Nietzsche and Phenomenology: Power, Life, Subjectivity

Introduction

1 introduction Élodie Boublil and christine daigle against the shortsighted.—do you think this work must be fragmentary because i give it to you (and have to give it to you) in fragments? —Human, All Too Human ii, “assorted opinions and maxims,” §128 Putting Nietzsche and phenomenology together in the same sentence might be startling to some, even unpalatable to others. Nietzsche’s writing style along with his rejection of the Spirit of Gravity1 would seem to oppose the very goal of the phenomenological project as well as its foundational and scientific ambition. to Nietzsche scholars, his philosophy would be irreducible to any kind of philosophical school or movement and would need to be treated on its own if one wants to respect the claim for singularity conveyed by his philosophy. to would-be phenomenologists, the socalled nihilistic enterprise led by Nietzsche should not be the last word addressed to modernity before its unavoidable decay: another method—another pathway—should be implemented in order to ultimately uncover some common ontological and ethical grounds upon which humanity could dwell. husserl’s phenomenological project uncovers the foundational nature of transcendental subjectivity from a scientific as well as a practical point of view. as husserl claimed at the end of the Vienna Lecture (May 1935), the intentional and teleological structure of transcendental subjectivity guarantees its universality and allows it to overcome the value-relativism and theoretical positivism to which previous critiques of metaphysics have led: The “crisis” could then become clear as the “seeming collapse of rationalism.” still, as we said, the reason for the downfall of a rational culture does not lie in the essence of rationalism itself but only in its exteriorization, its absorption in “naturalism” and “objectivism.” The crisis of european existence can end in only one of two ways: in the ruin of a europe alienated from its rational sense of life, fallen into a barbarian hatred of spirit; or in the rebirth of europe from the spirit of philosophy, through a heroism of reason that will definitively overcome naturalism.2 2 | Introduction heidegger’s view seems to take up this same task while emphasizing its ontological rather than epistemic sense. The call of Being would seem to replace any metaphysical ground insofar as it would allow Dasein to comprehend the very possibility of its own existence and to achieve it authentically. in merleau-Ponty, notions of perception and institution would probably help get rid of the objectivistic connotations associated with the notion of foundation—and, ultimately, the overcoming of cartesian ontology —while granting individuals as well as communities some power to perpetuate and flourish through their own expressions and instantiations. even roughly and briefly summarized, these three phenomenological approaches seem to show that there is a positivity at stake in phenomenology that would go beyond the destructive process implemented by Nietzsche’s philosophy. Why, then, explore the historical and philosophical relations between Nietzsche and phenomenology? could phenomenology actually qualify as a fröhliche Wissenschaft?3 The topic of our volume is one that ought to have been explored for a long time. scholars hinted at the connection, pointed in its direction, even suggested how potentially rich such a reading would be, and yet, possibly due to the aforementioned reasons , there is still only one book-length inquiry into the topic.4 Boehm’s “husserl und Nietzsche” (1968)5 constituted the first attempt to draw a comparison between husserl’s phenomenology and Nietzsche’s thought. Boehm notably put the emphasis on their common approach to life as a meaning-making process and on the fact that there seems to be a precedence of the life-world (Lebenswelt) over theoretical and scientific constructions in both philosophies. Why has this similarity been left unexplored until rather recently when, it is our conviction, such an inquiry into the connection between Nietzsche and phenomenology can yield very interesting results? it may be time to go beyond the detrimental dichotomy that has characterized the relations between Nietzsche’s and phenomenology ’s respective projects up to this point, and to leave aside the shortsighted views conveyed by a historical approach that would conceive of philosophy as fragmentary. Before exposing why this encounter would be philosophically fruitful, we would first like to explain why ceasing to see both Nietzsche’s works and phenomenological works fragmentarily calls for a new form of comparativism that would avoid hasty assimilations, irreducible dividing lines, or anachronistic evaluations. if it is true that any philosophy is liable to be misinterpreted, one...