I. Nietzsche's Fascination with the Techniques of his Philosophizing

Nietzsche said of Socrates, his great antipode, that he “fascinated” the noble Athenians with his dialectic — with it he “had a merciless tool in his hand,” with which he had the intellect of his opponents.”depotentiated”¹ Have. For Nietzsche, dialectics, and with it the entire rationalism of Western philosophy, was a technique with which a semblance of truth could be produced. In his time, as he soon realized for himself, the “conviction” had prevailedthat we don't have the truth”², what he then called “nihilism.” After a long struggle for its meaning and consequences, he finally recognized in him the “normal state,”³ In which, according to metaphysics, we are now living again, a state in which what metaphysics and the subsequent Christian dogmatics declared to be top values loses its credibility. When he saw that there were no more absolute certainties, Nietzsche consistently demetaphysized and demoralized the language of philosophy in order to reach a new “deepening into reality”⁴ , which we are only reluctant to understand because we ourselves are still attached to metaphysical-moral idealizations.

As we see today, Nietzsche did not construct a new “system”; as is well known, “the will to the system” was already a “lack of righteousness.”⁵. The famous doctrines, which, according to Heidegger in particular, should be the core of such a system, the doctrines of superman, of will to power and of the eternal return of the same, he put in the mouth of his figure Zarathustra, but let him consistently fail with them — no one, not his disciples, not his animals, not the higher people, does not understand them in his mind, and in the end goes He alone opposes his sign intended only for him. Under his own name, Nietzsche led in Beyond good and evil (Aph 36) introduces the concept of the will to power as a mere hypothesis of parsimony of principles, as a means of making the new picture of reality as clear as possible (“and nothing else”). Here, as can now be clearly seen from the new edition of the late estate, he had initially acted on the eternal return of the same and only then used the will to power in its place.⁶ The two hypotheses seemed to him to be functional equivalents for the radical reorientation of philosophy that was taking place in nihilism. For him, they were not dogmas, but part of the technique of his philosophizing.

They were also discontinued as dogmas. There was no such thing as a Nietzsche School, comparable first to the Hegel School and then to the Kant School in the 19th century. Instead, the Nietzsche interpretation has now learned not to base his philosophizing on specific doctrines, but to follow his orientation process with all its facets and all the ambiguities and turns that he takes, to observe Nietzsche at work.⁷ We can try to learn from this how to orient ourselves in nihilism and attract readers all over the world in return. In the spirit of the topic of this conference, I will explore the techniques of Nietzsche's philosophizing in order to find out how, in the normal state of nihilism, he gained a sense of orientation that still fascinates today.

In order not to remain fixated on Nietzsche's philosophizing, I also take a side look at the philosophizing of Heidegger and Wittgenstein, which were the most innovative in the 20th century. Both were born in 1889, the year in which Nietzsche went insane. Wittgenstein took note of him rather distanced; Heidegger built him up as a major opponent in order to profile his own “other start” against him.⁸ But both achieved something very rare and great, which Nietzsche would have called “self-overcoming”: They overturned the foundations of their own first philosophies, with which they had become world-famous. Wittgenstein recognized in his Logical-philosophical treatise, with which he the “inviolable and definitive””verity“in order to solve philosophical problems, he believed he had achieved a doctrine that could not be maintained, Heidegger in Being and time a missed step on the path to “meaning of being.” Instead, they in turn looked at the techniques of philosophizing: the ways and means by which it can lead to doctrines and those by which it can abstain from them. Like Nietzsche, they now spoke more about their “philosophizing” than about their “philosophy.” They too disregarded traditional standards of philosophizing and created radically new ones. And like Nietzsche, they did not have a preconceived plan that they would have worked through systematically, but deliberately accepted surprises in their own thinking as well. They all came not to a goal with their philosophizing, but only to a temporary end. And yet they achieved the most powerful effects.⁹

‍

II. Skillful Use of the Most General Terms as a Technique of Philosophizing in General

Techniques are not something you believe to be true; you judge them solely on the basis of their functioning and success. Technology is also not, as the late Heidegger said, suspicious of metaphysics; because it is not just mechanical technology, which Nietzsche, as we have heard, liked to use and which Wittgenstein, as a student of engineering, dedicated himself so intensively that he came to philosophy through mathematics. Techniques are also, for Nietzsche and also for Wittgenstein, techniques of composing and making music, of poetry and thus also of philosophizing. After Nietzsche, Greek tragedy poets were able to learn techniques from each other¹⁰ Can you acquire techniques in education¹¹ Richard Wagner “profoundly overcome the scholarly and transformed it into instinctive technology”¹²; Nietzsche also speaks of techniques of trade, hunting¹³ and linguistic expression¹⁴. In an overview from the end of 1887¹⁵ He cites “the great technology and inventiveness of the natural sciences” as a means against the “moralization of everything up to now. Philosophy {and appreciation}”, Christian idealization (“e.g. {in music}, in socialism”), Rousseau's “hatred of aristocratic culture,” against the romantic “wrong and imitation of stronger humanity,” and finally against “hatred” of “all kinds of ranking and distance.” Like all that, “{what {relatively} was born from abundance in the 19th century, with pleasure}”, be technology, in addition to “{cheerful music, etc.}” and perhaps also the “{history (?)} “, a “{relative [s] product [] of strength, self-confidence of the 19th century}”; it gives new orientation in our language that makes nihilism bearable. On the other hand, as Nietzsche then said in The Antichrist (#44) writes that in Christianity, the “technique,” the “art of lying saintly, [...] came to ultimate mastery.”

Techniques in this sense are practices that do not have to be conscious, but on the contrary, if you become aware of them as such, when playing the piano or during simple movements such as walking, can even be disturbed, as Kleist does in his famous essay About the puppet theatre described; Nietzsche wrote about how difficult it is often to talk about his techniques.¹⁶ They are learned through experiments and put into practice until you “can” at some point, without having to be able to explain why you can. You can learn them by observing them in others, but you can't easily teach them because everyone has different skills with them. In any case, they must be “skillful,” and philosophizing must also be skilled in this sense. As with any other craft, the best judge whether it is done skillfully is those who can do it themselves.

The late Wittgenstein noted for himself: “We go through conventional thought movements, make, automatically, thought transitions in accordance with the techniques we have learned. And now we have to review what we've said first. ”¹⁷ The late Heidegger also emphasized that the “craft of thinking” must be learned and practiced.¹⁸ This results in a “technical” concept of philosophy itself: no longer determined by predetermined objects such as world and truth, being and time, but as a skilled use of the most general concepts of this kind. And now you can observe what goes into this skill, i.e. using the examples of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Heidegger.

‍

III. Nietzsche's Techniques of Philosophizing

A. Nietzsche's Techniques as an Answer to Specific Problems

In connection with Nietzsche's characterization of Socrates's “Magic of the Extreme,” I have already shown how, in the course of his work, he himself responded to certain problems that faced him with certain techniques for solving them.¹⁹ I came up with seven there:

1st in the Birth of Tragedy he answered the problem of the “theoretical man” created by Socrates with the technique of embedding it in the simultaneously newly understood Greek culture;

2nd in Human, all-too-human on the problem of the entire government of the world with the technique of comparing cultures in an “age of comparison” (Vol. 1, Aph. 23);

3rd in Morgenröthe on the problem of the self-denial of European morality with the technique of a moral critique of morality, which then became the genealogy of morality;

4th in The happy science on the problem of nihilism with the technique of reorienting philosophizing from the ground up through the integration of art;

5th in Beyond good and evil on the problem of the will to truth, which persists even when you know that you cannot have the truth, with the technique of expanding the horizons of human orientation (all “basic human instincts” have “driven philosophy before” [Aph 6]);

6. in the V. book of Happy science on the problem of ranking (including in law on problems) in a time of unstoppable democratization with the technology of switching from equality to difference;²⁰

7th in Götzen-Dämmerung and the last works prepared for publication on the “Problem of Werth of life in general” (Morality as an offense, 5) using the technique of affirming everything that is happening or liberating yourself from resentment²¹.

All these techniques — embedding, comparison, self-referential criticism, integration of art, broadening horizons, breaking with familiar equations and affirming the given — increase the scope of Nietzsche's philosophizing and at the same time give his philosophizing its own footing. In this sense, they are orientation techniques.²² You always orient yourself at something without already committing to it, and Nietzsche is also philosophically oriented in the mode of question and provisional. With Nietzsche, the truth that you “can't have” becomes part of the game, a “meeting [...] of questions and question marks.”²³that, according to all experience, it actually is. According to this, philosophizing as a skillful use of general terms is a technique of orienting oneself in the world that always remains questionable, always provisional. It includes constant watchful self-criticism, in Nietzsche's language unremitting “self-overcoming.”

To a certain extent, these techniques can also be applied to Wittgenstein and Heidegger. However, this is more obvious with

B. Nietzsche's Techniques of Philosophizing in General

I'll name 7 techniques again. We need to see how far we want — and can — follow them today.

1. Radical Destruction of Dogmatic Truths — up to Nihilism

Nietzsche and thus also Wittgenstein and Heidegger in their late period consistently destroy the dogmatic truths of almost all previous philosophy apart from Heraclitus. You can't start over in philosophy without cleaning up the old. However, you can do it in the literal sense of lat. Destroy only gradually “shift off” because it could still guide thinking. All three no longer approach destruction systematically as did Hegel, but attack point by point where traditional doctrines seem to impede their philosophical reorientation, and are mostly aimed at people such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel, but always with regard to standards of philosophizing that have become self-evident such as logic with their principle of excercising conclusive contradiction or the epistemological isolation of assets such as sensuality, reason, feeling and will. They all not only allow logical paradoxes, but actually rely on them, Nietzsche, for example, on the certainty of uncertainty,²⁴ vital falsehoods,²⁵ teaching the unteachable (cf. the entire Zarathustra), communication of the indivisible²⁶ and accepting the unacceptable (Amor Fati),²⁷ Wittgenstein on the game with rules in regulated language games, Heidegger on the incomprehensibility of the all-important Seyns, which he — alienates with y — writes down and repeats at the same time. They all follow Heraclitus, who stuck to the time that doesn't last, Socrates, who knew that he knew nothing, and Plato, who wrote that he did not write down doctrines. Nietzsche also morally attacks seemingly unassailable morality insofar as she, lying herself, forces philosophizing to lie.

The gain of the technique of destruction, which Heidegger expressly calls as²⁸ is the liberation for new clues and horizons, ways and standards and sensitivities of philosophizing beyond system boundaries. In the case of Nietzsche, these include physicality, instincts, moods, rhythms, which he contributes to the “music of life.”²⁹ summarizes, orientation also towards other cultures and languages, vital deceptions and self-delusions, the great seriousness of playing with everything. By destroying the one-dimensional Augustinian image of language, the late Wittgenstein achieved a breakthrough in looking at the manifold functions of language in the fields of diverse forms of life and at the techniques of assurance that arise in them. In order to clear the sense of being freed from ontological requirements, the late Heidegger envisages the “playback” of “other beginnings” in a “profound”, baseless “time-game space” into which thinking must find its way into.³⁰

2. In-depth Deconstruction — for the Immediate Plausible

Only destructive philosophizing would be completely baseless; it must continue constructively at the same time. Derrida has happily brought destruction and construction together in the term deconstruction and at the same time warned against seeing it as a generalizable method.³¹ The technique of deconstruction, as used by Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, is also different at work in any case, and this also applies to the gradual deepening of the terms in Hegel's dialectic. It abolishes previously acquired concepts in such a way that it constructively continues to “deeper” units of seemingly mutually exclusive opposites. In this way, contradictions and paradoxes also become productive for philosophical orientation. With the technique of deepening, the terms gain a foothold to each other, without them being able or having to be attached to any “to themselves.” Anhalt is always the immediate plausibility of the respective “deeper”, repealing the previous term. For Nietzsche, this is the concept of life. Because philosophizing itself also moves in life: “Up to now, all philosophizing has not been about 'truth' at all, but about something else, let's say about health, future, growth, power, life...”³²  With the concept of life, Nietzsche includes in the philosophical orientation everything that the concept of pure thought had excluded from it as uncertain and baseless, first and foremost the corporeality and sensuality and then more and more the incomprehensibly intertwined contexts and complexities of everything that is experienced and experienced in the world. Nietzsche in turn deepens the concept of life into that of the will to power and in doing so expressly follows that of the old Occamian technique of parsimony of principles.³³ For example, he uses “will to power” not as a metaphysical term but as a technical term, as a technique of consistent conceptual work, and at the same time he has virtually electrified a large audience with his immediate plausibility.

In the midnight song, the Nietzsche at the end of III. and Part IV of So Spoke Zarathustra How a solution to all philosophical and perhaps even everyday problems comes in and which, attached to a towering rock on the Chastè peninsula in Lake Sils, leaves walkers standing spellbound day after day, he most impressively demonstrates his technique of deepening.³⁴ Here he makes “deep” himself the motto — it appears eight times in eleven lines — for the unity of life with its contrasts of day and dream, pain and pleasure, passing away and eternity. The depth of philosophizing, which you can immediately feel here, is completely without reasons in the song; even the concepts of life and will to power no longer appear, and the “deep, deep eternity” is also not that of the return of the same, but of pleasure, the joy of life, and the midnight song renders A desire to live.

In the language of the late Heidegger, there is a deepening of the terms that give support to philosophizing, in “additions,” which also guide it into “abscesses.” He develops his own poetic language, in whose additions and additions the forgotten Seyn can be heard in silence instead of logically comprehensible and thus immediately plausible. Wittgenstein, for whom logic initially “had a particular depth — general meaning —” as if it were “at the bottom of all sciences.”³⁵, then sees, having become skeptical of everything profound in philosophy, that “the depth of the essence”, which is presumed here, only “the deep The need for agreement” meets.³⁶ “Deep meaning” gets something from an “environment,” a specific context that gives it “importance,” that's all.³⁷ In particular, the philosophically appreciated technique of seemingly deepening human observation into an interior, the justification of observable actions through unobservable “emotional” or “mental processes,” seemed to him to be a “sleight of hand.”³⁸ Nietzsche would probably not have contradicted this.

3. Strategic Generalizations — to the Extreme

Deepening terms is also a technique of generalization. With terms in general, you detach yourself from the situation in which they are needed and gain a further overview; with the progressive deepening and generalization of concepts, you can better understand the current situation in which you are standing and start with it more and more. Philosophy, with its most general terms, seeks an overview of the whole of world events in order to be able to intervene in it whenever possible.

Since Aristotelian metaphysics, it was believed that there was a firm basis for a pyramidal structure of ever more general concepts; at the top was the completely empty concept of mere existence. Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Heidegger break with it and unmask the abstraction Genus proximum and Differentia specifica as a mere orientation technique.³⁹ Because you can generalize terms from any point in different directions and to different degrees, but you must also be responsible for each of these generalizations yourself. You can't get by without generalizations, neither in everyday life nor in philosophy. But you don't call up an inherently existing general concept, but always make the generalizations strategically according to specific needs.

Nietzsche has denounced the typical “philosopher rage of generalization” with his teacher Schopenhauer: He made the “poetic metaphor” of blind will from the “approximate finger pointing” of intrusive and penetrating sexual will, asserted the ill-meaning “primacy of will over intellect,” and “misused into a false imitation”; “all fashion philosophers” would then have continued to paint and spread the “mystical nonsense.”⁴⁰ Instead, Nietzsche described his own philosophizing as “a dizzying expanse of review, of what has been experienced, guessed, deciphered,” and at the same time as “{the will to result}, fearlessness in the face of harshness and dangerous consequence.”⁴¹ Without metaphysization and a pyramidal structure of the terms, he pushes the technique of generalization to the extreme.

He addresses this himself in his Lenzerheide recording, in which, after completing Beyond good and evil and the 5th book of Happy science, seeks to provide an overview of the guiding ideas of his own philosophizing.⁴² There he observes how the extreme of belief in the one omniscient, omnipotent and just God, who has given human orientation an absolute certain footing, is now turning into the extreme of belief in a complete lack of order, senselessness and worthlessness of existence, which must become the will to destroy all orders and self-destruction among the mass of now helpless and disoriented people. Here, he gives his idea of eternal return and the will to power the function of strategically increasing this extremization: On the one hand, they should destructively aggravate discouragement and paralysis and, on the other hand, constructively provoke a new “ranking of forces.” They are consistently no longer based on truth but on effect.

The “magic of extremes”⁴³ The reason is that it immediately fascinates for no reason, even if there are enough reasons to the contrary. According to the Lenzerheide recording, the previous “'God' [...] was also far too extreme a hypothesis.”⁴⁴ But all statements are extreme, even this one, philosophizing as such turns out to be an extreme company. Like the concept of a God who dominates the whole world, concepts such as “pure reason” and “transcendental subject,” with which the whole rest of the world is excluded, and also “will to power” — and nothing else.”⁴⁵ extreme generalizations; Zarathustra, Nietzsche's figure of the philosophical teacher, is more spiritual and physical superiority.⁴⁶

But even extremization alone doesn't do it, precisely because one extreme can always turn into another. You also have to handle it skillfully. As is well known, Nietzsche concludes the Lenzerheide record: According to this, “the most moderate, those who do not need extreme beliefs,” prove to be “the strongest.”⁴⁷ The strongest philosophical technique of philosophizing would therefore be to think extremes without falling prey to them, but simply to orient oneself on them. If you don't commit to them, you can experiment with them, do thought experiments. So did Nietzsche in the Happy science (Aph 109) tries to think of complete chaos, in which there is still no law and there is no order, i.e. an extreme nihilistic state, in order to see what then becomes possible, and finally considered as a counterextreme the “great ambition” of “[over] the chaos [to] master {that you are}; force this {his} chaos to become form; necessary {[to become] in form: logical, hard, terrible, slow, simple, law {simple, unambiguous, math [] law”.⁴⁸ When extremes in philosophizing have the purpose of opening up extreme leeway for it, Nietzsche programmatically combines the biggest and farthest with the smallest and nearest, ties the most general back to the most concrete. With this technique, he also gives his far-reaching philosophizing everyday plausibility.

However, large leeway also means uncertainty and uncertainty of orientation, both in everyday life and in philosophy. For the late Wittgenstein, “in every serious philosophical problem [...] uncertainty goes down to the roots./You always have to be prepared for something wholly To learn new things. ”⁴⁹ In this way, he makes a virtue out of necessity and questions the need for orientation in philosophizing himself: “Only if you think much more crazy than philosophers can you solve their problems. ”⁵⁰ Heidegger, too, expressly does not want to seek security anymore after saying goodbye to metaphysics. He notes in his Black booklets: “Rejection of all security and uncertainty — which only stems from the uprising of the human being's selfishness,” the will to power in Heidegger's metaphysical interpretation.⁵¹

4. Personal Perspectives — up to the Compromising

Productive philosophers in particular are alone for a long time with their large-scale intellectual experiments — the larger the experiments, the less others dare to participate in them. Summit talks among contemporaries are also rare and rarely fruitful; after Lou Salomé and Paul Rée, Nietzsche found no one with whom he could philosophize on equal terms, Heidegger and Jaspers soon became estranged, and Heidegger and Wittgenstein completely ignored each other. Everyone complained of not being understood for the time being.

In nihilism, as a normal state, you are ultimately dependent on your own orientation. Right from the start, Nietzsche has courageously brought his own person into play, particularly strikingly in the Untimely considerations; Lastly, in the new prefaces and in Ecce homo, he puts his person in the foreground. When he explains his “war practice” here, he also includes the strategy or technique of “compromitizing” himself⁵²: All who philosophize unavoidably reveal a particular point of view. Even if you try to hide behind the apparent consensus of a “man” or “we,” you find yourself among “good friends,” which Nietzsche also sometimes quotes, in a “playroom and playground of misunderstanding.”⁵³. It could be a positive part of Nietzsche's effect that he openly and honestly acknowledges the personal nature of his philosophizing and also describes how he comes to his thoughts — not while sitting at a desk, but on long walks — how the thoughts suddenly arise and develop only gradually, how they learn to fly, but can also get on tracks from which it is difficult for them to get out again. For a “will to the system,” this is compromising; for a philosopher like Nietzsche, it creates trust in his sincerity.

As is well known, Nietzsche philosophically goes from “phenomenalism and perspectivism.”⁵⁴ out of all orientation. He makes a virtue out of the necessity of nihilism as the loss of all general certainties: the technique of “hanging out and including” perspectives and thus “making use of the diversity of perspectives and interpretations of affect for knowledge,” beyond “the dangerous old myth of terms, which is a “pure, willless, painless, timeless subject of knowledge,” a “pure Reason,” “absolute spirituality,” “knowledge itself.”⁵⁵ This is how everyone faces philosophical problems differently. According to Nietzsche, this is again a question of “whether a thinker personally addresses his problems, so that he has his fate, his distress and also his best luck in them, or else 'impersonal. '”⁵⁶ In nihilism, you can only be convinced that you stand by your points of view, horizons and perspectives in philosophizing.

Heidegger and Wittgenstein didn't go that far. As has become standard in the course of the scientification of philosophy, they keep their person out of their writings as much as possible or limit personal statements to prefaces. The late Heidegger wants to let Seyn speak for himself; in his popular short dialogues, the late Wittgenstein regularly keeps readers in the dark as to which side he himself is on.

5. Elastic Language — in Extreme Conciseness

With his language skills, Nietzsche is able to make what he writes immediately plausible, usually without further explanation. He deliberately uses the movement of terms along metaphors, which he has already identified in About truth and lies in an extra-moral sense had made it clear and most recently in On the genealogy of morality brings to the concise clause: “The form is fluid, but the 'meaning' is even more so...”⁵⁷. Terms are convincing, especially when they are not terminologically fixed, by the fact that they in turn live, go through “more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of overwhelming taking place on [them]” (ibid.), in short that they move with the time in which the orientation itself changes, while rigid definitions quickly prove inadequate and inhibiting. In one word, Nietzsche forms elastic terms, as Wittgenstein then calls them.⁵⁸ In order to be able to address different topics differently, Nietzsche uses diverse forms of philosophical writing, treatise, essay, book of aphorisms, dialogue, teaching poetry, disputed and song like no other,⁵⁹ and shapes them all with a musical design technique, because music as such is convincing.⁶⁰ It includes the technique of linguistic abbreviation, of conciseness; Nietzsche prides himself, perhaps rightly, of being the greatest master in using a “minimum in the volume and number of characters [...] a maximum in the energy of the characters”⁶¹ to achieve. In addition, there is his technique of “making believable” through images and parables, with which you “convince” without trying to “prove”, precisely where, unlike in science, there is nothing really to prove.⁶²

Wittgenstein was, it seems to me, equal Nietzsche in his linguistic conciseness. Like Nietzsche in aphorism books, in which you can easily switch between topics and contexts and bring up new insights in a flash (“I can handle deep problems, like a cold bath — quickly in, out quickly”⁶³), Wittgenstein philosophized in his late period only in scattered “remarks,” which he put together in “albums,” such as “landscape sketches,”⁶⁴ In which everyone must orient themselves. He deliberately uses his later guiding concepts “language game”, “way of life” and “family resemblance” to everyday language and uses them in moving spaces without ever strictly defining them. Because it can be assumed that the most suitable means of communication for orientation will be established over time, especially in everyday language, he remains as close as possible to her in philosophizing. He even surpasses Nietzsche's Heraclitism by, in his last remarks, About certainty The image of the river, into which you do not climb twice, develops into the image of the riverbed, which in turn is constantly changing as the river flows: Not only human orientation itself, but also its framework conditions are constantly changing.⁶⁵ And Wittgenstein also saw himself primarily as the inventor of new parables.⁶⁶

The late Heidegger turned the technique of avoiding mechanized terminologies and instead turning everyday language philosophically into a new way into mania in order to let the ineffable and uncontrollable “Seyn” speak: by going back to the word roots and giving them deeper and more allusive meanings in which they added themselves in a surprising way.⁶⁷

6. Fits of Mere Clues — in Greatest Density

The Platonic Socrates⁶⁸ Set himself apart from the sophists by distinguishing persuasion from rhetorically trained persuasion working with defined terms and mutually recognized arguments, and thus founded philosophy as an independent discipline. Aristotle worked on this in his Topik and his analytics the standards of logic, on which he also built his metaphysics. For Nietzsche as well as for Heidegger and Wittgenstein, the standards of logic restrict philosophizing from the outset, precisely because the terms are always in flux even in philosophical language, as is the case today Historical dictionary of philosophy⁶⁹ shows enough. In addition, the terminological fixation of the terms through definitions also leads back to undefined terms, and arguments are convincing, as Plato did in dialogues such as the Protagoras or the Gorgias shows, never all, i.e. not in general. They are “good” when they 'fit' in certain situations, i.e. when they convince the respective interlocutors with their respective points of view, horizons and perspectives. “Passing” is the deeper unity of the contrast of “persuasion” and “persuasion.”

The criteria for the fit can be very different. Aphorisms in aphorisms books must fit together without following apart. In Nietzsche's “Happy Science,” they fit together according to artistic criteria. “You are an artist at the price,” he notes recently, “that you perceive what all non-artists call form as content, as the thing itself.” With this, he adds, “you certainly belong in a wrong world. ”⁷⁰ However, this is not as new and wrong as it seems. Even for Aristotle, who pioneered the correlation of form and content for European philosophy, form has the greater weight: after him, it shapes the content, first gives them recognizable form, and this form, which appears in living beings in their constant appearance (eīdos) and in the constant evolution of the individuals of a species, is a very real and clear clue for the formation of lasting concepts and thus also the basis of systematic philosophies in today's sense. Aristotle merely metaphysically hypostasizes the forms into eternal beings (Osiai), which is no longer sustainable today.

Post-metaphysically, we are dealing with well-rehearsed fits in observing clues such as individual and general appearance, words and facts, words, images and concepts in sentences, sentences in texts, arguments in evidentiary processes, shapes and colors, landscapes and moods, feelings and facial expressions, etc. to the matching of individual people into groups and societies. Adaptations are constantly evolving and can take on ever new forms. According to Nietzsche, you tailor your world to suit your needs and expectations; in the sense of his concept of will to power, these are fits at almost any price:

The Epicurean chooses the situation, the people and even the events that suit his extremely irritable intellectual nature; he dispenses with the rest — that is, most of it — because it would be too strong and heavy a diet for him. The Stoic, on the other hand, trains himself to swallow stones and worms, broken glass and scorpions and to be without disgust; his stomach should finally become indifferent to everything that the coincidence of existence pours into him [.]⁷¹

Nietzsche noted earlier, “ethical needs must suit us! ”⁷²

In our orientation, we only have clues that we stick to for the time being, because there can always be an infinite amount behind them; we trust them all the more the more they fit in with others in a particular situation from a particular perspective. If they fit together well enough, they become plausible, you can 'do something with them, 'as Wittgenstein and Heidegger like Nietzsche like to say. This is also true in philosophy as well as in everyday life. If you activate methods here, they too must match the respective subject and subject area in order to be convincing. It is therefore a common, albeit mostly unnoticed, technique of philosophizing to find the right thing in each case and, if it is not found, to himfind. In the end, it's like Wittgenstein, who works very heavily with the concept of fit,⁷³ at a central location of its Philosophical Investigations writes in order to “concise presentation” (No. 122). Heidegger has formulated this more poetically and pathologically with his language game of “additions” and “joints”: “All joining of the structure only comes from compliance to fug. ”⁷⁴ For Heidegger, even if he wouldn't call it that, the technique of clearing the Seyns is the fit. But no one has found such rich and, above all, completely everyday and immediately plausible clues for his philosophizing, which fit together so convincingly without being systematically reconstructable as Nietzsche. The density of its fits is convincing as such.

7. Generating Pathos — by Referring to the God Dionysus

After all, philosophizing includes pathos, and no one understood the technique of pathos as well as Nietzsche. Even the high or low generality of the terms used by philosophy creates a sublime atmosphere. Elegance is increased when you ascend to the divine. Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein are still doing this too, and perhaps especially in nihilism, albeit in very different ways. Wittgenstein is committed, but only personally and primarily in his Secret diaries and letters, believing to God, the Christian God who supervises and punishes man's sinfulness, but also gives him unshakable support. Wittgenstein consistently keeps him out of his philosophizing. This makes him skeptical of all pathos in philosophy:

“Language (or thought) is something unique” — this proves to be a superstition (not a mistake!) , caused even by grammatical deceptions. And pathos is now falling back on these deceptions, on the problems.⁷⁵

Heidegger, on the other hand, who has decisively rejected Christianity, expects in his late philosophizing with the “only” poet Hölderlin for him once again a completely different one than the Christian one, the “last god” of a new and “different beginning” of philosophizing.⁷⁶ The “decision on the flight and arrival of the gods” was “the opening of a completely different time space for one, indeed the first established truth of Seyns, the event.” It should be a god who silently passes by and remains strange and unpredictable and who only gives a “wave” for a new orientation from the ground up. According to Heidegger, it should be “purest seclusion and highest transfiguration, the most fair and the most terrible rapture” and also need the Seyns himself, which must thinning itself out of its own accord. But “large and hidden individuals” would have to prepare this clearing “in advance” with their philosophizing.⁷⁷

Such pathos makes you shiver and seize, whether it has factual support or not. On the other hand, Nietzsche almost happily proclaimed Dionysus the god of his philosophizing.⁷⁸ Dionysus is his idea of a god who can constantly destroy and add new things and, as we could say now, make them fit together in unfathomable ways and, with such abilities, can confidently orient himself even in nihilism. Nietzsche openly turns the pathos and paradox of metaphysics into a god from whom you can understand everything without understanding him yourself into a technique of philosophizing. In Aphorism No. 56 of Beyond good and evil He describes the — initially unnamed — God as “the ideal of the most exuberant, lively and world-affirming person, who has not only come to terms with and has learned to come to terms with what was and is,” who justifies it and”As it was and is“I want to have it again, for all eternity.” The idea of the eternal return of the same can only be understood from a divine point of view. If you accept it, the whole world situation, which fascinates and irritates people so much, may repeat itself over and in the end has no meaning, becomes a play in a Greek amphitheatre, in which you look down at what is happening in the orchestra from elevated ranks, taking part in it and listening to it and at the same time staying at a distance from it. And Dionysus was The god of theatre, the Athenians had built it in his honor, him who “just needed this spectacle — and makes it necessary — —” (ibid.). And philosophy remained committed to him: When you try to survey world events in a philosophizing way, you unavoidably adopt a divine standpoint. Dionysus, however, that is how Nietzsche then models him in Aphorism No. 295 of Beyond good and evil, in which he declares him the god of his philosophizing, at the same time knows “to descend into the underworld of every soul,” sees himself as a theatre god on every mask and every appearance and, by having the game performed with them, adheres to “daring honesty, truthfulness and love of wisdom.” He loves people, Nietzsche has him say in a staged dialogue, because he “is still finding his way around all labyrinths.” But that is just another word for orientation, in this case for philosophical orientation. A Dionysian philosophical orientation keeps everything open, always dares to make new beginnings and uses a wide variety of techniques to observe world events, and Nietzsche sees part of God in being “always many steps ahead of man” so as not to let him get stuck in any stipulations, convictions, dogmas that he so needs.

In the end, however, Nietzsche also reveals his appeal to a god, this tempting and devious god Dionysus, as a mere technique of his philosophizing. Because the gods in their grandeur never had to learn to orient themselves and therefore did not need to philosophize.⁷⁹ And this is how, Nietzsche concludes the aphorism, “in a few pieces the gods can go to school with us humans.” The gods, to whom people so fondly obey when philosophizing, must in turn stick to people — “circulus vitiosus deus”⁸⁰.

As a way of orienting oneself, every philosopher knows that it is bound to an earthly point of view. It can also remain sober and unpathetic today.

‍

Werner Stegmaier, born on July 19, 1946 in Ludwigsburg, was professor of philosophy with a focus on practical philosophy at the University of Greifswald from 1994 to 2011. From 1999 to 2017, he was senior associate editor of Nietzsche studies. International Yearbook for Nietzsche Research, the most renowned body of international Nietzsche research, as well as the important series of publications Monographs and texts on Nietzsche research. He published numerous monographs and anthologies on Nietzsche's philosophy and philosophy in general, in particular his Philosophy of orientation (2008), then Luhmann meets Nietzsche. Orientation in nihilism (2016) and recently Wittgenstein's orientation. Assurance techniques (2025). The development of the “philosophy of orientation” he founded is his current focus of work. Further information about him and his work can also be found on his personal website: https://stegmaier-orientierung.com/

‍

Bibliography

Derrida, Jacques: force of law. The “mystical cause of authority”. Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1991.

Heidegger, Martin: Notes I-IV (Black Notebooks 1942-1948). Complete edition Vol. 97. Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann) 2015.

Ders. : Posts (from event). Complete edition Vol. 65. Frankfurt a. M. (Klostermann) 1989.

Ders. : Being and time. Tübingen (Max Niemeyer) 1986.

Kaiser, Katharina U.: Discussion with Hölderlin I. In: Dieter Thomae (ed.): Heidegger handbook. Life — Work — Impact. 2nd, revised & adult Edited by Stuttgart & Weimar (Metzler) 2023, pp. 184-188.

Marafioti, Rosa Maria: Heidegger's “Black Notebooks.” Seynsdenken and our history. Freiburg & Munich (Alber) 2024.

Müller, Enrico: The pathos of Zarathustras. In: Gabriella Pelloni & Isolde Schiffermüller (eds.): Pathos, parody, cryptomnesia. The memory of literature in Nietzsche So Zarathustra spoke. Heidelberg (winter) 2015, pp. 11-31.

Rauschelbach, Uwe: The singing soul. Thinking and writing “through” music in Nietzsche. In: Nietzsche research 29 (2022), PP. 85-118.

Summer, Andreas Urs: Comment on Beyond good and evil. Historical and critical commentary on Friedrich Nietzsche's works, ed by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. Volume 5/1, Berlin & Boston (Walter de Gruyter) 2016.

Stegmaier, Werner: Aspects of Reception and Impact [Nietzsche]: Philosophy. In: Nietzsche handbook. Life — Work — Impact. 2nd, completely reworked edition, ed. by Robert Krause, Andreas Urs Sommer and others Stuttgart & Weimar (Metzler) (to be published).

Ders. : The “magic of extremes” in philosophical reorientations. Nietzsche's new extreme problems and solutions and the old example of Socrates. In: Nietzsche studies 50 (2021), PP. 1-25.

Ders. : Friedrich Nietzsche on the introduction4., renewed edition Hamburg (Junius) 2024.

Ders. : Forms of philosophical writings for introduction. Hamburg (Junius) 2021.

Ders. : Nietzsche at work. The weight of his discontinued notes for his philosophizing. Berlin & Boston (De Gruyter) 2022.

Ders. : Nihilism and other beginnings. Paths to a new orientation. In: Holger Zaborowski (ed.): Heidegger and the question of nihilism, in: Yearbook of the Heidegger Society (forthcoming).

Ders. : Philosophy of orientation. Berlin & New York (de Gruyter) 2008.

Ders. : Being to death — living with death. Ein Holzweg Heidegger. In: Eike Brock, Günter Gödde, Dennis Sölch & Jörg Zirfas (eds.): Heidegger and the art of living. Berlin (Springer/Metzler) 2025, pp. 143-160.

Ders. : What does the deep midnight say? Explanations of Nietzsche's poem “Oh man! Pay eight! ”. row Read Nietzsche, ed. by Timon Georg Böhm, issue 2, Nietzsche House Foundation in Sils-Maria 2017.

Ders. : Philosophize like a god? Nietzsche's reference to Dionysus as the god of his philosophical orientation. On aphorism No. 295 from Beyond good and evil. In: Jan Kerkmann (ed.): Philosophy of religion according to Nietzsche. The loss of truth and the search for God. row New horizons of religious philosophy, ed. by Michael Kühnlein, Stuttgart (Metzler) (forthcoming).

Ders. : Wittgenstein's orientation. Assurance techniques, Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann) 2025.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Remarks about the colors. In: Edition of works Vol. 8. Frankfurt a. M. (Suhrkamp) 1984.

Ders. : Remarks on the basics of mathematics. Edition of works Vol. 6 Frankfurt am M. (Suhrkamp) 1984.

Ders. : Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. In: Edition of works Vol. 7. Frankfurt am M. (Suhrkamp) 1984.

Ders. : Philosophical Investigations. In: Edition of works Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 2006.

Ders. : About certainty. In: Edition of works Vol. 8. Frankfurt a. M. (Suhrkamp) 1984.

Ders. : Miscellaneous remarks. In: Edition of works Vol. 8. Frankfurt a. M. (Suhrkamp) 1984.

Zittel, Claus: Dialogue as a philosophical form in Nietzsche. In: Nietzsche studies 45 (2016), PP. 81-112.

‍

Footnotes

1: Götzen-Dämmerung, The problem of Socrates, 7.

2: abatement 1880, 3 [19].

3: abatement 1887, 9 [35] /KGW IX 6, W II 1, 115. Editor's note: Werner Stegmaier cites Nietzsche's late estate in accordance with the IX division of the begun by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari Complete critical edition. In this, over many years of detailed work, the handwritten estate from 1885 to 1889 was reviewed once again and tried to publish it as precisely as Nietzsche actually put it on paper, with as much as possible dispensing with all editorial interventions. It was not until 2022 that the work Collis and Montinaris was (for now) completed with the publication of the last volume in this department.

4: On the genealogy of morality, III, 24.

5: Götzen-Dämmerung, Sayings and arrows, 26.

6: Cf. Stegmaier, Nietzsche at work, P. 223-234.

7: Cf. Stegmaier, Aspects of Reception and Impact [Nietzsche]: Philosophy.

8: Cf. Stegmaier, Sein zum Tode — Leben mit dem Tod And that's it: Nihilism and other beginnings.

9: With Heidegger I stick to his Black booklets, in which, as in Nietzsche's estate, it becomes apparent how he is advancing his philosophizing step by step or being driven forward by him. Wittgenstein's entire late work consists largely of individual “remarks,” which he constantly reworks, compiles and enriches, but does not publish. He too only gradually realizes what his philosophizing is about and which techniques are used to make sure of him. See Stegmaier, Wittgenstein's orientation. (Editor's note: The Black booklets, Heidegger's thought diaries from 1931 to 1975, which have been published gradually since 2014, have been received by the general public primarily because of the political statements they contain, in particular some anti-Semitic passages. However, these only make up a fraction of the records.)

10: Cf. Socrates and the Tragedy, presentation 1.

11: Cf. About the future of our educational institutions, presentation 2.

12: abatement 1873, 19 [274].

13: Cf. The happy science, Aph 31.

14: Cf. The happy science, Aph 101.

15: abatement 1887, 10 [2] /KGW IX 6, W II 2, 141.

16: Cf. Human, all-too-human, Vol. 1, Aph. 196.

17: Wittgenstein, Miscellaneous remarks, P. 541 (1947).

18: Heidegger, Notes I-IV (Black Notebooks 1942-1948), pp. 71, 76-81, 118 & more.

19: Cf. Stegmaier, The “magic of extremes” in philosophical reorientations.

20: Cf. The happy science, Aph 373: “It follows from the laws of ranking that scholars, insofar as they belong to the intellectual middle class, the actual big Don't even have problems and question marks in sight: in addition, their courage and also their gaze are not enough until then.”

21: Cf. Ecce homo, Why I'm so wise, 6.

22: Cf. Stegmaier, Philosophy of orientation. Editor's note: If you would like to learn more about Stegmaier's own philosophy of orientation, which he applies here as an example, we also recommend reading the interview we conducted with the emeritus from the University of Greifswald a few months ago (link).

23: Beyond good and evil, Aph 1.

24: See ibid.

25: Cf. Beyond good and evil, Aph 4.

26: Cf. Beyond good and evil, Aph 27.

27:Cf. The happy science, Aph 276.

28: Cf. Being and time, § 6.

29: The happy science, Aph 372.

30: Heidegger, Posts (from event), P. 69, 169, 379 & 408.

31: Cf. Jacques Derrida, force of law. The “mystical cause of authority”.

32: The happy science, Preface, 2.

33: Cf. Beyond good and evil, Aph 36.

34: Cf. Stegmaier, What does the deep midnight say?

35: Wittgenstein, Philosophy Investigations, No. 89.

36: Wittgenstein, Remarks on the basics of mathematics, I 74, P. 65.

37: Wittgenstein, Philosophy Investigations, No. 583; cf. also No. 594.

38: Ibid., No. 308. Cf. Stegmaier, Wittgenstein's orientation, PP. 45-68.

39: Editor's note: In medieval scholasticism, the Latin formula “genus proximum et differentia specifica” referred to the basic rule of every definition of the term established by Aristotle. It must always consist of a reference to the “next higher general genre” and to a “particular difference.” For example, you could call Nietzsche “that philosopher (Genus), which So Zarathustra spoke wrote (Differentia)” or define winter as “that season (Genus), which is the coldest in the northern hemisphere (Differentia)”.

40: Human, all-too-human Vol. 2, Mixed opinions and sayings, Aph 5.

41: abatement 1888, 14 [25] /KGW IX 8, W II 5, 178.

42: abatement 1886, 5 [71] (dated “Lenzer Heide, June 10, 1887”)/KGW IX 3, N VII 3, 13-24. cf. Stegmaier, Nietzsche at work, P. 319-358.

43: abatement 1887, 10 [94] /KGW IX 6, W II 2, 72.

44: abatement 1886, 5 [71], 3 /KGW IX 3, N VII 3, 15.

45: Beyond good and evil, Aph 36.

46: Cf. Enrico Müller, The pathos of Zarathustras.

47: abatement 1886 5 [71], 15 /KGW IX 3, N VII 3, 24.

48: abatement 1888, 14 [61] /KGW IX 8, W II 5, 152.

49: Wittgenstein, Remarks about the colors, I 15, P. 16.

50:Miscellaneous remarks, P. 557 (1948).

51: Heidegger, Notes I-IV , P. 64.

52: Ecce homo, Why I'm so wise, 7.

53:Beyond good and evil, Aph 27. Cf. Stegmaier, Nietzsche at work, P. 67-83.

54:The happy science, Aph 354.

55: On the genealogy of morality, III, 12.

56: The happy science, Aph 345.

57: On the genealogy of morality, II, 12.

58: Cf. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, I 243—246, P. 385.

59: Cf. Stegmaier, Friedrich Nietzsche on the introduction, pp. 98-113 and Claus Zittel, Dialogue as a philosophical form in Nietzsche.

60: Their specific details have still been researched far too little. Uwe Rauschelbach also limits his expert work The singing soul largely based on theoretical considerations.

61:Götzen-Dämmerung, What I owe to the old, 1.

62: Human, all-too-human Vol. 2, The Wanderer and His Shadow, Aph 145.

63:The happy science, Aph 381.

64:Philosophical Investigations, preface.

65: Wittgenstein, About certainty, 96-99 (1949-1951), p. 140. cf. Stegmaier, Wittgenstein's orientation, P. 199-205.

66: Wittgenstein, Miscellaneous remarks, P. 476 (1931).

67: For his second major work, which will only be published posthumously posts, Heidegger chose the form he used in the compilation The will to power from Nietzsche's estate, in which everything seemed to push towards the system. Cf. Stegmaier, Forms of philosophical writings for introduction, PP. 225-234.

68: Editor's note: We know about Socrates's thinking almost only through its presentation in the dialogues of his student Plato, who here presents us not necessarily with the 'Socratic Socrates, 'but his own interpretation of his teachings.

69: Editor's note: The “HwPh” was published from 1971 to 2007 by Joachim Ritter, Karlfried Gründer and Gottfried Gabriel and published by Schwabe Verlag (Basel). The thirteen volumes are regarded as a standard reference work for philosophical research and concisely describe the historical development of the 3,670 most important terms in the history of Western philosophy. It is also available online (link).

70:abatement 1888, 18 [6] /KGW IX 12, MP XVI, 56v.

71: The happy science, Aph 306.

72: abatement 1880, 7 [155].

73: Stegmaier, Wittgenstein's orientation, P. 170-179.

74: Heidegger, Notes I-IV, P. 32.

75: Philosophical Investigations, No. 110.

76: Heidegger, posts, p. 403, 405 & 411. On the significance of Hölderlin for Heidegger's thinking, see Katharina U. Kaiser, Discussion with Hölderlin I, about his role in the “Schwarze Hefte” Rosa Maria Marafioti, Heidegger's “Schwarze Hefte”, p. 150 f. & more often.

77: Heidegger, posts, PP. 405-415.

78: Beyond good and evil, Aph 295. Cf. Stegmaier, Philosophize like a god? — Under the name of Dionysus, Nietzsche wanted to dedicate his own work to his “attempt at a divine way of philosophizing”: abatement 1885, 34 [182] /KSA IX 1, N VII 1, 68.

79: Andreas Urs Sommer (Comment on Beyond Good and Evil, pp. 804-807) takes the passage from Plato Symposium (203e-204a) in the translation by Franz Susemihl used by Nietzsche, according to which “none of the gods philosophizes or desires to become wise, for they already are, even if anyone else is wise, he philosophizes. ”

80: Beyond good and evil, Aph 56. Editor's note: The Latin phrase “circulus vitiosus deus” literally means “the faulty circle of God” or also “the vicious circle as God.” The French philosopher Pierre Klossowski used it in the title of his most important monograph on Nietzsche, Nietzsche et le Cercle Vicieux (1969; cf. also Henry Holland's article “Peace with Islam? “on this blog.)