lawrence m. hinman nietzsches philosophy of play (1974)-libre

8/10/2019 Lawrence M. Hinman Nietzsches Philosophy of Play (1974)-Libre

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Nietzsche's

y

lawrence m hinman

This article and the

three

folloWing (Playful

Freedom,

Play and Possibility and The

Ontology of

Play) are,

b


2/19

for. contradictions give to the Nietz

schean

corpus

an elasticity, if not an

ambiguity, which

permits

such a di

versity

of interpretations.

Thus in approaching Nietzsche's

works, one

hesitates

to

offer

an inter

pretation

which claims to express Nietz

sche's own meaning. Such hesitation

increases when one sees how often his

interpreters have claimed that Nietz

sche failed to overcome

the

fundamen

tal contradictions in his own thinking.

LOwith, for example,

maintains

that

Nietzsche's philosophy is characterized

by

an

essential

and

comprehensive con

tradiction which arises

out

of a fun

damental conflict in

the

relationship be

tween man and

the

world

where

God

and a common order of creation are

lacking.

Danto

does not go this far,

but he side-steps some of the major

difficulties in Nietzsche's position

with

more grace than insight.

6

Jaspers dis

covers a wholeness in Nietzsche's think

ing which allows

him

to

deal

with the

self-contradiction that he sees as a

"fundamental ingredient in Nietzsche's

thought,"

1

but

this wholeness lies pri

marily

in

the discovecy of an Existenz

philosophie in Nietzsche. The theme

of contradiction itself has even been

taken

as the

fundamental characteris

tic

of

Nietzsche's philosophy.

8

Others

have gone even further, claiming in

one case

that the

central

doctrines of

Nietzsche's philosophy

(the

will

to

pow

er the

eternal

return of

the

same, and

Overman) "remain not only with

out proof and

without

truth,

they

are

not even to be taken seriously and to

that

degree

are

foolishness."

9

Thus

one or at least, this "one" - hesi

tates to offer a comprehensive Nietz

sche interpretation which claims to

overcome

these

contradictions.

Such an

interpretation

is, however,

possible if one

takes the categocy of

play as fundamental to Nietzsche's in

terpretation of man

and

of the world.

In what follows, I shall show the

way

in which

the

fundamental doctrines of

Nietzsche's position

rest

upon a view

of

both human activity and the

world

itself as play and how this interpre

tation allows one to see the unity of

Nietzsche's philosophical vision. After

a preliminacy consideration of the role

of

play in Nietzsche's understanding

of

the

Greeks, I shall show the way

in

which human activity is understood

in terms of play. Different types of

human

activity

are

interpreted in

terms

of

an order

of

rank,

the

lowest

ranks

being those

in

which the player is dom

inated

by

the game (in which case

he

becomes a plaything of forces beyond

his control) ,

the

highest ranks being

those in which

this

plaything

creates

as

fully as possible its own world (this

is the

player

par excellence, the child,

the free spirit, the Overman). This

understanding of human activity as

play grows directly out of Nietzsche's

confrontation

with

nihilism,

and

it is

in play

that

we uncover the condition

of

the possibility of overcoming nihil

ism. The will to power then emerges

as

the term

which most fully expresses

the

creative play of which man is ca

pable.

The most

powerful expression

of that will

to

power which express

es itself in

many

modes, including in

terpreting - is

the

creation

of

a world

which mirrors the fundamental struc

ture of the will to power itself: a play

world. The doctrine of the

eternal

re

currence

of

the

same gives Nietzsche's

final expression

to

this interpretation

of the

world itself as a world-play.

Through this

interpretation, the

world

is transformed by the overman's will

to

power

from

a chaotic

interplay

of

forces into a structured play which

eternally

repeats

itself as the creative

play

to

the will

to

power.

NIETZSCHE'S

PHILOSOPHY

1 7


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experience which will be described in

Nietzsche's later works as an essential

aspect

of

nihilism.

The shattering

of

the principle of sufficient reason

and

the overcoming of the principle of in

dividuation

are

directly

related:

the

principle

of

sufficient

reason

allows

the

world

of

appearances

to

be ordered in

a casual manner, thus establishing in

dividual

entities

as separate from

each

other; the principle of individuation al

lows

the

flux of existence

to

be stabilized

in order

to create

independent entities.

Once these begin

to

admit of exceptions,

the

experienced world is so radically

transformed

that

i t

is,

quite

literally,

a new world which unfolds in

the

Dio

nysian consciousness.

Such play is, however, destructive,

and this is the source of its instability.

Barbaric Dionysian intoxication is

char

acterized

by savagery

and cruelty.15 f

left to itself, it would become complete

ly self-destructive, completely

negating

itself.

In

order

to

survive

at

all,

it

had

to transform itself.

This transfigured form

of the Dio

nysian is encountered

in

Greek culture

in

the

form

of

the Dionysian artist,

and

his

activity is

the

second kind

of

play which will be considered here.

He plays

with

intoxication rather than

letting

it

completely overcome him.

The

portrait

of Archilochus in The Birth

of

Tragedy

gives a

clear

picture of

Nietz

sche's conception of the Dionysian art

ist in Pre-Socratic times.

16

The defini

tion of

the

Dionysian genius, given

from

the

notebooks

of this

period, is

parallel to

the published formulations,

but

somewhat more precise. The Dio

nysian genius is, "

the

man who,

in complete self-oblivion, has become

one

with

the primordial

ground

of the

world, who now

creates

out of the

pri

mordial

pain the

reflection

of

it

for

his

redemption."

11

t

is in the creation of

a reflection of this primordial pain that

distance is to be achieved and, with

that distance,

the

possibility

of

deliv

ering

oneself up from the experience,

redeeming oneself. The Dionysian

art

ist's

play is

characterized

by a com

plete giving over

of

himself

to

the

fun

damental

contradiction in order there

by to give expression to it. t expresses

itself in dynamic forms, especially in

music.

18

t is precisely this dynamic quality

of Dionysian artistic playing which

lends it instability: it is always in mo

tion, always in need of being repeated.

This

follows from

the

very

formless

ness of that which

it mirrors.

More

over, while

this

kind of playing involves

a joyful affirmation

of

the primordial

contradiction of existence, it is pos

sible only when the artist completely

forgets himself. But this self-oblivion

is by its very structure temporally lim

ited: it

can

be an extended moment,

but

it is impossible to live for a long

period of

time

in

this

state.

The Dionysian is, then, a particular

type of play characterized by intoxica

tion

which leads

to

self-oblivion, a shat

tering of the principle of individuation,

a denial of

the

rational

character

of

existence, and a unity between man and

man as well as between man and na

ture. In its initial form it is character

ized

by

a

cruelty

and

destructiveness

which is

transformed

into a joyful affir

mation

in Dionysian art. Yet as a

type

of play,

the

Dionysian retains certain

limitations, especially a temporal fini

tude which prevents it from completely

overcoming

the

challenge posed to it

by the pain

and

contradiction of pri

mordial existence. Indeed,

it

is precisely

this

kind of temporal limitation which

is usually considered

to be

fundamental

to

play: it can suspend

the

time and

meaning of

the

world out of which

it

springs, but it is not its purpose

to

NIETZSCHE'S PHILOSOPHY

109
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change that world in any but

this

tem

porary sense.

If Dionysian play gives itself over

to intoxication and self-oblivion,

there

remains

another

way of dealing with

the

abyss which

the primordial pain

leaves gaping in front of man.

This

involves

creating

another world, a saf

er, more clearly defined

and

predictable

one.

Such

a world is necessary if man

is to survive. The barbaric form of

Dionysian play, because it leads even

tually to the destruction of life, must

be overcome. A veil of illusion must

be

drawn

across

the

horrors

of exist

ence revealed by

the

Dionysian experi

ence. For the Greeks, it was a veil com

posed of the Olympian world of

the

gods,

the

Apollonian sense of beauty,

Homeric epic,

and

later Greek philoso

phy itself. Even

more

fundamental

than

these is the pre-artistic manifestation of

Apollonian play: the dream.

The dream,

and

the entire Apol

lonian world,

springs

forth

from

the

need for illusion, which itself is felt

to be rooted in the very

nature of

pri

mordial reality.

19

Through the creation

of illusion, existence redeems itself. The

dream, a natural manifestation of this

urge, is but an aspect of the larger proc

ess

of

existence seeking to transform

and thereby redeem itself. The art of

Apollonian artist, the

creator,

is play

ing

with

the dream, while

the

dream

itself is to be understood as the

game

(or

play) of

the

individual

man

with

the

real.

2(j

Playing with

the real in

dream

ing consists of imposing

form

and

measure

upon it.

In

dreams,

"we

de

light in the immediate

understanding

of

figures; all forms speak to us;

there

is

nothing

unimportant

or

superfluous."

21

The

dream is not a mirror image

of

the

primordial contradiction, but a

trans

figuration of it. This is

the

essence

of

Apollonian play

with

the real on the

PHILOSOPHY TODAY

11

level

of

its immediate manifestation in

dreaming: the transformative redemp

tion of the primordial contradiction of

existence

through

the creation of illu

sions

in

dreams.

This

transformation is, however,

never quite complete, for

there

is al

ways the lingering realization that it

is a transformation, that something else

lurks behind it - in short, that it is

mere

appearance.

22

One

must

always

awake from dreams, and the awareness

of

this

penetrates the dream itself and

accounts for

the

instability of this form

of playing.

f the Apollonian as a natural force

manifesting itself in dreams is the

game which individual

men play

with

the

real by the creation of an alternate

world of appearances, Appollonian art

is playing

with

these dreams: the creat

ing of illusion becoming conscious of

itself.

Harmony,

measure, balance and

stability become most important, for

they

cover up

the

primordial pain

and

contradiction of existence. Appollonian

art, the playing

with

appearances which

creates measure and

stability, is essen

tially more stable than any other kind

of play.

t

seems, in fact, to pervade

much of what one would call "everyday

reality." Yet

there

still lurks behind

its illusion the threat of another kind

of playing, the Dionysian.

These two forces, the Apollonian

and the Dionysian, are doomed to

strug

gle against each other endlessly, each

needing and fighting against the other.

t

is here that the final meaning of

play emerges in Nietzsche's analysis of

the Greeks: the

tragic

is the unending

interplay of these two different types

of games which existence plays

with

itself. While

the

Dionysian

and

Apol

lonian worlds

are

each justified on

their

own terms,

they

are incompatible with

each other.

Tragedy

arises because

they can never truly

exist

on their 0\.\' 1


6/19

terms,

but are

continually doomed

through

their

interdependence

to

trans

gress into each other's worlds.

2

'

1

The

ugliness and disharmony which arises

out

of

the

clash of

these

opposing prin

ciples

can

only be justified as an aes

thetic phenomenon, as "part of an artis

tic

game

that the will

in

the eternal

amplitude of its pleasure plays with

itself. "

24

The writings from the

time of

The Birth

of

Tragedy thus contain a

preliminary interpretation of both hu

man activity and existence itself as

play. On

each

level, two types

of

play

ing

are present:

the Dionysian and

the

Apollinian. The necessary interplay of

these is understood

as

the essence of

tragedy for Niezsche. The background

of these forms

of

play is Silenian wis

dom, the Greek counterpart to

the

con

temporary

phenomenon of nihilism.

Thus play functions

in

these writings

as a unifying category, situated

at

the

very

heart

of Nietzsche's analysis

of

man

and his world insofar as he devel

oped this analysis through a considera

tion of the Greeks in his early writings.

TRANSITION

In

the sections which follow, I

shall show that

this

basic view of man

and existence itself as play remains

constant

in

Nietzsche's philosophizing,

although

the

division of the kinds of

play changes. Specifically, it will be

shown (1) that play is the highest form

of human activity, (2) that i t is the

only type of activity which allows one

to go beyond nihilism, (3) that

the

fundamental meaning of

the

will to

power is

to

be seen as play, ( 4)

that

the

Overman then becomes the symbol

of

the

most

powerful

of

players,

and

(5)

that the

eternal recurrence of the

same is

the

highest expression

of

the

creative play of

the Overman's

will

to

power, one

in

which he impresses

upon existence the quality of being

his

play. Once this is done,

it

will be pos

sible to see how Nietzsche's view of

man and the world is based on one

fundamental

insight

into

the

play

char

acter of existence and, on this basis,

to

see the way

in

which Nietzsche's

position does not fall into

the

contra

dictions attributed to

him

by various

commentators and critics.

PLAY

AS

THE MGBEST

FOBlll

OF HUMAN ACTIVITY

In the passage on "The

Three

Met

amarphoses"

in

Thus Spoke Zarathus

tra, Nietzsche develops a three-stage

framework within which

to

understand

the development of the human spirit.2'

Beginning at the stage of

the

camel,

the spirit frees itself

by

becoming a

lion and then, in

creative

play,

trans

forms himself

into

a child.

The stage

of the camel is

marked

by a devotion to

the "thou shalt," a seeking

out

of that

which is most difficult

for the

purpose

of one's

strength, and

a general appro

priation of all that is given. The spir

it

then becomes liberated from

that

which

it

had appropriated in the first

stage,

creating

freedom through a sa

cred

"No" to all

moral

demands upon

it. As such, it transforms all that is

given into something which we are free

to dispose of

at

will. Taken together,

these

two

stages represent not

only a

transformation and liberation of the

spirit, but also a transformation of the

world. The movement is

from

a world

whose meaning is already given

to

a

world composed of potential playthings:

things which

wait

upon the appearance

of a creative subject (the child)

to

re

ceive

their

meaning.

The third and

final

stage

in

this

development is that of the child. t is

only in this last stage

that

a complete

and creative affirmation of existence is

possible. The activity proper to this


I l l


7/19

child

is

"the

play

of

creating."

26

t is

precisely

through

this

creative

playing

that

the child

is

differentiated

from the

lion,

and

the

lion's function

emerges as

establishing

the

conditions

under

which

such creative

play could be possible.

This passage is

open

to a

variety

of

interpretations. Those

familiar with

Nietzsche (especially

through

Heideg

ger)

know

that

this

description recalls

his earlier treatment

of

the

child

at

play

in

Heraclitus.

27

t is possible to

interpret the

passage

autobiographical

ly,

211

and

there

is some justification in

the

notebooks for this.

9

Clearly

with

in

this passage creative play emerges

as the highest

form of human

activity,

but what relationship does it bear to the

activity of the

camel

and that

of

the

lion? Specifically, are these three suc

cessive stages,

or

are

they,

as one com

mentator

has suggested,

3

-0

interpene

trating metamorphoses? The

question

is

central to understanding Nietzsche's

concept of

human activity as creative

play, for it poses the

question

of wheth

er

pure

creative

play is possible for an

extended period of time. Is the creative

play of

the

spirit

always

forced

in

the

end to return

to the

activities

of

the

camel and the lion, or is it a stage

which, once attained, need not be re

linquished?

On

the

basis

of

this

passage,

taken

in isolation,

it

would

appear that the

stages are

successive. Such a position,

however, ignores the general frame

work of

Thus Spoke Zarathu.stra

and,

more specifically,

the

need

Zarathustra

feels

to

"go under."

31

This suggests

that there is some

necessity

for return

ing

to the

previous

two

stages, passing

through them again in order to bring

under

one's

control

more

of

what

is

present in the world.

The

question,

however,

cannot

be decided simply on

the basis of the text at hand.

While

it must, for the time being,

remain

PHILOSOPHY TODAY

112

open, it should be

noted

here that the

ambiguity here recalls the

instability

of

the various

forms of

play

that Nietz

sche

developed in his

analysis of the

Greeks.

In a

preface

written in 1886 for a

new edition of

Human, All-too.human,

Nietzsche develops another paradigm

in

terms of which

the

development of

the spirit can be understood.

32

Taking

the fettered spirit as its starting-point,

the spirit moves through five stages:

the great

breaking-loose, the bird's

freedom, the great health,

the emer

gence

of

self-awareness,

and

the

gener

alization

of the free spirit's self aware

ness

into the

doctrine of the order of

rank. The stage of fettered spirit cor

responds roughly to that of

the

camel

in

"The

Three

Metamorphoses," which

the

great breaking-loose and

the bird's

free

dom

can

be seen

as

corresponding to

that

of

the lion and the middle ground

between the lion and the child. The last

three

stages constitute a

unity,

the

different moments being distinguished

according to the level

of

consciousness

present

in

each case.

Several aspects

of this framework

allow us to elaborate Nietzsche's idea

of

play as the

highest

form

of

human

activity.

First,

it should

be noted

that

the bird's freedom, characterized by a

detached

living beyond

"yes" and

"no,"

is 1wt the final stage in the development

of the spirit. Human activity goes be

yond

this. Second, the great

health

reveals itself

as play. In Book Five

of The

Joyful

Wisdom (written at about

the

same time

as the Preface

to

Human,

All-too-human , Nietzsche discusses

"The

Great Health." He

describes the

ideal of human activity as play.

Another ideal

runs

on before us,

a

strange,

tempting ideal, full of

danger,

to which we should not

like

to

persuade any one,

because

we do not so readily acknowledge
http:///reader/full/understood.32


8/19

any

one's

right thereto:

the

ideal

of a

spirit

who plays naively (that

is to say involuntarily and

from

overflowing abundance

and

power)

with

everything that has

hitherto

been called holy, good, inviolable,

divine

a

In

his notebooks, Nietzsche

had

de

scribed

Zarathustra's

naive-ironic po

sition toward all that was holy as "a

new form of

superiority:

playing

with

the holy."

34

In his notebooks from 1880

he had already described his own de

sire "to play a game with the belief

of the whole world."

35

The ideal of

the great health

is one

of

creative

play.

As

this activity

of

creative play

be

comes conscious

of

itself, it creates

an

order of rank: the final

stage

in this

picture of the development of

the

spirit.

The order of rank is the result of the

free

spirit's

play, not an order founded

in

things

in themselves, nature, or any

transcendent

ground. All playing in

volves the creation of order, and it is

upon

the

realization of

the

necessity

of creating order in play that the doc

trine

of

the

order of rank

is based.

While it is possible

to

criticize Nietzsche

because

he

lacks an

ultimate

founda

tion

for

a "positive" philosophy,

86

it

should be emphasized that he is deny

ing

the

possibility of such a foundation.

Assertions about the way

things

"really

are,"

are

not

founded in

things

them

selves, but rather

stem from

this crea

tive play as interpretation.

Within this

context, the doctrine

of the order

of

rank does

not

imply that the free spirit

finds

an order of rank as given, but

rather

that he creates

one, just as in

any

game

we create a

certain

order.

There

is no question here of justifica

tion

for

such

an

order: it is simply

the

structure

imposed

by the creative

play

of

the

free spirit.

Within this context

the

doctrine

of the order of

rank

has

a two-fold

meaning. t is both an analytical tool

in terms of which

the

past

may

be

analyzed,

and

also a guide to

future

activity. Even when considering

the

past, Nietzsche is not simply uncover

ing

an order

of

rank already

present,

but rather creating it through inter

pretation. The creative dimension

of

the order of rank is even more evident

in relation to

the

future: it serves as

an ideal, a promise which

the

free spirit

makes

to

himself and then sets

about

realizing.

Thus we have seen that Nietzsche

has developed a notion of

creative

play

as the highest

form

of

activity

of the

spirit, and that

the

doctrine

of

the or

der

of rank expresses the necessary

creation of order which accompanies

such

creative

play. Such an interpre

tation leaves the

central

Nietzschean

theses about

the

Overman,

the

will

to

power,

and

the

eternal recurrence

of

the same unexplicated. Before turning

to consider

these

three central

doc

trines, I shall first show

the

way in

which

creative

play emerges

as the

only

way

of overcoming nihilism within

Nietzsche's framework, establishing

thereby the necessity of play in a nega

tive fashion.

CBEA'l'IVE PL Y AS T E

OVEBCOlllING

OF

NIHILISM

Toward

the

end of his productive

years, Nietsche concerned himself in

creasingly with the problem of nihilism,

describing the advent of nihilism

as

de

termining

the

history

of the

next two

centuries.

31

There is little doubt that

the

problem

of

nihilism remains a sig

nificant one today,

88

although as a cate

gory it

may

not be

the

most fruitful

way of

getting

at experience.

In

any

case,

it

does function as

the

background

against which Nietzsche's philosophical

activity, especially in his later years,

is to be understood.

NIETZSCHE'S

PHILOSOPHY

113
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9/19

Nihilism is characterized as a con

dition in which

"the

goal is lacking:

the

answer to the question of 'Why?' is

lacking. What does nihilism mean? -

that

the

highest values devaluate them

selves.

"

3

"

This

devaluation is described

as follows:

Briefly:

the

categories "aim,"

"unity,"

"being" which we used

to project

some value into

the

world - we pull out again; so

the

world looks valueless.4-0

This

state

is not a final one for Nietz

sche, but rather a pathological, transi

tional

state

in which sufficient

strength

is still lacking "in order to posit for

oneself once again a goal, a 'why?', a

belief."'

1

The overcoming of nihilism

does

not

consist in finding new goals or

beliefs,

but

rather in creating them,

and

the condition of the possibility of such

creation is sufficient strength - in

other

words, the will

to

power.

The

presuppositions

of

nihilism

are then

considered in

this same

frag

ment. They are: "that there is no

truth; that there is no absolute

char

acter to things, no 'thing in itself.' "

42

Commenting upon these presupposi

tions, Nietzsche states:

this

is itself nihilism

of the most

extreme kind. t places

the

value

of things precisely in

the

lack of

any reality

corresponding

to these

values and

in

their being merely a

symptom of strength on the part

of the

value-positers, a simplifica

tion for the sake of life:'

3

There

is dispute over the question of

whether Nietzsche's philosophy is a

form

of nihilism, and passages such

as

this

one would suggest that his philos

ophy

is indeed nihilistic. Arthur

Danto

has argued

that,

"Nietzsche's is a phi

losophy

of

Nihilism, insisting that

there

is

no order and

a

fortiori no

moral or

der in the world."'' Arguing against

PHILOSOPHY TODAY

114

Danto and others, Richard Schacht has

maintained that a "careful analysis of

his (Nietzsche's) writings shows that

he

neither considered himself

to

be a

nihilist,

nor

deserves to be considered

one,

either

metaphysically

or

axiologi

cally."45 The question is: does Nietz

sche's philosophy go beyond nihilism?

The

answer

to

that question de

pends upon how one defines nihilism,

and

more

specifically upon

the

distinc

tion between active and passive nihil

ism. Nietzsche's philosophy is clearly

not

a nihilistic one insofar as nihilism

represents "a decline and recession of

the

power of

the

spirit,""'

but

insofar

as nihilism

can

be "a sign of increased

power of the spirit,"

47

then nihilism re

mains a

constant factor

in Nietzsche's

philosophizing. t is present as

the

constant possibility that

our

own in

terpretation of the world will reveal

itself to be what it is: a mere interpre

tation. Nietzsche's philosophy is thus

nihilistic insofar

as

it accepts the cri

tique

of

existence which arises

out

of

nihilism. However, this acceptance does

not lead

to

passivity, but

rather

to a

strengthening of

the

spirit's will to

create.

The overcoming of nihilism be

comes possible when one realizes that

one's view of

the

world is lacking in

justification, that such justification is

impossible,

and

that

it

is nonetheless

possible to continue living by

creating

a world of one's own. Thus nihilism is

overcome by recognizing and affirm

ing the

play-character

of existence and

by

creating

our own play.

f

one ac

cepts the

critique

of existence contained

in

the experience of nihilism, creative

play is the only

alternative

to despair.'.s

This

is

not to

maintain that we

must

necessarily accept

the

experience

of

nihilism on its own terms,

49

but rather

simply to

argue

that if one, as Nietz

sche did, accepts it as such, then the


10/19

only way in which it is possible to go

beyond (i.e., not succumb

to

despair)

it is through

creative

play.

Thus

play

emerges

as the highest

form of human activity in both a posi

tive

and

a negative sense

in

Nietzsche's

philosophy. Negatively,

it

is

the

only

way

in

which the experience of nihilism

can be overcome, and, insofar as nihil

ism is the experience which the con

temporary age

must

come

to

grips with,

creative play is

the

only kind of ac

tivity which allows one

to

meet

the

challenge of the

contemporary

world.

Positively as we have seen,

creative

play is

the freest and highest form

of

activity of the spirit. We must now see

the way in which

this

allows us to un

derstand the fundamental unity of the

three

main concepts of Nietzsche's later

philosophizing: the will to power, the

Overman,

and the

eternal recurrence

of the same.

THE

WILL TO

POWER

AS CREATIVE PLAY

An explication of the notion of the

will to power involves a number of

problems,

not

the least of which

stems

from this:

the

will

to

power is

so

fun

damental for Nietzsche that

there

ap

pears to be nothing else which is more

basic and

in

terms of which it can be

explained. When describing what "the

world" is

for

him, Nietzsche ends his

account

in the

following way.

This world is the will to power -

and nothing

besides

And

you your

selves

are

also this will

to

power

- and

nothing

besides

50

One wonders,

if

this is the case, if

there

is

anything

which is not will to

power. For Nietzsche, it is

clear

that

everything is will to power. Does this

then result in

a

rather

trivial

assertion,

or

perhaps a useless one? f

everything

is the will

to

power

and nothing

else,

then what distinctions can be made

after asserting this? What more can

be said?

Tuo important distinctions

can

be

made. First,

it

is possible to distinguish

beings according to the degree of power

which

they

possess

and thereby to

cre

ate

an

order of rank among them.

51

The notion of the will to power is com

plemented by the doctrine of the order

of

rank

and a principle of differentia

tion according

to

the degree of power

allows Nietzsche to use the notion of

the will to power as an analytical tool.

Second, while there is not

anything

which is

not

will to power,

there

is a

counter-principle

to

it.

Just

as

weak

ness indicates a relative lack of power,

nothingness indicates

its

complete ab

sence.

The

will

to

power

and

nothing

ness

stand

as opposites,

and

it is in the

experience of nihilism that this funda

mental opposition is revealed, for it is

there that one sees that the will to

power is

set

against

the background of

nothingness. In this sense, the doctrine

of the will to power does not imply, as

Kaufmann

maintains,

"a

dialectical

monism in which

the

basic force is con

ceived as essentially creative."

02

There

is

an

opposing principle for

the

will to

power nothingness - and for this

reason it is

not

a "monism." Moreover,

when

the will to power is viewed in

juxtaposition to the experience of noth

ingness,

then the

notion

of

"self-over

coming," which

Kaufmann

rightly

stresses as being Nietzsche's

measure

of

the value of conduct,

3

is revealed

in its

fundamental

structure

as overcoming

the

ever-present possibility of the self's

not-being.

t

belongs to the very

structure

of power that it seeks

to

increase it

self, appropriate, and dominate.

54

As

Heidegger

has

put

it,

the

essence of

power is to over-power The

will

to

power consists in the overcoming

of that which is

either

not powerful or

XIETZSCHE'S

PHILOSOPHY

115
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11/19

i's less powerful. As such,

it

consists fun

damentally

in

the overcoming of noth

ingness,

whether absolute or, where it

is a question of less power

to

be over

come, relative. The will to power is

thus

conceived

as

a multiplicity of dy

namic

quanta

seeking to increase

their

power against the background of the

possibility of

their

becoming powerless,

i.e., the possibility of nothingness.

Returning to

the

fragment

with

which we began this section, we can

see

that

this will to power is not to

be understood as moving toward any

determinate

final goal.

Rather, it

is

fundamentally a play of forces. The

main contours of Nietzsche's vision of

the

world thus emerge in this passage.

This

world: a monster of energy,

without beginning, without end

enclosed by "nothingness"

as

by

a boundary . . . set in a definite

space

as

a definite force

as

a

play of forces

and

waves of forces,

at

the

same

time

one

and

many,

increasing here and at

the same

time decreasing there; a sea

of

forces flowing and rushing togeth

er, eternally changing, eternally

flooding back, with tremendous

years of recurrence . . . out of the

play of contradictions back to the

joy of concord.

66

The basic structure of the will

to

power

is thus

the play

of forces set against the

backdrop of nothingness,

the

abyss.

This is

"the great

dice

game

of the

world's existence . . . the world as a

circular

movement that

has already

re

peated itself infinitely often

and

plays

its

game

in infinitum."

57

When power

seeks to increase itself, dominate

other

centers of force,

it

is merely playing

out the vaster world game. When, at

the

conclusion

of

this fragment, Nietz

sche asserts that "this world is the will

to power -

and

nothing besides ", he

is indicating

that

the world as will to

power is a world-play.

PHILOSOPHY TODAY

116

There

is, however, a second asser

ion in

that

conclusion:

"And

you your

selves

are

also this will to power -

and nothing besides " This implies

that

we too are part of this play of forces,

that

our activity

is play. I have shown

above the way in which this is the case,

arguing

that the highest form of hu

man activity is play. The implication

here is broader: all

human

activity is

play.

But

if that is so, how is

it

pos

sible to differentiate between,

for

ex

ample, the free spirit and the fettered

one? While

it

is possible to fall back

upon

the

doctrine of

the

order

of

rank

to

answer this

question, such an answer

- which would differentiate levels of

play according to their degree of power

- would lead us only indirectly to the

fundamental issue. In order to advance

our

inquiry into

the

Nietzschean notion

of play,

it

is necessary to focus atten

tion directly upon the player as such.

THE

OVERMAN

AS

THE PLAYER

PAB EXCELLENCE

The will to power as play describes

not only the structure of the world as

such, but is also applicable to

human

activity in particular. Yet, in the light

of Nietzsche's

clear

rejection of the

traditional notion of the will,

58

we must

clearly distinguish

the

notion of

the

will to power from the will

as

a human

faculty

or an

explanatory structure.

There is for Nietzsche one will which

developed into

many and

"hu

man" will to power is woven in the

same fabric as the "cosmic" will to pow

er. f one were to speak of wills to

power,

it

would indicate the way in

which this one will to power is split up

into many definite

centers

of force,

quanta of energy, which seek to in

crease themselves.

When one speaks of

play

as a hu

man

activiy, one immediately infers the

presence

of

a player.

Within

Nietz-
http:///reader/full/concord.66


12/19

sche's framework, such an inference -

especially insofar as

it

identifies

the

player with the individual person -

is not immediately justified.

That

which controls the particular game may

be

termed the

player,

but this

may,

for example, be

our

drives or affects. 0

There

is no

guarantee that the

person

as

a cognitive being is actually in con

trol. He, as a thinking being, may be

the

plaything

of

forces over which he

has no control and of which

he has

little awareness.

For

members

of

the

herd, this is clearly

the

case.

The

mem

bers of the

herd

are playthings in a

game beyond

their

comprehension.

The

will to power, considered on the level

of human activity, does not necessarily

imply that each individual is a

player

in control of his own game.

This gives us a clue to a more

fundamental aspect of Nietzsche's cri

tique of

the

self. When discussing

the

possible benefits connected

with

over

coming

the

"ego-feeling," Nietsche sug

gests that these would include an ex

panded perception of

the

world. f we

eliminate

the

"ultilities" in

terms of

which we

have

traditionally

interpreted

the

world (the concepts of number,

thing, cause and effect, subject, etc.),

then:

no

things

remain,

but

only dy

namic

quanta in

a relation

of

ten

sion

to

all

other

dynamic

quanta:

their

essence lies in their relation

to

all

other

quanta, in

their

"ef

fect" upon

the

same.

The

will to

power is not a being, but a pathos

- the

most

elemental fact from

which a becoming and effecting

first

emerge.

61

t would

then

be these "dynamic quan

ta" which most properly would be

called

"players"

in

the

game of

exist

ence, again realizing

that

this does not

imply a S ltbject as player. Nietzsche is

here

trying to

develop a category in

terms of which existence can be under

stood without reifying it,

and it

is im

portant

that the category of "player"

being presented

here

not be confused

with such reifications.

There

is a clearly implied critique

of the

cognitive self as

the

"true" self

in Nietzsche's philosophy, and again

the

critique leads

us

to

the

idea

of

play

as fundamental. In his notebooks, Nietz

sche suggests that thoughts are "signs

of a play and struggle

of

affects:

they

always

hang together with their

hidden

roots."

62

This leads

to

a rejection of a

unified subject and the substitution of

Nietzsche's hypothesis

of

the

subject

as a multiplicity

of

forces, "whose in

terplay and struggle forms the foun

dations

of

our thinking and even

our

consciousness."

113

Thinking then ap

pears as something which happens in

the "subject,"

an

interplay of sensations.

Our thinking

is really nothing

but

a very refined intezwoven play

of

seeing, hearing, feeling,

the

logical

forms are physiological laws

of

sensory perception.

Our

senses are

developed

centers of

sensation

with

strong resonances and mirrors."

Viewed in this manner, thinking ap

pears to be almost equivalent to phan

tasy,

as

is suggested in a

fragment

from

this same

period. Thinking,

our

fun

damental intellectual life, is the pkly-

ft

pondering

of

material

. . .

This

spontaneous play

of

phantasizing force

is

our

fundamental intellectual life."M

Often we

are not

conscious

of the

forces

at play here: Betiveen two thoughts

all possible affects

play

their

game:

but the movements are too quick, thus

we misunderstand them, we conceal

them

66

Thus while thinking

may

be

characterized

as

playing, it is in

most

cases founded on a

more

funda

mental interplay

of

forces, and

in this

sense

the

thinking self is

not

to be con

sidered

the "player"

in

the

game.


117
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13/19

Within this context, we can

make

a fundamental distinction between that

which plays and

that

which is played

with, between

the

player and

the

play

thing, realizing that these terms do

not

refer to substantial

entities

but

rather to quanta of power. This is not

an absolute distinction, but rather a

relative one; the

more

one's strength

increases, the more one is the

player

rather

than

the

plaything.

There

is,

however, no absolute concentration of

all power, and in

this

sense

there

can

never

be

an

absolute player, one

who

is not also to some degree a plaything,

yet

all will to power strives toward this.

In

the

light of

this

distinction, it

is possible to comprehend the

nature

and significance of Nietzsche's Over

man. The significance of

the

doctrine

of the

overman

is open to question.

Most of the references to it

in

the

writ

ings Nietsche himself published are con

fined

to

Thus Spoke

Zarathustra. There

are hardly

more

than

six

or

seven ref

erences to it after Zarathustra.

67

Com

mentators disagree on

the importance

of

the idea. Jaspers devotes only a

few pages to it, admitting that

"the

image of the overman, as Nietsche sees

it, remains

indeterminate."

68

Danto,

discussing Zarathustra's discription of

the

overman,

maintains

that it is, "di

vorced

from the extravagant

language

and

rushing

cadences

of Zarathustra's

singing a bland and all-too-familiar

recommendation,

rather squarely

in the

moralistic tradition . . .

to

keep our

passionate

as

well as our intellectual

life in our command, not to deny one

at

the price of the other,

and

not

be pretty

and "merely' human."

69

Both

Kaufmann'

0

and Morgan

71

equate the

overman and

the

notion

of Dionysus

which is developed in Nietzsche's

later

writings. Heidegger accords the over

man more importance, making it one

of the five fundamental terms in Nietz-

PHILOSOPHY TOOAY

118

sche's metaphysics,

72

but

he criticizes

the

overman

because it negates

the pre-

vious essence of

man

as reason

in

a

nihilistic way.7

3

Fink

also

admits that

the image of the overman is

at first

"rather

indeterminate,"

74

but argues

that the

predecessors of

the

overman,

which form the bridge between man and

overman, give content to this image -

and the idea of

the

overman gives a

unified form to

that

content.

75

f the overman is viewed as the

player par excellence, both his impor

tance and nature

within

Nietzsche's

world-view become clearer.

The

over

man is the meaning of man's being,

n

the goal of existence.

7

He

is the one

who transfigures existence.

78

While

there

has never

yet

been

an

overman,

o

the overman represents that

toward

which every quanta of force strives:

the highest concentration of power. In

this sense,

the

overman is the player

par

excellence, the most powerful of

players.

He

is

the

meaning

of

man's

being and the goal of existence in that

he represents most completely that

which is fundamental in every quanta

of power: the will to increase himself.

The

overman overcomes

man

in the

sense that he overcomes man's being a

thing

apart

from the rest

of

existence.

He

transforms

man into the

player

in

the sense outlined above: the one who

is

most

in control of the play of forces.

Thus, considered as

an

ideal or goal,

the

overman

represents the coming to

gether of what

has here

been called

"the player" and what we traditionally

identify as the human person.

Insofar

as

the person moves toward being the

player in the game

of

existence,

rather

than

the plaything, he moves toward

becoming

the

overman. On

this

basis,

the importance of the overman within

Nietzsche's philosophy becomes clear:

he represents

the

highest, most power

ful,

most

creative form of human play.
http:///reader/full/Zarathustra.67http:///reader/full/existence.77http:///reader/full/existence.77http:///reader/full/existence.77http:///reader/full/existence.78http:///reader/full/existence.78http:///reader/full/existence.78http:///reader/full/Zarathustra.67http:///reader/full/existence.77http:///reader/full/existence.78


14/19

This does not necessarily involve the

overman in

the

position which

Danto

ascribes to him,

and

such a

characteri

zation misses the

mark,

hitting upon

what, at best, may be

an

accidental

characteristic of

Nietzsche's overman.

There

is a second sense in which

the overman represents the overcoming

of

man: in

the

overman we find Nietz

sche's way of going beyond the tradi

tional concept of man as a substantial

entity and the replacement of

this

con

cept

with the

idea of dynamic centers

of force. In this regard, there are clear

similarities between Nietzsche's think

ing through of existence in terms of

the will

to

power

and

Heidegger's anal

ysis of Dasein. In particular,

both

are

concerned with the development

of

new

categories (for Heidegger, existentialia,

since he reserves categories for beings

which are not

Dasein).

While this is

not explicitly stated and thematized in

Nietzsche as

in

Heidegger, even The

Birth

of

Tragedy

shows a

clear

aware

ness of

this

problem.

The

categories of

the Dionysian, the Apollonian and the

tragic

are developed

in

such a way

as

to permit Nietzsche

to

get at

the

unique

reality

of

human existence which was

inaccessible through traditional cate

gories. The development of these cate

gories - here I am not using "categor

ies" in the Heideggerean sense is,

in effect,

the

development of

existen

tialia. The

development of the idea

of the overman represents another of

these, one which expresses the pos

sibility of the self's becoming the

player

in the world-play. This would be, for

Nietzsche,

the

self's highest and most

authentic possibility.

The

relationship between the over

man and the

will

to

power

becomes

clear in relation to

the

idea of play.

The

measure

of a man's actions is the

degree of power which they manifest.

The more powerful they are, the more

he

can be said to be a player rather

than a plaything. The ideal of the most

powerful will to power is represented

by the overman, who would presumably

be powerful enough

to

create an entire

world.

The

will

to

power

as creative

play is essentially

the

creating of a

world through the organizing of dy

namic quanta of force, the control of

their

interplay.

The greater the

will

to power, the more it brings under its

control and dominates - thus, the

"broader" its world. The ideal of crea

tively playing

with all

of existence is

represented

by the

overman

as the

play

er

par excellence.

f

the

creative

play of the overman

results in the

creation of

a world, then

it is clear that

this

is a world-play.

There

is one final aspect of Nietzsche's

description of the overman which we

must

now consider: the

overman's

real

ization that

everything recurs

the

same.

1

In

the next, and concluding

section, I shall show

the

way in

which

the

eternal

recurrence of

the

same is

the

logical consequence of viewing both

the world and

human activity

as play.

TBE

WORLD AS

PLAY:

THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE OF THE

SA..'IE

f

the will to power represents the

idea of creative play, and the overman

is seen as representing man's possi

bility of becoming

the player

in

this

eternal game, then

the

doctrine of

the

eternal recurrence of the same express

es the

play-character

of the world

which the overman creates through his

will to power.

The doctrine of the

eternal

recur

rence arises out of a meditation upon

man's finitude, and in

particular

upon

his inability

to

free himself

from the

chains of

time as

the

"it

was."

82

The

will cannot will backwards, and its free

dom is thus

restricted

by the past. The

problem which Nietzsche faces is then


119


15/19

this: how is it possible for the creative

will

to

liberate itself,

to

creatively re

deem the past?

8

3

Such a redemption of

the

past be

comes possible

when

one realizes

that

the past

is also only a game. This is so

in a two-fold sense. First, to speak in

un-Nietzschean language, the past is al

so

the

result of the will to power, a

particular

interplay

and organization of

forces, nothing more. This is, however,

un-Nietzschean in

this

sense: the past

exists only in the present through

our

interpretation. This interpretation is

itself will

to

power

and thus

creative.

84

This leads us to the second, and more

fundamental, sense in which the past

is play: it is part of the game which

results from

our

creative playing, our

domination of

other

centers of force

through

our

will to power. The past

can be creatively affirmed by realizing

that it is

our

creation, part of the game

which we play with existence. The

tyr

anny

of

the

"it

was"

is overcome when

we affirm its play-character in two

senses: first,

as

being itself only the

result

of an interplay of forces (i.e., not

as representing any ultimate meaning

or pointing toward any final goal);

second,

as

being part of the game which

we

are

playing. When this is accom

plished,

the

"it was" ceases to imprison

the

creative will.

By affirming the play character of

the "it was,"

we have

already implied

the doctrine of the eternal

recurrence

of the same in

at

least one respect: the

sameness which recurs is the sameness

of each moment

as

a play-moment.

This does not mean that the content

of each and every moment must be

the

same,

but

rather that

the structure

of

each

moment

is

the

same

insofar

as

each moment

is a

moment

of play.

Moreover, it is precisely

the

crea

tion of

its

own

time

which characterizes

PHILOSOPHY TODAY

12

play.

8

"

Both

the space and time of the

play-world are set apart

from

the space

and time

of the everyday world. What

distinguishes Nietzsche's philosophy of

play from, for example, Huizinga's po

sition,

86

is

that

there

is no

"everyday

world" for which one can claim a priv

ileged reality. There are only play

worlds, each one

of

which is

character

ized by a created spatiality and tem

porality. While in our specific games

we create

determinate

times, in realiz

ing that our

activity

is fundamentally

play, we constitute time as created in

play. The temporality of human exist

ence is overcome for Nietzsche in the

realization that this

temporality

is

our

own creation.

Not only is playing characterized

by the creation of its own time, but it

is also an

activity

which exists uniquely

in the moment,

an

activity done for its

own sake rather than for the sake of

some goal which lies outside of itself.

This

existing

in the

moment

which is

characteristic of play is the condition

of the possibility of

the

complete affir

mation

of existence which Nietzsche

takes as central to his

thought.

f we affirm one single moment, we

thus

affirm not only ourselves but

all existence. For nothing is self

suffi.cient, neither in us ourselves

nor

in

things;

and

if

our

soul

has

trembled with happiness

and

sound

ed like a

harp string

just once, all

eternity

was needed to produce this

one event - and

in this

single

moment

of affirmation all eternity

was called good, redeemed, justi

fied, and affirmed.s

7

t is only

in

playing that the

moment

as such can be fully affirmed in this

way

and, when it is, all of existence as

play

is affirmed

with

it.

Finally, the experience of nothing

ness

as an

ever-present

human

possi

bility is itself implied in

this

interpre-
http:///reader/full/affirmed.87http:///reader/full/creative.84http:///reader/full/affirmed.87


16/19

tation of the eternal recurrence of

the

same, for in affirming the play charac

ter

of

the

world we also affirm

the

pos

sibility that

it

could be

other than it

happens

to

be,

that there

is no meta

game in

terms of

which specific games

are

to be measured and judged. The

possibility that

the

world could be radi

cally

other than it

is,

or not at

all, is

implied

in

considering

the

world

as

only

a play of forces. The ever-present pos

sibility of

our

specific game's coming

to an end is the possibility of

our

own

nothingness.

The

eternal recurrence of

the game is both the most horrible

and

most liberating of thoughts.

88

f

one

expects existence

to

be something

"more" than play,

then

it is horrible

to realize that existence repeats itself

eternally as a play of forces and nothing

more. However,

if

one affirms

the

play

character of existence, then it liberates

man even from

the

bonds of time itself.

Implied in this position is the idea

that the doctrine of the eternal re

currences is

not

meant

to

describe a

state

of affairs in its givenness,

but

rather that

it is a

"thought"

in terms

of

which we impose

order

upon the seem

ingly blind interplay of forces in the

cosmos, thereby dominating those forc

es through the

strength

of our own in

terpretation. t is "true" in

the

Nietz

schean sense of truth.

The will to truth is a making firm,

a making true

and

durable, an abo

lition of

the

false

character

of

things, a reinterpretation

of

it into

beings. "Truth" is therefore

not

something there, that

might

be

found

or

discovered

but

some

thing that must be created and

that gives a name to a process, or

rather a will

to

overcome that

has

in

itself no end - introducing

truth,

as a

processus in infinitum,

an active determining - not a be

coming conscious of something that

is in itself

firm and

determined.

t

is a word for

the

"will to power."

89

This describes most adequately

the

status

of the doctrine of the eternal

recurrence of

the

same. While com

mentators

such

as

Magnus

are correct

in rejecting a naive cosmological inter

pretation of the eternal

recurrence,

it

is not necessary

to

consider it

as

a

"counter-myth."1>

0

Nietzsche intends

it

rather as true in the

sense

that it

is

an

expression of

the

will

to

power.

When taken in this sense there is

an internal consistency between

the

doctrine of the eternal recurrence of

the same

and

the

will

to

power. The

will to power,

taken as

creative play,

not

only imposes specific forms

of the

interplay of forces; it also imposes

upon existence the general structure of

being its play.

In

creating a world,

it

always creates it as a play-world, ir

respective of

the

specific configuration

which it

might

give to it. When

it

does this,

it

introduces

an

element of

sameness into existence: all moments

are the same insofar as they are all

only moments of play.

That

which re

curs eternally is the basic

structure

of

the

moment

as

a moment in play.

In

this sense,

the

doctrine

of

the eternal

recurrence of the same is not only com

patible with,

but

also a necessary corol

lary

of the notion of

the

will to power.

The

two notions are

but

two aspects

of the one assertion that existence is

only play

against

a background

of

nothingness.

CONCLUSION

In the

preceding

remarks

I have

tried to

offer a framework of nterpre

tation within which the fundamental

unity of Nietzsche's vision of

man

and

the world may be seen, taking the cate

gory of play

to

be central

to

that vision.

Obviously,

this interpretation

is

not

ex

haustive,

nor

is

it meant to

be. t does,

however, indicate a direction for inves

tigation which is significant in two


121
http:///reader/full/thoughts.Behttp:///reader/full/thoughts.Behttp:///reader/full/thoughts.Be


17/19

respects. First, following this line of

inquiry, it is possible to

reconstruct

Nietzsche's philosophy in such a way

that it

does not fall prey

to the

con

tradictions which some have alleged to

find

there. By concentrating

on

the

category

of play in Nietzsche's philos

ophy, we can see that

the

idea of the

world as play is not "a poetic attempt to

give voice

to the

radically unspeak

able,''91 not

an

attempt which finally

ends in nihilism, but rather a quite def

inite thinking through of existence as

activity.

Second,

by

accenting the primacy

of creative play in Nietzsche's position,

we open the way toward a

better

un

derstanding of the relationship between

Nietzsche and

Marx.

There are

very

definite similarities between

the

notion

of creative play in Nietzsche and

that

of free productive

activity

(unalienated

work) in Marx,

although their

analyses

of

the

conditions under which

the

emer

gence of such

activity

becomes possible

are quite different. Such a comparison

points toward

the

possibility of over

coming the division between

work

and

play, an overcoming which would re

sult

in a kind of human activity which

could not, using contemporary usage,

properly be

called

either work

or

play.

The complementarity of these two

forms of activity, usually

treated as

opposites, offers the possibility of a

richer notion of human

activity

than

is found either

in

traditional Marxist

or existentialist thinking.

REFERENCES

l.

Among the most important of these are the

interpretations given by Heidegger, Jaspers,

and Fink. Cf. Martin Heidegger,

Nietzsche,

2 vols. ( Pfulligen: Neske, 1961) ; Heidegger,

"Nietzsches \Vort 'Gott ist tot,'" in

Holzwege

Frankfurt aM:

Klostermann, 1950),

pp. 193-

247; Heidegger, "Wer ist Nietzsches Zara

thustra

?," in Vortriige und Auf iitze,

part

One

(Pfulligen:

Neske, 1954),

pp.

93-118;

Karl Jaspers,

Nietzsche:

An

Introduction

to

the Understamling of

His

Philosophical Ac-

tivity,

translated by Charles F. Wallraff and

Frederick J. Schmitz (Tuscon: University

of

Arizona Press, 1965); Eugen Fink,

Nietzsches

Philosophie

(Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960).

2.

Cf. Jean Grenier,

Le

probleme de la verite

da.ns

la

philosophie de Nietzsche (Paris:

Edi

tions du Seuil, 1966).

3. In this regard, Arthur C. Dante's

Nietzsche

as Philosopher (New York:

Macmillan, 1965)

has played a most significant role.

4.

Walter Kaufmann,

Nietzsche, Philosopher,

Psychologist, Antichrist,

third edition

(New

York:

Vintage Books, 1968).

5.

Karl Lowith,

Nietzsches PhilosoPhie der

Ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen (Stuttgart:

Kohlhammer, 1956), pp.

1314.

6.

Danto,

Nietzsche

as

Philosopher,

p.

80,

main

tains that, "There

is

a crucial tension through

PHILOSOPHY TODAY

.

122

out Nietzsche, between a free-wheeling critic,

always prepared to shift ground in attack

ing metaphysics, and a metaphysical philos

opher seeking to provide a basis

for

his

repudiation of any such enterprise as he is

practicing." As I hope will

be

shown in this

article, Nietzsche successfully overcomes this

tension, and establishes a solid "ground" in

play.

7.

Jaspers,

Nietzsche,

p.

7.

8.

Wolfgang Muller-Lauter,

Nietzsche. Seine

Philosophie der Gegensiitze

uni

die Gegen

si:itze

seiner Philosophie

(Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1971).

9.

\Verner Brocker, "Nietzsches Narrentum,"

Nietzsche Studien,

Vol. I (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1972), p.

142.

10.

Of

particular importance here is "Die diony

sische Weltanschauung," parts of which

are

incorporated into

The Birth of Tragedy,

and a revision

of

this same piece from June,

1870,

"Die Geburt des tragischen Gedankens."

These are to be found

in

Nietzsche,

W erke,

Kritische Gesamtausgabe, edited by Giorgio

Colli and Maxximo Montinati, Dritte Ab

teilung, Zweiter Band (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1973),

pp. 43-69, 71-91.

11. Friedrich Nietzsche,

Die Geburt der Tragodie,

3 in

Werke,

Dritte Abteilung,

Erster

Band


18/19

(Berli11:

Walter

de Gruyter, 1973), p.

31

=

The

Birth

of

Tragedy and The Case of

Wagner, translated by

Walter

Kaufmann

(New York: Vintage Books, 1967),

p.

42.

12. Cf. Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, 2,

p. 26

= Birth of Tragedy, 2, p.

38.

13.

Nietzsche, "Die dionysische \Veltanschauung,"

p. 47: "\Venn nun der Rausch das Spiel der

Natur

mit dem .Menschen ist, so ist das ist

da Schaffen dionysischen Kiinstlers das Spiel

mit dem Rausche." Also

see,

"Die Beburt des

tragischen Gedankens,"

p.

74: "Die diony

sische Kunst dagegen beruht auf dem Spiel

mit Rausche, mit der Verziichung."

14. Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie,

l, p.

24 =

Birth

of Tragedy, I, p.

36.

15. Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, 2, p. 28 =

Birth

of

Tragedy,

2,

p.

39.

16.

Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, 5-6, pp. 38-

48

= Birth

of Tragedy, 5-6, PP. 48-56.

17. Fredrich Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragodie.

Der griechische Staat, Kroners Taschenaus

gabe Band 70 mit einem Nachwort von Al

fred Baeumler (Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner

Verlag, 1964), pp. 206-07.

18. Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, 24, p. 148

= Birth of Tragedy,

24,

p.

141.

19. N'ietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, 4, p. 34 =

Birth

of

Tragedy,

4, pp. 44-45.

20. Nietzsche, "Die dionysische W eltanschauung,"

I, p. 46: "Wahrend also der Traum das Spiel

des einzelnen Menschen mit dem Wirklichem

ist, ist die Kunst des Bildners (im weiteren

Sinne) das Spiel

mil

dem Traum.

21. N'ietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, l, p. 22

=

Birth

of

Tragedy, 1 p. 34.

22.

Ibid.

23. Cf. the portrait of the tragic individual in

Geburt der Tragodie, 9, pp. 65-66

= Birth

of

Tragedy, 9,

p.

71.

24.

Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragodie, 24,

p.

148

= Birth

of

Tragedy, 24, p. 141.

25. Friedrich Nietzsche, "Von den drei Verwand

lungen," Also Sprach Zarathustra, in

Werke,

Sechste Abteilung, Erster Band (Berlin: de

Gruyter, 1968), pp.

25-27

= "On

the

Three

.Metamorphoses,"

Thus Spoke

Zarathustra,

translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York:

Viking, 1966), pp. 25-28.

26. Ibid., p. 27

=

Ibid., p. 27.

27.

Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, W erke, Kritische Ge

samtausgabe, Dritte Abteilung, Zweiter

Band:

Nachgelassene Schriften 1870-73

(Berlin:

Walter de Gruyter, 1973), pp. 295-366: "Die

Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter

der

Grie

chen," esp.

5-8,

19.

28. Cf. Jaspers, Nietzsche,

pp.

44 ff.

for

such an

interpretation.

29. The

basis of this interpretation is a parallel

description of a three-stage "\Vay to \Vis

dom" in Nietzsche's notebooks. It is to be

found in Nietzsche, Die Un..schuld des W er

dens,

edited

by

Alfred

Baeumler

(Stuttgart:

Kroner Verlag, 1956), Vol. I, p. 249, 662.

30. Ryogi Okichi, "Nietzsches

Amor

fati;' in

Nietzsche-Studien, Vol. I (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1972),

p.

89 ff. discusses this prob

lem, arguing that the three metamorphoses

cannot be viewed as distinct, chronologically

successive stages.

31. N'ietzsche, "Zarathustra's Vorrede," Zarathus

tra,

pp. 5-6

= Nietzsche, "Prologue," Zara

thu.stra, p. 10.

32.

Nietzsche,

M enschliches, Allzumenschliches,

I, "Vorrede," 3 in f-Verke, Vierte Abteilung,

Zweiter Band (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,

1967),

p.

9.

33.

Nietzsche, Die frohliche Wissenschaft

(

Stutt

gart:

Alfred Kroner, 1965). Fiinftes Buch,

382, p. 302 = The Joyful Wisdom, trans

lated by Thomas Common (New

York: Fred

erick Ungar, 1960), p. 352.

34. Nietzsche, Die Unschuld des W erdens, Band

I, 1311, P. 418.

35. Nietzsche,

Morgenrothe. Nachgelassene Frag

mente

Anfang 1880

bis Fruhjahr 1881,

in

Werke, Fiinfte Abteilung, Erster Band (Ber

lin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971), Fragment

8(

109)' p. 735.

36.

Danto, Nietzsche, p.

80

seems to imply such

a criticism.

37.

Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente. Herbst

1887 bis Marz 1888, in Werke, Achte Ab

teilung, Zweiter Band (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1970), Fragment 11(411), p. 431

The

Will

to

Power, translated by

Walter

Kaufmann and R.

J.

Hollingdale (New York:

Random House, 1967), p. 3

38.

That the problem

of

nihilism remains an

important one today is evidenced by the fol

lowing publications: Helmuth Thielicke, Nihil

ism. Its Origin and l\'ature with a Chris

tian Answer

(New York:

Schocken Books,

1969); Michael Novak, The Experience of

Nothingness

(New

York: Harper Torch

books, 1970); Stanley Rosen, Nihilism. A

Philosophic

Essay

(New Haven: Yale Uni

versity Press, 1960).

For

background mater

ial to this problem, also see Karl Lowith,

"The Historical Background

of

European

Nihilism," in

Na

u re, History and Existen

tialism, edited with a Critical Introduction


123


19/19

by

Arnold Levison (Evanston: Northwestern

University Press, 1966), pp. 3-16.

39. Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887-88,

9(35), p.

14 =

The Will

to

Power,

2,

p. 9.

40.

Ibid., 11(99), p. 290 = Ibid., 12, p. 15.

41. Ibid.,

9(35),

p.

14; not contained in any

English editions.

42. Ibid., p. 15

43. Ibid., pp.

15-16.

44. Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher, p. 80; cf.

pp. 19-35.

45.

Richard Schacht, "Nietzsche and Nihilism,"

in

Nietzsche. A Collection

of

Critical Essays,

edited by Robert

C.

Solomon (New York:

Doubleday, 1973), pp. 81-82.

46. Nietsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887-88,

9(35), pp,

14-15 =Will

to Power, 22, p.

17.

47. Ibid.

48.

Michael Novak, in

The E.rperience

of

Noth

ingness, implicitly recognizes this when he

argues that conferring value on choice and

the drive to question are to be considered as

"a creative act," (p. 68), as well as when he

treats ethics as "invitation, as invention, as

creation, as possibility" (p. 79), but he does

not attempt to pull this together in terms

of

play.

49. Rosen,

for

example admits that nihilism is

"a permanent human possibility" (Nihilism,

p.

xiv),

but does not accept it on Nietzsche's

terms.

50.

Nietzsche, The Will

to

Pouer, 1067, p. 550.

51.

Ibid.,

55, p.

38.

52.

Kaufmann, Nietzsche, p. 241.

53. Ibid., p. 260.

54. Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente. Anfang

1888 bis

Anfang Januar 1889,

in

Werke,

Achte

Abteilung, Dritter Band (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1972), 14(81)

Will to Power,

689, P. 367.

55.

Cf.

Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol.

II,

p.

266.

56.

Nietzsche,

Will to Power,

1067,

p. 550.

57. Ibid., p.

549.

58.

Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1888-89,

14(21), p. 93

=

Will t o Power, 692, p. 369.

59.

Ibid. This is the sense in which the play of

forces

is

at the same time one and many. Cf.

fn.

56,

above.

60.

Cf. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1888-89, 14(121),

p.

92

= Will

to

Power, 688, p. 366 and also

Unschuld

des

W erdens,

II,

838, p.

287.

61. Cf. Nietzsche, Auzer Dienst," "Von der

Er Osung," Zarathustra.

62. Unschuld des Werdens, II, 248, p. 95.

63. The Will to Power, 490,

p.

270.

64. Nietzsche, Morgenrothe. Nachgelassene Frag

mente 1880-81, 6(433), p. 639.

65. Ibid., 10(D79),

p.

760.

66. Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887-88.

11

(113), pp. 295-96 = The Will

to

Power,

477, p. 264.

67.

Cf. Richard Oehler,

Nietzsche Register

(Stutt

gart: Alfred Kroner, 1965),

p.

461.

68. Cf. Jaspers,

Nietzsche, p.

166. There may

have been political reasons for Jaspers' po

sition on this issue.

69. Danto, Nietzsche, p. 199.

70. Kaufmann, Nietsche, p.

316.

71. George A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means

(New York: Harper and Row, 1965),

pp. 301-03.

72. Cf. Heidegger, Nietzsche, II, pp. 259-60.

73. Ibid.,

p.

293.

74.

Fink,

Nietzsches Philosophie, p.

69.

75.

Ibid.,

pp. 69-70.

76. Nietzsche, "Zarathustra's Vorrede," 3, Zara

thustra, p. 8 = Nietzsche, "Preface,"

2,

Zara

thustra, p.

12.

77.

Nietzsche, Will

to

Pou:er, 1001,

p. 519.

78.

Nietzsche, Unschuld des Werdens, II, 1409,

p

507.

79. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, in Werke, Sechste Ab

teiling, Dritter Band (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 1969), p.

342 ::::

Ecce Homo, trans

lated

by

Walter Kaufmattn

(New

York:

Vin

tage Books, 1967), p.

305.

80. Nietzsche, "Von den Priestern," Zarathustra,

p. 115

=

"On the Priests," Zarathustra,

p.

93.

81. Cf. Nietzsche, Unschuld

des

Werdens,

II,

1384, 1385, 1

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