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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Blanchot, nihilism, ethics « Previous | |Next »
February 18, 2005

I see that the Australian reception of Blanchot is deepening. My guess is that the reception is taking place is primarily through literary studies and not philosophy. This is unsuprising because Blanchot is a becoming key thinker for modern literary criticism and language philosophy. It is Heideggerian understanding of literature presenting its own unique and (ultimately inexplicable?) mode of being, provides something for the reader, beholder or listener to dwell within, engages with nihilism and discloses a world.

What I find intersting with Blanchot is the form of writing that combines philosophy and literature.Does this mean a re-appearance of the view that philosophy can only be itself only by becoming literature?

I find Blanchot's reading of Nietzsche and nihilism limited because it misses the ethical dimension. This lack is a mark of the French reading of Nietzsche in the 1930s and 1940s.

We can make a distinction between ethics and the code of conduct which is placed under the morality of good and evil. By 'ethics' I mean the concerns with living a flourishing life, and the relationship of self and other in which the other is allowed to remain other. The classical (Greek and Roman) accounts focus on a flourishing life whilst the postmodern account focuses on self and other.

Nietzsche says that with the death of God we can mark the end of the moral interpretation of the world under the signature of God. The question of meaning will be asked with the death of God, as this spells the end of the moral interpretation of the world. In nineteenth century bourgeois society God (Christianity) stood for the high point of any code of conduct that achieves meaning via the dualism of good and evil. So the death of God leaves a voided, empty moral space, which leads to nihilism.

This is experienced as a disaster, not in the sense of a loss of faith, but in the sense Blanchot uses it, it's the dis-aster, i.e. the vanishing of the guiding star that leaves us without orientation. Hence the despair.This leads to attempts to comfort each other as we dangle over the abyss.

Yet Nietzsche suggests that nihilism can lead to strength, to the overcoming of nihilism, with the overcoming through the transvaluation of all values providing the basis upon which culture can thrive. Heidegger suggests that that our alienation from nature, which is due to an instrumental theoreticism that drives towards technical and objectifying modes of knowledge and marginalizes any kind of primordial mode of existence, can be redeemed though poetics.

And Blanchot?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:24 AM | | Comments (0)
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