{"id":868,"date":"2016-10-17T12:12:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T16:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/?p=868"},"modified":"2023-06-03T08:28:55","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T12:28:55","slug":"introduction-to-deleuze-on-nietzsche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/introduction-to-deleuze-on-nietzsche\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt | Introduction to Deleuze on Nietzsche"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"olive\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Bernard E. Harcourt<\/strong><\/p>\n

If Georges Bataille recuperated Nietzsche from the fascists and made war reparations to him, returning to Nietzsche an untainted concept of the will to power; and if Maurice Blanchot elevated Nietzsche\u2019s aphoristic style, gave pride of place to his writing, and returned to Nietzsche the radical, even revolutionary potential of the very act of writing\u2014while other philosophers, such as Jean Wahl and Pierre Klossowski, reinstated Nietzsche into post-War philosophical discourse\u2014then Gilles Deleuze, we could say, turned Nietzsche into a critical philosopher<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In Deleuze\u2019s hands, Nietzsche becomes the founder, the inventor of \u201cune philosophie critique<\/em>,\u201d (Nietzsche et la philosophie<\/em>, p. 97 and p. 2; hereafter N&P-F<\/em>): Nietzsche displaces Kant\u2014whom we conventionally considered the source of critique, but who, Deleuze tells us, missed the target and did not do \u201creal critique\u201d\u2014, Nietzsche dethrones Kant to become the<\/em> critical theorist.<\/p>\n

Deleuze locates in Nietzsche the pure form of \u201ccritique,\u201d the essence of critique, the core of critique: namely, the questioning of the value of values. Nietzsche alone raised the question of the value of morality. Deleuze declares:<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0la philosophie des valeurs, telle qu\u2019il [Nietzsche] l\u2019instaure et le con\u00e7oit, est la vraie r\u00e9alisation de la critique, la seule mani\u00e8re de r\u00e9aliser la critique totale, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire de faire de la philosophie \u00e0 \u2018coups de marteau\u2019\u00a0\u00bb. (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 1).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The critical element, Deleuze writes\u2014italicizing the word \u201ccritique,\u201d \u201c<\/em>l\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ment critique<\/em>\u201d\u2014is precisely \u201cthe creative element of meaning and of values.\u201d (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 97) And so the problem of critique, \u201cle probl\u00e8me critique,<\/em>\u201d Deleuze defines specifically as \u201cla valeur des valeurs, l\u2019\u00e9valuation dont proc\u00e8de leur valeur, donc le probl\u00e8me de leur cr\u00e9ation<\/u><\/em>.\u201d (N&P-F, <\/em>p. 1)<\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-11-01-at-4-42-28-pm\"<\/a>It is 1962 when Deleuze publishes his monograph Nietzsche et la philosophie<\/em> with the Presses universitaires de France. He would write monographs on others, Spinoza and famously Foucault. But now it was time for Nietzsche\u2014to whom he would return again and again: in 1964, in an influential essay in les Cahiers de Royaumont<\/em>, VIIe Colloque, 4-8 juillet 1964 (Les Editions de minuit, 1967); in 1965, in a shorter monograph, a pr\u00e9cis<\/em>, titled, simply, Nietzsche<\/em>; and in several other articles and essays. Deleuze\u2019s nietzschean turn in the early 1960s would deeply influence all of his subsequent writings\u2014one can almost say that it was determinative, altering. Deleuze would draw on the nietzschean concepts that he refined in Nietzsche et la philosophie<\/em> as a basis, a springboard, or perhaps a trampoline to propel himself to the heights of, first, Difference and Repetition <\/em>in 1968, and then, with F\u00e9lix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus<\/em> in 1972 and A Thousand Plateaus<\/em> in 1980. One cannot think Deleuze without Nietzsche.<\/p>\n

On Deleuze\u2019s reading, Nietzsche\u2019s overarching project was \u201cto introduce the notions of meaning and value into philosophy.\u201d (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 1). In this sense, Deleuze wrote, Nietzsche shaped modern philosophy, although modern philosophy would not always stay true to Nietzsche. Nietzsche reoriented modern philosophy away from straightforward questions of truth and falsity, toward the categories of good and evil:<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Une nouvelle image de la pens\u00e9e signifie d\u2019abord ceci\u00a0: le vrai n\u2019est pas l\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ment de la pens\u00e9e. L\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ment de la pens\u00e9e est le sens et la valeur. Les cat\u00e9gories de la pens\u00e9e ne sont pas le vrai et le faux, mais le noble et le vil, le haut et le bas, <\/em>d\u2019apr\u00e8s la nature des forces qui s\u2019emparent de la pens\u00e9e elle-m\u00eame.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F, <\/em>p. 119)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By posing the question in terms of values, rather than truth or falsity or the limits of reason, Nietzsche founded a genuine critical philosophy<\/em>: one that questions the values of values, that raises the question of the creation of values and of the meaning of evaluation, thus performing a reversal that is <\/em>critique (\u201cun renversement critique<\/u>\u201d N&P-F<\/em>, p. 1). The key to this reversal is the following:<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Voil\u00e0 l\u2019essentiel\u00a0: le haut et le bas, le noble et le vil <\/em>ne sont pas des valeurs, mais repr\u00e9sentent l\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ment diff\u00e9rentiel dont d\u00e9rive la valeur des valeurs elles-m\u00eames.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 2).\"screen-shot-2016-11-01-at-4-48-13-pm\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Deleuze\u2019s reading, Kant never got close to doing this and, as a result, never fully grasped the idea of critique. (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 100) Kant never engaged in \u201ctrue critique\u201d (\u201cla vraie critique<\/em>\u201d), Deleuze maintained, because Kant \u201cdid not know how to pose the problem of critique in terms of values.\u201d (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 1). Although Kant set as his goal an immanent critique<\/em>\u2014an internal critique of reason by reason\u2014this, Deleuze writes, is an impossible \u201ccontradiction\u201d (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 104); one that Nietzsche would overcome through his notion of the will to power which alone is able \u201cto make possible the transmutation\u201d (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 104). Thus, Deleuze writes: \u00ab\u00a0L\u2019instance critique est la volont\u00e9 de puissance, le point de vue critique est celui de la volont\u00e9 de puissance.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 107).<\/p>\n

This critical approach falls under the rubric of \u201cgenealogy,\u201d and the philosopher himself becomes a genealogist (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 107). Genealogy captures the critical element insofar as it challenges the value of values by seeking the origin of values. In this, it comprises a double movement: the origin of the values and the value of the origins. It should come as little surprise that Deleuze\u2019s Nietzsche et la philosophie<\/em> begins under the header \u201cle concept de g\u00e9n\u00e9alogie<\/em>\u201d on the very first page.<\/p>\n

At the heart of genealogy, there is a certain distantiation, or distance, or difference. \u00ab\u00a0Au principe de l\u2019universalit\u00e9 kantienne, comme au principe de la ressemblance cher aux utilitaristes, Nietzsche substitue le sentiment de diff\u00e9rence ou de distance (\u00e9l\u00e9ment diff\u00e9rentiel).<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F, <\/em>p. 2). This notion of difference reflects the genealogical distance from the origin: the search both for origins, but also for the distance from origins. These would be core terms that Deleuze would continue to explore and develop\u2014and appropriate in his work, a few years later, on Diff\u00e9rence et r\u00e9p\u00e9tition.<\/em><\/p>\n

At its most radical, critique challenges the value of truth: \u00a0returning to the Genealogy of Morals<\/em> and the passage in essay three, \u00a724: \u201cLet us thus define our task\u2014we must attempt once and for all to put in question the value of truth.\u201d (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 108). This ties directly to Nietzsche’s abyss and the moral basis of the desire for truth.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

At the same time, Deleuze systematized Nietzsche as a thinker, presenting his main ideas in a rigorous, interconnected, and coherent manner. Deleuze tried to fix the terminology, to anchor the metaphors, to refine the logic and argument. It was necessary, Deleuze maintained, because \u201call the rigor of this philosophy, of which we often suspect, to our detriment, the systematic precision,\u201d depended on this type of analytic work (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 59) Deleuze paid special attention to Nietzsche\u2019s later work, from 1887, The Genealogy of Morals<\/em>\u2014more so than many before him, such as Georges Bataille or Maurice Blanchot\u2014in large part because, for Deleuze, The Genealogy <\/em>represents the most systematic of his books, and it grounds his critical philosophy.<\/p>\n

The Deleuzian Nietzsche is, then, a very unique Nietzsche, uncompromised. A Nietzsche that is totally at odds with Kant. At odds with Hegel as well. An anti-dialectic Nietzsche. An anti-Hegelian Nietzsche. \u00ab\u00a0Il n\u2019est pas de compromis possible entre Hegel et Nietzsche. La philosophie de Nietzsche [\u2026] forme une anti-dialectique absolue, se propose de d\u00e9noncer toutes les mystifications qui trouvent dans la dialectique un dernier refuge.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 223).<\/p>\n

And thus, Deleuze, like Bataille, made reparations to Nietzsche. Four especially, as he himself would tell us:<\/p>\n

First, concerning the will to power: it is crutial, Deleuze maintained, to avoid interpreting the will to power as \u201cwanting to dominate\u201d or \u201cwanting power.\u201d (N&P-F, p. 90-96<\/em>; N-E<\/em> p. 92) Here, we hear clear resonance with Bataille who, as you will recall, directly argued that the will to power is antithetical to the fascist will to dominate. In Deleuze\u2019s hand, the will to power is turned inside out (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 59 et seq.; p. 96): \u00ab\u00a0la puissance est ce qui<\/u> veut dans la volont\u00e9<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 96). \u201cPower, as a will to power, is not that which the will wants, but that which<\/em> wants in the will (Dionysus himself).\u201d (N-E<\/em> p. 73) Deleuze adds, \u201cThe will to power is the differential element from which derive the force at work, as well as their respective quality in a complex whole.\u201d (N-E<\/em> p. 73)<\/p>\n

Second, concerning strength and weakness: it is equally important, Deleuze maintained, to avoid \u201cbelieving that the most powerful in a social regime are thereby the strong\u201d (N-E<\/em> p. 92). Deleuze worked hard to better understand and better explain Nietzsche\u2019s conception of strength. As he wrote, \u201cthe weak, the slaves, triumph not by adding up their forces but by subtracting those of the other: they separate the strong from what they can do. They triumph not because of the composition of their power but because of the power of their contagion.\u201d (N-E<\/em> p. 75).<\/p>\n

Third, concerning the eternal return: it is crucial, Deleuze emphasized, to avoid interpreting the eternal return as \u201can old idea, borrowed from the Greeks, the Hindus, the Babylonians,\u201d or that it is \u201ca cycle, or a return of the same, a return to the same\u201d (N-E<\/em> p. 92) Deleuze reads it as I do: as confirming becoming over being; or as I would say, as a moral hypothetical that underscores the exigency of judgment and decision. In Nietzsche et la philosophie<\/em>, Deleuze develops the ethical reading of the eternal return in the clearest terms: the eternal return is the equivalent of a Kantian maxim that helps guide our actions. Rather than the categorical imperative, it is the threat of recurrence: act so that you would be willing to always have your action recur. Deleuze in fact states that \u00ab\u00a0L\u2019\u00e9ternel retour donne \u00e0 la volont\u00e9 une r\u00e8gle aussi rigoureuse que la r\u00e8gle kantienne.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 77). \u00ab\u00a0Comme pens\u00e9e \u00e9thique, l\u2019\u00e9ternel retour est la nouvelle formulation de la synth\u00e8se pratique\u00a0: Ce que tu veux, veuille-le de telle mani\u00e8re que tu en veuilles aussi l\u2019\u00e9ternel retour.<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb[i]<\/a> (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 77\u00a0; N&P-E<\/em>, p. 68). Deleuze finds and rehearses the specific passage from The Will to Power<\/em>, IV, \u00a7242: \u201cIf, in all that you will you begin by asking yourself: is it certain that I will to do it an infinite number of times? This should be your most solid center of gravity.\u201d[ii]<\/a> (N&P-E<\/em>, p. 68) And he adds later, to confirm and emphasize, \u00ab\u00a0L\u2019\u00e9ternel retour est l\u2019\u00eatre du devenir.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 81).<\/p>\n

And fourth, to rescue the last works of Nietzsche from his later madness and include them in our reconstruction of his thought.<\/p>\n

In the end, central themes emerge: chance, multiplicities, becoming. These are important themes for Nietzsche, on Deleuze\u2019s writings, some in common with Bataille, who as you will recall subtitled his On Nietzsche<\/em>, \u201cthe will to chance.\u201d The dice, the random, chance recurs in Deleuze\u2019s Nietzsche. See N&P-F<\/em>, p. 29, 36; also at 225.<\/p>\n

To help us read Deleuze’s Nietzsche, we are delighted to welcome Barbara Stiegler<\/a>, John Rajchman<\/a>, and Michael Taussig<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Welcome to Nietzsche 4\/13!<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Que le multiple, le devenir, le hasard soient objet d\u2019affirmation pure, tel est le sens de la philosophie de Nietzsche.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 225)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NOTES<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> \u201cThe eternal return gives the will a rule as rigorous as the Kantian one. [\u2026] As an ethical thought the eternal return is the new formulation of the practical synthesis: whatever you will, will it in such a way that you also will its eternal return<\/em>.\u201d (N&P-E<\/em>, p. 68).<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> \u00ab\u00a0Si, dans tout ce que tu veux faire, tu commences par te demander\u00a0: est-il sur que je veuille le faire un nombre infini de fois, ce sera pour toi le centre de gravit\u00e9 le plus solide.\u00a0\u00bb (N&P-F<\/em>, p. 77)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt If Georges Bataille recuperated Nietzsche from the fascists and made war reparations to him, returning to Nietzsche an untainted concept of the will to power; and if Maurice Blanchot elevated Nietzsche\u2019s aphoristic style, gave pride of… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-4-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}