, head, (BGE 243). And Europeans! to their the my we at we good sun. matter emulate -" knowledge, does Nietzsche register any regret or compunction about the actual European imperialist project is it, is he but do I in his day; think there not surprising endorses which explicitly anywhere nor underway financial it largely driven by held have he tawdry that motives and often carried that was surely would given It ideals decadence Europe, "improvement" in the was the of mankind. of modem such as out the name of fate if fate Nietzsche; Europe the to that that the of the world as a whole, so and entailed of mattered always be it; or, as the above quote suggests, so much the better. But if Nietzsche sometimes, as here, calls for the domination of his imagined Europe of the future over the rest of the world then this is surely motivated only by the need to give the best possible chance for this post-European man of the future to flourish on the So future humanity he because with respect to a whole. concerned as as was such about grandest scale, not this issue to I would want to introduce here the contrast with Hegel which is approaching in the main text: I do not think there is in Nietzsche any teleology which demands that the self-overcoming of (European) man must become universal.

102`Nietzsche,Genealogy,History', p. 78. 103Seefootnote 16 to chapter2. 104This is in spite of Nietzsche's claim, in a fragment,that philosophy should be allowed to endureonly as "the most generalform of history" (Writingsfrom the Late Notebooks,36[27], p. 26). The remainderof this fragmentmakesit clear, however, that Nietzschedoesnot have in mind here anything resemblingeither history as we know it nor a Foucauldeanhistorico-philosophy:"Philosophy [... ] as the most generalform of history, as an attemptsomehowto describeHeracliteanbecomingand to abbreviateit into signs(so to speak, to translate and mummify it into a kind of illusory being". Thus the conceptof history is transformedin a mannerwhich might anticipateHeidegger.Might philosophy not also be for Heideggerthe "most general form of history", to which history as we usually think of it, as political, military and social upheavals,would be entirely subordinate?This statementwould thereforemeanin Heidegger'sterms the very oppositeof sayingthat philosophy was "just history" in the conventionalsenseand nothing more, and I think the same must be true for Nietzsche. 105Martin Heidegger,Nietzsche: VolumeIV, Nihilism, tr. Frank A. Capuzzi,ed. D. F. Krell, I larper & Row, SanFrancisco,1982,p.5. '°6 p. 83. 107Thesequestionsare closely related to the issueof whetherthe chargeof "genetic fallacy" can be levelled at Nietzsche's critique or morality in the Genealogy.See,for example,Paul S. Loeb, "Is There a Genetic Fallacy in Nietzsche'sGenealogyof Morals?" International Studiesin Philosophy27:3,1995. 108There is much more to be said on this matter. For example,in spite of what I have said above, it does often seemas if Foucaultthinks of post-GreekWesternhistory as a whole, as if it is always on the way to modernism,and that Greek culture is therefore an important resourcein thinking about the alternative possibilities of culture, although it is certainly not in itself any kind of ideal for Foucault.This seemsto be the casein, for example,the interview with Dreyfus and Rabinow published as the "Afterword" to Michel Foucault: BeyondStructuralism and Hermeneutics,op cit., where Foucault discussesGreek sexuality. This is not the place for an extendeddiscussionof this point; suffice it to say that for the most part it is the emergenceof the post-Frenchrevolution modem era which is of the greatestsignificance in Foucault's major works. 109Note also that Nietzschebelievesthe prehistory of man still exertsan influence: somethingof the horror of prehistoric methodsof making man rememberthings "survives still wherever solemnity, seriousness, secrecy,and sombrecolours are found in the life of men and nations: the past, the longest,deepest,harshest pastbreatheson us and wells up in us, wheneverwe become'serious'.', (GM 113) By contrast,in "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" (p. 81) Foucaultclaims that genealogy's"duty is not to demonstratethat the past actively exists in the present"! But if past and presentare sunderedas effectively as Foucault seemsto believe, how could there then be any historical critique? "o See,for example,Alan D. Schrift's accountof "Nietzsche's Protodeconstructionof Oppositional Thinking" in Nietzsche'sFrench Legacy: A Genealogy Posistructuralism, Routledge,New York & of London, 1995,pp. 21-4. 111Twilight the Idols, `Expeditions of of an Untimely Man', 16.

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112Obviously with these conceptions of the "centre" of a unified and signed "project" I am employing a terminology of which Derrida is extremely suspicious, but any meaningful engagement with this suspiciousness and its grounds must for the moment be postponed. 113See Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass, The Athlone Press, London, 1981, pp. 4-5. 114Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. G. C. Spivak, John Hopkins University Press, London, 1976, p. 19.

"5 p. 19. 116 Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans.Alan Bass,University of Chicago,Chicago, 1978,p. 139. 117An English translationof `Differance' appearsin Derrida, Speechand Phenomena,trans.David B. Allison, NorthwesternUniversity Press,Evanston, 1973.However, I shall quote insteadfrom the translation of `Differance' found in Derrida, Margins of Philosophy,trans.Alan Bass,HarvesterWheatsheaf, Hertfordshire, 1982,which I find preferable. 118As in Derrida's lengthy essay on Hegel, `The Pit and the Pyramid: Introduction to Hegel's Semiology' in Margins of Philosophy; see especially pp. 88-108

119This text is basedon discussionsthat took place at the University of Montreal in 1979.SeeDerrida, The Ear of the Other, SchockenBooks, New York, 1985,p. vii. 120 p. 45. 121That is, initially, aspresentedat the famousconferenceon Nietzsche,at which Gilles Deleuze,Sarah Kofman, Jean-FrancoisLyotard, Pierre Klosowski and otherswere present,held at Cerisy-la-Sallein 1972. The text subsequentlyappearedin print in NietzscheAujourd'hui in 1973.The bilingual English-French edition was publishedin 1979. 122For example,AlexanderNehamas,Nietzsche:Life Literature, Harvard University Press,London, 1985, as in which the themeof "interpretation" in Nietzscheis discussedat length. Nehamasis acquaintedwith Spurs but very little of the impetus for his readingof Nietzscheseemsto come from Derrida. 123SeeNehamas,pp. 81-3. 124In Derrida: A Critical Reader, David Wood, Blackwell, Cambridge, 1992,p. 53. ed. 125See"From Restrictedto GeneralEconomy:A Hegelianismwithout Reserve"in Writing and Difference, op. cit. '26La Voix la Phenomene,L'ecriture la differenceand De la Grammatologiewere all published in 1967. et et "Differance" was first given before the Societefrancaisede philosophie on 27 January 1968and published simultaneouslyin two journals in 1968.(SeeMP 1) 127JacquesDerrida, Spurs: Nietzsche's styles/Eperons: Les Stylesde Nietzsche,trans. BarbaraMarlow, University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1981,p. 37 128SeeS 37; MP 17. Curiously enough,Deleuzedoesnot appearin the list of other authorsof texts on Nietzschepresentat the first readingof Spurs at Cerisy-la-Sallein 1972,given in one of Derrida's footnotes: SarahKofman, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe,Bernard Pautrat,Jean-MichelRey. And yet he was presentat this famouscolloquium on Nietzsche,and there is even a photographof Deleuzein discussionwith a group including Derrida, Lyotard, Bernard Pautratand Pierre Klosowski printed in Bennington, G. & Derrida, J., JacquesDerrida, University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1999,p. 344. Perhapsthis is simply becauseDerrida had in mind the more recent interpretationsto have emerged,whereasNietzsche la Philosophie had et perhapsbecomea settledpart of the landscapeof Nietzschestudiesby this point, having first appeareda decadeearlier in 1962. 129Spectresde Marx: l'etat de la dette,le travail du deuil et la nouvelleInternationale, Galilee, Paris, 1993. 130MaudemarieClark, Nietzsche Truth on and Philosophy, CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridge, 1990, p. 17-19. 31See,for example,`Signature,Event, Context' in Derrida, Limited Inc, trans. J. Mehlman & S. Weber, NorthwesternUniversity Press,Chicago, 1977. 132However, a certain meditation on the word "style", its etymology and thus its link with the concept of the spur,"eperon", and having its genesisin the line from SarahKofman's Versionsdu soled which Derrida acknowledgesprovided him with the subtitle for his text (S 37), might be consideredequally primary in this respect. 133Op. cit, p. 54.

134Alan D. Schrift, Nietzche and the Questionof Interpretation: BetweenHermeneuticsand Deconstruction, Routledge,New York & London, 1990, 96. Schrift's p. entire discussionof Spurs, pp. 95-113, is well worth reading.

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135The translation also omits, curiously, the following sentence in the parallel French text: "Je soutiens cette proposition de quelques texten, parmi beaucoup d'autres. " 36For an extended, critical reflection on the deployment of the feminine in both Nietzsche and Spurs see Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Gillian C. Gill, New York, Columbia University Press, 1991.

137Derrida, TheEar of the Other, SchockenBooks, New York, 1985. 138In Dialogue and Deconstruction:the Gadamer-Derridaencounter,ed. Diane P. Michelfelder & Richard E. Palmer,StateUniversity of New York Press,Albany, 1989. '39Derrida, Politics of Friendship, trans.GeorgeCollins, Verso, London andNew York, 1997. 140Seethe note to p. 30 (on p. 46) and Derrida's commentson "a very fine essayon Heidegger"by Rodolph Gasche. 141See,for example,"Otobiographies"in TheEar of the Other, op cit., where Derrida orientateshis remarks aroundNietzsche'sown peculiar approachto the statusof his life and his texts in EcceHomo. 142In Derrida, Dissemination,trans.BarbaraJohnson,ChicagoUniversity Press,Chicago& London, 1981. 143Derrida, Positions,op. cit., p. 6. 144In Dissemination, op. cit.

145This reactivequality is distinctive of slavemorality; the "bad" of the nobles is not reactive, only a "in kind "derived, pale contrast",a of afterthoughtof the nobles order to affirm themselvesmore thankfully and morejoyfully. " (GM I 10) What this "bad" and the slave morality have in common is their derivative, secondarystatus.On Nietzsche'sschema,for somethingto be reactivepresupposesthis derivative status;to Put it anotherway, sucha statusis a necessarybut not a sufficient condition for the attribution of reactivity. abPerhapsnot as an absolutenecessitysince it is not clear to me that two suchmoralities could not be positedas coming into being at the very samemomentin time, and yet for one to be active, self-affirming and the other reactiveto it: at the momentwhen noble and slaverecognizethemselvesand one anotheras such(as happensin Hegel's Phenomenologyof Spirit with a rather different outcome,althoughas I have suggestedabovein chapter2 it seemsunlikely that this can be thought of as a specific moment in time). 147The idea of the "negative concept,`low', `bad"' being "only a derived, pale contrast" to the "good", "a retrospectivecreation,an incidental, a complimentarycolour" asNietzscheputs it in a slightly later passage (GM I 11) really makesthis conceptfit entirely into a Derrideanlogic of the supplement.But as always in Derrida the contentionwill be just what Nietszchewantsto deny, that this supplementis an integral part of that which it supplements,built into it right from the start. The idea of a self-containedlogos which hasno other is one of the issuesover which Derrida interrogatesFoucault in `Cogito and the History of Madness' (in Writing and Difference, op. cit.; seeespeciallypp. 38-42). 148 Alan D. Schrift, Nietzsche'sFrench Legacy: A Genealogyof Poststructuralism,Routledge,New York & London, 1995,p. 66. 149Schrift, 1995, 21-4. pp. 150Derrida's famous remark that "il nya pas d'hors-texte", which I prefer to translateby "there is no outside-the-text",occursin Of Grammatology,p. 158. 151Derrida, Spectres Marx, trans. PeggyKamuf, Routledge,London, 1994. of 152 15 Note that this is, once again,a somewhatDerrideanmove: rather than simply inverting the opposition and affirming sensualityover chastity, which would merely serveto underlinethe oppositionbetweenthe two, Nietzschechallengesthe necessityof this opposition itself. 153SeeRonald Hayman,Nietzsche:A Critical Life, Weidenfeld andNicolson, London, 1980,pp. 244-54. 154'Why I am So Wise' 1-2. 155SeeGS 343,347. 156See,for example,the line from Of Grammatologyalso cited in chapter3: "the conclusionsof Heidegger and Fink are irrefutable" (OG 19-20). 's' One instance of a challengeto Heideggerwhich leavesme with this impressionis MaudemarieClark's discussionof Nietzsche's `How the "True World" Finally became Fable' from Twilight a of the Idols and Heidegger'sreadingof this text: Clark, op. cit., pp. 109-17.