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Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle
'The greatest book of philosophy I have ever read, on a par with Nietzsche himself.' --Michel Foucault
Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) is the author of numerous philosophical works, as well as several novels. He published many translations of German poets and philosophers, including Nietzsche himself.
Recognized as a masterpiece of Nietzsche scholarship, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle emphasises and explores the notion of Eternal Return - central to an understanding of Nietzsche's self-denial, self-refutation and self-consumption.
Translated by Daniel W. Smith
Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) is the author of numerous philosophical works, as well as several novels. He published many translations of German poets and philosophers, including Nietzsche himself.
Recognized as a masterpiece of Nietzsche scholarship, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle emphasises and explores the notion of Eternal Return - central to an understanding of Nietzsche's self-denial, self-refutation and self-consumption.
Translated by Daniel W. Smith
240 pages, Paperback
First published April 16, 1969
About the author
Pierre Klossowski
95 books120 followersPierre Klossowski (August 9, 1905, Paris – August 12, 2001, Paris) was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
April 8, 2010
Klossowski (although he never actually cites his sources) gives an interesting, yet marginal reading of Nietzsche's work. While most philosophers harp on Will to Power, Klossowski goes to the Eternal Recurrence/Vicious Circle as the crux of Nietzsche's philosophy. He even goes so far as to locate the origin of this idea in a liminal epiphany while Nietzsche is strolling through Sils-Maria in 1881, even pinpointing the exact date that Nietzsche began to formulate the concept, noting that he was on the verge of something epic in several of his letters to friends.
While capitalism is geared in such a way that someone like Nietzsche could not exist anymore - living as a philosopher outside of the academy is virtually impossible in today's society, it is interesting that "Dr. Nietzsche" decided that the confines of academic life were too banal for him to actually create something on the scale of Thus Spoke Zarathustra...his Shakesperean farcical tragedy sprinkled with philosophical musings.
He left German University system because German philosophy was filled with 'watered down counterfeiters' and philosophy was slowly going bankrupt... the death of God was also the death of insight, wisdom, and inspiration... a tragedy indeed!
The Herd mentality that Nietzsche spoke about throughout his life is re-appropriated by Klossowski. It serves as a critique of Modern Decadence... the multiplication of consumer needs has stunted the development of radical praxis - the mediocrity of the herd has supplanted, and superceded all possibility of giving rise to a Ubermensch... in fact, what Nietzsche railed against was living without goals or reasons - nihilism. But what Klossowski points out is that Nietzsche also began to worry about the excess of reasons, needs, goals, and demands which could be equally as oppressive. Meaning, life in modern society has become so preoccupied with choice and the fulfillment of basic necessities (Cell Phones, television, mediocre forms of entertainment) that the tragic-existential crises that inspire groundbreaking philosophy has become subsumed by capitalism - re-appropriated - and absolutely domesticated.
The solution to this problem is to turn to liberating the body - which is a philosophical turn initiated by this text and taken up by Del. and Guat. in Anti-Oedipus as well as Lyotard in Libidinal Economy... both of which make several detailed references to Klossowski's methods of understanding "Power" as pulse, flow, and bodily desire as irreducible to the confines of linguistical forms/conventions... etc.
While capitalism is geared in such a way that someone like Nietzsche could not exist anymore - living as a philosopher outside of the academy is virtually impossible in today's society, it is interesting that "Dr. Nietzsche" decided that the confines of academic life were too banal for him to actually create something on the scale of Thus Spoke Zarathustra...his Shakesperean farcical tragedy sprinkled with philosophical musings.
He left German University system because German philosophy was filled with 'watered down counterfeiters' and philosophy was slowly going bankrupt... the death of God was also the death of insight, wisdom, and inspiration... a tragedy indeed!
The Herd mentality that Nietzsche spoke about throughout his life is re-appropriated by Klossowski. It serves as a critique of Modern Decadence... the multiplication of consumer needs has stunted the development of radical praxis - the mediocrity of the herd has supplanted, and superceded all possibility of giving rise to a Ubermensch... in fact, what Nietzsche railed against was living without goals or reasons - nihilism. But what Klossowski points out is that Nietzsche also began to worry about the excess of reasons, needs, goals, and demands which could be equally as oppressive. Meaning, life in modern society has become so preoccupied with choice and the fulfillment of basic necessities (Cell Phones, television, mediocre forms of entertainment) that the tragic-existential crises that inspire groundbreaking philosophy has become subsumed by capitalism - re-appropriated - and absolutely domesticated.
The solution to this problem is to turn to liberating the body - which is a philosophical turn initiated by this text and taken up by Del. and Guat. in Anti-Oedipus as well as Lyotard in Libidinal Economy... both of which make several detailed references to Klossowski's methods of understanding "Power" as pulse, flow, and bodily desire as irreducible to the confines of linguistical forms/conventions... etc.
July 22, 2022
الترجمة سيئة جدا ، تاني كتاب أقرأه لنفس المترجم وأجد صعوبة شديدة جدا في فهمه ، أنا قرأت لنيتشه وقرأت عنه ، عندي معرفة مسبقة بيه ، وتصورت انه هذا الكتاب هيخليني أتعمق أكتر في شخصيته ، بس تعبت من محاولات الفهم واعادة القراءة وقررت أتركه بعد ٦٠ صفحة .
September 6, 2018
This is a brilliant book. It's intriguing, how it is made up of essays that each have a different topic, and yet, which fold together, forming an analysis of Nietzsche's doctrine of the Eternal Return, the way how it came to Nietzsche and how it was gradually developed, its relationship to body, politics and image / fantasy. All of this cuts deep, retains an amazing lightness (compared to Heidegger's writings on Nietzsche, for example) and in general, leaves nothing one thought before the same as before, if one reads it. I'd call it compulsory for anyone interested in philosophical interpretations of Nietzsche.
December 12, 2015
This is a pretty amazing book on Nietzsche. Klossowski manages to dive internal to Nietzsche, digging through personal correspondence and social contexts in order to try to connect the vicious circle that of Nietzsche' life that was exemplified within his philosophy. Here the circle is a lack of stability as there is no melding point to stop the circulation (no God to stand still in reference to). Spinning this dialectical flip, Klossowski shows us a Nietzsche who twists in on himself as sickness and health, relative terminologies become unbearable so that he not only rejects the stablization that philosophy would seek to provide but also the aesthetic of stablization himself throughout all of time and history. We end with a phantasm, a twin, by which we are constantly ourselves but also invoking how we are other. This is another way of looking at the phenomenal split. We are only our identity because there are aspects of ourselves that we mark out as being not us. Nietzsche would have us wander in and claim those last parts as well, as being incorporate for us. In this way, Derrida and Foucault would re-invoke Nietzsche because his philosophy and his genealogy would also serve to include parts of the outside as necessary for the inside to be what it is.
March 12, 2020
A remarkably innovative, prescient, and dark work of philosophy. Pierre Klossowski from the outset sets himself a strange task; to perform a “false study” of Nietzsche, a physiognomy.
What does he mean by this? Physiognomy is the study of physical qualities. Does Klossowski mean to measure our dear Fritz's skull to prove once and for all if the world is the will to power and nothing besides? Not quite. The nature of this study reveals itself quite spectacularly and rapidly as an attempt, through unpublished fragments and some sections of the semi-obscure Will to Power, to discern the force propelling Nietzsche’s thought. To dredge up from the simulacrums of his written words, the wicked phantasms that came to be the eternal return, the will to power, Zarathustra, the great downgoing into nihilism, and the overman. The hurricanes of thought that produced such ludicrous, yet brilliant characters.
What is the phantasm? And what is the simulacrum? They are the two halves of the vicious circle, the two halves of the eternal return that bend back on one another. First, man is seized by his phantasms. He is delirious, oneiric, his consciousness speaks, and speaks - feverishly, rapidly, faster than can become words at all. Then, it peters out, and he becomes lucid, silent, left hanging, with only the memory of his phantasm. This, then the generation of the simulacrum.
Klossowksi’s idea of the vicious circle is Nietzsche’s ontology. To Nietzsche, the phantasm is primary, it is the first half of the vicious circle. This then, the secret to Nietzschean philosophy. What is the eternal return? It is the constant forgetting and remembering of the self, for the individual human, and the entire species. What is the will to power? It is the intention of every moment of the phantasm. The phantasm is the most private of phenomena, even to the self, which might try to conceal something from itself, to sustain itself. Nietzsche was not a man who wished to conceal anything, no matter its darkness or ugliness - this is the vicious half of the circle.
When a combustion reaction takes place, is it the intention of the hydrocarbon to turn into carbon dioxide, water, and (most of all) a spectacular heat? No, of course it isn't, molecules just do that. When a man whips his slaves in his factory, is it his intention to do so? Of course it is, he was a noumenal agent with freedom!
No - this dissonance cannot sustain itself. It is a nihilism with a curtain of Christian prejudices draped over it. All actions arise from the phantasm, all phantasms have an intention; power.
What does he mean by this? Physiognomy is the study of physical qualities. Does Klossowski mean to measure our dear Fritz's skull to prove once and for all if the world is the will to power and nothing besides? Not quite. The nature of this study reveals itself quite spectacularly and rapidly as an attempt, through unpublished fragments and some sections of the semi-obscure Will to Power, to discern the force propelling Nietzsche’s thought. To dredge up from the simulacrums of his written words, the wicked phantasms that came to be the eternal return, the will to power, Zarathustra, the great downgoing into nihilism, and the overman. The hurricanes of thought that produced such ludicrous, yet brilliant characters.
What is the phantasm? And what is the simulacrum? They are the two halves of the vicious circle, the two halves of the eternal return that bend back on one another. First, man is seized by his phantasms. He is delirious, oneiric, his consciousness speaks, and speaks - feverishly, rapidly, faster than can become words at all. Then, it peters out, and he becomes lucid, silent, left hanging, with only the memory of his phantasm. This, then the generation of the simulacrum.
Klossowksi’s idea of the vicious circle is Nietzsche’s ontology. To Nietzsche, the phantasm is primary, it is the first half of the vicious circle. This then, the secret to Nietzschean philosophy. What is the eternal return? It is the constant forgetting and remembering of the self, for the individual human, and the entire species. What is the will to power? It is the intention of every moment of the phantasm. The phantasm is the most private of phenomena, even to the self, which might try to conceal something from itself, to sustain itself. Nietzsche was not a man who wished to conceal anything, no matter its darkness or ugliness - this is the vicious half of the circle.
When a combustion reaction takes place, is it the intention of the hydrocarbon to turn into carbon dioxide, water, and (most of all) a spectacular heat? No, of course it isn't, molecules just do that. When a man whips his slaves in his factory, is it his intention to do so? Of course it is, he was a noumenal agent with freedom!
No - this dissonance cannot sustain itself. It is a nihilism with a curtain of Christian prejudices draped over it. All actions arise from the phantasm, all phantasms have an intention; power.
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June 12, 2022this has the reputation of being the best critical work on Nietzsche ever written and yeah, valid. Klossowski deserves all the recognition he received from this which was crucial to people like Foucault and Deleuze (to whom he cheekily dedicates this to I think PK does a better job than GD on this) but he also deserves attention in his own right as a person and - artist? An absolutely wild life he somehow only died in 2001! Born 1905!! What a life! Fascinated by this guy anyway
This book covers bases & beautifully we get a semi-biographical reading PK looks at the epiphany at Sils-Maria & the basically constant pain that was life for FN as a hyperchronic migraine sufferer on top of everything else (and! Brilliantly PK takes on this and says how the hell does this square with saying Yes to life). We even get a chapter on the dreams of teenage Nietzsche if that's something that doesn't sound utterly disturbing. Lots of space for the man himself to breathe plenty personal correspondences and a fairly ideosyncratic interpretation of N's very last correspondences with Strindberg before total collapse.
Ok! Foucault called this one of the greatest works of philosophy he'd read and that makes sense for MF. Perhaps there's a difficulty in sequestering Nietzsche into philosophy at all as when we have a critical study of him it's rather a different beast to many others. See Derrida's book (yes, book) on the note found among N's papers: 'I have forgotten my umbrella'. On topic, Vicious Circle kind of achieves all it is lauded as it's a beautiful act of reconciliation which is sadly necessary when the work is cut short. Klossowski rides with Nietzsche in dismissing the institution of psychoanalysis but I note he's not strictly averse to Freudian techniques and the figuration of the Circle & Doctrine of the Eternal Return as simulacra? Yes
This book covers bases & beautifully we get a semi-biographical reading PK looks at the epiphany at Sils-Maria & the basically constant pain that was life for FN as a hyperchronic migraine sufferer on top of everything else (and! Brilliantly PK takes on this and says how the hell does this square with saying Yes to life). We even get a chapter on the dreams of teenage Nietzsche if that's something that doesn't sound utterly disturbing. Lots of space for the man himself to breathe plenty personal correspondences and a fairly ideosyncratic interpretation of N's very last correspondences with Strindberg before total collapse.
Ok! Foucault called this one of the greatest works of philosophy he'd read and that makes sense for MF. Perhaps there's a difficulty in sequestering Nietzsche into philosophy at all as when we have a critical study of him it's rather a different beast to many others. See Derrida's book (yes, book) on the note found among N's papers: 'I have forgotten my umbrella'. On topic, Vicious Circle kind of achieves all it is lauded as it's a beautiful act of reconciliation which is sadly necessary when the work is cut short. Klossowski rides with Nietzsche in dismissing the institution of psychoanalysis but I note he's not strictly averse to Freudian techniques and the figuration of the Circle & Doctrine of the Eternal Return as simulacra? Yes
March 29, 2021
In my couple readings on postmodernism I found the funny suggestion that the postmodern was not just an inflamed value judgment, but a rather specifically French value judgment. Scratch that-- a rather specifically Nietzschean, French value judgment.
I can understand that perfectly now.
This is a perfect entry to philosophy beyond capitalism, beyond gregarity, and beyond the subject. This is the introductory speech which should precede the jibbering of any of the Parisians of '68. Those are the obvious situations of this book. But, casting a slightly larger arc through the air, I should rather say that the "vicious circle," everywhere in this writing, is the possibility of any ends at all. ('This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere.')
I can understand that perfectly now.
This is a perfect entry to philosophy beyond capitalism, beyond gregarity, and beyond the subject. This is the introductory speech which should precede the jibbering of any of the Parisians of '68. Those are the obvious situations of this book. But, casting a slightly larger arc through the air, I should rather say that the "vicious circle," everywhere in this writing, is the possibility of any ends at all. ('This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere.')
September 5, 2023
See on tõepoolest üks suurepärane raamat.
Nietzsche nägi inimest kui impulsside kogumit, tema mälu kui kõige elava kulminatsiooni. Keelt, kui väliselt pealsurutud signifikatsiooni süsteemi: kõige all on impulss mida intellekt analüüsib ja millele ta omistab keeleliste võimaluste piires tähenduse, märgi. See märk, nt emotsioonist asendub inimese jaoks selle impulssiga, kuigi impulss on keerulisem kui keelelised märgid suudaks edasi anda ja nii läheb paratamatult osa tähendusest kaduma. Just selle vastu protsestis Nietzsche tahtes olla sellest üle ja niimoodi impulsside otsese tõelgendamise kaugu mõista enda olemust. Tõsine elutöö selle kallal viiski ta edasi tavalisele inimkeelele omase mõistetavuse piiri ja sellepärast ongi tema ideedest keeruline rääkida kasutades endiselt ja ikka keelt. Lõpuks eibolnduki enam nietzschet, sest tema ego ei olnud oli ainult põhjatu tühjus.
Klossowski analüüsi nietzsche Eternal Returnist, selle kirjeldus ja edasiantus on inimkeelele omaste restriktsioonide ületus.
Eternal Return on elu ühekorduses ja sellest tuleneva mõttetuse vastane ravim. Kõigel on mõte sest see kordub igavesti. (ma ei kavatsegi teeselda, et ma seda ise kogenud olen ja sellest tegelikult aru saan)
Keele vägivaldusest:
Põhimõtteliselt see sama lugu, et inimene on impulsside kogum, impulsid on pidevas võitluses ja võistluses üksteisega.
keel, kui ühiskonna konstrukt töötab oma reeglite järgi. inimene fuktsioneerib kasutatades keelele omaseid märke, et ennast moodustavaid impulsse tõlgendada. Impulss on keeruline, hästi mitmetahuline asi ja teda tõlgendades, kasutades väliselt ettenähtud vahendeid (keel) läheb midagi alati kaotsi. See vahe ei ole meile üldiselt nähtav, kuna me oleme harjunud funktsioneerima keele abil, aga sellest ebakõlast tulenevad konflikid. Omistades emotsioonile nime röövime temalt tema tegeliku puhta olemuse ja asendame selle keelelise konstruktiga. Omistades emotsioonole nime õpime nägema antud emotsioonis vaid talle keele poolt omistatud tähendust, ehk me funktsioneerime välise konstrukti põhjal. Ja nii iga emotsiooniga kogu aeg.
Me ei saa kunagi teada mida impulss tegelikult t a h a b, sest me oskame teda mõista vaid enda loodud, tõlgenduse kaudu. Tõlgenduse, mis on vahendatud väliste, keeleliste märkide poolt.
Me ei saa välja sellest keeleliste märkide poolt loodud simulatsioonist. See loob aluse enda valestimõistmisele juba baastasemel, sest me kasutame enda impulsside analyysimisks etteantud vahendeid. Me võime väga vabalt asendada tegeliku fantaasia mingisuguse kättesaadava institutsioonilise ideega, olles seejuures märkamatult või märgatavalt vägivaldsed algse kujutluse suhtes.
See algne kujutlus (phantasm) on see, mis teeb meid indiviididena ainulaadseks. "In the individual there is only a particular case of the species that assures its own intelligibility"
kui ta pyyab ennast kaitsta institutsioonisest mõtestamisest, siis paratamatul loob ta mõttelise pildi (simulacrum), mis on võrdeline tema algse kujutlusega (nagu kunst, raamat jne). kuid kuna ta teeb seda kasutates tavapäraseid vahendeid siia on see ühiskonna ja üksikindiviid vaheline exchange siiski mingi piirini võlts. Üksikindiviid (the singular case) ja tema ainulaadne phantasm kaob ära kui ta mõtestab selle enda jaoks lahti. See moment kui ta muudab enda phantasmi edasiantavaks kaob edasiantud osa tema phantasimist temast endast ja sellega ka tema ainulaadsus?
Nietzsche nägi inimest kui impulsside kogumit, tema mälu kui kõige elava kulminatsiooni. Keelt, kui väliselt pealsurutud signifikatsiooni süsteemi: kõige all on impulss mida intellekt analüüsib ja millele ta omistab keeleliste võimaluste piires tähenduse, märgi. See märk, nt emotsioonist asendub inimese jaoks selle impulssiga, kuigi impulss on keerulisem kui keelelised märgid suudaks edasi anda ja nii läheb paratamatult osa tähendusest kaduma. Just selle vastu protsestis Nietzsche tahtes olla sellest üle ja niimoodi impulsside otsese tõelgendamise kaugu mõista enda olemust. Tõsine elutöö selle kallal viiski ta edasi tavalisele inimkeelele omase mõistetavuse piiri ja sellepärast ongi tema ideedest keeruline rääkida kasutades endiselt ja ikka keelt. Lõpuks eibolnduki enam nietzschet, sest tema ego ei olnud oli ainult põhjatu tühjus.
Klossowski analüüsi nietzsche Eternal Returnist, selle kirjeldus ja edasiantus on inimkeelele omaste restriktsioonide ületus.
Eternal Return on elu ühekorduses ja sellest tuleneva mõttetuse vastane ravim. Kõigel on mõte sest see kordub igavesti. (ma ei kavatsegi teeselda, et ma seda ise kogenud olen ja sellest tegelikult aru saan)
Keele vägivaldusest:
Põhimõtteliselt see sama lugu, et inimene on impulsside kogum, impulsid on pidevas võitluses ja võistluses üksteisega.
keel, kui ühiskonna konstrukt töötab oma reeglite järgi. inimene fuktsioneerib kasutatades keelele omaseid märke, et ennast moodustavaid impulsse tõlgendada. Impulss on keeruline, hästi mitmetahuline asi ja teda tõlgendades, kasutades väliselt ettenähtud vahendeid (keel) läheb midagi alati kaotsi. See vahe ei ole meile üldiselt nähtav, kuna me oleme harjunud funktsioneerima keele abil, aga sellest ebakõlast tulenevad konflikid. Omistades emotsioonile nime röövime temalt tema tegeliku puhta olemuse ja asendame selle keelelise konstruktiga. Omistades emotsioonole nime õpime nägema antud emotsioonis vaid talle keele poolt omistatud tähendust, ehk me funktsioneerime välise konstrukti põhjal. Ja nii iga emotsiooniga kogu aeg.
Me ei saa kunagi teada mida impulss tegelikult t a h a b, sest me oskame teda mõista vaid enda loodud, tõlgenduse kaudu. Tõlgenduse, mis on vahendatud väliste, keeleliste märkide poolt.
Me ei saa välja sellest keeleliste märkide poolt loodud simulatsioonist. See loob aluse enda valestimõistmisele juba baastasemel, sest me kasutame enda impulsside analyysimisks etteantud vahendeid. Me võime väga vabalt asendada tegeliku fantaasia mingisuguse kättesaadava institutsioonilise ideega, olles seejuures märkamatult või märgatavalt vägivaldsed algse kujutluse suhtes.
See algne kujutlus (phantasm) on see, mis teeb meid indiviididena ainulaadseks. "In the individual there is only a particular case of the species that assures its own intelligibility"
kui ta pyyab ennast kaitsta institutsioonisest mõtestamisest, siis paratamatul loob ta mõttelise pildi (simulacrum), mis on võrdeline tema algse kujutlusega (nagu kunst, raamat jne). kuid kuna ta teeb seda kasutates tavapäraseid vahendeid siia on see ühiskonna ja üksikindiviid vaheline exchange siiski mingi piirini võlts. Üksikindiviid (the singular case) ja tema ainulaadne phantasm kaob ära kui ta mõtestab selle enda jaoks lahti. See moment kui ta muudab enda phantasmi edasiantavaks kaob edasiantud osa tema phantasimist temast endast ja sellega ka tema ainulaadsus?
January 24, 2019
A tour de force that spans several loosely connected essays revolving around the personal revelation to Nietzsche of the esoteric doctrine of the Eternal Return, which Klossowski argues —through a close analysis of correspondences and fragments from notebooks—accounts for Nietzsche’s “decent into madness.” Perhaps too romantic depiction of Nietzsche’s breakdown, but it’s much more than that. Among other things, it presents an elaborate semiology based in the body, the forces that comprise and act on it, and its dissolution.
April 20, 2019
A tour de force that spans several loosely connected essays revolving around the personal revelation to Nietzsche of the esoteric doctrine of the Eternal Return, which Klossowski argues —through a close analysis of correspondences and fragments from notebooks—accounts for Nietzsche’s “decent into madness.” Perhaps too romantic depiction of Nietzsche’s breakdown, but it’s much more than that. Among other things, it presents an elaborate semiology based in the body, the forces that comprise and act on it, and its dissolution.
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October 12, 2022woah man what if it was all like a circle man thats crazy!!
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December 14, 2017L’energia senza senso né scopo riconfermava Nietzsche in quello che aveva sempre cercato dopo l’esperienza del Ritorno di tutte le cose: ricondurre l’intenzionalità all’intensità. Il punto culminante dell’energia universale – “Dio” come epoca – che è anche il punto culminante della “spiritualizzazione” della potenza – coincide forse con l’alta tonalità dell’anima (...) Sembra piuttosto il contrario: nel momento in cui il disperdersi dell’energia universale si ripercuotesse nella sfera morale dell’umano in quanto “despiritualizzazione”, perciò, a livello intellettuale e sociale, con il nichilismo – e quindi con la distruzione, «poiché non ha più niente da organizzare» –, ecco che essa si risveglia, in un individuo isolato, come ultima risonanza dal punto culminante al punto più basso. Ma punto culminante e punto più basso non sono che una interpretazione retrospettiva che spiega la confusione voluta fra un’economia universale di forze in sé, senza intenzione, e uno stato d’animo che risente della loro insignificanza: e a seconda che l’anima significhi tale risonanza, l’avverte come una vertigine davanti a un abisso – o angoscia provocata dall’imminenza del Caos. Nel frammento Per il piano, le considerazioni di Nietzsche segnavano il trasformarsi della suprema spiritualizzazione della potenza nella sua estrema schiavitù. Perché “schiavitù”? È proprio qui che la potenza a livello delle società e del loro disfarsi a opera degli individui che le formano diventerà, in senso storico, volontà o assenza di volontà di potenza: e la volontà di potenza, seguendo i criteri di formazione delle società e del loro disfarsi a opera degli individui che le formano, diventa l’interprete dell’Eterno Ritorno: il Circolo vizioso, argomento di dominio, rende istoriale l’energia per introdurre nella storia l’assurdo automatismo: ora il trionfo di pochi privilegiati sulle società rese schiave, ora il trionfo dei moltissimi diseredati sui privilegiati. Le ultime righe alludono alla sostanza della rivelazione dell’Eterno Ritorno: «Noi siamo più che individuo, siamo tutta la catena con i più i compiti di tutto il futuro della catena». Ma se l’energia supera uno stato massimo di potenza, che sarebbe anche il suo supremo stato di spiritualizzazione – “Dio” – ciò avviene perché la designazione stessa non può convenire a una potenza il cui attributo è di manifestarsi come insignificanza. Perciò il circulus vitiosus è un dio la cui essenza è di sempre fuggirsi per tornare sempre a raggiungersi. E un grado di spiritualizzazione non può trattenerlo dal precipitarsi nello stato ultimo della forza puramente quantitativa – sottraendosi così a qualsiasi duraturo significato (...) potenza è insignificanza; e ciò che in sé è insignificante proprio per questo esercita la violenza più grande: meno violenza c’è, più c’è interpretazione e più c’è significato. E infatti, se il momento culminante della “spiritualizzazione” è “Dio” e quindi il massimo significato, già da quel momento il significato è uno stato di equilibrio che deve essere rotto: sicché soltanto all’ultimo grado – proprio dove l’energia disorganizza quel che aveva creato – si ritrova, in assenza di qualsiasi possibile significato, la violenza maggiore. Nietzsche si riferisce così a una descrizione di forze che escludono qualsiasi senso e scopo, ma ricercano, d’altro canto, pur nel loro comportamento “assurdo” uno scopo nella creazione organica della società: se infatti così si attua l’esercizio della potenza, allora le formazioni sovrane non avranno altro proponimento che quello di mascherare l’assenza di scopo e di senso della loro sovranità con lo scopo organico della loro creazione. (...) il diventar più forte comporta ordinamenti che assomigliano a un piano finalistico; l’insignificanza della potenza – della potenza ininterpretabile – ciò che egli chiama gli Herrschaftsgebilde, le formazioni di sovranità(...) L’insignificanza della potenza, la violenza che essa esercita con la sua assurdità, poteva trovare un riferimento in tali formazioni soltanto nello scopo inconfessato e quindi inconscio da esse perseguito – mentre significati e scopi pretestuosi presiedevano al loro formarsi. Le formazioni di sovranità devono prendere coscienza della legge di rottura dell’equilibrio, prevedere il momento voluto della propria disintegrazione: riinventare un significato nuovo a seconda di un nuovo scopo da seguire, e dunque ricreare nuovi organi, poiché l’insignificanza è la violenza suprema, quest’ultima può essere esercitata solamente in nome di un valore che faccia apparire la vita assurda come ricchezza suprema, e converta così l’assurdità in spiritualità. La sovranità partecipa a tutto quanto esclude la singolarità nella gregarietà e a quanto esclude quest’ultima nell’individuo. L’esiguo numero di privilegiati costituisce un gruppo di singolarità che esprime la svalorizzazione del gregario. Gli sfavoriti a livello della gregarietà non sopportano i privilegiati se non in quanto il gruppo singolare da essi costituito è la ragione stessa della loro gregarietà. Ora, è proprio questo gruppo singolare a esercitare la violenza con il suo comportamento che afferma l’assurdità dell’esistenza. In altre parole: l’energia insignificante non può proporsi come scopo. Ecco come nasce la schiavitù in senso opposto: i casi singolari vengono eliminati a vantaggio della gregarietà dei mediocri, degli sfavoriti, i quali, a loro volta, esercitano la violenza in nome del significato specifico della specie.
January 10, 2024
Interesting if you are interested in the subject matter, explains the idea of the Eternal Return.
February 1, 2021
Philosophy books aren't something to be sped through - nonetheless, I got through this one in two days. However, I do plan on doing a more thorough re-reading of this later, since I didn't grasp all of it. In this review I'll try to summarize what I thought Klossowski was saying, so here goes.
Nietzsche's whole goal with the idea of the eternal return was to establish a philosophical method that wasn't grounded in the notion of selfhood (so kind of the opposite of a goal or method). The notion of the self, language, science, society, etc. etc. are all, for Nietzsche, necessary "gregarious" illusions, without the likes of which society and culture as we know them would break apart. Up Nietzsche, philosophy's attempts to establish an absolute knowledge were more or less an enquiry into the self- an interpretation of bodily impulses (call it the will). Thus, Nietzsche makes the bosdy the center of his philosophy. However, Nietzsche's difficulty is in finding an adequate means of expressing pure bodily impulse without falling back into the gregariousness he was criticizing. It couldn't be through science, or language, because these are all still institutional apparatus, which attempt to examine the body from outside of itself and presuppose the existence of an ego. The idea of the Eternal Return was his answer. If we imagine that the life we have lived has not only been lived before but will be lived on again for eternity, then we then have a simulacrum, a means of knowledge and interpretation in a truly deep sense, which opens up fortuitousness (critique of 'necessity' and rationality) and possibility (although not possibility in the way we think of it today, as a matter of selection among alternatives, like there is 'many possibilities' as the phrase goes that we get to choose from and can actualize) while also excluding selfhood from the equation. Klossowski then goes on to examine Nietzsche's experience of the eternal return in the midst of his illness and how this experience is essentially "priviliged," in other words, it's selectiveness, occuring only among singular individuals (not at all individuals in the sense of 'persons' or 'individuals', but as events which flow and cut through these) rather than in gregarious institutions.
In the end, I really need to read this book again and edit this review to correct my inevitable mistakes. Still, good book, being the Nietzsche nut I am.
Nietzsche's whole goal with the idea of the eternal return was to establish a philosophical method that wasn't grounded in the notion of selfhood (so kind of the opposite of a goal or method). The notion of the self, language, science, society, etc. etc. are all, for Nietzsche, necessary "gregarious" illusions, without the likes of which society and culture as we know them would break apart. Up Nietzsche, philosophy's attempts to establish an absolute knowledge were more or less an enquiry into the self- an interpretation of bodily impulses (call it the will). Thus, Nietzsche makes the bosdy the center of his philosophy. However, Nietzsche's difficulty is in finding an adequate means of expressing pure bodily impulse without falling back into the gregariousness he was criticizing. It couldn't be through science, or language, because these are all still institutional apparatus, which attempt to examine the body from outside of itself and presuppose the existence of an ego. The idea of the Eternal Return was his answer. If we imagine that the life we have lived has not only been lived before but will be lived on again for eternity, then we then have a simulacrum, a means of knowledge and interpretation in a truly deep sense, which opens up fortuitousness (critique of 'necessity' and rationality) and possibility (although not possibility in the way we think of it today, as a matter of selection among alternatives, like there is 'many possibilities' as the phrase goes that we get to choose from and can actualize) while also excluding selfhood from the equation. Klossowski then goes on to examine Nietzsche's experience of the eternal return in the midst of his illness and how this experience is essentially "priviliged," in other words, it's selectiveness, occuring only among singular individuals (not at all individuals in the sense of 'persons' or 'individuals', but as events which flow and cut through these) rather than in gregarious institutions.
In the end, I really need to read this book again and edit this review to correct my inevitable mistakes. Still, good book, being the Nietzsche nut I am.
April 24, 2024
Pierre Klossowski was a french postmodernist of some kind, in the generation I think between Batalle/Sartre and Deleuze/Derrida, and also a writer of fiction. Unlike what the above might insinuate, this is rather an attempt at a proper scholarly work on Nietzsche, relatively hard-minded and very thorough. Klossowski translated (into french) many dozens of Nietzsche's unpublished aphorisms and private letters, which Klossowski uses almost exclusively in lieu of citations from the 'mainstream' Nietzsche books. To be honest, much of these translated new aphorisms are different formulations of things said in Nietzsche's published writings, often in less interesting and effective form, but they give this book a sense of being almost more a new Nietzsche book than a study, and I find the 'aphorism -> discussion of it -> another aphorism -> more discussion' structure vastly better, especially for Nietzsche, than a more overarching attempt at discussing the primary source abstractly.
Klossowski reduces Nietzsche's psychological critiques of the world to a basic formula, that of the titular 'vicious circle': in effect, people being particularly attached to some sign or symbol, discursively inflating it beyond its value, and then coming ultimately to a state whereby nothing has been achieved ... this, over and over again in a circle, is more or less that with which Nietzsche diagnoses the world. In contradistinction is the doctrine of the Eternal Return, the famous radical apprehension and embrace of the present; this Klossowski interprets not as an attitude incompatible with the eternal return, but rather as an essentially fleeting phenomenon which its recipients necessarily partake in & forget, a momentary intermittence of the heart. What differentiates Nietzsche is the awareness of this ephemera, which nevertheless must take place within our banally logical, vicious-circle consciousness, a secret doctrine that serves as a parallel truth, as I see it, to the deadly truth of 'the death of God'. As such, man is to be defined not so much by an opposition between the dullard normies and the eternally recurrent overmen, but rather as an entity trapped in the banal gyrations of life, continually subjected to (and sustained by) ephemeral initiation into an immediately-forgotten existential impulse.
Klossowski spends some time discussing Nietzsche's application of these types of concepts to his rejection of casuality (since the will to power motivating the vicious circle is as effectively blind as that will to power motivating nature, thus invalidating any possibility of teleological analysis of the world, physical or mental), but his more interesting discussion is the effective repercussions of this view of man. If man is effectively little more than the dumb mechanisms of symbological fixation, and the secret of the eternal return (and its ephemerality) are unsatisfying or uninteresting to the overwhelming majority of mankind, then a new predominant specie of overman is not possible, but rather only a world order where an elite cabal of philosophers disseminates symbological manipulations of value in order for to structure society. I had thought this ironic platonism was Klossowski's endgoal, but he continues -- in fact, industrial capitalism is the exact answer to this problem of the symbological poverty in Nietzsche's day, wherein governments and corporations manipulate material flows and the symbological values inherent thereto. Thus, Nietzsche has predicted 20th century capitalism, just as Klossowski ''predicted' the entire philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.
However, while these ideas are generally consistent with Nietzsche, and indeed seem to represent the most perfect possible attempt at systematizing the Nietzschean ideas, the first six or seven chapters of this book do not comprise the ultimate goal Nietzsche had wanted to achieve in his writings; for Klossowski, the continued strivings (eg, toward the final unwritten work) ultimately require a psychoanalysis of Nietzsche himself, using these concepts, to explain. He traces Nietzsche's anxious relations with his parents, and then those of his adult friends (Lou Salome, Wagner, the Overbecks), who always appear in couples, with Nietzsche struggling against the distant, imposing male (the inaccessible Wagner, his dead father) and the desireable but equally inaccessible woman (Lou, but also Cosima Wagner). This troubled and uncertain relationship with society was the essence of Nietzsche's personal problem with his own identity.
Klossowski's interpretation of Nietzsche's madness, then, is not one of biological brain decay (this contributed, surely, but merely as an incidental material cause for a psychically inevitable event) but rather of Nietzsche accepting his own perspective on the world- - one where true selves do not exist, but only artificial symbologies and anarchic logicks. Insanity was merely a dissolution of the false illusion of self, trading his psychodramatic fixations for a delusional embrace of pure symbology -- if one is as false as another, better to simply declare oneself Dionysius than concern oneself with whether Wagner was a genuine dionysiac. It is in this way that Nietzsche overcame his contempt for Christianity and declared himself the Crucified -- symbologies such as the Christ being the only truly meaningful things in the world, precisely because nothing lies behind them. Just as there is no escape from the Vicious Circle, there is no escape from disease, the over-arching principle of all life: only a question of which disease is most agreeable.
I am not entirely satisfied with the recapitulation I have given of this book, but Klossowski is a dense writer and much of these concepts unfold in conjunction with the included aphorisms puncutatig the commentary. In effect, this book is the best attempt at a serious metaphysical rewriting of Nietzsche's works, and while his conclusions are often absurd, there doesn't necessarily seem to be a logical issue with his elenchus -- rather, the question is the extent to which one believes that what is profound about Nietzsche can be extrapolated into an ontological theory of the world. For those, like me, who find the technical ambiguities of Nietzsche's ideas to be the most exciting parts of his books, I very much recommend this book, if perhaps only to question that very analytical impulse in the case of reading mr Nietzsche.
Klossowski reduces Nietzsche's psychological critiques of the world to a basic formula, that of the titular 'vicious circle': in effect, people being particularly attached to some sign or symbol, discursively inflating it beyond its value, and then coming ultimately to a state whereby nothing has been achieved ... this, over and over again in a circle, is more or less that with which Nietzsche diagnoses the world. In contradistinction is the doctrine of the Eternal Return, the famous radical apprehension and embrace of the present; this Klossowski interprets not as an attitude incompatible with the eternal return, but rather as an essentially fleeting phenomenon which its recipients necessarily partake in & forget, a momentary intermittence of the heart. What differentiates Nietzsche is the awareness of this ephemera, which nevertheless must take place within our banally logical, vicious-circle consciousness, a secret doctrine that serves as a parallel truth, as I see it, to the deadly truth of 'the death of God'. As such, man is to be defined not so much by an opposition between the dullard normies and the eternally recurrent overmen, but rather as an entity trapped in the banal gyrations of life, continually subjected to (and sustained by) ephemeral initiation into an immediately-forgotten existential impulse.
Klossowski spends some time discussing Nietzsche's application of these types of concepts to his rejection of casuality (since the will to power motivating the vicious circle is as effectively blind as that will to power motivating nature, thus invalidating any possibility of teleological analysis of the world, physical or mental), but his more interesting discussion is the effective repercussions of this view of man. If man is effectively little more than the dumb mechanisms of symbological fixation, and the secret of the eternal return (and its ephemerality) are unsatisfying or uninteresting to the overwhelming majority of mankind, then a new predominant specie of overman is not possible, but rather only a world order where an elite cabal of philosophers disseminates symbological manipulations of value in order for to structure society. I had thought this ironic platonism was Klossowski's endgoal, but he continues -- in fact, industrial capitalism is the exact answer to this problem of the symbological poverty in Nietzsche's day, wherein governments and corporations manipulate material flows and the symbological values inherent thereto. Thus, Nietzsche has predicted 20th century capitalism, just as Klossowski ''predicted' the entire philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.
However, while these ideas are generally consistent with Nietzsche, and indeed seem to represent the most perfect possible attempt at systematizing the Nietzschean ideas, the first six or seven chapters of this book do not comprise the ultimate goal Nietzsche had wanted to achieve in his writings; for Klossowski, the continued strivings (eg, toward the final unwritten work) ultimately require a psychoanalysis of Nietzsche himself, using these concepts, to explain. He traces Nietzsche's anxious relations with his parents, and then those of his adult friends (Lou Salome, Wagner, the Overbecks), who always appear in couples, with Nietzsche struggling against the distant, imposing male (the inaccessible Wagner, his dead father) and the desireable but equally inaccessible woman (Lou, but also Cosima Wagner). This troubled and uncertain relationship with society was the essence of Nietzsche's personal problem with his own identity.
Klossowski's interpretation of Nietzsche's madness, then, is not one of biological brain decay (this contributed, surely, but merely as an incidental material cause for a psychically inevitable event) but rather of Nietzsche accepting his own perspective on the world- - one where true selves do not exist, but only artificial symbologies and anarchic logicks. Insanity was merely a dissolution of the false illusion of self, trading his psychodramatic fixations for a delusional embrace of pure symbology -- if one is as false as another, better to simply declare oneself Dionysius than concern oneself with whether Wagner was a genuine dionysiac. It is in this way that Nietzsche overcame his contempt for Christianity and declared himself the Crucified -- symbologies such as the Christ being the only truly meaningful things in the world, precisely because nothing lies behind them. Just as there is no escape from the Vicious Circle, there is no escape from disease, the over-arching principle of all life: only a question of which disease is most agreeable.
I am not entirely satisfied with the recapitulation I have given of this book, but Klossowski is a dense writer and much of these concepts unfold in conjunction with the included aphorisms puncutatig the commentary. In effect, this book is the best attempt at a serious metaphysical rewriting of Nietzsche's works, and while his conclusions are often absurd, there doesn't necessarily seem to be a logical issue with his elenchus -- rather, the question is the extent to which one believes that what is profound about Nietzsche can be extrapolated into an ontological theory of the world. For those, like me, who find the technical ambiguities of Nietzsche's ideas to be the most exciting parts of his books, I very much recommend this book, if perhaps only to question that very analytical impulse in the case of reading mr Nietzsche.
August 24, 2020
I’ll have to come back to this one in the future. Less of a reading of Nietzsche than a genealogical mapping of a Nietzschean semiotics and (anti-) metaphysics. Klossowski makes a brilliant case for Nietzsche the mystic-philosopher, inhabitant of his own ideas. Yet he is simultaneously a poor fool lost to his own delirium. Such contradiction is the origin of this book’s genius — the text is a simulacra, the impetus for its existence constrained by the very limits laid out in its pages (a trend in the more obscure works of continental philosophy). If the doctrine of the eternal return can only be revealed to the fortuitous individual, as Nietzsche argues via Klossowski, how could it be possible to translate it into a conceptual schema? Through a cunning act of gestural philosophy, it seems.
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October 6, 2012Hm. I know this was a major influence on both Foucault and Deleuze, but I find both of these guys to be far more charming interpreters of Nietzsche's philosophy. Klossowski's approach-- running through highly specific passages of the man's writing with a fine-toothed comb and then extracting a comprehensive, essential approach to Nietzsche's worldview-- seems somewhat hung-up on structuralist pedantry, and the attempt to ground the idea of the eternal return in the body reminds me altogether too much of those old people who measure their health by how frequently they shit.
And I'm not very keen on Klossowski's fiction either.
And I'm not very keen on Klossowski's fiction either.
July 1, 2015
A brilliant and creative investigation of Nietzsche's thought.
Klossowski works through Nietzsche's chaotic (i.e. of Chaos) impulses in order to express an attempted semiotic; a phantasmic expression of the inexpressible Chaos that underlies, that irrupts as madness again through the vicious circle of return.
An individual take on Nietzsche that anyone with any interest in Nietzsche will find challenge and wealth within.
Klossowski works through Nietzsche's chaotic (i.e. of Chaos) impulses in order to express an attempted semiotic; a phantasmic expression of the inexpressible Chaos that underlies, that irrupts as madness again through the vicious circle of return.
An individual take on Nietzsche that anyone with any interest in Nietzsche will find challenge and wealth within.
October 15, 2007
To me it's an attempt on my side to make things clear. So I bought and read and re-read this book.
January 20, 2016
Una gran locura. Un loco hablando sobre otro loco.
January 3, 2017
I can tell I will be revisiting this work again and again through out my life. Essential reading.
May 29, 2017
Startlingly, unimaginably good.
March 20, 2023
I can say that this is perhaps the most important work written on Nietzsche and his world of ideas.
Nietzsche realizes a great awakening when he stumbles upon a piece of rock while hiking in the Swiss village of Silsmaria. because that rock he sees is the very rock mentioned in the ancient Sisyphus legend. and Nietzsche will say in his jolly book of science;
“What would happen if a demon were watching you day and night, intruding into his innermost thoughts and saying: As you know, you are living or have lived this life and you have to live it once and even countless times; nothing will be new, but every pain, every thought, every joy, every breath and everything big or small in your life will come back to you in the same order and logic. This spider, the moonlight among the trees, and even this moment and me. Your existence will cycle over and over like an endless hourglass and you are with it, like a speck of dust!”
and Nietzsche has now formed his eternal return.
Pierre Klossowski is the first writer who did not act with Nietzsche, but only spoke about Nietzsche's thoughts. He explains Nietzsche, who is accepted in almost every field in the history of humanity, as he is. Actually, I discovered the book from the writings of the author Michel Foucoult and found it that way. While the book describes the incomprehensible aspects of Nietzsche's theory of eternal return, it has also failed to illuminate the still unclear points. I could not find any explanation as to how they could agree on the eternal return, especially despite the conflict with Kant throughout his life. I think this will remain a mystery forever.
The fact that Nietzsche, who studied and studied philosophy especially before Aristotle, evaluated this accumulation in terms of human development and said, "I have not yet expressed my true opinion as a philosopher," I think was valuable in explaining the relationship between eternal return and the will to power.
Although the book did not satisfy me, I can say that it is the most qualified work written about Nietzsche.
Nietzsche realizes a great awakening when he stumbles upon a piece of rock while hiking in the Swiss village of Silsmaria. because that rock he sees is the very rock mentioned in the ancient Sisyphus legend. and Nietzsche will say in his jolly book of science;
“What would happen if a demon were watching you day and night, intruding into his innermost thoughts and saying: As you know, you are living or have lived this life and you have to live it once and even countless times; nothing will be new, but every pain, every thought, every joy, every breath and everything big or small in your life will come back to you in the same order and logic. This spider, the moonlight among the trees, and even this moment and me. Your existence will cycle over and over like an endless hourglass and you are with it, like a speck of dust!”
and Nietzsche has now formed his eternal return.
Pierre Klossowski is the first writer who did not act with Nietzsche, but only spoke about Nietzsche's thoughts. He explains Nietzsche, who is accepted in almost every field in the history of humanity, as he is. Actually, I discovered the book from the writings of the author Michel Foucoult and found it that way. While the book describes the incomprehensible aspects of Nietzsche's theory of eternal return, it has also failed to illuminate the still unclear points. I could not find any explanation as to how they could agree on the eternal return, especially despite the conflict with Kant throughout his life. I think this will remain a mystery forever.
The fact that Nietzsche, who studied and studied philosophy especially before Aristotle, evaluated this accumulation in terms of human development and said, "I have not yet expressed my true opinion as a philosopher," I think was valuable in explaining the relationship between eternal return and the will to power.
Although the book did not satisfy me, I can say that it is the most qualified work written about Nietzsche.
January 20, 2022
If you are primarily interested in Nietzsche, rather than in Klossowski and his French contemporaries, this overrated book is not worth reading. It is a meandering, muddled work with more style than substance, pretty much the opposite of Nietzsche's concise, clear and purposeful writing. It is not an explanation of what Nietzsche really meant, or a context and influence of his ideas or anything like that. It is just an idiosyncratic interpretation of Nietzsche, a product of author's lively imagination rather than any serious thinking and meticulous research.
The essays are loosely connected. In a few of them the author attempts, in a very self-confident way, to explain Nietzsche's health issues, his personal relationships and their connection to his philosophy. In most of the book he deals with the place of eternal return in Nietzsche's philosophy which he blows out of proportion without any convincing arguments. Instead of arguments and proofs he gives a lot of unsubstantiated speculation, pretentious trivialities and long-winded nonsense. He mentions numerous other subjects such as the role of science in society, economics, and whatever crosses his mind. His interpretations of Nietzsche's philosophy and life are very tendentious and dubious.
While there are some interesting thoughts here and there, the book is a waste of time. You will learn nothing valuable about Nietzsche and learning about Klossowski is something you can skip if your main motivation for reading philosophy is intellectual curiosity rather than some academic, career interests. Read it only if you are a college student so you can claim how incredibly deep it was and how you will definitely have to read it again one day to fully understand it.
The essays are loosely connected. In a few of them the author attempts, in a very self-confident way, to explain Nietzsche's health issues, his personal relationships and their connection to his philosophy. In most of the book he deals with the place of eternal return in Nietzsche's philosophy which he blows out of proportion without any convincing arguments. Instead of arguments and proofs he gives a lot of unsubstantiated speculation, pretentious trivialities and long-winded nonsense. He mentions numerous other subjects such as the role of science in society, economics, and whatever crosses his mind. His interpretations of Nietzsche's philosophy and life are very tendentious and dubious.
While there are some interesting thoughts here and there, the book is a waste of time. You will learn nothing valuable about Nietzsche and learning about Klossowski is something you can skip if your main motivation for reading philosophy is intellectual curiosity rather than some academic, career interests. Read it only if you are a college student so you can claim how incredibly deep it was and how you will definitely have to read it again one day to fully understand it.
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November 24, 2018Nietzsche, 15 Ekim 1844’te, Prusya Devleti’nde, Lützen’de doğdu. Prusya kralı IV. Friedrich Wilhelm’in yaş gününde doğduğu için bu isimle vaftiz edildi. Babası ve dedesi rahipti. Mütevazı, Lüteran bir aileydiler. Babası Friedrich Ludwig 1849’da o zamanlar “beyin yumuşaması” dedikleri bir nedenle ölmüştü. Erken yaşta babasını kaybeden Nietzsche , duygusal bir buhranın içine düşmüş ve bundan kurtulamamıştır. Ayrıca gençlik yıllarında aşık olduğu kadın (Lou)tarafından reddedilmesi de onu derinden etkilemiştir. Yazar kariyerinin başından beri tutarsızlık sergileyerek kendiyle yüzleşmiştir. Onun hastalık ve delilik arasında gidip gelen süreçlerinde yazdığı mektuplar ve aldığı notların incelemesinden oluşan bu eseri mutlaka okumanızı tavsiye ederim. Pierre Klossowski nin yazdığı bu eser Nietzsche yi anlamak konusunda önemli bir rehber ve en az Nietzsche Eseleri kadar kıymetli. Özetle fark edilebilmek için ayırt edilebilmek gerektiğini düşünen filozof bu incelemeyle ayırt edilmenin doruk noktasına ulaşmış.
July 29, 2021
Klossowski understands Power as ebbs and flow, the Eternal Reoccurrence is central to his interpretation of Nietzsche; which is that of a medical doctor, a physiognomist interpreting symptoms on the body of the patient (I, Nietzsche.) Dense and structural, one of the most invigorating texts on Nietzsche that I have read.
September 3, 2020
感覺要有點懂尼采一生中到底發生什麼事情、寫了什麼東西，應該才比較能參透這本書想講的東西，可惜我就是不懂的那一個... 之後有時間有精神的時候再回來看吧。
July 14, 2022
capito meno della metà, ma dovrebbe essere sufficiente per superare le crocette della Ghezzi
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2020
Useful as a guide to late Nietzsche, the 'secret Nietzsche' of the fragments and letters (thankfully still an esoteric Nietzsche as far as contemporary 'philosophy' is concerned), but otherwise somewhat undone by flimsy theorizing and opaque language. The book overstresses 'the Eternal Return' as the one true key to N's entire work, and often falls in the trap of obscurantist verbosity - the sort of pretentious piffle that is otherwise endearing in Klossowski's other projects (see his novels, his collaborations with Bataille); here however it is out of place, especially when it sits next to Nietzsche's paralyzingly clear insights.
Example:
Klossowski (p.258):
"The coherence by the agent between itself and a state of the impulses is never anything but a redistribution of the impulsive forces at the expense of the agent's coherence with
itself as an intellect."
Nietzsche in 1888, on verge of breakdown (pp. 208-209):
"JOURNAL OF THE NIHILIST. The shudder caused by the 'false' discovery -- emptiness: no more thought: the powerful affects revolve around objects with no value:
--spectator of these absurd inclinations for and against
--reflective, ironic, cold with regard to oneself
--the strongest inclinations appear as lies: as if we had to believe in their objects, as if they had wanted to seduce us -
--the strongest force asks 'What's the use?...'
--all things remain, but serve no useful purpose
--atheism as the absence of an ideal.
Phase of a 'no' and a passionate doing-'no': accumulated desire is discharged in it, seeking a link, a relation, an adoration...
Phase of mistrust even of the 'no'...
--even of doubt
--even of irony
--even of mistrust.
Catastrophe: Is not the lie something divine...
Does not the value of all things consist in the fact that they are false...
Is not despair simply the consequence of a belief in the divine nature of truth...
Do not the lie and falsification (the conversion to the false) imply the introduction of a meaning, do they not themselves have a value, a meaning, a goal...
Should we not believe in God, not because he is true, but because he is false--?"
Example:
Klossowski (p.258):
"The coherence by the agent between itself and a state of the impulses is never anything but a redistribution of the impulsive forces at the expense of the agent's coherence with
itself as an intellect."
Nietzsche in 1888, on verge of breakdown (pp. 208-209):
"JOURNAL OF THE NIHILIST. The shudder caused by the 'false' discovery -- emptiness: no more thought: the powerful affects revolve around objects with no value:
--spectator of these absurd inclinations for and against
--reflective, ironic, cold with regard to oneself
--the strongest inclinations appear as lies: as if we had to believe in their objects, as if they had wanted to seduce us -
--the strongest force asks 'What's the use?...'
--all things remain, but serve no useful purpose
--atheism as the absence of an ideal.
Phase of a 'no' and a passionate doing-'no': accumulated desire is discharged in it, seeking a link, a relation, an adoration...
Phase of mistrust even of the 'no'...
--even of doubt
--even of irony
--even of mistrust.
Catastrophe: Is not the lie something divine...
Does not the value of all things consist in the fact that they are false...
Is not despair simply the consequence of a belief in the divine nature of truth...
Do not the lie and falsification (the conversion to the false) imply the introduction of a meaning, do they not themselves have a value, a meaning, a goal...
Should we not believe in God, not because he is true, but because he is false--?"
August 31, 2012
From Klossowski to Deleuze, and foremostly Nietzsche, with love.
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