In the light of the double bind in which interpretive critique finds itself, how then does Deleuze read Nietzsche's reversal of the Platonic tradition in Nietzsche and Philosophy?
Nietzsche argues that chaos needs to be ordered by us. We do so by schematizing in order to impose upon chaos as much regularity and form as our practical needs require. Our practical needs require that the strange and unfamiliar be reduced to what is familiar and the same. In this way they become calculable and usable to us [i.e., conform to our "practical needs". The predictable, regular, and ordered is therefore necessary for life.
How does this overcome Platonism? This article can help us. Nietzsche's pragmatism displaces Plato's conception of the Forms in which the 'Idea' of X -pre-exist it being applied to the realm of practical, day-to-day necessity; they are a consequence of this necessity, of our "practical needs." The Idea is contrasted with the sensuous world of appearances and thus it is part of a supersensuous world. It is therefore the relationship between the sensuous and the supersensuous which Nietzsche reverses: the sensuous world is genuine being. Hence Nietzsche's overcoming of Platonism is an inversion of Plato, as the Plato's true world of the (ideal) Forms is expunged.
This leaves the dual/oppositional, metaphysical structure intact. Is this a plausible interpretation of Nietzsche?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at September 4, 2005 11:03 PM | TrackBack