EXISTENTIALISM, EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY, AND EXISTENZ-PHILOSOPHY

There can be no doubt that Nietzsche figured importantly in the genealogy of existentialism. Along with Kierkegaard, he is commonly considered to have been one of its fathers – or perhaps grandfathers, if its paternity is to be attributed to Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. An argument can certainly be made that Kierkegaard deserves the characterization “existentialist,” his passionate Christianity notwithstanding; for he virtually defined the program of the movement with his famous criticism of “modern philosophy” (that is, Hegel) for “having forgotten, in a sort of world-historical absent-mindedness, what it means to be a human being … each one for himself,” his insistence that “If [one] is a human being then he is also an existing individual,” and his contention that a human being does best to “concentrate his entire energy upon the fact that he isan existing individual.” But is the reinterpretation of human reality that Nietzsche calls for, and undertakes, to be understood at all similarly?

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Jörg Salaquarda, who at the time of his most untimely death was Universitätsprofessor für Philosophie, Religionsphilosophie, und Religionskritik in the Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultät at the University of Vienna. Salaquarda had long been very well known to all of us in the international community of Nietzsche scholarship and was one of the participants in the conference at the University of Illinois in 1994 from which most of the essays in this volume derive (as is explained in the Introduction). He was a leading light in Nietzsche scholarship and will be greatly missed on that account; but he will be missed at least as much for the decency, integrity, and cosmopolitanism that he brought to his work and to his interactions with his colleagues in this international community he did so much to foster.

Salaquarda exemplified the kind of philosophical temperament and sensibility that many of us feel will best serve both the Nietzsche studies and (in Nietzsche's phrase) “the philosophy of the future”: at once intellectually conscientious and independently minded, with respect to the reinterpretation and reevaluation of both Nietzsche's thinking and the things he was trying to think about. This temperament – which was modeled in exemplary fashion by Nietzsche himself at his best – characterized the 1994 conference more generally; and it is reflected in the spirit of the essays in this volume, even if the mix of these traits may vary among them.

“The time for me hasn't come yet,” Friedrich Nietzsche observed in Ecce Homo, near the end of his all-too-brief productive life. “Some are born posthumously.” That certainly was true enough when he wrote it, in 1888, years before his writings began to attract any real attention. But attract it they eventually did, on a scale few other philosophical writers have ever even imagined. No other figure in the history of philosophy surpasses Nietzsche in the attention now being accorded to him, not only by scholarly specialists, but also by those engaged in many areas of ongoing inquiry in philosophy and kindred disciplines.

Moreover, no previous figure in the history of modern philosophy has attracted as much attention as Nietzsche has in intellectual circles beyond the bounds of academia, in which cultural analysis and criticism are pursued by many writers concerned with the current problems and future prospects of our society and culture. For some, he is the philosopher they love to hate, who called into question everything they hold dear, and was the sower of many of the ill winds whose whirlwind progeny now threaten us. For others, he is the welcome scourge, liberator, and herald who broke the grip of moribund traditions and stultifying institutions and pointed the way toward a radically new and different future not only for philosophy but also for humanity.

Advantages of psychological observation. – That reflection on the human, all too human – or, as the learned expression has it: psychological observation – is among the expedients by means of which one can alleviate the burden of living, that practice in this art lends presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment in tedious circumstances, that one can, indeed, pluck useful maxims from the thorniest and most disagreeable stretches of one's own life and thereby feel a little better: that was believed, that was known – in former centuries. Why has it been forgotten by this century, in which, at least in Germany, indeed in all Europe, poverty in psychological observation is apparent through a hundred signs? Not especially in novels, novellas or philosophical writings – these are the work of exceptional men; it is already more evident, however, in assessments made of public events and personalities: but the art of psychological dissection and computation is lacking above all in the social life of all classes, in which, while there may be much talk about people, there is none at all about man. But why is the richest and most inoffensive material for conversation neglected in this way? Why does one not even read the great masters of the psychological maxim any more? – for it can be said without any exaggeration that it is hard to find any educated person in Europe who has read Larochefoucauld or those related to him in style and spirit, and very much harder to find one who has read them and does not revile them.

The Shadow: As it is so long since I heard your voice, I would like to give you an opportunity of speaking.

The Wanderer: Someone said something: – where? and who? It almost seems as though it were I myself speaking, though in an even weaker voice than mine.

The Shadow (after a pause): Are you not glad to have an opportunity of speaking?

The Wanderer: By God and all the things I do not believe in, it is my shadow speaking; I hear it but I do not believe it.

The Shadow: Let us accept it and think no more about it: in an hour it will all be over.

The Wanderer: That is just what I thought when, in a wood near Pisa, I saw first two and then five camels.

The Shadow: It is well we are both indulgent if our understanding for once comes to a stop: thus we shall converse together without recriminations and not press one another too hard if we fail to understand something the other has said. If we know not what to reply, it will be enough to say something: it is under this reasonable condition that I agree to converse with anyone. In a long discussion even the wisest of us is once a fool and three times a simpleton.

The Wanderer: Your modesty is not flattering to him you confess it to.

The perfect woman. – The perfect woman is a higher type of human being than the perfect man: also something much rarer. – The natural science of the animals offers a means of demonstrating the truth of this proposition.

Friendship and marriage. – The best friend will probably acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is founded on the talent for friendship.

Continuance of the parents. – The unresolved dissonances between the characters and dispositions of the parents continue to resound in the nature of the child and constitute the history of his inner sufferings.

From the mother. – Everyone bears within him a picture of woman derived from his mother: it is this which determines whether, in his dealings with women, he respects them or despises them or is in general indifferent to them.

Correcting nature. – If one does not have a good father one should furnish oneself with one.

Fathers and sons. – Fathers have much to do to make amends for having sons.

Error of noble women. – Noble women think that a thing does not exist if it is not possible to speak about it in company.

A male sickness. – For the male sickness of self-contempt the surest cure is to be loved by a clever woman.

A kind of jealousy. – Mothers are easily jealous of the friends of their sons when these enjoy particular success.