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Heidegger's Nietzsche Heidegger’s Nietzsche European Modernity and the Philosophy of the Future by José Daniel Parra A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Political Science University of Toronto © Copyright by José Daniel Parra 2016 Heidegger’s Nietzsche European Modernity and the Philosophy of the Future José Daniel Parra Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science University of Toronto 2016 Abstract The dissertation offers a study of two key figures in the history of political philosophy. By way of a textual interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s reading of Friedrich Nietzsche, it attempts to draw renewed attention to the question of ontology in the history of political thought. The discussion unfolds in the context of an epochal change and transition in European culture that in Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche is in the process of teleological “fulfillment.” The text examines the sources of this potentially transformative event, with special emphasis on the contrast between the modern predominance of Cartesian inter-subjectivity and a manner of thought that dwells in the philosophical anthropology of classical Greek culture. The dissertation partakes in the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition of studying political science from architectonic perspectives, thereby highlighting the key comparative importance of philosophical “vision.” In that spirit, the thesis proposes to study an encounter between Heidegger and Nietzsche at the interstice between hermeneutics and contemporary political theory. ii To Beatriz, who came with me to Toronto when all this was only an “Apollonian dream” iii Acknowledgments Completing the PhD has been an extraordinary journey, and it is my great pleasure to express gratitude for the support I received for this project at the University of Toronto. My doctoral supervisor, Ronald Beiner, was a terrific mentor throughout the process of composing the dissertation. The thoughtful strength of his writings and his warm liberal presence are a model of university scholarship. I am most grateful for his Socratic patience and unwavering intellectual encouragement. Peggy Kohn from the very beginning listened to my musings on being back in “Paris,” and has always been there with unflinching generosity and intelligent sensibility. Edward Andrew read and commented on several drafts of the dissertation with great energy and philosophical insight, and kindly participated in a reading group on Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism that was key for the development of the thesis. It has been a true privilege to have had the kind attention, support, guidance and friendship of such unique doctoral committee. My special thanks as well to my departmental reader, Ruth Marshall, who shared profound questions on the nature and possible character of the “post-secular age,” and also to our external reader, Fred Dallmayr, who offered illuminating remarks and questions in his written comments and during our dialogue in the viva voce. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to encounter remarkable teachers with whom I have been able to further the examined life. I would like to mention Tom Darby, Horst Hutter, Paul Mier, James Moore, Maben Poirier, Waller Newell, Jacquie Newell, Fernando Estrada, Ryan Knighton, Clifford Orwin, Joe Carens, Juan Camilo Rodriguez, Lou Pauly, Ravi Ravindra, Peter Emberley, Ryan Balot, Gary Mangel, Travis Smith, Craig Hathaway, Domingo Araya, Graham Forst, and Kenneth Green. In distinct ways, I offer you all my deep gratitude. I would also like to acknowledge the department of political science at the U of T for offering me such favourable conditions to pursue my doctoral studies. To friends and colleagues in the graduate program, my warm and sincere thanks as well. Louis Tentsos and especially Carolynn Branton of the graduate office were superb facilitating at various stages the completion of the project. *** To my parents Luis Miguel and Martha Margarita, my sisters Laura and Angela, Alvaro, and my grandmother Añita (who remains a clear-eyed examiner of my research on Heidegger and Nietzsche), I can’t really thank you enough. It is with great joy and affection that I acknowledge my family for wholeheartedly supporting my studies in Canada. iv It is unnecessary, and not even desirable, for you to argue in my favour; on the contrary, a dose of curiosity, as if you were looking at a foreign plant, with ironic distance, would seem an incomparably more intelligent attitude towards me. Nietzsche (letter to Carl Fuchs, July 29th, 1888) But all of the great thinking of the Greek thinkers, including Aristotle, thinks non- conceptually. Does it therefore think inaccurately, hazily? No, the very opposite: it thinks appropriately, as befits the matter … What particular beings in their Being might be, still remains an everlasting question even for Aristotle. Heidegger What is Called Thinking? (Gray trans. p. 212) v CONTENTS Page Number Acknowledgments ii Introduction Reading Heidegger’s Nietzsche 1 State of the Art 6 Interpretative Approach 13 Synopsis: From the Rhetoric of Nihilism to the Question of Being 19 Ideas and Values 23 Heidegger and Politics 26 General Overview 32 I). European Nihilism and the Problem of Valuative Thought (Sections 1-12) 1. The Five Major Rubrics of Nietzsche’s Thought 34 2. Nihilism as the “Devaluation of the Uppermost Values” 45 3. Nihilism, Nihil and Nothing 47 4. Nietzsche’s Conception of Cosmology and Psychology 53 5. The Provenance of Nihilism and Nihilism’s Three Forms 57 6. The Uppermost Values as Categories 62 7. Nihilism and the Man of Western History 69 8. The New Valuation 74 9. Nihilism as History 78 10. Valuation and Will to Power 84 11. Subjectivity in Nietzsche’s Interpretation of History 92 12. Nietzsche’s “Moral” Interpretation of Metaphysics 97 II). Cartesian Re-Founding (Sections 13-20): 13. Metaphysics and Anthropocentrism 105 14. The Statement of Protagoras 111 15. The Dominance of the Subject in Modernity 116 Descartes “Of the True and the False” 118 Heidegger and Modern Freedom 122 16. The Cartesian Cogito as Cogito Me Cogitare 127 vi 17. Descartes’ Cogito Sum 133 18. The Fundamental Metaphysical Positions of Descartes and Protagoras 140 Cartesian Method and Protagorean Horizon 143 19. Nietzsche’s Position vis-à-vis Descartes 145 20. The Inner Connection between the Positions of Descartes and Nietzsche 155 III). From Metaphysics to the Question of Being (Sections 21-29) 21. The Essential Determination of Man, and the Essence of Truth 160 22. The End of Metaphysics 168 23. Relations with beings and the Relationship with Being. The Ontological Difference 172 24. Being as A Priori 180 Excursus: Strauss’ Political Philosophy 182 Heidegger’s Being: from ‘Socrates’ back to ‘Anaximander’ 191 25. Being as Idea, as Agathon, as Condition 196 26. The Interpretation of Being as Idea and Valuative Thought 200 27. The Projection of Being as Will to Power 205 28. The Differentiation between Being and beings, and the Nature of Man 210 29. Being as the Void and as Abundance 215 IV). Hermeneutics and Political Philosophy 223 Conclusion 274 Bibliography 286 vii INTRODUCTION Reading Heidegger’s Nietzsche This dissertation has the character of an untimely meditation on two key figures in the history of political philosophy. The thought of Martin Heidegger and of Friedrich Nietzsche pose, independently of one another and in theoretical proximity, some of the most pressing challenges to modern thought. Granted the provocative, quite often “liminal” mode of reason and style of these two radical thinkers, it is in the spirit of intellectual open-mindedness – to dialogically persist in the pursuit of the examined life at the core of our tradition – that I propose this essay at what we might call the interstice between hermeneutics and political philosophy. Heidegger and Nietzsche bring to our attention a “spiritual crisis” of epic proportions that in their account originates in European culture and that has become increasingly global in the contemporary world. It is my intent in this project to shed light on the ontological sources of this potentially transformative event, to understand and test the soundness of its claims, while pursuing a dialogue and apprenticeship with the towering figures at the forefront of the on-going history of political philosophy. Despite the extensive character of the project, I have endeavoured to be modest in scope. The largest portion of the dissertation, Parts I-III, offers an interpretative reading of Heidegger’s study of book 1 of Nietzsche’s The Will to Power titled “European Nihilism.”1 1 Unless otherwise noted references in the text are from Martin Heidegger Nietzsche Vol. IV Trans. Frank Capuzzi. Edited with Notes and Analysis by David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper, 1991). At times I have amended Krell’s version on the basis of the German original Nietzsche 2 Vols. (Pfullingen: Verlag Günther Neske, 1961). Although I have endeavoured to offer a bounded interpretation, occasionally, in order to clarify certain passages, I also make reference to the rest of the text: Martin Heidegger Nietzsche Volumes I and II. Trans. with Notes and Analysis by David Farrell Krell. New York: Harper 1979. Nietzsche Volumes III and IV. 1 Generally speaking, the aim of Parts I-III is to focus on Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche in an attempt to shed light on this particular portion of Nietzsche’s writings.2 The original source of the text derives from Heidegger’s lecture course delivered at the University of Freiburg in the first semester of the year 1940. Heidegger divided the lectures into 29 sub-sections: what I offer is a detailed reading of each of these sections, focusing on the problem of nihilism or “lost spirit” that Heidegger pursues in great detail through his engagement with the thought of Nietzsche.3 In Part IV of the dissertation I propose a commentary on Heidegger’s treatise “The Determination of Nihilism in Accordance with the History of Being” (Die Seinsgeschichtliche Bestimmung des Nihilismus), written between 1944 and 1946, and first published in 1961, in the first German edition of Volume 2 of Heidegger’s Nietzsche.
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