After the rather thin accounts of nihilism in the two previous essays we come to Blanchot's third essay in his 'Reflections on Nihilism' section in The Infinite Conversation. It is called 'Nietzsche and fragmentary writing' and it is a part of the Limit-experience section.
This text acknowledges that Nietzsche's writing can be thought of as belonging to the philosophical institution, may even constitute a system, and can be interpreted as responding to Plato, Kant or Hegel. Blanchot says:
"Let us admit this. Let us admit as well that such a continuous discourse may be behind these divided works. It remains nonetheless true that Nietzsche does not contend himself with such a continuity. And even if a part of these fragements can be bought back into this kind of integral discourse, it is manifest that such a discourse--philosophy--itself---is already surpassed by Nietzsche; that he presupposes it rather than gives it exposition, in order further on, to speak according to a different language: no longer for the whole but of the fragment, of plurality, of separation."
So what? What is the significance of this?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at February 23, 2005 11:58 PM | TrackBackI think by 'fragment' Blanchot may mean something other than (Nietzsche's) aphorisms. That is, the fragment must be understood precisely as the 'impossible-necessary' (The Writing of the Disaster).
Posted by: Matt on February 25, 2005 02:20 AMMatt,
Thanks for the guiidance.
I'm a novice with Blanchot.It looks as if I will have to read The Writing of Disaster as I have no idea of what the 'impossible-necessary' is.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on February 25, 2005 06:46 AMwell i'm a novice too, but that's the best part!
Posted by: Matt on February 26, 2005 09:15 AMMatt,
I guess that I was thinking of Walter Benjamin here and the way Benjamin had an eye for the fragmentary, an almost gnostic appreciation of the secrets that can be gleaned from each small detail.
Ernest Bloch, also a friend of Benjamin's, noted Benjamin's eye:
"for the marginal ... for the impinging and unaccustomed, unschematic particularity which does not 'fit in' and therefore deserves a quite special and incisive attention."(quoted by Stanley Mitchell in the introduction to Understanding Brecht).
An example would be Benjamin's favorite exhibit at a museum of two grains of wheat upon which had been painstakingly inscribed the Shema Yisroel:--- the one-line affirmation of the Jew?s faith in God, the essence of an entire religion on the tiniest of entities.
Thus it was the seemingly insignificant that, for Benjamin, was the most significant. Each fragment of actual, demonstrable reality---physical and social reality---contained implicit in it the key to a much broader understanding.
I have no idea how this would link to the Blanchot's 'impossible-necessary'.