Nietzsche and Metaphysics

by Michel Haar, Michael Gendre (Translator)

Michel Haar assesses the overcoming of metaphysics urged by Nietzsche. He probes tensions usually acknowledged without further questioning, and he probes discrepancies. Haar points out that Nietzsche's overcoming must be conceived as a task both critical and reconstructive. Instead of indulging in the deconstructionist intertextual obsession with idiosyncratic "traces, Haar shows how Nietzsche criticizes philosophical concepts as being traceable to a process of simplification and identification thus subverting traditional categories and identities. Haar presents Nietzsche as an aesthetic stoic. Although opposed to any doctrinal tenet, Nietzsche rekindles a Stoic return to nature in the register of a creative and aesthetic decision. Necessity is no longer a single rational force permeating all beings. Instead he conceives of the will to power as a schematization of the natural chaos and refers Dionysos to an inspiring "the genius of the heart. Rejecting the Deleuzian essay of interpretation that unleashes the simulacra of an untamed imagination, Haar points out that Nietzsche's rejection of Kant is much less extreme than imagined in Deleuze's eccentric readings. Haar also shows that the rupture with Schopenhauer came very early in Nietzsche's itinerary although he accepted the idea of a social conditioning of science. Haar shows that two Apollonian sublimities are distinguished by one generating idyll, epos, and mythic language; the other a compensatory illusion on the dramatic stage destined to dismiss the horror of an endlessly swelling ground. It is this monstrosity that a creative forgetfulness is destined to replace by seeking a place for the work of art amidst tragic joy.

Genres: Philosophy

214 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jt]

I had to purchase this book for a class on postmodernism that i took in college. The teacher in the class was a young professor who was trying to make a career for himself; it was his first official year teaching as a professor. I applaud his efforts, but must admit that most of the time i spent listening to him back then was me just wondering if what he tried to teach really meant something to him or was just "bull". You must understand i came from a poor, working class background and almost all my friends never attended a class at a university or college (and the Bulls were winning many championships at the time)...but that didn't mean they didn't know anything about how to interpret the world. Some of the things this young professor got into really seemed like a pile of shit to people like my friends, so like them i thought how much was this worth considering; of course, it was his first year, and he was nervous at times and trying to learn his craft. There were situations i'm sure he wished he'd handled better when a student of his truly disagreed with him and placed him in a position to defend his sense of "truth" or at least his understanding of it. I did the prerequisite studying and delineation of studying and i appeared in class enough times to "achieve" a grade designated as an "A" for the record. Years later i picked up this book and saw the lines in it that i had highlighted and even gone over the "important" points a second time with a red-ink pen. I was pleased with my sense of precision for what the "text" was trying to say, even though i remembered none of it when i re-read it. But that's not to say i didn't pick up on its most general, or easily (mis)understood parts that i couldn't recall it in an argument when i was confronted with the topics it tried to address. The second and third time i read it all the way through, i came to a deeper appreciation of how Michael Haar explains his understanding of "Nietzsche" and why this book was assigned to be read in a graduate class in the first place.