Edited by VANESSA LEMM Nietz Sche and the Becoming of Life
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Nietz sche and the Becoming of Life Series Board James Bernauer Drucilla Cornell Thomas R. Flynn Kevin Hart Richard Kearney Jean-Luc Marion Adriaan Peperzak Thomas Sheehan Hent de Vries Merold Westphal Michael Zimmerman John D. Caputo, series editor This page intentionally left blank Edited by VANESSA LEMM Nietz sche and the Becoming of Life F ORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS New York ■ 2015 Copyright © 2015 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the per sis tence or accuracy of URLs for external or third- party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 5 4 3 2 1 First edition Contents List of Abbreviations xi Ac know ledg ments xiii Introduction Vanessa Lemm 1 P ART I: CONTESTING NIETZ SCHE’S NATURALISM 1 The Optics of Science, Art, and Life: How Tragedy Begins Tracy B. Strong 19 2 Nietz sche, Nature, and Life Affirmation Lawrence J. Hatab 32 P ART II: EVOLUTION, TELEOLOGY, AND THE L AWS OF NATURE 3 Is Evolution Blind? On Nietz sche’s Reception of Darwin Virginia Cano 51 4 Nietz sche and the Nineteenth- Century Debate on Teleology Mariana A. Cruz 67 5 Nietz sche’s Conception of “Necessity” and Its Relation to “Laws of Nature” Herman W. Siemens 82 P ART III: JUSTICE AND THE LAW OF LIFE 6 Life and Justice in Nietz sche’s Conception of History Vanessa Lemm 105 7 Life, Injustice, and Recurrence Scott Jenkins 121 8 Heeding the Law of Life: Receptivity, Submission, Hospitality Daniel Conway 137 P ART IV: THE BECOMING OF A NEW BODY AND SENSIBILITY 9 Toward the Body of the Overman Debra Bergoff en 161 10 Nietz sche’s Synaesthetic Epistemology and the Restitution of the Holistic Human Rainer J. Hanshe 177 11 Nietz sche’s Naturalist Morality of Breeding: A Critique of Eugenics as Taming Donovan Miyasaki 194 12 An “Other Way of Being.” The Nietz schean “Animal”: Contributions to the Question of Biopolitics Mónica B. Cragnolini 214 P ART V: PURIFICATION AND THE FREEDOM OF DEATH 13 Nietz sche and the Transformation of Death Eduardo Nasser 231 14 Becoming and Purification: Empedocles, Zarathustra’s Übermensch, and Lucian’s Tyrant Babette Babich 245 P ART VI: THE BECOMING OF THE SOUL: N OMADISM AND SELF-E XPERIMENT 15 “Falling in Love with Becoming”: Remarks on Nietz sche and Emerson Dieter Th omä 265 viii ■ Contents 16 “We Are Experiments”: Nietz sche on Morality and Authenticity Keith Ansell- Pearson 280 17 States and Nomads: Hegel’s World and Nietz sche’s Earth Gary Shapiro 303 Notes 319 List of Contributors 385 Index 389 Contents ■ ix This page intentionally left blank Abbreviations References to Nietz sche’s unpublished writings are standardized, whenever possible, to refer the most accessible edition of Nietz sche’s notebooks and publications, Nietz sche, Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, compiled under the general editorship of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, are cited as KSA. References to the edition of the Nietz sche, Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke, compiled under the general editorship of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, are cited as KGW. References to the editions of letters, Nietz sche, Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe Briefe, com- piled under the general editorship of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, are cited as KSB. In the cases in which the KSA are cited, references pro- vide the volume number followed by the relevant fragment number and any relevant aphorism (e.g., KSA 10:12[1].37 refers to volume 10, fragment 12[1], aphorism 37). In the cases in which the KSB is cited, references provide the number of the letter, followed by the volume and the page number (e.g. Letter Nr. 648, KSB 5:271). In the cases in which the KGW are cited, references provide the volume number followed by the section number followed by the fragment and in some cases the page number. Th e following abbreviations are used for citations of Nietz sche’s writings: A Th e Antichrist AOM Assorted Opinions and Maxims (HH, vol. II, part 1) BGE Beyond Good and Evil BT Th e Birth of Tragedy xi CW Th e Case of Wagner D Daybreak (alternately: Dawn) DS “David Strauss, the Writer and the Confessor” (UM I) EH Ecce Homo (sections abbreviated “Wise,” “Clever,” “Books,” “Des- tiny”; abbreviations for titles discussed in “Books” are indicated instead of “Books” where relevant) FEI “On the Future of Our Educational Institutions” (KSA 1) GM On the Genealogy of Morals GMD Greek Music Drama (Das Griechische Musikdrama, KSA 1) GS Th e Gay Science GSt “Th e Greek State” (KSA 1) HC “Homer’s Contest” (alternately: “Homer on Competition”) HH Human, All Too Human (two volumes, I and II) HL “On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life” (UM I) (alter- nately: “Use and Misuse of History for Life”; Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben) KSA Sämtliche Schriften: Kritische Studienausgabe KSB Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe Briefe KGW Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe Werke NCW Nietz sche contra Wagner P “Th e Phi los o pher. Refl ections on the Struggle between Art and Knowledge” PPP Th e Pre- Platonic Phi los o phers (followed by section and page number) PT Philosophy and Truth PTA Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (KSA 1) PW “On the Pathos of Truth” (KSA 1) SE “Schopenhauer as Educator” (UM III) ST “Socrates und die Tragödie” (KSA 1) TI Twilight of the Idols (sections abbreviated “Maxims,” “Socrates,” “Reason,” “World,” “Morality,” “Errors,” “Improvers,” “Ger- mans,” “Skirmishes,” “Ancients,” “Hammer”) TL “On Truth and Lies in an Extra- Moral Sense” (KSA 1) TSK “Teleology Since Kant” (Die Teleologie seit Kant) (KGW I/4, NF 62[1– 58], p. 548– 578) UM Untimely Meditations (Volumes I– IV) (alternately: Untimely Con- siderations; Unmodern Observations) WP Th e Will to Power WS Th e Wanderer and His Shadow (HH, vol. II, part 2) Z Th us Spoke Zarathustra (references to Z list the part number and the chapter title followed by the relevant section number when applicable) xii ■ Abbreviations Ac know ledg ments Th is collection of essays is in great part based on conference papers given at the International Conference “Nietz sche and the Becoming of Life,” which took place in November 2009 at the Institute of Humanities, Diego Portales University. I am grateful to the Diego Portales University, Chile, the Goethe- Institute Santiago, Chile, and the German Embassy, Santiago de Chile for their indispensable fi nancial support without which the real- ization of this event would have been impossible. I thank all the contribu- tors of this volume for their participation. A draft translation from Spanish to En glish of the chapters by Virginia Cano, Mónica Cragnolini, and Mariana Cruz has been provided by Jennifer Croft. I thank Miguel Vatter, Matías Bascuñan, and Benedict Storck for their help with the revision of the translations as well as the text by Eduardo Nasser. I also thank Nicolás del Valle and Tabita Galleguillos for their support. Finally, I thank Michigan State University Press for their permission to reprint my article “History, Life and Justice in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben” © 2011 Michigan State University. Th is article originally appeared in CR: Th e New Centennial Review Vol. 10, Iss. 3, 2011, pages 167–188. Spanish versions of the essays by Tracy B. Strong, Lawrence J. Hatab, Herman W. Siemens, Daniel Conway, Debra Bergoff en, Keith Ansell- Pearson, Dieter Th omä, Mónica Cragnolini, and Gary Shapiro are also available in Nietz sche y el devenir de la vida, ed. Vanessa Lemm, Santiago de Chile: Fondo de cultura económica, 2014. xiii This page intentionally left blank Nietz sche and the Becoming of Life This page intentionally left blank Introduction VANESSA LEMM Th roughout his writing career, Nietz sche advocates the affi rmation of earthly life as a way to counteract the nihilism and the asceticism he be- lieves are inevitable once human beings begin to orient their lives toward a transcendent source of truth and value. But what Nietz sche means by life on earth, and what the affi rmation of such a life entails, is still very much up for discussion. Th is is in great part due to the fact that the concept of life in Nietz sche’s work takes on a variety of diff erent but not unrelated meanings, which largely correspond to the diff erent periods of his writing career. Mapping out this variety of meanings of the concept of life in any detail would, by far, exceed the purpose of this introduction. However, the reader may fi nd it useful to have a sense of the diff erent concerns that ani- mate Nietz sche’s discussion of the concept of life throughout his works. In the belated preface to Th e Birth of Tragedy, Nietz sche claims that his task as a phi los o pher was from the very beginning to “look at science through the optic of the artist, but also to look at art through the optic of life” (BT “Preface” 2).