Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Problem of the Essence of Nihilism, by Patrick M. Griffin

Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Problem of the Essence of Nihilism, by Patrick M. Griffin; History 177, 6/10/1991


“In Hegel philosophy…is in a certain sense thought through to its end. He was completely in the right when he himself expressed this consciousness. But there exists just as much the legitimate demand to start anew, to understand the finiteness of the Hegelian system and to see that Hegel himself has come to an end with philosophy because he moves in the circle of philosophical problems. This circling in the circle forbids him to move back to the center of the circle. Hegel saw everything that is possible. But the question is whether he saw it from the radical center of philosophy, whether he exhausted all the possibilities of the beginning so as to say he is at the end.” Martin Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology

“How stubbornly the idea of values ingrained itself in the nineteenth century can be seen from the fact that even Nietzsche, and precisely he, never departed from this perspective. The subtitle of his projected magnum opus, ‘The Will to Power’, is ‘An Attempt to Re-evaluate All Values’. The third book is called: ‘An Attempt to Establish New Values’. His entanglement in the thicket of the idea of values, his failure to understand its questionable origin, is the reason Nietzsche did not attain to the true center of philosophy. Even if future philosophers should reach this center – we of the present day can only work toward it – he will not escape entanglement, but it will be a different entanglement. No one can jump over his own shadow.” Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics


The problem of nihilism has been a pervasive aspect of modernity. The problem is at the focus of much of the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. Both thinkers expend great energy delineating the manifestation of nihilism in its present state. Furthermore, both thinkers view the phenomenon as the product of an evolutionary process. My analysis of the way each deals with topic will serve to identify what each claims to be the source from which nihilism emerged and how nihilism continues its presence. As the essay proceeds, the exhumation of the origin of nihilism will be shown as crucial to any adequate confrontation with the problem of nihilism and essential to any real prospect for a termination of its reign.

The starting point for this essay is the quintessential revelation of modernity: God is dead. It is with this statement that Nietzsche engages explicit recognition of the state of nihilism. To force contemplation of this event, Nietzsche conducts a scathing polemic directed against the totality of Western civilization as it stands. In his polemic, developed primarily in his later writings, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the very backbone of Western civilization, is exposed as built upon an illusory interpretation of the world. The illusion is in interpreting man’s existence through God. Because the Western tradition claims its foundation as the “transcendent” source, now exposed as a fraud, the Western tradition is itself an illusion.

Nietzsche’s polemic in no way limits itself to the “death of God”. All other “transcendent” interpretations of existence come within Nietzsche’s exposition, e.g. Hegel, pantheism (WP, p.7). Nietzsche’s purpose must be illuminated to understand the full range of what the death of God entails. Nowhere is Nietzsche clearer in this regard than in his critique of morality.

Morality, according to Nietzsche, is tantamount to “passing sentence on existence” (WP, p. 10), and, even more clearly, “turning one’s back on the will to existence” (WP, p. 11). Morality subordinates existence to some higher authority, a transcendent source. With the death of God, however, these transcendent authorities are exposed as deceptions. Thus, the anesthesia for existence as some higher source of value vanishes. Existence thus becomes devoid of value:

“The feeling of valuelessness was reached with the realization that the overall character of existence may not be interpreted by means of the concept of ‘aim’, the concept of ‘unity’, or the concept of ‘truth’. Existence has no goal or end; any comprehensive unity in the plurality of events is lacking: the character of existence is not ‘true’, [it] is false” (WP, p.13).

The categories listed above (aim, unity, and truth) into which experience is interpreted are only human interpretations of phenomena. As such, they “refer only to a fictitious world” (WP, p. 13). Thus, the death of God can be understood paradigmatically. That is, just as God was exposed as a fraud, so too must all interpretations that seek meaning outside existence: “One interpretation has collapsed; but because it was considered THE interpretation, it now seems as if there were no meaning in existence” (WP, p. 35).

With human existence unable to refer to these “higher” sources for value, and thus justification and sensibility, man concludes his world to be devoid of any meaning. With none of the traditional sources of value left, where is man to turn? Nietzsche argues that man must look within existence itself to find meaning. But to do this, man must revalue his values according to existence itself. Anything which falls short of this is condemned by Nietzsche as incomplete nihilism where, “Attempts to escape nihilism without revaluating our values…produce the opposite, make the problem more acute” (WP, p. 19). Essentially, the more man tries to search for meaning within the old conceptions of value, now gone, the more his existence is exposed as meaningless.

To better understand Nietzshe’s call to revaluate values, one must understand the complete impact of the “death of God” in a metaphysical context. This will give a fuller understanding of the source of nihilism. This, in turn, allows comprehension of what a revaluation of values entails. Finally, it exposes the limit of Nietzshe’s thought.

Nihilism, as viewed by Nietzsche following the death of God, is a realization of the meaninglessness of existence. The source of this meaninglessness is the absence of God or any other transcendent interpretation of existence. That is, when transcendent explanations of existence are exposed as projected meanings or interpretations, one realizes that existence is without given meaning. However, this problem is rooted in the traditional understanding of truth as non-projection. In non-projection, a “truth” or meaning is given to existence, from whatever source, from outside existence. Nietzsche attacks this understanding as faulty:

“Against positivism, which halts at phenomena – ‘There are only facts’ – I would say: No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We can never establish any fact ‘in itself’” (WP, p. 267 <481>).

Rather, because human knowledge is always projected knowledge, “untruth” is fundamental to human existence. Ironically, it is the attempt to eliminate the subjectivity of projection which leads to the positing of “higher” values, or the source of values as being outside existence. But with these higher values themselves exposed as projections, meaninglessness makes a dramatic “return”. The result is the awareness of the meaninglessness of existence and the crisis of nihilism.

Nietzsche’s exposition of this nihilism is, as he sees it, a transitory stage of nihilism. It is his argument that the explicit realization of the problem of nihilism gives man the possibility to revalue all values. That is, if man can recognize that it is he who can and must create values, in the absence of any transcendent supply of truth, nihilism as the meaninglessness of existence can be surpassed. This is accomplished by viewing existence itself as intrinsically valuable. To do this, man must create a new standard of valuation within existence. This standard is the will to power.

Nietzsche’s analysis of human existence reveals one pervasive, fundamental aspect: the will to power. As an implicit aspect of existence, the will to power provides a standard of valuation within existence itself. Nietzsche bases this conclusion on the fact that the strong seek to exercise their will to gain control. They need no justification outside existence and are thus prime candidates to fill the value positing void left by the death of God. The strong can thus confront the challenge of existence with a full immersion into suffering, chaos, flux, and indeterminacy.

Ones will to power is not inherently free to expend itself in existence. Rather, one must become aware of ones power to use it effectively. The “death of God” exposes man as value positing by nature and challenges him to take up the task. However, for one to exercise their power is difficult because “…that would mean looking at the best-hated drive with an opposite feeling and valuation” (WP, p. 37). Thus, Nietzsche calls for a revaluation of values where the will to power is seen as noble.

What becomes apparent in this line of thinking is Nietzsche’s acceptance that there is no “truth” in existence:

“The world with which we are concerned is false, i.e., is not a mere fact but a fable and approximation on the basis of a meager sum of observations; it is ‘in flux’, as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing but never getting near the truth: for there is no ‘truth’” (WP, p. 330 <616>).

As is clear, Nietzsche commands acceptance of the unavailability of truth to human knowledge. In the doctrine of “eternal recurrence”, one encounters “the most extreme form of nihilism: the nothing (the ‘meaningless’), eternally!” (WP, p. 36 <55>). Existence must be confronted head on, with the will to power, to affirm life.

But does Nietzsche’s “solution” bring an end to nihilism? Quite the contrary: Nietzsche himself characterizes it as “active nihilism” where it is “a sign of increased power of the spirit” (WP, p. 17 <22>). Essentially, without any possibility of meaning being given to existence, one must affirm it as it is. Thus, one must take whatever is given in existence as his pleasure – as amor fati, the “Dionysian relationship to existence” (WP, p. 536 <1041>). But do these promises of “untruth” give man a reason to exist? Even with the revaluation of values, does not the prospect seem absurd? In fact, does not Nietzshe’s case for an active nihilism make the case for a Schopenauerian withdrawal a fortiori?

Nietzsche may see such objections as cries of the weak. However, he himself relishes the prospect of a meaningless existence (by traditional criteria). Indeed, there will be no change in existence as such, but only in the valuation of it. Thus, a revaluation of values based upon nihilistic thinking cannot end nihilism. It will only solidify the presence of nihilism, because revalued, as a justifiable, brute fact of existence. Thus, one is compelled to seek an alternative road out of nihilism while still affirming existence.

Martin Heidegger’s focus on the problem of nihilism occurs in his later writings. However, his break from the traditional philosophical conception of Being begins in his magnum opus Being and Time. In Being and Time, Heidegger interrogates a new conception of the human subject, Dasein. Dasein is understood as “the being of the There” and “the There of Being” (BT, p. 134 and 142). That is, the human subject is understood as the type of entity that, in its existence, has a world and it is in this world that entities show themselves as entities. This radical break from the traditional Cartesian “worldless” subject allows for an extensive existential analysis of Dasein in its world. In analyzing Dasein in the world, Heidegger hopes to overcome the basic presuppositions of Western metaphysics which, he claims, have led to the problem of nihilism. Primary to his quest to overcome the limitations of the Western tradition is his analysis of “the concrete reality of human existence” (Gillespie, p. 123).

As discussed earlier, the problem of nihilism is an explicit recognition of the meaninglessness of existence. The meaninglessness of existence is conceded due to a failure to grasp any “truth” in existence. This inability has its basis, Heidegger argues, in metaphysics itself. Primarily, the Cartesian subject-object dichotomy is the root of nihilism because it separates man from the world. Man, because he understands himself as separate from the world, faces the inability of ever grasping the essence of the world. The only knowledge of which man is capable of having is through projection. Projection, as discussed earlier, is precluded from ever realizing truth because it is always subjective.

What is important to grasp is the ontological implication of Heidegger’s critique of modernity. The following passage gives a brief summary of the main consequences of Heidegger’s critique for the purposes of this essay:

Subjectivity is not individuality. In fact, as a way of being subjectivity in this view belongs as much to the we as I. Modernity frees man from the traditional dominion of the Church and state insofar as it establishes a new ground for his existence in subjectivity, but the character of this subjectivity is not thereby determined. Thus, modernity creates a collective subjectivity as a necessary antipode to individual subjectivity” (Gillespie, p. 125).

With man’s alienation from the world, the danger of man’s subjectivity becomes acute. Man is alienated from the world and sees it as “an alien entity which resists and threatens him” (Gillespie, p. 124). To solve the enigma of the external world, man engages in “the conquest of nature and its subordination to the categories of subjectivity: i.e., the objectification and mastery of the alien other” (Gillespie, p. 124).

Thus, man initiates the use of his knowledge of the external world to objectify it. With this understanding of the world, man “transforms nature into objects for human use” via human labor (Gillespie, p. 127). However, this understanding of the purpose of modern man to subjugate nature, while implicitly part of man’s subjectivity, leads to an amplification of man’s alienation from the world; and “[m]an discovers that he himself is in danger of being objectified and enslaved, that he is both subject and object” (Gillespie, p. 127). That is, man’s participation in the task of conquering nature makes he himself a tool in that process. This has a drastic effect on man’s existence in modernity:

“For every man qua object, every other man is both subject and object, both an opposing will and like the rest of nature a raw material that may be used and shaped by the will” (Gillespie, p. 127).

As is clear, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the human subject which results in the problem of modernity as nihilism. Subjectivity, which should free men from traditional and transcendent authorities, instead results in the desire for control as much as the exertion of the subjective will, as power for power’s sake. As this becomes increasingly manifest, nihilism further completes the incapacitation of human freedom. Thus, the will as the will to power, as power for power’s sake, becomes nihilism pure and simple:

“The will to power, according to Heidegger, is the penultimate form of modernity. In it the distinction of subject and object dissolves. As Nietzsche puts it: ‘this world is the will to power – and nothing besides!’ The will to power thus makes possible the universal objectification of everything, for objectification becomes nothing other than the subordination of the will to itself. The end of the will is the subjugation of man and nature, i.e., power. This power, however, has as its end only the security of the will to will. This will to power is thus implicitly the will to will. As such, it is merely the means to further means with no end beyond itself and thus fundamentally nihilistic” (Gillespie, p. 128).

Thus, the understanding of the will to will as the will to power results in the possibility of the exploitation of everything and everyone for the sake of power. Heidegger describes this process as already underway in the advent of world technology. With man subordinated to the task of world technology, man becomes further alienated in his uncertainty of purpose.

However explicit Heidegger’s understanding of Western metaphysics as nihilism, his solution to the problem is quite vague and perplexing. According to Gillespie: “The solution to nihilism in Heidegger’s view…lies in the revelation of Being as the how of Being” (Gillespie, p. 165). Nihilism can provide this point of departure because, “Nihilism for Heidegger is thus the advent of a new revelation of Being that is more original than anyone in the West has ever known and thus, if properly understood, can provide the basis for a new and harmonious relationship of man and the world” (Gillespie, p. p. 127). Thus, “Heidegger’s enterprise aims…not at confirming the void, but at building over it, creating a meaning that is self-originating and self-sustaining – that is revealed as Being” (Megill, p. 162). Thus, Heidegger’s approach conveys at least the initial step in a possible escape from nihilism. Man must prepare himself for an authentic encounter with Being by eliminating his current erroneous understanding of Being as exemplified in the history of ontology.

What becomes clear in this analysis of Nietzsche and Heidegger is that nihilism is an intrinsic part of man’s understanding of the world through traditional Western metaphysics. The primary difference between the proposed solution of each thinker lies in his interpretation of the essence of nihilism. Consequently, because Nietzsche remains within traditional Western metaphysics, he fails to consider a path out of nihilism. In fact, as revealed, his “solution” rests upon an acceptance of the “untruth” of existence through a revaluation of existence via the will to power. Indeed, Heidegger assails this component of Nietzsche’s approach as but a further, more radical stage of nihilism – an accusation to which Nietzsche proudly submits. For Heidegger, an escape requires properly re-thinking metaphysics. The result of correctly re-thinking ontology will be a new and true encounter with Being. On the basis of this encounter, Heidegger hopes there will arise the possibility of making an authentic home for man in this world with a true understanding of his Being-in-the-world. This is the Heideggerian escape from nihilism.

Interestingly, both thinkers promise man a “home” in this world: Nietzsche by giving meaning to meaninglessness, via a revaluation of all values; and Heidegger by eliminating the “gap” between subject and object, between man and world, which is the primordial source of nihilism. Furthermore, each approach recognizes the essence of nihilism as a faulty interpretation of the world. However, it is Nietzsche who remains within nihilism by thinking nihilistically. For Nietzsche, to overcome nihilism is to affirm existence as it stands by revaluing it via the will to power. This, according to Nietzsche himself, is active nihilism. It is Heidegger who seeks a fundamental change in existence itself through a proper understanding of Being-in-the-world based upon an elimination of the subject-object dichotomy. This new understanding will, it is hoped, end the nihilistic objectification of man and nature via technology. Furthermore it has the possibility of authentically interpreting human existence and thus terminating the reign of nihilism.


Works Cited

Gillespie, Michael Allen. Hegel, Heidegger, and the Ground of History – University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL 1984.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Harper & Row: San Francisco, CA 1962.

Megill, Allan. Prophets of Extremity. University of California Press: Los Angeles, CA 1985.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Random House: New York, NY 1967.

Evil and Terror

In “Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Problem of the Essence of Nihilism” I took my first scholarly approach to the problem I had first wondered about in my childhood watching “The World at War” on television and looking at the ominous tome on the bookshelf (which seemed to be staring at me) “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, by William L. Shirer, as well as growing up in the cold war. This problem I thought of as a question: What is Evil?, or, What is the cause of Evil? To me, the two great evils of Nazism and Communism were manifestations of Evil. But what is Evil itself? Who or what causes the occurrences of evil?

Adolf Hitler and Martin Heidegger were both born in 1889, the same year that Nietzsche went insane, first Hitler on April 20, and then Heidegger on September 26 (1). Could it be that Heidegger was sent to stop Hitler? Yes, Heidegger, contra “Schicklgruber” Hitler, called for careful thinking about Germany’s historical fate and destiny; and would later, during the war, confront the Nazi regime in lectures on Nietzsche (2). Does it now seem ludicrous to have hoped a philosopher could have stopped Adolf Hitler? Yes and no. In Germany, at least since Kant, philosophy has held a very high position. Heidegger, easily the leading philosopher in Germany at that time, had as good a chance as anyone stopping Hitler. More importantly, honest thinkers could later reflect on Heidegger’s confrontation with Nazism, and think of new and better ways to stop evil.

In my own study of Heidegger, and always with that question from childhood, I considered the finding of the source of Evil, Evil as such if you will, to be the most important question; and THE question that any genuine intellectual, an intellectual that is involved in the struggle for Human Rights, must ask. This question has developed, insofar as the struggle with the evils of Evil, the many manifestations of Evil, makes Evil put on different faces like Communism and Nazism, and Stalin and Hitler. How might we restate the question so as to make it less philosophical and more relevant to the present day realities?

It’s simple. The present face of Evil is terrorism. Therefore, we must ask “What is the source or roots of terrorisms?”, “What is Terrorism with a capital T?” Identifying and exterminating the source of terrorism, Evil or, if you will, Terror itself, will end the reign of the current face of Evil, and Evil itself will be destroyed. Then we can eradicate all of the horrors caused by Evil. These horrors include hunger, disease, and poverty.

So in reconsidering the caricature of the Second Coming, Adolf “Schicklgruber” Hitler, in terms of the attempt Martin Heidegger made to stop Hitler, we might annihilate Evil itself.

Revelation 18:1-3 (New International Version)
1After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2With a mighty voice he shouted: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil[a] spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. 3For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

Notes: a. Revelation 18:2 Greek unclean

Notes:
(1). On January 3, 1889, Nietzsche was first noted as having exhibited signs of mental illness. Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of Turin. What actually happened remains unknown, but the often-repeated tale states that Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms up around the horse’s neck to protect it, and collapsed to the ground. The first dream-sequence from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (Part 1, Chapter 5) has just such a scene in which Raskolnikov witnesses the whipping of a horse around the eyes. Incidentally, Nietzsche called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn."
(2). I first identified Heidegger’s very noble effort to stop Hitler in December 1991, amidst the rabid and chaotic Adornoesque rants of the likes of Farias and Lacoue-Labarthe, in my paper “Martin Heidegger and National Socialism as Postmodernity”. By far the best book on the subject is “Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks”, by Charles Bambach (ISBN: 0801472660). Heidegger’s books to see are the four volume “Nietzsche” and “The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays”.