From the Nietzsche Archive: Concerning the Aphorism Explicated in Genealogy III

Notes and Discussions From the Nietzsche Archive: Concerning the Aphorism Explicated in GenealogyIII When I first read a version of John Wilcox's "What Aphorism Does Nietzsche Explicate in Genealogy of Morals, Essay III?" over a year ago, I was completely convinced by the textual considerations he advances in support of his thesis that the third essay of Nietzsche's Genealogy (hereafter: GM III) is intended as a commentary on the aphorism that constitutes (most of) its first section, and not, contrary to the standard assumption, as a commentary on the epigraph from Zarathustra placed after the essay's title. I had one worry, however, that I was not at that point able to quiet. The annotations to the Genealogy in the Colli-Montinari Studienausgabe tell us that the printer's manuscript of GM III begins with what is now Section 9, that Section 1 was added later? Yet, Nietzsche tells us in Section 8 of the Preface that GM III is a commentary on the aphorism placed before it, and Colli-Montinarigives no indication that this section was added later. If it was not, however, Wilcox's thesis must be wrong. If the printer's manuscript contains Section 8 of the Preface, hence the announcement that GM III is a commentary on the aphorism placed at its beginning, but does not contain the first section of GM III, the latter cannot be (absent evidence of a complicated story that could explain this) the aphorism to which Nietzsche refers in the Preface. Fortunately, my colleague Alan Swensen and I were planning to visit the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar2later in the year to work on our translation of the Genealogy,3and I hoped that my nagging question about Wilcox's thesis--was Section 8 of the Preface in place before Section 1 of GM I!I?--might be answered by looking at the printer's manuscript of GM. As it turned out, examination of this manuscript, which Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche, SiimtlicheWerke:KritischeStudienausgabe(KSA),edited by G. Colliand M. Montinari (Berlin: de Gruyter, 198o), Vol. 14, p. 38o. This edition contains only a few pages of notes on GM and by no means claims completeness. The critical apparatus for GM in the ColliMontinariGesamtausgabe (KGA) has not yet appeared, but is presently in preparation. ' The Nietzsche Archive is housed at the Goethe-Schiller Archive, which is part of the Stiftun~ Weimarer Klassik. I would like to thank the staff of the Goethe-Schiller Archive, and especially Dr. Roswitha Wollkopf, the Director of the Nietzsche Archive, for their help during our work at the Archive. 3On theGenealogyofMorality,translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen, with Introduction by Maudemarie Clark and Variants by Alan Swensen (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., forthcoming 1998). [611] 612 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:4 OCTOBER 199 7 himself wrote out and sent to his publisher, revealed three sets of facts relevant to Wilcox's thesis. First, Sections 2-23 of GM III were originally numbered I-2~. The numbers of what were originally Sections a-22 were written over or re-formed to constitute the series 2-23. This explains why Colli and Montinari claim that what is now Section 1 was added later. This section was clearly not part of the manuscript when Nietzsche began preparing it for the printer. He must have decided to add it while he was writing out (or after finishing) Section ~2, which then became Section 23. Sections ~4-~8 were not renumbered. However, the Colli-Montinari annotation is misleading because it suggests that the manuscript originally sent to Nietzsche's publisher did not include what is now Section 1, and there is no reason to believe this. Nietzsche clearly decided to add it before he wrote out Sections ~4-28; Section 1 is part of what has been preserved in the Nietzsche Archive as the printer's manuscript; and there is no information about it being added later in any of the letters between Nietzsche and his publisher. We should assume it was part of the printer's manuscript of GM III, which Nietzsche sent to his publisher on August 28, 1887.4 This does not completely solve the problem, however...