Nietzsche, nihilism, and the paradox of affirmation

Gemes, Ken (2022) Nietzsche, nihilism, and the paradox of affirmation. In: UNSPECIFIED (ed.) Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 16-37. ISBN 9780198728894.

Abstract

This paper argues that Nietzsche’s central concern is the diagnosing and overcoming of nihilism. It traces the development of Nietzsche’s thought in order to expose how nihilism came to be Nietzsche’s central concern. Then it examines the vexing question of what exactly Nietzsche takes to be the core of nihilism. Sometimes Nietzsche treats nihilism as a belief; at other times he seems to treat it as an affective disorder. Similarly, regarding Nietzsche’s notion of the affirmation of life, his antidote to nihilism. It remains unclear whether this is a matter of adopting some cognitive attitude, for instance affirming the eternal recurrence of life, or, of adopting a form of life that does not involve the repression of our fundamental drives. Throughout the paper the question of Nietzsche’s attitude to the relation between myth, nihilism and affirmation is examined. This sheds light on both his relationship to Wagner and the ambition behind his Thus spoke Zarathustra, the work he took to be his most important. Book synopsis: At the core of Nietzsche's famous critique of 'morality' lies the sweeping claim that morality is the primary source of a stance of 'life-denial,' and hence an obstacle to the possibility of an affirmative stance toward life. Moral values, Nietzsche argues, are inimical to the affirmation of life, since they typically denigrate certain ineliminable features of the world and human existence (suffering, loss, impermanence, the body, instinctual desire). Other values, allegedly, are life-affirming because they cultivate or augment a life-affirming tendency. Nietzsche's pervasive concern with undermining morality and fostering an affirmative attitude towards life are thus closely intertwined: he attacks morality because it underwrites a condemnation of life and seeks to supplant morality with an alternative, life-enhancing ethics of affirmation. This volume brings together a number of new essays by leading Nietzsche scholars to examine these centrally important and overlapping themes in Nietzsche's philosophical enterprise.

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