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217 12 The Philosophy of the morning Philosophy and Phenomenology in Nietzsche’s dawn Keith ansell-Pearson ithink it is difficult for any commentator to declare with total conviction that he has got Nietzsche right in terms of identifying him with a single or specific philosophical movement or doctrine. my view is that naturalism, existentialism, phenomenology, and poststructuralism can all, with a degree of plausibility, claim themselves heirs to his thinking.1 Nietzsche is a thinker whose texts open up “possibilities,” and all these modes of thought can be found prefigured and at work in the text i focus on in this paper, Dawn.2 having said this, however, it is remarkable the extent to which this text anticipates many of the moves and insights of existential phenomenology: not only is there a quest for authentic existence, but there is a new practice of knowledge that places the emphasis on contemplation and description. in this paper i want to suggest that Nietzsche does not represent a break with the history of philosophy—as Foucault has argued, for example3 —but rather anticipates one of modern philosophy’s founding moments, namely, the moment of phenomenology. my claim is that as part of a newfound “passion of knowledge” (d §429), Nietzsche is carrying out in Dawn a series of phenomenological analyses, in which the nature of consciousness is probed and illuminated and shown to be fundamentally intentional, directed to the world and in the world. as Rüdiger safranski has astutely noted, in the text Nietzsche endeavors to “expand consciousness for the more sublime and broadening experiences in which we are already caught up with our bodies and lives.”4 Nietzsche’s philosophy is in search of new descriptions of consciousness and world, attending to their phenomenological features, and, as such, they open a door and open out to a boundless expanse of new fields of experimental inquiry. 218 | Subjectivity in the World i begin with a section on the text in question and highlight some of its distinctive features. i then introduce some of the salient features of phenomenology, drawing on merleau-Ponty for this purpose. This is followed by sections on the philosophical and phenomenological dimensions of Nietzsche’s text. i conclude with the suggestion that what brings Nietzsche and phenomenology into rapport is a shared commitment to experimental philosophy. i in this opening section i want to illuminate some important aspects of the character of Dawn as a book. it can fairly be regarded as a significant turning point in Nietzsche’s thinking. as duncan large has noted, in Dawn and the subsequent text The Joyful Science,5 its ideal companion in which the journey continues, Nietzsche consolidates the antimetaphysical stance initiated by Human, All Too Human of 1878, completing his metamorphosis from the schopenhauer- and Wagner-adulating camel to a combative and exploratory lion, and from the ship of the desert to the ship of the high seas.6 he is charting new land and new seas, unsure of his final destination, and has the confidence to take risks and conduct experiments, even to suffer shipwreck in search of new treasure . in this text we encounter the “free spirit” setting off on a new course and away from the old philosophical world of metaphysical and moral presumptions. however, it is no exaggeration to claim that for the greater part of Nietzsche’s reception, Dawn has been among the most neglected texts in his corpus, and perhaps for understandable reasons: it deploys no master concept, it does not seek an ultimate solution to the riddles of existence (indeed it warns against such a strategy), its presentation of themes and problems is highly nonlinear, and it states his case for the future subtly and delicately . it has also been overshadowed by the terser and stridently anti-christian works of the later polemical period. The death of god is presaged and, in fact, announced, but not presented in any dramatic form as we find in the next text The Joyful Science (§125). But it is a text that has hidden riches, a text that has to be read between the lines (as Nietzsche disclosed to his sister, elisabeth, in the case of Dawn’s fifth and final book).7 and, as Nietzsche notes in Ecce Homo, although the book mounts a “campaign ” against the prejudices of morality, the reader should not think it has about it “the slightest whiff of gunpowder”; rather, the reader should “make out quite different and more pleasing...

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