A (short) Nietzschean account of ontology and agonal politics

Introduction

Nietzsche’s ontology is in fact not an ontology in that it grounds reality in Being or beings. Rather, it problematizes any ontology of being and deconstructs it in such a way that the reality with which we’re left is grounded in becoming and an overall plurality of forces. It will become clear that his so-called anti-metaphysical critique moves toward a reconstruction of an ‘ontology’ as becoming.(1) Nietzsche then argues, assuming some basic bio-organic principles, that we are in fact in constituting being on multiple levels of understanding (through language, logic, reason, etc.). The paradox of unity and struggle of inner forces of what constitutes a unity is fundamentally understood in Nietzsche’s notion of will to power. The agon (a political form originating in the Greek states that Nietzsche endorses), as we will argue, is founded on a basic respect for this ontology of becoming and is committed towards a societal principle through which a person is able to prosper and is able to work towards an infinite self-perfection and a general ‘greatening of the human’, through a mutual-limiting struggle, perpetuated by the coming about of a plurality of human geniuses. Finally, we will analyse the way in which Nietzsche’s historicism problematizes the development of the human in modern times, with the danger of man becoming a diminution of man (Verkleinerung des Menschen).

Criticism of substance

Aydin reconstructs Nietzsche’s main criticisms based on a thorough study of a broad-ranging reading of his texts which, in respect to substance can be reduced to the following criticisms:

1) Substance is a fiction

2) Substance is a prejudice of reason

3) Substance is a prejudice of language and grammar

4) Substance is a prejudice of logic

Substance is a fiction because any presupposed unity of a multiplicity of attributes which we call ‘thing’ is assumed in the mind, but does not correspond with a foundational being that is externally prior to the multiplicity of these attributes. Everything that appears of unity is already complex in its physiological constitution. Apparent simple substances are a product of multiplicity. Nietzsche takes a Heraclitian perspective towards reality wherein the notion of πάντα ῥεῖ (everything flows) is illustrated with regard to simple observations: ‘Der Baum ist in jedem Augenblich etwas Neues’, but also exemplified in fundamental notions of the natural sciences: ‘Das Atom als Punkt, inhaltslos, rein Erscheinung, in jedem kleinsten Momente werdend, nie seiend.’ He extends this even further to mathematics in order to show that there is a discrepancy between our understanding of reality as fixed and reality itself as not fixed. Substance is a prejudice of reason insofar reason as an instrument of knowledge is unable to grasp an ever-streaming flow, or a continuum of werden. Rather, reason or consciousness hobbles after reality. Any thinking of reality is thus fundamentally an afterthought that projects being in the continuum by taking pieces out of it.

Language is also incapable of grasping the continuum of becoming and has from its origins onward created a world of Being next to the world of becoming in which predicates are purported as ‘true beings in themselves’ (or essences) so that a ‘something’ (ein Etwas) is understood as being fundamental to the world. He exemplifies this in the expression ‘lightning flashes’: the verb ‘to flash’ is not an activity (Wirkung), but is predicated of a thing, namely ‘the lightning’, as if it was something on itself. The grammatical structure of language enforces a way in which we approach reality, but it does not entail the way it is. Finally, a substance is a prejudice of logic for it set outs metaphysical rules to understand the world; such the law of contradiction, which is based on the human (or organic) incapability (nicht-vermögen) of denying and affirming the same thing simultaneously. This incapability, however, differs fundamentally from the logician’s view that the law of contradiction reveals a necessary impossibility of the world. Rather, as Nietzsche puts it, logical axioms do not form a criterion of truth, but an imperative that sets the conditions of what is to be acknowledged as truth. Thus, logic is reduced to a metaphysics. Aydin’s analysis of Nietzsche’s criticism culminates in the conclusion that substance and causality are in fact a derivative of the purported ‘I’ that ‘substantializes’. For Nietzsche, there is a fundamental belief of the “I” prior to any notion of substance or causality. This construction of a fictitious I, however, is a form of self-maintenance because organisms (including humans), in order to understand the world have to bring regulation into it; - have to schematize and categorize it. But what is reality in the face of this? What we’re left with is a world of a plurality of forces, of impulses (Trieben) that constitute a plurality of perspectives that, in any ‘whole’, have a constant underlying showdown between internally active forces. There is no causality because there is no succession: becoming is not a lined continuum. Becoming has to be understood as a geschehen, as an in-each-other (in-einander), from which it follows implicitly that there is a notion of mutual forces that work in-each-other. The world of becoming is best understood as a play or forces (Spiel von Kräften). A force is never single, but is intrinsically relational or relative to other forces and is by the same time limited by them. Every force is a resistance against a relative force and has as a primary characterization that it wants to overpower the force it is related towards. A development of a thing is best understood the accumulation of ‘usurpative processes’ (Überwaltigungsprozessen), the whole of the underlying forces of which is again geared toward other forces. The human individual is in this regard best reinterpreted as a dividual of different forces that are active in the constituted whole: the purported unity, however, does not have to be governed by an overlying principle, or being: a unity is rather a complex mastery that is construed through multiple relations of demanding and obeying, thus there is governance as the result of constant struggle. Any whole is thus conditioned upon a maintenance that preserves it. It seeks advantage and finds opposition in another whole: through struggle the whole maintains itself, which does not mean that it works towards its own dissolution if it integrates another whole of which it becomes a part, since all wholes have a basic motion directed towards enhancement which it finds in its expansion (due to overpowering). A further reduction of the endless struggle of destructive forces culminates finally in the most fundamental name (although it will never truly grasp it) for the world, Will to power:

[…]diese meine dionysische Welt des Ewig-sich-selber-Schaffens, des Ewig-sich-selber Zerstörens, diese Geheimniß-Welt der doppelten Wollüste, dieß mein jenseits von Gut und Böse, ohne Ziel, wenn nicht im Glück des Kreises ein Ziel liegt, ohne Willen, wenn nicht ein Ring zu sich selber guten Willen hat, — wollt ihr einen Namen für diese Welt? Eine Lösung für alle ihre Räthsel? ein Licht auch für euch, ihr Verborgensten, Stärksten, Unerschrockensten, Mitternächtlichsten? — Diese Welt ist der Wille zur Macht — und nichts außerdem! Und auch ihr selber seid dieser Wille zur Macht — und nichts außerdem!

Against the diminution of man

From the position that I am will to power and that the will to power is reality it follows that in reality all humans (and in fact all organisms and beyond) are will to power If this is transposed to a unit of individuals - a society -, we will find the basis for the agon in which this ‘ontology’ is embedded. The implication however for a Nietzschean morality must be stressed prior to this. We cannot escape reality insofar it is a play of power-games: we stand in this reality. We take part in this power-play. This has far-reaching ethical implications: the less the distance there is between reality, or nature, and the ethical, the better: ‘Grundsatz: wie die Natur sein’. This is called an ethics of radical immanentism.(2) Moralism is naturalized: we must affirm live as an expression of power and strive towards perfectionism. The perfectionist transformation of the human brings about his enhancement through the self-overcoming and the becoming of the genius (the principle of the enhancement of man [Vergrößerung des Menschen]). This perfectionist demand articulates life as activity, as power and the demand for wanting to have more of it. However, this perfectionist attitude is not absolutist: it expects and in fact, is grounded upon an interdependent antagonism; if one force becomes tyrannical, the development of geniuses becomes increasingly difficult, for they cannot overthrow the tyrannical.(3) The agon discharges the individual but it at the same time contains its internal laws: since forces seek to expand themselves, they become increasingly difficult to overcome (but if all goes right, do not become tyrannical, or will be ostracized if they do). The continuation of the agon stands on the pathos of distance, that is a (legal) distance between members of society that enables those members to develop into better-articulated individuals; one of the dangers of the diminution of man follows from the levelling, which entails an ongoing decreasing of the distance between men. With regard to History, I want only to state shortly that Nietzsche – in broad lines – saw the development of the 19th century as a process geared towards the diminution of man (Verkleinerung des Menschen), partly assessed by the forming of democracy and principles like equality, following from a general consequence of a persistent moral slave revolt.

Footnotes

1) Note that this reconstruction will not be an original one in the sense that I will critically evaluate each claim made about adduced sources by researchers who have studied Nietzsche’s anti-metaphysical analysis of the world, since that would be a study in itself. I will refer to some primary sources to substantiate some claims made by those researchers, the most basic of which is ‘Nietzsche disregards becoming as property or non-merit of being for an ontology in which becoming constitutes a reality from which being is deviated’ and to my conviction greatly supported by Nietzsche himself.

2) Or so it is purported by H. Siemens; another term was proposed by Van Tongeren as a ‘quasi-Stoic live according to nature’. I personally endorse the term radical immanetism because it is an ethics that is directly immanent from reality will to power. Affirming any ethics with regard to this reality will affirm the self as will to power, with which this ethical system not only affirms this reality, but let’s us work towards it understanding: I guess there is a basic sense in whatever we think our ethics is based on or geared towards to, we want to have an understanding (if at all) of the problems that are purported by it: Radical immanentism not only want us to live as will to power, but makes us want to understand it as well.

3) We recognize this attitude in Nietzsche’s appraisal of ostracism. I want to add to this an afterthought that might not be in accordance with Nietzsche’s views, nor be agreed upon with his democratic agonal interpreters, but in my understanding, it is unclear why the agon should stop outside of the boundaries of a government necessarily. In fact, an argument in favour of a temporary tyranny based on the ethics of radical immanentism is certainly possible if we extend the power-play to a situation where two governments struggle (most likely through, but not limited to war). Will to power is reality and forces strive against each other at every level: If the inner forces (that is mutually antagonizing individuals) within a society want to defend itself, it might be said, it has to function as a whole. This happens through an excess of power by one force, that then aligns its relations to underlying struggling powers in such a way that it is maintained. But through this another (ontological) problem arises: what happens if a force (a government) is destroyed? If a force expanded through it, it would immediately increase the underlying struggling forces via that expansion. The Greek custom (and I think Nietzsche subscribes to this) of laying down a tyrannical title that was bestowed upon an individual reflects the dissolution of power, following a fundamental understanding that the extension of such forces would endanger and dissolve the whole sooner or later internally.

List of References

(KSA 9) Nietzsche, Friedrich, Giorgio Colli, and Mazzino Montinari. 1999. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1880 - 1882. Berlin: de Gruyter.

(KSA 11) Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Giorgio Colli, and Mazzino Montinari. 1999. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1884 - 1885. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag.

(KSA 12) Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Giorgio Colli, and Mazzino Montinari. 1999. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885 - 1887. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag.

(KSA 13) Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Giorgio Colli, and Mazzino Montinari. 1999. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887-1889. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag.

Aydin, Ciano Ozcan. 2003. Zijn En Worden. Maastricht: Shaker publ.

Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang. 1971. Nietzsche: Seine Philosophie Der Gegensätze Und Die Gegensätze Seiner Philosophie. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter Incorporated.

Siemens, Herman. 2009. "Nietzsche's Critique Of Democracy (1870-1886)". The Journal Of Nietzsche Studies, no. 38: 20-37.