|
March 7, 2005
In Chapter 6 in Nihilism, entitled 'The Uppermost Values as Categories' Heidegger is commenting on para 12 (A and B) in Bk I (European Nihilism) of Nietzsche's The Will to Power. He says
'Nietzsche abruptly calls the uppermost values categories, without giving the terms a more precise explanation that might establish why the uppermost values are apprehended in that way, and why "categories" can be conceived of as uppermost values. What are "categories"?'
The reference is to two passages in para 12, 'Decline of Cosmological Values', in Nietzsche's Will to Power text. At the end of section (A) of para 12 Nietzsche states that nihilism means:
"One simply lacks any reason for convincing oneself that there is a true world. 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."
And in section (B) of para 12 Nietzsche states that:
'Conclusion: The faith in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism. We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world.'
In addressing the question, 'What are categories?', Heidegger goes back to Aristotle. Philosophically speaking categories are:
"..the basic words of metaphysics and are therefore names for fundamental philosophical concepts .... When Nietzsche in section B says without further justification that the highest values are "categories of reason" , that characterisation is once again the same as what Kant taught and Aristotle thought through."
Heidegger adds that the nature of relationship between the categories and reason--judgemental thinking--is grasped differently in Aristotle, Kant and Nietzsche, depending on how they define the essence of reason and how they expereience and explain being as such.
However, Nietzsche's link between categories and uppermost values indicates how much Nietzsche thinks along the pathway of metaphysics. He is not simply the poet philosopher within the literary institution.
Heidegger then asks: 'Does Nietzsche stray from the path of metaphysics when he conceives of the categories as values?' 'Does Nietzsche become an anti-metaphysician?, as many in the literary institution claim? 'Or does Nietzsche merely bring metaphysics to completion and becomes the last metaphysician?' To answer these questions requires us to first elucidate Nietzsche's concept of nihilism.
|
