Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Meaning Author(s): David Campbell
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Nietzsche, Heidegger, andMeaning
David
Campbell
writes more or less unsystematically on many subjects, includ
and politics. In this article I explore the pos Nietzsche
ingmorality, art, religion, thatenquiry intomeaning unites his
thought, so far as anything does. sibility
This topic iswide, but I focus on the suggestion inThe Genealogy
of Morality, The Birth of Tragedy,1 and less systematic works of a
theoryof interpretation that explains how terms such as
"knowledge," "being," and "truth" come to have their meaning and,
in cases such as Plato's, as he believes, to lackmean ing.
Commentators often takeNietzsche's notion of meaning for granted;
in attempting a sustained account, I look at Heidegger both as
indebted to him and as responding critically. Thus I do not simply
interprettheir writings but treat them as a starting point for
analysis and systematic reflection, consis
with what they say. The firstpart of the article considers
critically the tently suggestion in theseworks of a virtue ethics,
based on self-interpretation,and also of a wider theory of
interpretative meaning. The second part examinesHeidegger's
comments.
Nietzsche
passively undergoing experiences and reproducing them
symbolically in judg ments, but engages actively and in some ways
creatively in experience. His starting point is therefore the
autonomous agent. He emphasizes this again at the end of
thework:
The second section of the Preface toGM declares that "the
subject of the present work" is "the provenance of our moral
prejudices." Nietzsche's ques tion here, then, is the origin
ofmorality.2 Previously, however, in the first sec tion, he had
asked how we are to understand ourselves. "We ask . . . 'Who are
we, really?'. . .The sad truth is thatwe don't understand our own
sub stance" (Preface, ?1). This anticipates his answer to the
question of the ori gin ofmorality: itoriginates in us. He goes on
to indicate thatour "substance" is in his view "will" or agency.
The self is not simply a mirror to theworld,
Journal of Nietzsche Copyright ?
Studies,
Issue 26, 2003 Society. 25
2003 The Friedrich Nietzsche
26
David CampbellUntil the advent of the ascetic ... the ascetic
ideal, man, ideal... the animal is and remains man, had no meaning
a will. Let me repeat,
at all on this earth
now thatI have reached the end, what I said at thebeginning: man
would sooner have thevoid forhis purpose thanbe void of purpose.
(Ill, ?XXVIII) Nietzsche suggests, rather than states, a theory of
self-interpretation. One understands oneself as interpretingfelt
concerns and related abilities in terms of chosen, "willed"
projects, particularly one's role. In thisway, one's life as agent
has meaning both as felt or qualitative and as structured, and
moral terms acquire both their sense and efficacy. He introduces
this theory by assuming that there can be natural aristocrats and
imagining that they inter
pret their"noble" and "high-minded" qualities and "mighty"
abilities in terms of the "highly placed" role of ruler: Itwas the
"good" themselves, thatis to say thenoble,mighty,highlyplacedand
high-minded contradistinction who to all decreed that was
themselves base, and their actions low-minded and plebeian.
... in to be good . . .The ori
gin of theopposites good and bad is tobe found in . . .
thedominant temper of a higher,rulingclass in relation to a
lower,dependent one. (I, ?11) The meaning of the terms "good" and
"bad" is determined "not for a time . . .but only permanently" by
the ruler's "decree." In thisway there comes about a common
currency of values and social cohesion. This decree is not
arbitrary, but a "quick jetting forth" from his character. The
source of "supreme" value judgments is, then, the agent, somewhat
as water under pres sure jets out a fountain. To find the origin of
moral termswe need to look Nietzsche back, so to speak, to
character, not ahead to consequences or "utility." dismisses the
"lukewarmness which every scheming prudence, every utili
tarian calculus presupposes." He furtherhighlights impassioned
agency by castigating its opposite, the "slave ethics" of the
"low-minded," as merely passive and reactive rather than active and
creative. "Slave ethics requires ... an outside stimulus in order
to act at all; all its action is reaction" (I, ?X). speaks of the
ruler's "triumphant self-affirmation" (I, ?X), sug that his will
would be ascendant in its own terms only, if the cir gesting
cumstance of a "pathos of distance" between a natural ruler and
"plebeians" did not dictate his ascendancy over them.
Nietzsche
terms they typically deploy such as "pure" and "impure," and
their idea of God as "nothingness." Their self-understanding as
priests depends on their morbid feelings, and these on physical
debility: interpreting
The feelings one interprets have a bodily basis, inwhat
Nietzsche calls one's "physiology": in other words, perhaps, one's
physical type. His dis cussion of "priests" is furtherevidence
thathe operates a theory of self-inter pretation. Their "morbidity
and neurasthenia" explain their turningaway from "action," their
self-disgust and consequent asceticism, and hence themoral
Nietzsche,
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
27
Granting thatpolitical supremacy always gives rise to notions of
spiritual which remindsus of itspriestlyfunction.In thiscon terize
itselfby a termtext we encounter supremacy ... the ruling caste is
also the priestly caste and elects to charac . . .The
desire for a mystical union with God is nothing other than
theBuddhist'sdesire to sink himself in nirvana . . . here has the
human mind
for the first time the concepts
pure
and
impure.
profoundand evil. (I, ?VI)
grown
both
thus to deny a role for the self in knowledge. Nietzsche admires
this tendency for its part in formingWestern culture (III,
?XXIVff.), but nonetheless he attacks it for enabling those with
morbid, feeble will to claim moral author ity and hence political
power. His account of moral concepts thus includes a . .
.democratic "genealogy of prejudice" (I.IV). Those with feeble
passions are herdlike and servile, resent their weakness and their
rulers' strength,and each other. "With the eyes of a thief [such a
type] looks at everything pity splendid, with the greed of hunger
it sizes up those who have much to eat; and always it sneaks around
the table of those who give."3
means ascetic; "profound" means reflective, implying "Evil" here
therefore the use of linguistic symbols (I, ?VI). Together, these
characteristics produce the "will to truth," that is, a tendency to
affirm an independent reality sym bolized in judgments that can be
tested against it for truthand falsity, and
The uncreative majority, however, is supreme when united and,
assisted by priests, codifies and institutionalizes compassion and
altruism. In thisway the term "good" comes tomean "bad" and vice
versa, and theiroriginal senses are forgotten.Natural rulers
acquire a bad conscience, inappropriately feel ing ashamed of their
superior qualities and repressing them.Democrats are convinced that
their creed has objective natural or divine authority,but such a
"spirit of seriousness" ismerely the fug of stifled passion.
Altruism is afrom water. "The vermin 4man' occupies the entire
stage . . . tame, hopelessly
"sublimate" from this noxious source, like alcohol, for
instance, when freed
mediocre, and savourless, he considers himself the apex of
historical evolu tion" (I, ?XI). Eventually altruism evaporates
into nihilism, that is, loss or denial ofmean
of theweak with the joyful passion of the strong for life. Such
proud defiance alone creates
ing and value. Nietzsche speaks of the "death of God" and
predicts social fragmentation,with dire political consequences. He
does not try to reinstate altruism on a sound footing, however, but
answers the nihilistic resentmentmeaning.
eralize this type of explanation, describing any autonomous
agent as self characterized; on this basis he explains "values"
such as promise-keeping. Thus he envisages a type of individual
who, far from being "neurasthenic" and self-denying, characterizes
himself independently":
The self-characterization of rulers and priests and reaction of
"plebeians" or "slaves" explains only one aspect ofmoral
talk.Nietzsche goes on to gen
28
David CampbellThe from has and individual, ripest fruit is the
sovereign of custom, autonomous the morality like only to himself,
liberated again ... the man who and supramoral the right to make
promises? come to comple of mankind ... he becomes on himself not
according to consequences
independent, protracted will and a sensation in him a proud
consciousness, lies in his own demands tion ... his measure moral.
... He determines himself
his own
authentically
. . .but fromhis beginning. (II, ?11)
One does not acquire good character and a sense of oneself by
first taking goals and rules for granted. Instead, one first
identifies whatever matters or makes a difference to oneself in
particular, and then interprets this "passion" in terms of a role.
Somewhat similarly, ifone cares about fine art or fishing, oneself
as a budding artistor angler. Nietzsche, for instance, one may
interpret however, is concerned with role choice as determining
where one's values lie, not where one's talents lie. In fulfilling
one's passion one makes explicit the values it implies; a
self-interpretation is not derived from preconceived
for instance, on doing distinctively human things such as
talking, tickling, or driving fast cars. Goals, rules, and values
depend in this sense on choice. For Nietzsche, however, choice is
responsible not only as liable to praise or blame but also as a
settled response to feelings; it implies that one knows oneself and
accepts its costs and benefits. Thus themetaphor of "jetting forth"
does not imply thatone's choice is simply voluntarist, like playing
the lotteryand winning the jackpot: good character is a prize hard
won, commanding a high price and a cause for pride (I, ?VIII). By
so interpreting felt concerns in terms of one's role, one also
"creates"
values, but forms a background against which one conceives
values. As a "jetting forth"of value judgments from one's
character, this process is largely emotional and inarticulate
rather than calculated and conscious. Values then depend on
singling oneself out as author of one's biography, so to speak,
not,
oneself: Nietzsche's theory has implications for the nature of
the self and its realization, as he notes inGM. One's life gains an
aim and narrative struc ture, and one acquires a sense of oneself
as of a piece, enduring through time, and bearing rights and
obligations. One makes the sense one does of one's life from this
first-person stance. There cannot in general be a self that does
not make sense to itself,more or less, and one interprets oneself
and one's What it is to be a self thus depends on will, exercised
in self values together.interpretation.
also explains terms such as "responsibility" and "conscience,"
togetherwith obligations such as promise-keeping, as expressions of
virtu Nietzscheous, "aristocratic" character: "Those who promise
[are] like sovereigns
. . .
whose promises are binding because they know that theywill make
them . . .His proud awareness of the extraordinary privilege
responsibility good. confers has penetrated deeply and become a
dominant instinct.. . .Surely he will call ithis conscience (II,
?11). Nietzsche calls thismethod of explaining
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
29
moral concepts "etymological": understandably, given his
philological train ing. But his "etymology" is also a "genealogy,"
attempting to show that values originate in character, and that
this is a matter of choice or self characterization. Yet this is
only one application of his etymological method; it also applies
generally to "the objective areas of natural science and phys
iology." He excuses himself from showing how, saying, "I cannot
enlarge
upon the question now" (I, ?IV), but adds in parenthesis that
"[t]he lordly right of bestowing names is such that one would
almost be justified in see ing the origin of language itself as an
expression of the rulers' power. They say, 'This is this or that' ;
they seal off each thing and action with a sound and thereby take
symbolic possession of it" (I, ?11). Such lordly "naming" is not a
matter of picking out and labeling mean
ingswe perceive as though already formed independently of us.
Nietzsche's methods include challenging such assumptions, but
itdoes not follow that linguistic terms have in his view only
rhetorical meaning. Instead, he seems tomean thatwe "bestow names"
in the sense of stipulatingmeanings: words mean what we
conventionally want them tomean. Perhaps we can concoct a nonmoral
example by adapting his metaphor of the "aristocrat." In this fan
ciful example, the term "forest" can be understood by recognizing
connota tions with stag-hunting and the like in theminds of
"nobles" who reserve theirwoods for such purposes. Just as we have
to dig into "etymology" to
rediscover that "pure" meant originally "inactive," so we
ordinarily "forget" that the term "forest" was originally
interpretedas "hunting ground" and sup pose that it simply means
something like "woodland." Thus, to extrapolate from Nietzsche's
brief discussion, a "name" does not mean just what the namer wants
it tomean, somewhat as words have meaning for Humpty Dumpty.
Instead, a "name" initially expresses various connotations in the
minds of whoever does the "naming," and so comes to denote
convention ally whatever conjures up these connotations, thoughmany
are subsequently lost or "forgotten." "Naming" consists neither in
labeling preexisting mean ings nor in arbitrarily allocating a
denoting use and specific sort of reference to a verbal sign that
then over time accrues connotations; instead, denotation
presupposes interpretation of objects in terms of interests. In
thisway, his account of themeaning of moral terms, based on
self-interpretation, gener alizes to a theory of semantic meaning
based on interpretationof objects. If
for present purposes we can call
self-interpretation"existential" as concerned with personal
existence, and interpretation of objects also "existential" as
concerned with what it is to be an object to which we refer,
Nietzsche can be said to connect existential and semantic meaning.
The background to this theory isNietzsche's attack on cognitivist
meta physics. He describes themetaphysics of his "great teacher"
Schopenhauer as noncognitivist (Preface, ?V). "'Amidst the furious
torments of thisworld, the individual sits tranquilly' [while
doubting! the cognitive mode of expe
30
David Campbell
pity each other. Nietzsche agrees that there is only a "will to
power," as he calls it,which is inherently unstructured and
indifferent to us. There is no given, preconceived end or telos
that could remove the contingency of "exis tence" and redeem
tragedy or justify its pain. But he questions his mentor's
rience" (TBT, ?1, p. 22). There is no ultimate, metaphysical
truthor reality that could be a foundation for knowledge, but only
a disorderly cosmic will or striving; human beings can do littlebut
observe events, renounce self, and
view of "the value of ethics" (GM, 153), denying thatwe need to
resign our selves to impotent passivity. Rather, will to power
manifests itself in us as interpretation of "passion" or emotion
strong enough not to end futility and disorder but, on the
contrary, to overcome them by willing their
"eternal"recurrence.
Empiricists also, among others, deny the possibility of
metaphysical cog nition; but Nietzsche maintains that all cognitive
assumptions need to be explained, while they exempt sensory
cognition. For empiricists, further, "ideas" and their
relationships in thinking derive from sensory experience, where
forNietzsche they derive fromwill to power. Unlike them, also, he
uses an aphoristic, epigrammatic writing style to exhibit a poetic
mode of thinking that does not rely on explicit deductive argument,
and to thwart an argued account of his thought. The present article
nonetheless tries to see whether such an account is feasible. In
general terms,will to power is a commanding drive to use whatever
is available as a means to itself: there is in the end only a
circle of control and
consumption. The term "power" is here an intensifier and does
not indicate an external telos or aim of "will." Metaphysically,
this inherently undiffer entiated process manifests itself as
spatiotemporal, causally related natural units; conversely, since
everything is a means to control, the process has no internal
structure of means and ends. For any thing or object, to be is
then
for order and meaning to interpret theworld inways that others
may share. Truth as the adequacy of statements to represent facts
can then be reduced to interpretation in response to constraints.
Any number of such interpreta tions or "perspectives" is possible.
Here will to power is a nihilistic circle of interpretation that
continuously consumes and overcomes itself.The doctrine
not only tomanifest will to power but also to be reducible to
it.Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal recurrence of every state of
the universe reflects this circularity,and in this respect is also
a metaphysical doctrine. Ethically, virtue answers nihilistic
resignation and not only expresses felt control or will to power
but also reduces to it.Epistemologically, one is constrained by a
need
of eternal recurrence reflects this circularity also.
Nietzsche's epistemologi ca! particularism means that talk of
knowledge and itsobjects expresses some manifests will to power.
perspective or other,which in turn In emphasizing passion and
control, Nietzsche hopes to avoid metaphys ical commitment. One
reason he attacks Christianity is thathe assumes that
Nietzsche,
Heidegger,
and Meaning
31
it claims metaphysical knowledge. His objection is not to the
idea of tran scendence, since his "superman" is transcendent in a
sense, as the name implies. Rather, he rejects transcendental
arguments such as that theremust be objects outside experience to
be mirrored or symbolized within it. most, At these arguments
establish thatwe must believe that there are such objects, not that
theyexist, and he explains thisbelief by our need for order and
mean ing. Thus he questions two assumptions: that there are
transcendent objects, and thatknowledge ismerely representation.
These assumptions leave unex
plained both the notion of an object, as preconceived, and the
notion of knowl edge, as reproducing something preconceived. He
proposes to resolve this problem by explaining both knowledge and
its objects as manifestations in us of will to power. In effect he
distinguishes a judgment as representing fact and as a mental act
expressing interest or power. Nietzsche's assumption that any
metaphysics must be transcendental and cognitivist may seem unduly
narrow; perhaps indeed he himself might be said to hold a
metaphysics
hard to swallow, however, so far as theworld is not only a sort
of event or manifestation of agency but also there.4Consonantly
with his emphasis on will, moreover, Nietzsche thinks of human
beings primarily as agents. One difficultywith this is thatwe are
onlookers as well as agents, and interpre tation is an occurrence
as much as a willed action; hence we can consider
of will or agency. His attack on Christianity is then curious
given that will, along with intellect, is forChristians fundamental
to the nature of both God and human beings. A metaphysics of sheer
will is
such as power over others; as an intensifier, implies thatone
copes well. Hence it will to power in human beings is a passion
concerned with coping and control, and will in the sense of agency
is the basis for choice. Such "choice" implies
things as instruments to ends other than control. For Nietzsche,
however, at least afterThus Spake Zarathustra, will to power is our
fundamental drive. He calls it "the emotion of command";5 thus it
is a "passion" ratherthana psychological faculty.Ithas a bodily
basis, and is stronger in some individuals than others. Will to
power manifests itselfas felt ability in as distinct from a sense
of achievement in completing an doing and making, activity or
product. The term "power" does not here indicate an object of
will
without effort, but ismade amid struggleand strife. Twilight of
the Idols (IX.38), for instance, describes choice or "freedom" as
"measured ... by the resistance which has to be overcome, by the
effort it costs." Will to power in us is opposed to a spectator's
passivity, sustains a feeling
voluntary, intentional action, not freewill: Nietzsche's
theoryofmotivation is deterministic, thoughhe is interestedin
feeling not simply as a causal antecedent of choice but as embodied
and expressed in it. At the same time, such a notion of choice is
not voluntarist in the sense thatflipping a coin decides an
outcome
of life, and gives rise to virtue. Nietzsche is immor?list in
some modes, but in others, and perhaps in the round, he suggests a
virtue ethics.6 In his ver
32
David Campbell
sion, enhanced vitality overflows into particular virtues: "[a]
heart [which] flows full and broad like a river ... wants to
overflow, so that thewaters may flow golden from him and bear the
reflection of your joy over all theworld."7 If we are to act
virtuously, we must have this feeling, and promote values that
sustain it. "Morality grows out of triumphant self-affirmation . .
. spontaneously" (GM 1, ?10). "The worth of an action depends on
who does it. . . . It is no longer the consequences but the origin
of action which deter mines its value" (BGE, Part Two, ?32). A
heightened feeling of life, that is, "strong" will to power, brims
over into particular virtues, as opposed to either lacking or
bottling up strong passion. One is then socially engaged, congen
ial, honest, proud (megalopsychos), courageous, generous, just,
courteous, exuberant, and playful; and one has presence, energy,
sensibility, self-disci pline, and self-sufficiency (?284).8 In the
case of generosity, for example,
"The noble human being aids the unfortunate but not, or almost
not, from pity, but more from a superfluity of power" (?260).
Well-being pours over intowell-doing: one undertakes obligations
voluntarily from virtue, and one is accountable to others for
discharging obligations only as having under taken them.A
difficulty for this theory is that filial obligations, for
instance, do not depend in thisway on undertakings. For Nietzsche,
however, what gives meaning and value to one's life is a feeling of
vitality both strong enough
tomeet its contingency, disorder, and pain and stable enough to
persist if it recurred numberless times.9 Affirming eternal
recurrence therefore stabilizes strong feeling. On this basis one
makes the sense one does of one's life. Emotional debility, by
contrast, manifests itself as incoherent self-interpre tation:
one's will devises ways of defeating itself, and a vicious life is
a botched expression of "weak," resentful feeling. Will to power is
controlling, and so also therefore is virtue as manifesting
it.Presumably we can cultivate or neglect virtue, butNietzsche does
notmean thatwe control our character in the sense that choosing and
acting are said to be under our control or "free"; his view of
character is determinist. For Hume also the final term inmoral
explanation is emotion; but unlike
Nietzsche, themoral standpoint is in his view universal. Moral
judgments express "sentiments inwhich [aman] expects all his
audience are to concur with him. He must here, therefore,depart
from his private and particular sit uation . . . [to] some
universal principle."10 For Nietzsche, however, one is virtuous so
far as one expresses feeling particular to oneself. Such an
ethic
moral obligations, commendations, and so on is particularist in
holding that are products of virtuous feeling, not simply of
"mechanical" universalizing or deduction from preconceived rules.We
grade such feeling on a scale from,say, "excellent"
simply judging the actions "right" or "wrong" by universal
rules. In a broadly similar sense, there is no "right" or "wrong"
literaryessay. Thus virtues suchas courage, generosity, and
courtesy are analogous to one another and form
to "poor"
or, as Nietzsche
says,
from
"strong"
to "weak,"
not
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
33
incapable of intellectual wisdom. Thus his ethics is
self-regarding like Nietzsche's, though forAristotle, unlike
Nietzsche, one's interests include those of family, friends, and
fellow-citizens. His account, however, ismore structured
thanNietzsche's, since his virtues are analogous as lying at their
respective means. He also tabulates an analogy between vices as
each in its own way an excess or defect, where Nietzsche has a
catchall characteriza tion of vices as "weak," resentful, and
self-defeating. But Nietzsche agrees thatethics has no metaphysical
telos as its foundation, somewhat as Aristotle rejected Plato's
foundationalism. Nietzsche's imperative is to "choose solitude": he
associates the univer salist ethics of Utilitarianism and Kant with
what is commonly called "moral
implies the thinking (logos) of the practically wise; a
courageous act is not simply a reflexive, automatic deduction from
a preconceived rule (though Aristotle seems to take for granted
rules prohibiting murder, adultery, and so on). The end (telos) of
"happiness" consists in so acting, at least for those
a class in that each is in its own way an expression of
"strength," that is, heightened vitality in exercising coping
skills. Aristotle also is particularist inholding thata virtue such
as courage depends on feeling particular to oneself, at a mean
between excess and defect that
which he believes his ethic "overcomes." Utilitarians say that
actions ity," are right if they produce the best results for
themajority regardless of feel ings particular to oneself;
Nietzsche would protest thatgenerosity, for instance, is not merely
calculated giving, and one ought to keep a promise even if no one
benefits. Kant held that one ought to act from regard for duty, not
sim ply from feeling; a duty in one situation is a duty in every
similar situation,
feltmeaning. According toNagel, we need to distinguish knowledge
that a bat navigates by echo location, for instance, from knowing
what it is like to be a bat.11For Nietzsche, one could do what one
ought for the reason that one ought without being moral, if the
actions lack significance or importance for oneself in particular.
This is not a matter of suiting one's narrowly per A sonal
interest. virtuous person in a situation requiring her to do
something rather than nothing typically asks what she ought to do
given how she in par ticular feels, not simply what anyone, in the
thirdperson, ought to do regard less of such feelings. Thus she
keeps a promise because fulfilling such an
and thus objective relatively to us. For Nietzsche this takes a
third-person, onlooker's view of action. One's motive then has no
meaning of its own that could explain why one would want to act in
thisway. One ought to honor one's promise, for instance, because
this obligation matters to oneself in par ticular, not simply for
the reason that anyone ought to do so. Virtue forNietzsche thus
depends on the irreducible first-person stance of
when called on obligation matters to her even if she does not
benefit and if, to fulfill it, she is disinclined,
throughweariness, for example. To suppose thatwhat Nietzsche calls
"passion" ismerely such capricious inclination
34 would
David Campbell
priately request an account either of its content or of why
itmust apply to red things. Somewhat similarly, one simply sees
thatone ought to keep one's promise, for example. What is
particular to oneself on this theory is an intel lectual as opposed
to a sensory perception. For Nietzsche, however, ont feels that
this obligation matters. Intuitionists fail to explain why one
would want to act on one's moral knowledge, but if, as
forNietzsche, one cares about one's obligations, such caring
explains one's subsequent actions. Nietzsche often contrasted his
position with Christianity yet ignored, or failed to spot, an
affinitybetween his view that joyful passion for life over comes
its inherent senselessness and theChristian view that we can be
grate He enlivens his account of emotional "health" by ful for life
despite evil. opposing it to religious feeling, which he
misrepresents as typically feeble
ted for present purposes, would be too simple. In some ways,
Nietzsche's theory resembles intuitionism. The word "red," for
instance, is descriptive, but a person blind from birth could not
appro
imply a contradiction. Thus to say thathis ethics is narrowly
egoistic rather thanmore broadly self-regarding, if such a
distinction may be admit
with respecting persons, that is, they avoid malice, lust, envy,
and so on; we can be glad for life though we tend to feel these
things and, in addition, suffer pain and tragedy. Somewhat as for
Nietzsche, one welcomes the eternal
and morbid. He would have been more accurate ifhe had said that
Christianity is in his terms "healthy," the highest expression of
will to power. Natural feel ings are forChristianity occasions for
rejoicing so far as they are consistent
recurrence of one's life, such gratitude is a comprehensive felt
intention, not simply a particular natural feeling; though it is
also a kind of gift, not sim ply chosen, whereas forNietzsche good
character requires heroic effort as well as choice. The grace of
gratitude is also particular to oneself from the first-person
standpoint, where Nietzsche wrongly assumed thatChristianity
imposes a universal altruistic ethic regardless of perspective.
Nietzsche calls himself "antichrist" because he believes, to this
extentwrongly, thathe opposes misrepresents Christians not only as
debilitated but Christianity. He further
also as compensating for their debility by conceiving of moral
rules as pro hibitions in order to repress passion. In fact,
however, moral rules on their view mark the frontiers of regard for
persons, and forgiving others restores
we suppose, contrary to his self-regarding theory, that virtue
at least in part concerns one's bearing toward others, and thus
presupposes relationship with them. In these respects his ethical
theory is then deficient. One might also question whether virtue
must depend on feeling, as virtue
the equality disturbed by trespass. Hence this notion of
theperson is notmilk and water, as Nietzsche alleges, but offers a
means ofmaking sense ofmoral rules, and of uniting them under one
concept: a unity that is not available to his theory that
recognition of any such rule is simply a voluntary undertak ing. It
also provides a more successful test of what is to count as a
virtue if
Nietzsche,
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
35
as an end, not simply from felt interest or inclination towhich
persons are mere means, and so monitors her feelings for traces of
self-regard; but in so denying herself she in fact acts from a
warped, ascetic kind of self-interested feeling. His point is not
simply that she is deceived or muddled about her motives, but that
judgment, unlike feeling, cannot of itself lead to action. The
reason why altruism is illusion is that, as Aristotle and Hume put
it, "intel lect" or "reason" alone cannot motivate us to act. A
problem forNietzsche, however, is thatwhile such a judgment is
plainly not a feeling, it is nonethe less typically accompanied by
feeling. The Good Samaritan need not have
Nietzsche could reply that pride and humility are tied to what
matters or makes a difference to oneself, and character is in this
sense a question of feel we suppose thatwe act on judgment alone.
An altru ing; we are deceived if ist may believe that she acts on a
judgment that the person has inherentvalue
ethicists maintain. Pride and humility, for instance, seem to be
matters of judgment concerning one's abilities, whether or not one
also swells with a feeling of pride or shrinks with a feeling of
humility. As a virtue ethicist,
which lies beyond the scope of this article is whether
interpretation articu lates and shapes prior formless, "raw"
emotion, or whether what we feel can not be separated in thisway
fromwhat we thinkwe feel, expect to feel, andso on.
worth, morality is not simply an expression of feltmeaning or
derived from it, as Nietzsche assumes. The notion of meaning is
therefore less inclusive than he supposes. A wider question
concerning the relation between judgment and feeling,
in a sense, contrary to his intention.This argument cannot be
explored ade quately here, but itwould follow thatNietzsche's
weakness is not thathe is a self-regarding virtue ethicist, but
thathe is a virtue ethicist at all. If virtu ous social feeling
presupposes the judgment that the person has inherent
felt compassion for themugged Levite he assisted, but such
feeling would clearly have been appropriate. Indeed, Nietzsche
believes that the "noble" aid the unfortunate not from altruistic
"pity" but "more from a superfluity of power," and such lack of
sympathy is from an altruistic stance small-minded
Nietzsche's other systematic work, The Birth of Tragedy, can
like GM be regarded as offering a noncognitivist account ofmeaning;
here he calls such an account "aesthetic." This work is the
startingpoint for his perspectivism. When itwas first published,
Nietzsche held that an elite generates an inter pretation of
theworld that is then accepted universally. The world is, as he
later described it, a seething, formless will to power. Only great
artists such as the classical tragedians endure the threat of
disorder and, without guide lines, createmyths thatprovide a
monolithic order.Their orgiastic "Dionysian" energy and formalizing
"Apollinian" principle are at odds except when achiev ing order in
an artwork. This process is emotional and hence inexplicable.
For the slavish majority, meaning depends on making this
aesthetic standard
36
David Campbell
Nietzsche
its own.12 In thisway, artists redeem our existence from its
"terror and hor ror" and provide a socially unifying system of
values (TBT, 1872). The aim is not beauty but coping,
throughpleasure in the harmony of beauty. Art does not represent an
unintended underlying reality but provides a feeling of order
thatwe regard as objective once we forget its origin. Art is
thereforewhat calls a "metaphysical supplement" that "overcomes"
nature and existence." Thus he reduces belief in an objective order
to a need "justifies
for control.
(?452). Previously he held that the process of artistic creation
is inexplica ble; now an artist's ability is no more miraculous
than that of an inventor, scholar, or tactician (HH, ?163). The
source of value is thereforenot the artist but his work, whose
perspective requires us to rethink our lives. Art does not make a
universal ideal of the best in us: rather,we interpretour best
accord ing to our perspective. Anyone may contribute to the
perspective of some tra dition or other, and realize "the hero
concealed within" (JW, ?78). Nietzsche thereforefirst supposed that
artists supply a framework of order that is objective relatively to
themajority in the sense of being unified rather than particular to
individuals. But he later supposed originally instead that anyone
can contribute to our interpretation, and it is now partic ular to
individuals and their traditions, even when it seems
unified.Whether and meaningsuch perspectives are "strong" or
excellent, or "weak" and poor, is not deter
However, in his introduction to the later, 1883 edition of The
Birth of Tragedy, headed "Towards Self-Criticism," Nietzsche
rejects his earlier view thatvalues are universal. There are
instead various particular "perspectives"
mined simply by arbitrary choice on voluntarist lines, as though
Jack's hill could be Jill's pail, or murder wrong for Jack but
right for Jill.A perspective is not merely tied to the individual's
need formeaning but takes the form of a tradition or convention to
which one contributes. Its criteria of meaning and value are not
independent of individuals, yet are objective relatively to them as
a tradition is public relatively to its contributors. In a similar
way, moral motivation is particular to individuals yet connects
with moral judg ment as general in form, and Nietzsche shows how
these apparently opposed
particular and universal standpoints can be reconciled. BT and
GM together reveal an approach that leads to perspectivism. The
term "perspective" has an optical sense, but Nietzsche does not
mean that there is a world independent of us that is somehow
ambiguous, or indeci pherable, or that all see differently, as a
house can be viewed from different sides. He means rather that each
has a different notion of "the world," a nar These perspectives may
be rative beguiling enough to be mistaken for truth. both
incommensurable and compatible, but their fundamental concepts,
such the category of "thing," evidently converge. Nietzsche's
emphasis on per spectival diversity and self-directing control
makes him more liberal politi cally than in othermodes, but his
wider point is nonpolitical: each individual
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and Meaning
37
relates to his world fromwithin, not as a neutral observer with
a 'View from nowhere." At the same time,Nietzsche is not a
relativistwho claims that sen tences are true or false only in
relation to the parochial perspective they express. Thus any
perspective can be criticized from another perspective, so long as
doing so is not "offensive" (JW, ?335). But no perspective can
be
do as he likes: now all are freewhere justice is done by
recognizing theirpar ticular contributions (HH, ?300). Once artists
gave universal meaning, and justice was equity: now justice is
"love with open eyes," giving each his due
criticized from a supposedly "objective" standpoint that is
above criticism rather than perspectival: there is no such
Archimedean view. This has particularist ethical implications.
Previously the artistwas free to
justice is tied to self-realization, which can take heroic
effort, so that a judg ment is an exercise of power, and true if
itfits a living perspective; hence tra ditions no longer become
ossified, but ideas can be reviewed and invented
from his own perspective. This means treating contributors
justly, not per sons equally: Nietzsche consistently rejects such
equality.We need this sense of justice to grow in everyone and the
instinctfor violence toweaken. Further,
integrated, and resolute, one's sustained joy in living is
attractive. One does not thwart felt concerns and desires but
interprets them so as to "become what you are," that is, authentic
or "strong" (D, ?448). Autonomous respon sibility is also
solitary,unlike the relational responsibility of a master or
slave,
ary elite determines the rules of justice. Strength now lies in
autonomy as well as passion. Autonomy consists in freely choosing a
personal "style" that integrates conflicting feelings into "an
artistic plan," that is, a sustainable order of pleasures
(JW,?290). One's choice cannot be justified safely in advance, for
instance by preconceived rules; it involves risk and
self-overcoming, as distinct from self-preservation. Since one
shapes one's narrative, it is an artwork; values such as honesty
and integrity are aesthetic, notmoral or religious. One develops a
life-enhancing structure of satisfactions by doing what one in
particular cares about. Gifted, proud,
(GM, ?155). This view of justice, as regard for each perspective
according to its "strength," suggests an interplaybetween
libertyand equality thatpartly subsumes, rather than fully
supplants, Nietzsche's earlier view that a vision
for instance; Thus Spake Zarathrustra speaks of a solitary
rambler on icy peaks. One detaches oneself from sociocultural forms
and ties, including the language inwhich one expresses oneself and
the criteria of concepts in it, in order to determine what one's
own passions are and express them in a proj ect. Autonomy does not
imply independence from such forms, since passions do not arise in
a vacuum and projects involve direct or indirect relationships.
Somewhat similarly, a passion for football, for instance, implies
teamwork
and rules; a researcher relies on professional controls, the
contributions of other scholars and a shared specialized
vocabulary, and asks others to trust him.13Virtue then concerns an
individual's relation to herself as self-deter
38
David Campbell
mining, true to herself, and so on, not her relation to others;
but while self interpretationplays a central role inNietzsche's
account of virtue, this does not entail that she can just choose
either herself or her character: not only is good character won by
long hard labor, as noted earlier, but she also does not just
choose the ethical language inwhich she expresses herself and the
cri teria of concepts in it,as forHumpty Dumpty words mean just
what he wantsthem to mean.
Although Nietzsche takes an aesthetic rather than a religious
view of val ues, his shift from a universal to a particularist
stance has a religious ana majority logue. The medieval world
picture was transmitteddownward to the by a priestly hierarchy, and
claimed a universality that ruled out dissent; later the priesthood
embraced all believers, whatever their particular experience and
point of view. Nietzsche somewhat similarly argues that an elite,
unified sense of theworld leads to social instability and
mediocrity; excellence or
virtue and social harmony depend on perspectival diversity. This
analogy is confirmed by his evoking medieval practices such as
self-flagellation to attack altruism as ascetic, though weakened by
the fact that both earlier and later religious doctrines demand
self-denying altruism. Previously, Nietzsche had asserted
thatculture depends on slavery.He does not now do so, not simply
because he wants individuals to be treated justly but also because
he no longer assumes uniform standards and needs themas
ter-slave distinction to explain them.His target is still the
"objectivist," cog moral judgments are true if theyfit "moral
facts" such as nitivist theory that that lying, stealing, and
killing are wrong. He rejects the theory that these are facts, as
distinct from the nontheoretical belief that the actions are
wrong:can attach no sense to the notion of such
we
edge of it. Indeed objectivists themselves differ inwhat they
call right or good, reflecting different agendas. The source of
difficulty is the assumption thatknowledge claims in general, not
only claims concerning ethics and the Will to power is
fundamentally a matter of physics self,fit preconceived facts. and
biology, but here, at the level of human motivation, it concerns
knowl edge. Human beings feel a need for stable meaning and control
and, tomeet this need, create the "fiction" of thingsor natural
units; thusknowledge claims
a nonsensory
"fact"
or knowl
"The most dangerous of all errors,"Nietzsche says in thePreface
toBeyond Good and Evil, is "denying perspective." A piece of
knowledge does not sim ply fit fact, but serves powers or
interests, that is,will to power. "There are no things (?they are
fictions invented by us)."15 The notion of an occurrent object
presupposes its interpretation as an instrument that,according
toGM,
reduce to interpretations of experience: "I set apart with high
reverence the name ofHeraclitus. When the rest of the philosopher
crowd rejected the evi dence of the senses because these showed
plurality and change, he rejected their evidence because they
showed things as if they possessed duration and . . . [He] will
always be right in this, thatbeing is an empty fiction."14
unity.
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
39
we subsequently "name." For instance, what it is for a tree to
be is explained by potentialities for, say, food, shelter, and
fuel.We give meaning to judg ments about an actual tree by
interpreting such potentialities as a group; it is not as thoughwe
could first reproduce the fact of there being a tree symbol ically
in a judgment such as "This is a tree" and then investigate the
predi cates. This direction of explanation also means thatwe
firstunderstand any object in relational terms: for example, wood
is first serviceable, then cellu lar. Judgments ascribing physical
properties depend for their meaning on cer tain sorts of relational
judgments, and these in turndepend for their meaning on
interpretativecoping skills. The same statement may thenboth
correspond
with fact and provide an adequate interpretation, and the
questions what the thing also is "in itself," and whether italso
exists "in itself," apart from inter pretation, are misleading.
Hence talk of "things" is "fictional" or conven tional. A routine
objection to what we may here loosely call linguistic
conventionalism is that while it may purport to explain the
variability of con as "east" or "work," it fails to explain the
invariability of logical, cepts such
mathematical,
and categorial concepts. Nietzsche could possibly reply on
perspectivist lines that such a dichotomy need not be exhaustive:
there can be indefinitelymany incommensurable but compatible kinds
of linguistic convention, each with its own cluster of public
criteria and type and degree of rigidity or flexibility. This reply
fails, however, so far as invariability is not a type or degree of
rigidity.
time; in parallel fashion, he holds thatwords mean what we want
them to mean conventionally rather than voluntaristically. We
ordinarily speak of "existence" in connection with spatiotemporal,
causally related objects, how ever, not with their prior conditions
such as will to power. Thus to say that an object exists is not to
indicate its independence but to express in conven tional form our
intention to speak of unity, causality, and so on. In thisway,
Nietzsche defends ordinary talk of real things against doctrines
such as Plato's concerning an unintended metaphysical reality. The
theory of will to power
Nietzsche claimed to have "abolished Being." He does notmean
thatnoth ing exists: will to power exists, and is finally all that
there is. He is not an mind creates a world from nothing, so to
speak; idealist who believes that the it is down to us that things
are serviceable, and thus that they are as they yet are. To this
extent his view is both controlling and nonvoluntarist at the
same
both explains such ordinary talk in the sense of supporting it
as useful illu sion, and at the same time explains such metaphysics
in the contrary sense of undermining pernicious illusion.
Nietzsche's aim, however, is not merely to distinguish useful and
pernicious illusions. Even while vindicating ordi nary talk, he
does not leave itundisturbed, but finally reduces it to a mani
festationof will to power. Like "metaphysics," itattempts to
control knowledge and truthby conceiving of things as existing
independently. He therefore replaces both ordinary and metaphysical
ontological assumptions with an
40
David
Campbell
account of their origin, namely, the attempt to objectify Being
"anthropo morphically."16 "We can say nothing about the thing
itself.... A quality exists for us. . . .Knowing is nothing but
working with the favourite metaphors. But in this case first nature
and then the concept are anthropomorphic. . . . We produce beings
(Wesen)."11Hence any belief thatBeing, knowledge, and truthare
independent of art, that is, the art of interpretation, is
illusion.18To say that there are thingswith properties and so on
makes sense only as mean Talk of things ismetaphorical, not ing
that it is as (/"thereare such things.19 as hinting at their
independence, but in conveying the intention to talk in this
way. Nietzsche therefore explains such talk by its force or
"will to power." This is not to say that linguistic meaning reduces
to rhetoric, but that it is a matter of conventional "naming," as
he calls it inGM. Since there is in the end only will to power, it
is in this sense impossible to speak with a straight face about
knowledge of "Being" or objective truthand reality. Nietzsche's
defense of ordinary talk of thingsmight appear to contradict he his
view that these are fictions; further, might be supposed to offer a
the ory of truth that tries but fails to resolve this
contradiction. But there is no we assume that he aims at a theory
of meaning, not of such contradiction if
For he can then be said to take the coherent line that truth is
a product truth. of interpretation,useful for ordinary talk but,
philosophically, a fiction rather than a subject matter towhich one
could refer literally, or about which one could intelligibly
theorize. "Metaphysicians" suppose thatknowledge is contingent on a
foundation notion. of truth; but truth is on the contrary a
contingent, not foundational,
The notion of an unintended reality is a perspective, but one
that lacks many such meaning: a fiction in the sense of a lie.
There could be infinitely of experience: Plato, Locke, and Kant,
for example, all in their interpretations differentways assert an
unintended reality. Nietzsche thus "abolishes" the notion of
reality as the subject matter ofmetaphysics inPlato's mode of read
ing off, and recasts it as an expression of perspective without the
imprimatur of fixed and final "truth."His suggestion is then that
the criteria of knowl
with the theory so expressed is that it fails to explain the
difference between saying that the painting really is a work of
art, not kitsch, for instance, and that it really is a painting,
not, for instance, an illusion or hallucination. Nietzsche would
reply, however, that this distinction has no systematic appli
cation; it concerns only specific cases of deception, and any
perspective can
edge are aesthetic in that a perception is objective, not
illusory, for instance, meets its implicit public criteria,
somewhat as we are not misled about if it whether a certain
painting by Rembrandt really is a work of art.A problem
be criticized from the standpoint of another. what you are doing
Nagel points to a parallel contrast between "a sense that is . . .
important to you . . . [and that it is] important in a larger
sense: impor tant, period."20 Such a "larger" meaning is not only
synoptic and final, as
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
41
or ten Nagel indicates: it seems also to have dramatic unity and
heightening sion, togetherwith qualitative or emotional richness
and depth. Thus for a romantic or pantheist, a landscape, for
instance, can seem to convey a mes sage thatdoes not quite form
itself intowords, having what might be called a quasi-literal
symbolic meaning somewhat like a printed page, as distinct
frommetaphorical meaning whether as frost patterns look like
leaves, for instance, or as when we say it is "as if the landscape
has meaning. For Nietzsche, on the other hand, theworld is a
disorderly will that surges up in us as a superabundant energy and
feeling of health or wholeness. The narra tives we subsequently
invent have internal unity and give a deceptive sense of truth but,
as merely perspectival, have no systematic application. Heidegger,
unlike Nietzsche, connects such a feeling of wholeness with
intimations of universal rather than perspectival significance. At
the same time, he followed
Nietzsche's
noncognitivism; whether such meaning should instead be under
stood cognitively, as romantics, for instance, assume, is a wider
question that cannot be investigated here.Will to power, then, is
"meaning" forNietzsche not only in this specialized sense but also
in the senses inwhich we speak
variously of the "meaning" of art, religion, science, politics,
morality, and the self, as well as of knowledge, language, being or
objectivity, and truth.
Heidegger The theory of meaning thatwe have attributed
toNietzsche was made more explicit by Heidegger. We need not,
however, examine his debt or expound his theory inmore detail than
is required to show where his view of tech nology diverges in
general fromNietzsche's theory of will to power, as the background
to his more specific criticisms. According toHeidegger, I lack
reason to exist in the sense of actualizing a preconceived end, yet
try tomeet such contingency by actualizing 'one' (das Man), that
is, by acting as anyone would inmy circumstances; however, I am
authentic or genuinely myself only so far as I interpretand choose
pos
sibilities particular tomyself. So far he and Nietzsche agree,
but where Nietzsche demands solitude, Heidegger assumes social
interaction. I cannot perceive my possibilities except against a
background of universal everyday
as a human being is to stand out from oneself as interpreter to
receive and express the existence of particular things.Man is
'being-in-the-world' since subject and object are united in him
before they are distinguished (BT, 33). Heidegger's metaphor for
themind is a forest clearing, where light enters
concerns, so that I have littleoption but to remainmostly
inauthentic.He ties this notion of self-interpretation to
interpretation in general.21 To exist as a thing is to stand out or
emerge intodisclosure, through interpretation; to exist
42
David Campbell
unhindered and surrounding trees and other objects are
disclosed; the dis closure of things, and of man towhom they are
disclosed, are co-original. Self-interpretation is thus tied to
interpretation of things as instruments to felt concerns; Heidegger
calls concern in general 'care' (Sorge). Aristotle attributed Being
only by analogy in the various categories of thing, relation, and
so forth,22 but care lets us make a project of ourselves inwhich
every has itsmeaning, so unifying themeaning of Being. thing We
cannot be said simply to believe (or desire, think, and so on)
butmust,
The term "technology" might suggest only bridges, computers, and
so on, but Heidegger has inmind techne in general, that is, art or
skill as a form of
logically, believe something or other; hence phenomena can have
no under lying unintended reality. Objects are in the first
instance available or handy forprojects (zuhanden), not simply
occurrent (vorhanden): judgments ascrib ing physical properties
depend for their meaning on certain sorts of relational and these
on interpretativecoping skills, that is, on "technology."
judgments,
knowing. Here knowing is not conceived simply as an act of
reading off that is complete at any moment, but as implying a
degree of understanding that can be greater or less, depending as
it does on a dynamic process of first interpretingpotentialities
instrumentally, then interpreting these instruments as having
theirown potentialities for furtheruses, and so on in a kind of pro
gressive loop. Experience has a fivefold structure that depends on
art and thus on technology (BT, 97-104). Tools form a context, such
as a factory, to
which products give unity; nature yields material and power that
are "before" us in leading to their uses; science aims at a
theoretical understanding of material objects; and
intersubjectivity,that is, the social organization of labor, means
that there is always someone who knows what a particular tool is
for. This structure concerns production and utility, and lets us
cope by distin guishing what is and is not serviceable, and the
human from the nonhuman or natural. Thus it provides a
spatiotemporal context: objects are "near" if available and
serviceable, "distant" ifnot; theyhave a "past" as already mat
tering to us, a "future" as ahead of us in roles, and are "present"
as disclosed in tasks.What is initially indeterminate is assigned a
role: how things such as leather or shoes are depends on our
interest in there being such things, that is, as Heidegger says, on
themeaning of theirBeing.
puters work, and so we have power without relating to them as
objects over against us. The premodern view, derived fromAristotle,
was less subject to this tendency. Artifacts such as tools were
only means to ends determined independently; for instance, money
has no value inherently but only as a
Technology "lets things be" as instruments,much as will to power
does forNietzsche; but forHeidegger, unlike Nietzsche, things are
not reducible to instrumentality.Our tendency to reduce things
tomere means is itself an expression of will to power, and we need
to rescue a sense of the being of things from this tendency. For
instance, most of us do not know how com
Nietzsche
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
43
means to other goods.23 Thus preindustrial technology could
reveal the struc tureofmeans and ends. The danger is now that the
distinction between means
problem. Technology "enframes" or gathers together and arranges
nature while rejecting the deviant and recalcitrant. This involves
a will tomastery that thwarts and conceals rather than discloses
the Being of things and of
and ends disappears in technological systems.24 Technology has
become self referential, having a role only for rational
organization, so thatends are sub sumed tomeans and
instrumentality. The problem is control with a view not to utility
but to power. Nietzsche failed to see that such control presents
a
nerable nowadays, encountering ourselves as essentially
meaningless and merely anxious about what we are. "Nowhere does man
today any longer encounter himself, that is, his essence" (QT,
Krell, 308). Yet this anxiety is our "saving power" since it
indicates our plight, and we can counteract will
enjoy the sort of happiness that consumption and control can
yield, but one has no basis for a goal or narrative that could give
a sense of oneself. Technological control is, in otherwords,
overbearing.We are at our most vul
human beings (QT, 300ff.): "Everywhere everything is ordered to
stand by [as] standing-reserve [and] no longer stands over against
us as an object [but] disappears into objectlessness" (QT,
298-300). For example, the system of air travel is from the
technological standpoint a process of control. Aircraft are not
objects in theirown right; similarly, the passengers merely so to
speak fuel the system and are not subjects in their own right.One
may perhaps
tomastery by reflecting on our role in technology.We are not
mere means within a technological process but have a hand in it;
conversely, we can inter pretwood, for instance, as supplying
cellulose tomake paper (299-300), yet it is not down to us thatwood
has this potentiality. Further, it is not simply down to us ifwe
interpretnature for our purposes, but also a potentiality in us to
do so. Thus we can be open to themeaning of things and of human
exis tence, which are then illuminated and articulated, and we are
enlightened. The problem with technology is psychological, and only
indirectly philo sophical, in thatwe are disposed by the history
ofWestern philosophy since
Socrates to think of things simply as instruments (QT; also OWA,
162-66). Plato explained changeable ordinary things as copying
their eternally pres ent Forms; for an object to be depends on an
unintended realm of Being. This tendency to objectify Being as
inert "presence" was modified by Descartes so that for something to
be means for it to be present to the human subject.25 For
scientists, the role of the human subject was then to extend
knowledge in order towin benign control of nature. In thisway we
come to reduce Being and knowledge to instrumentality; Plato's
defense of Being led to its aboli tion. Heidegger thinks
thatNietzsche is right to seeWestern philosophy as
finally nihilistic, but wrong to see Plato's aim of defending
Being as mis guided.26 Nietzsche's perspectives merely express
psychological attitudes, whether concerning worldviews
(Weltanschauungen) such as a particular
44 Dasein
David
Campbell
might assume, or systems of particular historical epochs such as
Platonism, Aristotelianism, Cartesianism, and so forth.That is,
philosophi cal systems as perspectives are what Heidegger calls
"ontic," not as Nietzsche to which his reduction could apply. We
escape supposes ontologies nihilism by providing an alternative
foundational account of Nietzsche's
Being to Plato's,27 namely, that technology provides not only
control but also truth in the sense of phenomenological disclosure
of Being (aletheia). Thus, for instance, water is experienced as
wet, even though this experience is inseparable from its
instrumentality as thirst-quenching, lubricating, and so forth.
Such a notion of truthas disclosure contrasts with truthas independ
ent of the human subject.28 saw that forNietzsche will to power and
eternal recurrence have no but subsume ends as mere means, and are
in this nihilistic sense cir telos, cular. Yet willing eternal
recurrence makes truthfulnessor integrity,creativ We
ity and joy, possible, and thus the annihilation of nihilism. If
his theory of will to power is applied consistently, however, these
ends also are subsumed as mere means, and in this respect their
claim to "overcome" such nihilism is not sustained. Heidegger's
reading therefore fits better thanNietzsche's and creativitymight
seem to suggest. Heidegger agrees insistence on integrity that
things are means, but not that they are mere means. Nietzsche
reduces
meaning but tomeaninglessness. Five detailed comments on
Nietzsche arise fromHeidegger's discussion of technology. These
concern truth, the categories, existence, and choice. First, the
process of interpretationconnects us to things as intentional
objects means for them and us to exist. For both writers, such and
lets us say what it a process implies 'Becoming' as distinct from
'Being.' But forNietzsche, Becoming
but talk of theBeing of things to instrumentality, we cannot
talk about a world at all, even to say as Nietzsche does that it
ismetaphor and illusion, without an interpretative structure of
ends, and in general of things, in so to speak their own right.
Nietzsche does not reduce Being and truth to interpreted
actualization possible. Nietzsche tried to reduce Being-talk to
a mythopoeic psychological and physiological process; but ifeach
particular thing ismerely a phase, so to speak, in a process of
control, nothing can be said to exist in its own right,and
true-or-false judgments about things are impossible. Thus What
Nietzsche thinks ismere will tomastery has no grasp of Being or
truth. talk formed by felt interests, forHeidegger concerns what
there is, namely, the Being of objects disclosed in a world not
simply of our making. Mind and world clarify each other in a
"hermeneutic circle" of what he calls "objec
makes talk of objects is prior toBeing: the process of
interpretation provisionally possible, but finally impossible. For
Heidegger, on the other hand, the process of Becoming does notmake
Being only provisionally pos sible, but lets beings or
thingsfinally be. InAristotle's terminology,but revers ing his
direction of explanation, the potentiality to be a thingmakes
its
Nietzsche
Heidegger,
and Meaning
45
nature, theory,and social organization for their actualization.
Up to a point, Heidegger's argument follows roughly Nietzschean
lines. Aristotle held that the actuality of a thing is its end
(telos), fulfilling and thus explaining the potentiality to be that
thing. For Heidegger as forNietzsche, the reverse is the case:
potentiality, not actuality, explains the thing. We can understand
things by means of the art (techne) of interpreting and so dis
There must be something to interpretprior to our interpreting,a
potentiality not of our making and not fully under our control.
Nietzsche fails to draw this distinction: will to power has two
aspects at once, thatwhich we inter pret and the activity of
interpreting it.For Heidegger, on the other hand, we free something
that is a potential tool to become an actual tool, and
products,
it so exists; yet we do not bring hammers and computers into
existence out of nothing. Thus Heidegger is not an idealist who
holds that to be is to be perceived, and that the notion or
narrative of "the world" is simply a yarn spun as itwere from
nothing by themind and wrongly credited with truth.30
tive subjectivity."29For instance, it is not down to us that a
stone is service able as a makeshift hammer, though it is not a
hammer unless we so inter pret it.How we read theworld is not how
it is, like interpretinga Rorschach inkblot.Tautologically, the
hammer cannot be said to exist as a hammer before
What it is for a tree to be is explained closing
their"possibility" or potentiality. for, say, food, shelter, and
fuel; their actualization as fruit, by potentialities planks, and
firewood derives from these (speaking logically rather than
causally). We do not firstpicture, as itwere, or reproduce
symbolically, the fact that this is a tree in the judgment, "This
is a tree," and then investigate the potentialities for fruit and
so on. Rather, by interpretinga certain set of potentialities as
instrumentalwe give meaning to judgments concerning the
even if Nietzsche explains the sense inwhich a particular
hammer, for instance, might really be an artwork in some genre,
this is not what ismeant by say ing that it really is an object as
distinct from an illusion. Heidegger in effect escapes this sort of
charge since, on his view, how a stone can be a hammer for certain
purposes is not as forNietzsche simply down to us but, as he
putsit, "withdrawn" from us.
actual tree.Hence producing meaning is prior to reproducing
facts in judg ments. For Heidegger, however, such an account leads
to a notion of irre whereas Nietzsche understands truthreductively
and finally ducible truth, mean eliminates it; thus his theory is
incomplete. Indeed any argument that is prior to truth has to fail,
since these are equiprimordial. In otherwords, ing
Similarly,Heidegger broadly agrees that truthin the case of
occurrentmate rial objects is a property of judgments that
correspond with fact. For this test to apply, such judgments must
already have a meaning, disclosed in under standing objects as
available. For instance, I do not need to thematize a cer tain
hammer as an object unless itbreaks and needs to be repaired. Its
felt meaning, as meeting needs, is a prior condition of rational
assumptions and
46
David
Campbell
pretation, and it ismisleading to ask what the thing is "in
itself," and whether it also exists "in itself," aside from
appearances.31 But Heidegger goes on to maintain in effect
thatNietzsche wrongly confuses the question of how a judgment such
as "This coat is yellow" is formed, that is, of the conditions of
itshaving meaning, with thequestion whether it is trueor false.
Nietzsche's reductive theory implies that the perception of color,
for instance, is illusory because it relies on interpretation,and
the distinction between truthand illu sion applies to specific
cases, not systematically. Heidegger contends in reply
oblique way: ifwe are to understand p, for instance, the
statement "This is a hammer," theremust be a degree of agreement as
to whether is true. makes this sortof point inPhilosophical
Investigations, 2A?-A2.) (Wittgenstein But the same statement may
then function both as a judgment and as an inter
procedures concerning the fit of judgments about itwith fact.
'The pointing out which assertion does is performed on the basis of
what has already been disclosed" (BT, 199). This is not to say that
the reverse does not hold in an
of categories, but simply to establish an irreducible categorial
structure. Nietzsche, on the other hand, explains categorial
structure provisionally but finally undermines it. Third, one could
also extrapolate fromHeidegger's theory to reply in a similarway
toNietzsche's treatmentof existence or Being. Nietzsche
explains
such identity, so that it is interdependent with but not derived
from them. Heidegger therefore explains the structure that
experience must have if it is to be intelligible, in accordance
with the categories of "thing," "prop erty," "relation" and so on.
As he says, "The goal of all ontology is a doc trine of categories"
(IM, 187). He does not aim to provide a complete list
ing of an orange, say, as a natural unit that is also edible,
but does not make it either edible or a unit. Thus the unity is
underived, and interpretation lets us understand the underived
identity of individual things. In Heidegger's terms, the categories
of availability and occurrence are equiprimordial with
sional objects. The second comment concerns categorial
structure. For Nietzsche, will to power is inherently
undifferentiated, and objects as natural units derive from it, just
as they reduce to it.A difficulty he faces is that unity or self
identity seems to be underived and irreducible. As Heidegger puts
it, "Over . . the against appearance being is the enduring . always
identical" (IM, On Heidegger's theory,by contrast,
interpretationdiscloses themean 202).
that the fact that I can experience an illusion, such that it is
false to say that I see a yellow coat, does not mean that it is
ultimately false, a fiction or mere convention to speak of yellow
coats, or generally of colored three-dimen
the existence of things by their origin in the process of
'Becoming,' that is, will to power. A difficulty is that existence
seems underived and irreducible. In Heidegger's words, "Over
against becoming being is permanence ... the already-there" (IM,
202). This problem is compounded forNietzsche ifhe
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
47
thing about what ismeant by saying that things exist, but it
fails to explain what it is for them to exist, so far as that
concerns what we must necessar we are to say anything at all. ily,
not simply conventionally, say if
figuration of will to power. But the latter,as the basic
character of beings, as the essence of reality, is in itself that
Being which wills itselfto be Becoming."32 Thus Nietzsche's account
of things as "fictions" may ormay not tell us some
assumes that the process of will to power exists, since its
'being' is then log ically prior to its 'becoming' : "Art as will
to semblance is the supreme con
unified meaning escapes Nietzsche's reduction. Further,
Nietzsche replaces a nihilistic response to contingency with an
affirmative response, so sus taining his reduction. Thus his
strategy for dealing with a nihilistic attitude is also an
attitude, that is, the same kind of thing,on the principle that it
takes a thief to catch one, so to speak. In these terms,Heidegger's
strategy seems less effective: he adds a different sort of thing,
namely, a doctrine of cate gories, in order to avoid Nietzsche's
reduction (on the ground thatwe can not conceive of a world, even
as contingent, without them).
Heidegger makes these points concerning truth,the categories,
and exis tence without offering extended supporting argument, at
least in their imme diate context. One might wonder whether in that
case his own doctrine of
If all of this suggests a standoff,however, the dispute does not
quite end here: there are also doubts about the reductive form of
Nietzsche's argument. For Nietzsche, our ascribing objective
authority tomorality is caused by debil
These claims assume that a causal explanation for a belief
invalidates it by reducing the explanandum to the explanans. In
some such way, a man's claim thatwhisky is good for him might be
redefined as no more than an expres sion of his desire to drink,
that is, as an oblique comment on himself, not the comment on
whisky it might seem. But a difficultywith this is that a correct
causal explanation need not either invalidate or validate a belief;
in that case, there is no ground for reducing the belief to its
explanation. Being motivated by a desire to drink does notmake a
man's belief that whisky is good for him either fanciful, if, for
example, alcohol assists tired heart muscles, or alter natively
true, if, for instance, he is an alcoholic. Indeed reductionism as
a form of argument is self-defeating, since eliminating the
explanandum also
ity;hence any such authority is illusory. Similarly, the belief
that things are independent of us is an illusion explained by our
need for order and control.
by implication eliminates the explanans, there being nothing
then that does any explaining. Whether or not these objections are
conclusive, there does seem to be a residual problem between
Nietzsche and Heidegger that iswider than their stated
arguments.
We conclude with the fourthcomment, which concerns choice.
Disclosure depends on intentional acts, and Heidegger seems to have
inferredwrongly inBeing and Time that this involves thewill or
choice. He went on to regard
48
David
Campbell
without labor somuch as thatchoice is now uncontrolling.We do
not "seize" themeaning of Being and "wrest" it from everyday
prattle as inBeing and Time; instead, we "wait" with docility and
"listen" attentively to Being. His
disclosure as instead an event or occurrence (Ereignis), unlike
an action that iswilled or chosen.33His account ofmeaning here is
often described as "non voluntarist," but Heidegger does not mean
that choice determines character
Heidegger concludes that "Man is not the lord of beings. Man is
the shep herd of Being" (LH, 221). We can become less controlling
by using the pre Socratics and poets such as H?lderlin to
illuminate theworld and bring the meaning of Being into resolution
(Entschlossenheit) in the sense perhaps of optical focus; though
the fine arts and similar activities are "marginal" and cannot
easily become the focus of attention in a technological age.
Thus
declaration that "Only a god can save us" is not religious but
metaphorical: in some such way, Plato did not will his profound
effect but was inspired.34
Heidegger distanced himself furtherfrom the controlling will to
power that he found inNietzsche. Heidegger assumed thathis general
theory is connected somehow with his social and political beliefs,
and some commentators look between the lines
throughout his writings for theNational Socialist agenda that is
explicit in places (such as IM, 42, 50). We need now to look at
these beliefs as the back ground to his 'turn' (Kehre) toward an
uncontrolling account of technology. One early anxiety about
technology was that factoryworkers were in effectan extension of
machines; today employees are often defined as "human
lem here or various sorts of problems, some perhaps more
theoretical than others. Some questions might well be political,
concerning pay and condi tions of work, for instance, or the right
not to be dismissed unfairly; others managerial, concerning, for
instance, damage to an employee in her relations with colleagues
and clients by arbitrarily changing her role. Heidegger, how
resources," for instance, and thus by implication treated like
resources such as raw materials and equipment. Heidegger thought
that in such ways our humanity or, as he said, our spirituality is
distorted,marginalized, and ignored. A fuller discussion of his
view might well consider whether there is one prob
trial rationalization destroys the sense of an enduring
community and place He with a common language and history.35 meant
that "ethnic" Germans could lead mankind back to true spirituality.
(Ironically, this folksy reaction soon found itself industrializing
ways of killing people, in battle and "camps") Human meaning is in
any case essentially historical, notArchimedean; accord ingly, a
certain nostalgia is true to civilized values and conserves the
best in us. Indeed in harking back to the pre-Socratics he went
beyond nostalgia;
ever, assumed that there is one general kind of problem and,
initially, that it is political, though having to do with what we
now call moral education rather thanwith rights and the like in
employment. He upheld the folk values of crafted implements and
rustic cosiness (Gem?tlichkeit), suggesting that indus
Nietzsche
Heidegger,
and
Meaning
49
and his attempts to ground such meaning historically in language
were often weakened by overstretched "etymology," as he liked to
call it.
National Socialism replaced the conservative aim of humanity
with the reactionary means of a deceptively comforting, in fact
heartless, nostalgia for "German" values. But having sought a
"third way" (or Third Reich) between the technological cultures of
capitalism and communism (37-39, 45-46), Heidegger distanced
himself from thisproject. It is not clear whether and worst inmany
people, he did so because itbrought out the least truthful to his
intention. In any event, he now wrote about bridges, for exam
contrary ple, without bias either against themotorway sort or in
favor of the rustic
sort (BDT, 330). Technological progress cannot be undone, and
improves the human lot inmany ways. He accepted also that folk
values are not easily recovered, given the dominance of economic
thinking,with its lucrativewill tomastery. (Even nostalgia is now
sold as "heritage") If high-rise flats delete a sense of place and
community, theBlack Forest farmhouse was not a suit able model for
postwar reconstruction, and he focused on the "homelessness" not of
Germans but of man as interpreter standing out from things in
the
remains unequivocal, however, in believing, like Nietzsche, that
technolog ical interests, powers, and processes are fundamental to
knowledge, and, what is known on this basis cannot be reduced to
them. unlike Nietzsche, that His attempt to reaffirm the unity of
interpretativemeaning included, for a
world (339). The problem of sustaining our humanity in the face
of technol ogy now had an apolitical, uncontrolling solution.
Heidegger might seem ambivalent in favoring firstpreindustrial but
later industrial technology, and first a political but later an
apolitical solution. He
nizing that this is disputed.36 Being and Time distinguished
five elements in experience that give it an instrumental structure:
tools, products, nature, theory, and intersubjectivity. later work,
however, speaks of a noninstrumental "fourfold" Heidegger's
structure.37 The formal art of engineering, for instance, lets us
build a bridge as a means to cross a river,but also points to the
informal arts by which we set up the bridge as a landmark. As
Heidegger says, the bridge "gathers" places in a "region," so
disclosing the surrounding world inwhich we find our orientation.
This "gathering" explains the unity implied in the notion of a
world, not simply the metric separation and layout of objects. He
describes these four "corners" poetically: the bridge gathers
together the river's banks;
with denying in thisway (as I suggest he did) that truthis in
general reducible to power. For present purposes therefore, I shall
assume that his political tastes and character do not ultimately
affect his general theory, while recog
time at least, a reaction against cultural diversity in linewith
National Socialist repression of dissent, which contrasts with
Nietzsche's perspectivism; at the same time, ifwe assume
thatNational Socialism assimilates truth to politi cal power,
Heidegger could not have supported thismovement consistently
50
David
Campbell
ious ends thatare notmerely quantitative (143ff.). Indeed space,
as mere geo metric extension, "contains no spaces and no places. We
never find in it any locations, that is, things of the kind the
bridge is" (333). The fourfold does not simply supersede the
fivefold: Heidegger does not now deny a role for instrumental
thinking. But our relation to theworld is primarily a matter of
what he calls "dwelling." Knowing is the art by which one
orientates oneself, and thiswas a matter inBeing and Time of
interpret ing instruments, but now of "dwelling" (OWA, 162-66).
Such dwelling, or
side calvary (323ff.). These four elements indicate related foci
of meaning that concern us aside from consumption and control. The
bridge also has a role more fundamental than tomark a point in
geometric space, namely, as a landmark that "opens" a place and
apportions space by orientation to var
"the heavens" fromwhich thewater comes; men towhom it gives
passage; and "gods," sometimes supposedly "there in effigy," for
instance, at a road
place depends on art but lacks the will tomastery that
accompanies arts. Dwelling cannot be reduced to the function of
buildings within, say, a com mercial framework, or to architectural
styles or other cultural forms. Rather, it involves various sorts
of interestor end: social and economic ends such as
sense of place, is an event of 'opening' (Ereignis); a 'free
gift,' not an aim of action, regulatory ideal, reward, or seal of
approval. Here meaning is not willed and controlling, but "thinking
is thanking": we can be grateful for our potentiality for
interpreting things and for theirpotential for interpretation, not
merely active in so interpreting them as Nietzsche supposes. A
sense of
historical, and religious concerns, aside from control and
consumption. Such holism does not make Heidegger totalitarian since
it concerns dwelling, not control in the context of either
political dissent or moral responsibility. we have one world and
relate to it fromwithin; Heidegger's point is rather that he
believes thatwe are not neutral observers with a "view like
Nietzsche, from nowhere." In addition, however, the interests that
so tie us to theworld are not reducible to control. Thus
Heidegger's nonvoluntarism does notmean that our concept of
theworld is no longer tied to interest, but that he rein
man isGod's image, however, his account rejects. For those who
believe that of the human subject as tied intentionally to objects,
rather than detached from them on Cartesian lines, is perhaps a
guide. A sense of place thus implies a single environment linking
physical, social,
An account of such religion would require further discussion,
but Heidegger some notion of divinity, that is, somethingmore
specif evidently has inmind ically religious than, say,
contemplation of nature. This divinity could not be equated with
Being as a sort of general, immaterial object, a notion that he
accommodation; topography,which determines, for instance, where
a bridge is to cross a river; historical community, to which the
universal notion of "man" is now central, not simply the local and
ethnic "nation"; and religion, even when unspecific, or "pushed
wholly aside" (331).
Nietzsche.
Heidegger,
and Meaning
51
terprets interest so as to siphon off that element of control
that, he thinks, persisted within the doctrine of Being and Time.
The language appropriate to this later account of
being-in-the-world ismore
musical thinkingand feeling, for example, cannot be put
intowords. But poetic notions do not here simply convey the
intention to talk in thisway, as for Nietzsche talk of Being
ismetaphorical. For while such poetic talk cannot be analyzed
philosophically like talk of material objects, it is no less
literal in the sense of being objectivist, underived, and, as
Heidegger would say, pri Hence we should perhaps say that these
ends mordial rather than secondary.38 indicate the structureof
noninstrumental meaning quasi-metaphorically. whatever exists
"unfolds itself to language," and "man Heidegger holds that it to
language," contrary to the linguistic conventionalism thatwe have
brings
poetic than philosophical. Heidegger's writing can be
lyricalwhen describ ing a bridge or farmhouse, for instance, a
Greek temple (OWA, 168-70), or peasant life (162-64). Such poetic
thinking is not aconceptual in theway that
attributed toNietzsche (LH: Krell, 239^0). This linguistic
"unfolding" might seem to present a problem since some ways of
knowing are aconceptual, as we have just noted, while philosophy
cannot be articulated except inwords. Thus technological disclosure
seems to be preconceptual where in their different ways thefine
arts and philosophy are not. Further, as quasi-metaphorical his
"fourfold" is not susceptible of conceptual analysis. For
Heidegger, however,need not be verbal only, and he cites semaphore
as an instance. "language"
Heidegger speaks of "the holy." This is not anything narrowly
religious: he glosses it as the "hale," implying a sense of
wholeness or health, remi niscent in some ways of Nietzsche's "will
to power." He hints at the arcadiansense the peasant's world can
make, however, bleak, for instance, "when she
ness rarely, and more in promise than attainment or, in view of
natural and moral evil, as simply missing.39 However thatmay be,
Heidegger seems to mean thatone senses wholeness not only
qualitatively or emotionally, as, for instance, rich or bleak, but
also as a necessary structured unity,where for Nietzsche a sense of
health is simply a manifestation of an ultimately undif
ferentiatedwill to power. Thus forNietzsche, one creates
nonutilitarian goals throughenhanced vitality and makes sense of
one's life as something brought under one's control. Felt meaning
is fundamental and comprehensive. A prob lem he faces is that, as
we saw earlier, feltmeaning alone does not explain
takes off her shoes late in the evening" inwhat he insensitively
calls "deep but healthy fatigue" (BDT, 163). He also claims that
"as soon as man gives it is a misery no longer" (339), presumably
thought to his homelessness, because reflection on our role in
technology clarifies the limitations of will, so that "thinking is
thanking" and so on. Perhaps indeed we sense such whole
morality, for instance, contrary to his belief that he has
explained morality away. Heidegger's argument that meaning is not
only felt, as Nietzsche sup poses, but also is necessarily
structured, lets him escape this sort of charge.
52
David
Campbell
in life depends not simply on control but also on the
irreducible Meaning context of "the meaning of Being"; we are not
finally subject to power in nature and politics as forNietzsche,
but are above all answerable to truth. meet Nietzsche and Heidegger
seem to agree, then, thatBeing and truth our need for order and
meaning, and that the process of interpretingfelt con cerns makes
talk of objects possible. But forNietzsche, such talk expresses the
particular perspectives of a f?ssiparous will to power
that,directly or indi
rectly, subsumes objects to instrumentalityand reduces our
intentions to con Being and truth:theprocess sumption and
control.Heidegger instead reaffirms instrum