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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
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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
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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
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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
NIETZSCHE'S PHILOSOPHY
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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
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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
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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
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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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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-
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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.
NIETZSCHE'S PHILOSOPHY
117
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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.
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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
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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-
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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
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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
8/10/2019 Lawrence M. Hinman Nietzsches Philosophy of Play (1974)-Libre
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(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
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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