NIETZSCHE'S FUTURES Nietzsche's Futures Edited by John Lippitt Senior Lecturer in Philosophy University of Hertfordshire First published in Great Britain 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire R021 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-27054-5 ISBN 978-1-349-27052-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-27052-1 First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-21559-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nietzsche's futures / edited by John Lippitt. p. cm. ''Most of the essays ... arose from papers presented at the Fifth Aunual Conference of Britain's Friedrich Nietzsche Society, held at the University of Hertfordshire during September 1995"-lntrod. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-21559-0 (cloth) 1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. I. Friedrich Nietzsche Society. Conference (5th: 1995 : University of Hertfordshire) B3317.N4976 1998 193--dc21 98-21080 CIP Selection, editorial matter and Chapter 6 © John Lippitt 1999 Chapters 1-5 and 7-10 © Macmillan Press Ltd 1999 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1999 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to crimiual prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 To my wife, Jo, and my parents, Pat and Ken - for love, support and laughter Contents Acknowledgements ix Notes on the Contributors x Reference Key to Nietzsche's Texts xii Introduction xiii Part One: Nobles and Exemplars 1 1 Nietzsche, Enlightenment and the Problem of Noble Ethics David Owen 3 2 Annunciation and Rebirth: The Prefaces of 1886 Daniel W. Conway 30 3 Stendhal's Ecstatic Embrace of History as the Antidote for Decadence Brian Domino 48 Part Two: Laughter and Comedy 63 4 Nietzsche's Best Jokes Laurence Lampert 65 5 Waves of Uncountable Laughter Kathleen Marie Higgins 82 6 Laughter: A Tool in Moral Perfectionism? John Lippitt 99 Part Three: Art, Nature and the Transhuman 127 7 A 'Pessimism of Strength': Nietzsche and the Tragic Sublime Jim Urpeth 129 8 Creating the Future: Legislation and Aesthetics Gary Banham 149 vii viii Contents 9 Staying Loyal to the Earth: Nietzsche as an Ecological Thinker Graham Parkes 167 10 Loving the Poison: On the 'Meaning' of the Transhuman Condition Keith Ansell Pearson 189 Index '2fJ7 Acknowledgements As is always the case with such ventures, more people have con­ tributed to this project than can be named here. In particular though, I should like to thank the following: the officers of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society for help in the organisation of the con­ ference (especially Keith Ansell Pearson, who provided the idea for its original theme, and Duncan Large); other conference contribu­ tors whose papers I have been unable to include in this volume; the University of Hertfordshire for making its facilities available; and Margaret Mitchell-Jubb for her invaluable, highly efficient secretar­ ial support during the organisation of the event. I should also like to thank Athlone and Cambridge University Press for their financial support for the conference, and Rebecca Jiggens for help with proof-reading. The publishers and editor also acknowledge with thanks permis­ sion from Routledge to reproduce Essay 10, from Keith Ansell Pearson, Viroid Life (1997). JOHNuppm ix Notes on the Contributors Keith Ansell Pearson is Director of Graduate Research in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. His most recent books include Viroid Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition (1997) and the edited Deleuze and Philosophy (1997). His next book, Deleuze and Germinal Life: Essays on Evolution, Ethology, Ethics, and Literature, is forthcoming in 1998. Gary Banham is a member of Hertford College, Oxford, which is where he wrote his doctoral thesis on Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. He has published articles on Nietzsche, Kant, Derrida, Joyce and Wyndham Lewis, and is currently writing a book on Kant's aesthetics. Daniel W. Conway is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Ethics and Value Inquiry at the Pennsylvania State University. He has published widely in the fields of political theory, ethics, and contemporary continental philosophy. His most recent publications include Nietzsche and the Political (1997) and Nietzsche's Dangerous Game: Philosophy in the Twilight of the Idols (1997). Brian Domino is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of articles on Nietzsche's medico-political thought. Kathleen Marie Higgins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Nietzsche's Zarathustra (1987), The Music of Our Lives (1991), and co-editor (with Robert C. Solomon) of Reading Nietzsche (1988), The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love (1991), From Africa to Zen (1993) and (with Bernd Magnus) The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (1996), among other books and articles. She has recently completed a book-length study of Nietzsche's The Gay Science. Laurence Lampert is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University, Indianapolis. He is the author of Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1986), Nietzsche and Modern Times: A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche (1993), Leo Strauss and Nietzsche (1996), and articles on William Butler Yeats and the Canadian philosopher George Grant. x Notes on the Contributors xi John LippiH is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published numerous articles on Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and theories of humour and laughter; and is currently working on two books on Kierkegaard: one entitled Kierkegaard and the comic, the other a commentary on Fear and Trembling. David Owen is Lecturer in Politics and Assistant Director of the Centre for Post-Analytic Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Maturity and Modernity (1994) and Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity (1995), editor of Sociology after Postmodernism (1997) and co-editor of The Politics of Critique (1998) as well as numerous articles on contemporary continental philosophy and political theory. He was until recently editor of the Journal of Nietzsche Studies. Graham Parkes is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii. He is the editor of Heidegger and Asian Thought (1987) and Nietzsche and Asian Thought (1991), translator of Nishitani Keiji's The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990) and Reinhard May's Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East-Asian Influences on His Thought (1996), and author of Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology (1994). His current work on Nietzsche is more biographically and filmically oriented. Jim Urpetb is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Greenwich. He has written on Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bataille, Deleuze and Foucault, and is an editor of a forthcoming collection of essays on the relationship between philosophy and theology in contemporary thought. Other research interests include the philo­ sophy of art and contemporary critiques of 'humanism'. Reference Key to Nietzsche's Texts Several different editions and translations of Nietzsche's works have been used by the various contributors to this volume. Titles have been abbreviated according to the following key. (See the end­ notes to each chapter for publication information.) AC The Anti-Christ (or The Anti-Christian) ADM 'Assorted Opinions and Maxims' (incorporated into HH IT) ASC 'Attempt at a Self-Criticism' BGE Beyond Good and Evil BT The Birth of Tragedy CW The Case of Wagner D Daybreak (or Dawn of Morning) EH Ecce Homo GM On the Genealogy of Morals (or On the Genealogy of Morality) GS The Gay Science (or The Joyful (or Joyous) Science) HC 'Homer on Competition' (or 'Homer's Contest') HH Human, All Too Human (two volumes, I and II) KGW Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe KSA Siimtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe RWB 'Richard Wagner in Bayreuth' SE 'Schopenhauer as Educator' TI Twilight of the Idols UD 'On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life' UM Untimely Meditations (or Unfashionable Observations) WP The Will to Power WS 'The Wanderer and his Shadow' (incorporated into HH II) Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra xii Introduction Most of the essays in this volume arose from papers presented at the fifth annual conference of Britain's Friedrich Nietzsche Society, held at the University of Hertfordshire during September 1995. The conference had the dramatic - even apocalyptic - title 'Nietzsche and the Future of the Human'. ('That's right', Richard Schacht felt obliged to add when advertising