Part One Joy and Knowledge
1 A Gay Science Avant La Lettre? Knowledge and Joy in Human, All too Human
Ruth Abbey
In an overview of Nietzscheâs oeuvre, Andrew Huddleston repeats and seems to endorse the view of Human, All too Human (HH) as one of Nietzscheâs positivist works. Although he provides no clear definition of positivism, Huddleston seems to mean three things by this: (1) âphysiological or mechanistic explanations of a variety of phenomena,â (2) a sober approach, and (3) âthe simplistic assumption that ⊠everything we do is ultimately driven by a desire for our own satisfactionâ (2019: 346). Huddleston contrasts HH with The Gay Science (GS) where Nietzsche moves away from this putative positivism to seek âa form of âscienceâ [Wissenschaft] that will be joyful, centred in particular around the idea of life affirmationâfinding life as something valuable to be celebratedâ (2019: 348, emphasis in original).
Space does not permit me to outline why the imputation of each of these three features of positivism to HH is misleading at best and distortive at worst. For present purposes, I explore the possibility that, pace Huddleston, Nietzscheâs quest for a gay science is already present in HH. While the term fröhliche itself does not appear, there are a number of cognate or comparable terms that signal that in HH, Nietzsche is already reaching for a way in which knowledge seekers can experience some joy or happiness, even if the truths they uncover are not particularly salutary or reassuring.
I start by noting that a number of scholars join Huddleston in characterizing HH as positivist. I consider whether there is any justification for this, based on the way Nietzsche introduces this work in its first chapter and reviewing his remarks about science there. Moving mostly chronologically through HH, I bring to light some of Nietzscheâs profound concerns with the possible deleterious consequences of seeking and finding the truth. Yet I go on to identify those moments where he allows that finding truth might also spark joy, without losing sight of truthâs difficult and perhaps dreadful nature. Moving through Nietzscheâs remarks on knowledge and joy chronologically rather than thematically allows us to track some of twists and turns this work takes along its way. I point out what a high note HH ends on, a note more positive than positivist. I conclude by recommending that we henceforth banish the term âpositivistâ when describing HH while also noting what a difficult, if not impossible, text this is to summarize, given its highly experimental and volatile character.
My discussion is confined to the work originally entitled Human, All Too Human, which, in Keith Ansell-Pearsonâs estimation, shows Nietzsche âclearly ⊠at his most positivisticâ (2018: 8). HH was published in early 1878. Assorted Opinions and Maxims (AOM) appeared in 1879 and The Wanderer and His Shadow (WS) in 1880. These latter two works were, at the suggestion of Nietzscheâs publisher, amalgamated to form volume 2 of HH in 1886 (Handwerk 2013: 561). At that time, Nietzsche appended a preface to each volume. In recognition of this publication history, I approach these three works separately and, due to constraints of space, can give only the first work the attention it deserves. The preface to volume 1, having been appended eight years later, is not treated here either.1
1. Positivism
Huddleston is not, as just noted, the only scholar to have dubbed HH positivist. As Ansell-Pearson conveys, HH âis typically construed as ⊠being his most positivistic text in which the scientific interpretation of the world is privileged and guides the inquiry into religion, metaphysics, art and cultureâ (2018: 17).2 Ansell-Pearson reads Nietzsche as negotiating âthe competing claims of the positivist goal of science and eudaemonistic philosophy by aligning himself with the formerâ (2018: 8, cf. 18, 31). Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter describe HH as âthe high watermark of Nietzscheâs âpositivistâ phase in which he accepted, somewhat uncritically, that science was the paradigm of all genuine knowledgeâ (1997: vii). Jonathan Cohen sees Nietzsche as embracing his own form of positivism in HH, taking Nietzscheâs brand of positivism to mean the belief that science can contribute to reliable human knowledge and to human flourishing (1999: 101).3 Julian Young writes of Nietzscheâs âturn to positivism,â according to which ânothing exists âbehindâ nature; nothing exists but nature ⊠nothing is beyond the reach of natural science, nothing is knowable save that which is, in principle, knowable by scienceâ (2010: 242, emphasis original). More generally, Young identifies the âdefining presuppositionâ of HHâs new research program as âthe potential omniscience of scienceâ (2010: 243).
The progenitor of this idea that HH embraces positivism is probably Lou Andreas SalomĂ©. Her Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken was published in 1894, and the section on HH in her chapter entitled âNietzscheâs Transitionsâ contains several references to positivism. She claims, for example, that after his break with Wagner, âNietzscheâs intellectual development took a sudden turn toward the positivistic philosophy of the English and the Frenchâ (SalomĂ© 2001: 53, cf. 59â60). She further maintains that Nietzsche was influenced by Paul RĂ©e in this regard and indicates that for both of them, positivismâs appeal lay in its promise of answering âthe question about the origin of the moral phenomenonâ (2001: 63). At this time Nietzsche became a âhistorian who planted his feet on the firm ground of positivismâ (2001: 63, cf. 73, 81, 82, 85).
2. The Status of Science
As a way of trying to understand why scholars might characterize HH as positivist, it is instructive to start with the bookâs very first chapter, which reflects quite explicitly and consistently on the nature of knowledge and makes a number of comments in praise of science. HH opens by observing how much the philosophical project of Nietzscheâs own time resembles that of the Ancient Greeks. âAt almost every point, philosophical problems are once again assuming the same form for their questions as they did two thousand years agoâ (HH 1). For someone trained as a classical philologist, this could be the ideal opportunity, as his expertise in Greek thought and culture could afford him an immediate relevance to and credibility within the philosophical debates of his time. Not so for Nietzsche, who roundly condemns this sort of âmetaphysical philosophyâ that treats these traditional questions as if they were of unchanging relevance and importance. He prefers âhistorical philosophy [historische Philosophie]â that is more cognizant of and responsive to the reality of change. He aligns this âhistorical philosophyâ closely with ânatural science [Naturwissenschaft]â (HH 1).4
HHâs very next passage, however, initially effaces this promising subcategory of historical philosophy by accusing âall philosophersâ of adopting an ahistorical approach to the human being. Devoid of all sense of history, philosophers confuse âthe most recent shape of human beingsâ for their âfixed formâ (HH 2). Yet Nietzsche insists, contrariwise, that everything âhas become;5 there are no eternal facts just as there are no absolute truthsâ (HH 2). Because of this, he once again invokes âhistorical philosophizingâ as the more promising path to knowledge and in doing so tacitly corrects his earlier suggestion that all philosophy is ahistorical. The clear implication is that Nietzsche will not only be championing, but also doing, this sort of historically aware philosophy, which, as we just saw from HH 1, he associates with natural science.
Yet the possibility of this sort of historically aware philosophy is once again effaced when, just a few passages later, Nietzsche contrasts science with philosophy in general to posit an âantagonism between the individual fields of science and philosophyâ (HH 6). By this rendering, all philosophy is metaphysical philosophy, and one of its preoccupations is to endow human life with âas much depth and meaning as possible.â This is one of the reasons why throughout HH, metaphysical philosophy is associated with aesthetics and religion, for both of those latter endeavors also impute depth and meaning to human life. Science, unlike all these other approaches, âseeks knowledge and nothing furtherâwhatever may come of itâ (HH 6). From a remark like this last one, we can see why HH can be associated with positivism.
Science and philosophy are once again posed as antagonists in the very next passage that illustrates one of the ways in which philosophy has striven to provide depth and meaning to life. Nietzsche claims that since the Socratic school in Ancient Greece, philosophy has sought âthat knowledge of the world and of life by which human beings will live most happily [am glĂŒcklichsten lebt]â (HH 7). The implication is that philosophers have subordinated truth to happiness whereas science, by contrast, has been unconcerned with the impact of its findings on human well-being. And once again we are led to infer that Nietzscheâs own approach to knowledge will be closer to science than to philosophy.6 Later in HH he asserts as a âfundamental Insightâ that âthere is no preestablished harmony between the furthering of truth and the well-being of humanityâ (517). But the implication of this fundamental insight is that, conversely, there is no preestablished disharmony between truth and well-being. One cannot assume automatically that truth will lead either to happiness or to misery. As I read Nietzsche, he is calling for an open, scientific approach to the truth rather than an a priori one. While some truths might prove fatal, others could be salutary.
This idea that science is historically aware and informed in a way that philosophy has not been returns in section 16, which announces that âthe steady and laborious process of science ⊠will someday finally celebrate its highest triumph in a genetic history of thought.â This passage confidently predicts that this genetic history of thought will vindicate Nietzscheâs claims that so far most philosophical knowledge has been a form of wishful thinking and built on a series of unsupportable premises and false dichotomies, such as those outlined in HH 1. Section 18 refers again to this âgenetic history of thinkingâ that will bear out Nietzscheâs claims and show that âall metaphysicsâ has been âthe science that deals with the fundamental errors of human beings, but does so as if they were fundamental truthsâ (HH 18).7 The fact that metaphysics is here referred to as a science should alert us to the fact that not all of Nietzscheâs uses of the term âscienceâ are meant to evoke the modern natural sciences or even forms of knowledge of which he approves.8 Conversely, many of the errors he associates with metaphysics are not confined to that area of inquiry; they also infect mathematics (HH 19) and even language itself (HH 11).
Much of what is going on in...