1

6 Nietzsche as Educator

P h il ip p e R ayn a u d

Against the tyranny o f the true. Even i f w e were such

fools as to hold all our opinions to be true, w e w ould not
wish for them to exist all alone : I d o n t understand why
we should desire the monarchical domination and
omnipotence o f the truth; its enough for me that it enjoys
great power. But it must be able to struggle so as to have
opposition, and w e must be able to relax away from it in
the untrue otherwise truth ivould become fo r us boring,
without strength and taste, and it w ould make us into the
same thing.
The Dawn, 5 0 7

To the students o f my generation, N ietzsches oeuvre seemed to be at the

same time the continuation o f great ph ilosoph y and the privileged
instrument o f thoughts em ancipation from the entirety o f the m eta
physical tradition, and it w as in this that it seemed to answ er to the tw o
am bitions which dom inated French philosophy in those days. N ietz
sche w as o f course not the only reference am ong the thinkers w ho were
admired by Frances p ost-h igh school khgne students at that time;
Freud and M a rx , as well as Spinoza and M allarm , had contributed to
the preparation o f the immense theoretical revolutions (Althusser)
w hose militants we were invited to be, but Nietzsche enjoyed a double
privilege nevertheless: having been often disdained by the preceding
generation, he w as not com prom ised in the debates the latter had been
passionate about (such as the dialogue between phenom enology and
H egelian or hum anist M arxism ), and he w as the inventor o f an
unprecedented form o f philosophical writing style ("criture philo- 141
142 P h i l i p p e R a y n a u d

sophique ) which seemed destined to establish new links between

thought and literature.
It docs seem as though, w hatever m ay be the quality o f the books
published by D eleuze, Foucault, and som e others for the last fifteen years
or so, som ething has been irrecoverably lost: the public m ay adm ire their
virtuosity (or even their depth), but the feeling that French philosophy o f
the 19 6 0 s brought abou t an unprecedented upheaval in philosophical
thinking seems to have disappeared. T he prestige o f 68 philosophy"
took tw o hits when the themes o f the death o f m an and o f the end o f
the subject lost their legitim acy, but also, and perhaps especially, when
it became easier to sec all that the antihum anist critique ow ed certain key
ancestors, am ong w hom H eidegger is the m ost prestigious, but also the
most problem atic, m aybe even the heaviest burden. In these circum
stances, the problem o f our relation to Nietzsche has changed in mean
ing: Nietzsche has ceased to be an ob viou s reference in contem porary
philosophical discussion, but, in com pensation, w e can now better dis
cern his ow n thinking out o f all that once seemed to us to be attached to
it. But w e have to add that that is possible only through understanding
what we w ere looking for then and elucidating w h at the project that then
motivated French philosophers could mean for us. N o N ietzschean or,
better, no reader o f N ietzsche w ill be surprised: the interpretation of
Nietzsche cannot consist merely in bringing to light a figure buried under
the strata o f learned o r cultured com m entary; it itself derives from a
change o f perspective and a new distribution o f fo rces.
W hy w ere w e N ietzscheans? It seems to me w e could give three
answ ers to this question, answ ers that w ould correspond respectively to
G illes Deleuzes w o rk , to that o f M ichel Foucault, and, perhaps more
radically, to the experience o f contem porary literature o r art.
F o r D eleu ze, N ie tz sch e is he w h o led on th e critica l p ro ject in
K a n ts w a k e but, m ain ly, a g a in st him . T h e m ean in g o f this critical
p ro ject is su m m ed up in a sim p le fo rm u la :

T h e first thing the C op ern ican revolution teaches us is that it is w e w h o are in

com m and. T h ere is here an overturnin g o f the ancient conception o f W isdom :
the w ise m an, the sage, w a s in a certain w a y defined by his o w n subm issions, and
in another w a y by his ultim ate agreem ent w ith N atu re. K an t opposed the
critical im age to w isd o m : w e, the legislators o f N a tu re .1

Unfortunately, K ant only goes h alfw ay through the total and

 N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r 4}

positive critique that must spare nothing and that restrains the pow er
o f knowledge only to liberate other, heretofore neglected po w ers :2 he
destroys the illusions o f dogm atic m etaphysics only in order to rein
troduce them in a new, purified form , mutating them into ideals; m ak
ing explicit, that is, w hat has in fact alw ays been their veritable
meaning.3 N ietzsches irreplaceable contribution w as to go beyond this
criticism com ing from a justice o f the peace and carry out a critique o f
true morality, true religion, and true knowledge;

Which is w h y N ie tzsch e . . .th in k s he has found the only possible principle for a
total critique in w hat he calls his perspectivism . T here are neither facts nor
m oral phenom ena, but a m oral interpretation o f phenom ena. T here are no illu
sions o f kn ow ledge, know ledge itself being an illusion: kn ow ledge is an error,
w orse, a falsification .4

Deleuzes Nietzsche and Philosophy thus put forw ard a program

whose accom plishm ent could bring about infinite satisfactions as long
as one understood the game that made it possible. Kantian m oralism
was vigorously rejected, but the aim o f criticism remained the em anci
pation o f the w ill ( it is w e w h o are in com m and ), which led to an
ironic, even parodie recuperation o f the Kantian problem atic o f au to n
omy as well as its redirection against anything that w as left o f classical
naturalism in K an ts philosophy. T h is am bivalent attitude tow ards
criticism w as itself an element within a general strategy o f circumvent
ing (contournement) the rationalist tradition: theatrics were substituted
for discussion, and the new philosophy could at the sam e time oppose
the plu rality o f forces over against the Subjects unity and base itself
on subjectivity (autonomy) in its struggle against nature or tradition.5
At the sam e time as he defended an interpretation o f Nietzsche
that w as quite close to Deleuzes, M ichel Foucault situated it within the
more general fram ew ork o f a renewed history o f the form ation o f the
human sciences which also aim ed to announce a global mutation o f
knowledge and o f thought. The constitution o f the human sciences
and philosophys hesitation between positivism and phenom enol
o g y w ere the adequate expression o f the double dim ension, em pirical
and transcendental, that the figure o f m an took when the reconstitu
tion o f the w orks o f culture in their infinite diversity still seemed to call
for a reference, in the last instance, to the cogito, even to a prereflexive
one; the radical novelty o f N ietzsches thought cam e from the fact that,
144 P h i l i p p e R a y n a u d

b y lin k in g th e d eath o f G o d to th e a p p e a ra n c e o f the last m a n , it

op en ed the w a y to a n e w e ra o f th o u g h t, w h en the u p ro o tin g o f A n
th r o p o lo g y sh o u ld p erm it us to find a g a in a p u rified o n to lo g y and
a ra d ica l th in k in g a b o u t B ein g, 6 w h ile a t th e sam e tim e lib e ra tin g
n ew fo rm s o f k n o w le d g e (stru ctu ral lin g u istics, e th n o lo g y , p sy c h o
a n a ly s is ).7
We can see here quite w ell w h at allow ed Nietzsche to be given a
central position in the w orkin g out o f the French philosophers pro
g ram : even before Heidegger, the author o f The G ay Science had ren
dered possible the radicalization o f phenom enology carried out by the
former, and he alone permitted us to understand the newness o f what
the periods credo called structuralism . 8 But this incorporation o f
N ietzsches w o rk into the philosophical debate in those years w ould not
have had the reverberation that it did had it not com e up against a much
w ider and much deeper cultural experience. T h e death o f m an, the
end o f the su bject, the loss o f m eaning, the exhaustion o f grand
n arratives secretly upheld by an eschatology : all o f these w ere first
expressed in artistic and, m ost o f all, in literary form s that in those days
w on over a public infinitely larger than that o f the old avan t-gard es.
The return o f revolutionary passions in the 19 7 0 s p arad o xically did
nothing m ore than to radicalize these tendencies: if A rtaud and Bataille
did not at that time cease being legitim ate references, it w as well and
truly because the goal fo r the new generation o f m ilitants w as no longer
so much the overcom ing o f the inherited alienation o f class divisions as
it w as the creation o f the conditions for an infinite upheaval, or for a
generalized transgression. 9
T h a t b ein g so , the p ro b le m o f o u r re la tio n to N ie tz sch e is h ard to
se p a ra te fro m th a t o f the ju d g m en t w e c a n to d a y m ak e o f the period
w h en his g lo ry w a s a t its h igh est. T h a t d o e s n o t, all the sa m e , m ean that
w e o u g h t to a im , th ro u g h h im , at his French a d m irers o r co m m en ta to rs;
it seem s to m e, on the c o n tra ry , m ore fertile to set o u t fro m his o eu vre in
o rd e r to a sk a g a in , o r to tra n sfo rm , the v e ry q u estio n s it w a s o n ce su p
p osed to a n sw e r: a b o u t the k in d o f p h ilo so p h y th a t is p o ssib le tod ay,
and a lso a b o u t the m ean in g o f m o d e rn ity o r o f a n th ro p o lo g y fo r
th o se liv in g to d ay. It is to b rin g so m e c la rity to th ese p o in ts th a t I w o u ld
like to begin w ith N ie tz sc h e s h ig h ly a m b iv a le n t re la tio n to the E n
lig h ten m e n t and co m e b a ck la te r to w h a t his c ritiq u e o f m od ern ideals
c a n teach us.
 N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r 14 s

N ie t z s c h e a n d t h e E n l ig h t e n m e n t

It is well known that, between Human, AU-Too-Human ( 18 7 8 - 7 9 ) and

The G ay Science ( 18 8 2 ), Nietzsche carries out an apparently com plete
inversion o f the argum ents he had set forth in The Birth o f Tragedy and
in the Unmodern Observations: for the irrationalism o f his youth,
Nietzsche suddenly substitutes a fervid defense o f French neoclassicism ,
the Enlightenment, and positivism w hose place within his philoso
phy continues to intrigue his best interpreters. W hat I should like to
show here is that Nietzsche at that time invented an exem plary strat
eg y and, above all, that it is possible and legitimate to m ake o f it the
model for a reappropriation o f his thought: if Nietzsche can m ake o f the
Aufklrung an instrument for his critique o f R eason, then w e in turn
can make o f his irrationalism the means to continue the liberation
that began w ith the Enlightenment.
From his very first w o rk s, written under the influence o f Schopen
hauer and Wagner, Nietzsche sets out to bring to light, under the name
o f D ionysian w isd o m , a little-known w orld o f which music is the
most perfect expression and about which the m etaphysics o f The World
as Will and Representation provides the deepest understanding. Plastic
arts, Nietzsche w rites at this time, are oriented tow ard s the production
o f beautiful individual form s; music and tragedy, on the contrary, aim at
the immediate presentation o f w hat underlies these form s ( life,
w ill ), and this reproduction is possible only through the elim ination
o f the in d ividu al. T h is new aesthetic, which is directed against the tra
ditional interpretation o f G reek antiquity, is itself the propaedeutic to a
general critique o f the culture o f the time ( Unmodern Observations)
and it presupposes a profound rupture with the heritage o f G erm an ra
tionalism . Indeed, w h at the young Nietzsche violently denies is the idea
o f a possible harm ony between theory and practice or o f a continuity
between know ledge and action: Know ledge kills action; action re
quires the veils o f illusion. 10 T h is thesis can m oreover be indifferently
understood as a critique o f the illusions o f action or, on the contrary, as
a denunciation o f the m utilating effects o f knowledge. The Birth o f
Tragedy privileges the first theme:

In this sense the D ionysian m an resem bles H am let: both have once looked truly
into the essence o f things, they have gained know ledge, and nausea inhibits a c
 1

f6 P h i l i p p e R a y n a u d

tion; for their action could not change an yth in g in the eternal nature o f things;
they feel it to be ridiculous o r hum iliating that they should be asked to set right a
w orld that is out o f jo in t.1 1

In the second unm odern observation it is, on the other hand, know l
edge, under the figure o f historical science, which is denounced because,
in w eakening our capacity to act, it endangers life.
But these tw o apparently contradictory motifs in fact obey the
sam e intention: the one and the other are directed against the tw o cen
tral concepts o f G erm an idealism that are reflexivity and the hope for a
reconciliation between the subject and the w orld (or between the ideal
and the real). In The Birth o f Tragedy, the know ledge that leads to the
destruction o f the in d ividu al can com e only from a direct access to
the horrible tru th w hich is different in every rcspect from the calcula
tion carried out by reflectivc thinking; it is quite precisely the role played
by reflection in the historical sciences that prevents us from seeing in
them a form o f know ledge and risks turning us aw ay from both life and
truth. In N ietzsches first w ritings, the Schopenhauerian m otif o f the su
periority o f instinct over consciousness thus permits us at the sam e time
to understand the necessity o f leaving the will to live behind and to
dem onstrate the precedence o f life over representation. In the sam e way,
another theme borrow ed from Schopenhauer m akes it possible to link
D ionysian asceticism to the polem ic against the contem porary
w o rld ; the quest for a reconciliation between individual and w orld in
fact rests upon the sam e illusion which leads the philistines to identify
success with cu ltu re:12 the em ancipation o f thought presupposes, in
both cases, the rejection o f the H egelian thesis about the identity be
tween the real and the rational.
In N ietzsches first w o rk s, the critique o f the classical ( A pollo
n ian ) ideal and the analysis o f the Use and D isadvantage o f History
for L ife lead to rejecting the dom ination o f the principle o f individua
tion , to devaluing reflection, and to contesting the merits o f historical
culture. Beginning with Human, All-Too-Hum an, on the contrary,
Nietzsche puts him self forw ard as at once a defender o f classicism
against Rom anticism , as a partisan o f p ositivism , and as a practi
tioner o f historical science. An attentive study o f the texts reveals, h ow
ever, that there is a deeper continuity within N ietzsches thought. The
classicism o f the second period remains faithful to the principal idea
o f The Birth o f Tragedy, that o f a balance between the A po llo n ian
 Nietzsche as E d u c a t o r 1 47

and the D ionysian instincts, and, in parallel fashion, the kind o f

history that is evoked in Human, All-Too-Human or in the The Dawn
rests upon a generalized criticism o f the various form s o f historical ra
tion alism .13
W hat appears to me, in fact, as most significant in the evolution
leading from N ietzsches Schopenhauerian period to what historians
o f philosophy sometimes call his positivist or V o ltairean " period14
is that the m odulation operated on Nietzsches arguments goes hand in
hand with the permanence o f his philosophical style and that its effect is
above all to m ake explicit the deeper m eaning o f the earlier polemics.
Indeed, tw o ideas dom inate the classicism and positivism o f H u
man, All-Too-Human and The Dawn. T he first concerns the disassocia-
tion between science and m etaphysics, which makes the latters ideal
look like a substitute for religion:

Pneumatic explanation o f nature . M etaphysics explain s the text o f nature as

pneum atically as the church and its learned men once did the Bible. A great deal
o f understanding is needed in order to apply to nature the sam e type o f the strict
art o f explanation that philologists have achieved for alt books: one w hose in
tention is sim ply to understand w hat the text m eans to say, but not to scent out,
indeed presuppose, a double sen se.15

But this critique o f the need for m etaphysics is itself only the p ro
paedeutic to w hat Nietzsche later calls his cam paign against m oral
ity. M etaphysical categories are indeed only notions auxiliary to
m orality, and the privilege given to causal explanation, w hich permits
a break with the m agic spells o f sacral history, has therefore as its real
goal the preparation o f the inversion o f all values the im portance ac
corded the questions W hy? and For W hat? follow s o f necessity from
the insight that hum anity is not all by itself on the right w ay, that it is by
no means governed divinely, that, on the contrary, it has been precisely
am ong its holiest value concepts that the instinct o f denial, corruption,
and decadence has ruled seductively. 16 This genealogical orientation
itself brings about a particular kind o f philosophical argum entation and
writing style. C ategories and positions are not so much discussed as
they are evaluated as a function o f their capacity to increase o r dim in
ish the forces o f life, and, because o f this, the sam e cultural figures a p
pear alternatively to be either means tow ard em ancipation or, on the
contrary, hindrances to the creative pow er o f individuals, w ithout there
 1

148 P h i l i p p e R a y n a u d

ever being a dialectical totalization o f their sequence. T he defense o f

the Enlightenm ent and o f history to which Nietzsche dedicates him self
during his positivist period does not therefore really contradict the in
spiration o f The Birth o f Tragedy or o f the Unmodern Observations: it
is satisfied with m odifying certain o f their themes in order to reinforce
whatever, in a given periods culture, is favorab le to the active forces.
It is when w e realize this that, it seems to me, w e can understand
w hat good use could be made o f N ietzsches w ork at a time when
N ietzscheanism has ended up influencing large sectors o f the culture
and w hen, at the sam e time, his strictly philosophical legitim acy has
been rather seriously w eakened. I have already said that w e should seek
to put Nietzschean criticism at the service o f R eason itself, just as N ietz
sche m anaged to m obilize the Enlightenm ent in his struggle against the
rationalist heritage; but this is possible only if w e ourselves find a philo
sophical style as adapted to this task as N ietzsches w as to the task he set
himself: that supposes that w e kn ow h ow to play, as the author o f The
Dawn could, upon the possible turnarounds in philosophical positions,
but that also implies a minimum o f system atic reconstruction that can
only reduce the im portance o f the literary form s (aphorism , fable, etc.) in
which N ietzsches w a y o f thinking expressed itself in a privileged way.

From N ie t zsc h e to W e b e r : T h e L im it s of P er spe c t iv ism

To illustrate w h at such a recuperation o f the Nietzschean heritage

might look like, the best thing seems to me to be to set out from the w ork
o f one o f N ietzsches greatest readers, M a x Weber, w h ose line o f think
ing depends intim ately on the concepts present in the form er thinker
(and not only in the fin de sicle Stimmung presiding over his books).
Weber, in fact, is heir to four principal Nietzschean themes: perspectiv
ism ; the refusal o f all provid entialist interpretations o f history; the
disassociation between the ideal o f autonom y and Kantian m oral ratio
nalism ; and, finally, the im possibility o f a rational foundation for ethi
cal judgm ents. On each one o f these points, o f course, W eber proceeded
to a limitation o f the Nietzschean critique, which presupposes a certain
fidelity to the rationalist heritage, but it nevertheless still seems that, de
cidedly, the w ork o f underm ining carried out by Nietzsche w as not for
him sim ply a given to be taken into account but also, in a w ay, the condi
tion o f survival for the ideals o f the Enlightenment.
 N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r 1 49

N ietzsches perspectivism presupposes a rupture with the positiv

ist idea o f historical objectivity as expressed in R an k es celebrated for
mula (the historian narrates what really happened ). Nietzsche puts
up a double objection to this ideal: the historian is not dealing with
real events but with a continuous chain o f interpretations to which
his ow n discourse belongs, and, m oreover, events have a causal effec
tiveness only to the extent that they are themselves taken up into repre
sentations; 17 but the real significance o f perspectivism is above all, as
Nietzsche puts it in The G ay Science, 18 that it opens up onto a new
infinite which prohibits us from according a privilege to the human
point o f view on the w o rld .19 In M a x Weber, perspectivism has first o f
all an epistemological significance: it translates the heterogeneity in
principle20 between the sciences o f nature, oriented tow ard the search
for la w s, and the historical sciences, w hose priority interest is that
which is significant o r m eaningful. The historical sciences are in
effect inseparable from the relation to valu es which leads a specific
scholar to privilege a particular set o f problem s and which also guides,
within the scholarly research w ork itself, the determ ination o f the
questions to be solved and the selection o f relevant inform ation; like
N ietzsche, Weber insists therefore on the idea that the scientific fact
is not only constructed but is also dependent on the point o f view o f
the scholar, w ho inserts him self into a preexisting chain o f interpreta
tions.
The Nietzschean aspect o f W ebers thought is notably apparent in
the w ay it transform s the notion o f relation to values that he borrow s
from R ickert.21 For the latter, the role o f singularity in the constitution
o f historical discourse remains in effect rather n arrow ly confined: his
tory is intelligible only if it is one, and this unity is thinkable only within
the horizon o f a synthesis between the various systems o f values; for
Weber on the contrary, the choice o f values remains affected by an
irrationality that cannot be entirely reduced, which prohibits both the
taking up again o f the Kantian point o f view o f hope and the illusion
o f a final synthesis am ong the different perspectives adopted by the
scholars. We can, to that extent, consider that W eberian epistem ology
rests well and truly upon a Nietzschean bent given to his predecessors
nco-Kantian positions. But there is nevertheless a point at which Weber
very firmly rejects Nietzsches perspectivist radicalism ; intent on es
tablishing the possibility o f an objective social science, Weber maintains
that, despite the radical heterogeneity o f the values orienting their
 1
i$o Philippe Raynaud
w o rk , scholars and social scientists can arrive at an agreem ent as far as
the results o f their researches are concerned:

T he order (of significations) varies h istorically w ith the ch aracter o f the civiliza
tion and o f the thin kin g that dom inates m en. It does not therefore fo llow that
research in the dom ain o f the sciences o f culture could only lead to results that
the su b jective, m eaning that they w o u ld hold for one person but not fo r an
other. W hat varies is rather th e degree o f interest they m ay have for one, and not
fo r another.22

It m ay perhaps be objected that this is an inconsistency on W ebers

part, one that translates itself, m oreover, into a mere displacement o f
the N ietzschean problem o f truth; W eber does indeed absolutize the
norm s o f our thinking when he tries to dem onstrate that there is a
universalizable element within historical know ledge, but he neverthe
less im plicitly acknow ledges the aspect o f nonrational decision that the
belief in objectivity brings to view : Is scientific truth only that which
claims to be valid for all those w h o want the tru th . 2-3 It nonetheless
seems to me that this argum ent can itself be turned around within the
very logic o f N ietzsches thought. If he chose, in Human, All-Too-
Human, to bear the banner o f the Enlightenm ent . . . further on
w a rd , 24 it is because, in order to carry out the critique o f the meta
physical need, and o f the religious or m oral illusion, it w as imperative
that he posit the autonom y o f the tru e in relation to the g o o d , leav
ing for later the task o f applying critical genealogy against the will to
truth itself; there is, in that sense, even within N ietzsches thought, the
need for a minim al distinction between the perspectivism o f the ques
tions and the objectivity o f the results, even if the latter is ascribed (ac
cording to a form ula W eber does not disavow ) to the w ill o f those
w ho seek the truth. Beyond N ietzsches philosophical style based
upon the indefinite displacem ent o f conflict am ong the points o f view
and the forces expressing themselves through them the problem is one
o f kn ow in g whether the possibility o f genealogy and o f history is think
able w ithout a minimum o f foundation for objectivity. W ithout being
able to discuss here the w h ole o f N ietzsches thought, I think it possible
to say that the ever more accented recourse in his last books to the idea
o f a scientific o r objective basis for the transvaluation o f values
and for the Eternal Recurrence should be taken as the sign o f a difficulty
w hich, for being trivial, is not any less im portant: the refusal o f reflec
 N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r >S

tion undergirding perspectivism s skeptical interpretation seems to

be paid for through the return o f a rather flagrant dogmatism (even
though todays Nietzscheans are most often silent on this point). If this
is so, then W ebers apparently less radical position in fact expresses
the return o f a reflective and criticist problem atic the Nietzschean radi-
calization o f critique never really could go past since, in a w ay, it
stumbles on the very questions Kant had tried to solve.
The analysis o f the fate o f the other Nietzschean themes in M ax
W ebers thought leads to sim ilar rem arks. W ebers polemic against the
legacy o f nineteenth-century philosophies o f history in the social sci
ences o f his day in m any places joins up with N ietzsches reflections:
the point in both cases w as to disassociate the historical sense from the
speculative illusion o f a deduction o f diversity and, above all, from the
consoling perspective o f a final reconciliation beyond the antinomies
that define the experience o f becom ing. But w e should also notice that
W ebers w ork remains dom inated by a problem atic o f rationalization
which no doubt ow es as much to the heritage o f G erm an idealism as it
does to Nietzschean critique. We may, in parallel fashion, notice that, in
the w ay in which he poses the problem o f the conditions for autonom y
in the modern w orld , Weber proceeds to a subtle shift o f N ietzsches
arguments. For the latter, the Enlightenment w as o f course to be reha
bilitated, against Rom anticism s critique o f it, because the depoetiza-
tion o f the w orld that had been brought about by the diffusion o f the
determinist interpretation o f nature had contributed to the em ancipa
tion o f the w ill; but this seeming apology for Reason is inserted within a
problem atic that is irrationalist in its totality, one in which madness
plays a m ajor role in the destruction o f the yoke o f tradition25 and,
above all, one in which reason is prized only as the trace o f a creativity
that remains, at bottom , irrem ediably irrational. T he Weberian typol
ogy o f form s o f activity and o f dom ination, as well as the logic o f ra
tionalization that is reconstituted in Econom y and Society, is here
narrow ly dependent on the N ietzschean problem atic, as is evident n o ta
bly in the role played by charisma " in both the rupture with tradition
and in the preservation o f the chances for an authentic existence under
modern bureaucracy.
It nevertheless remains true that W ebers intention is, in the final
analysis, to save the heritage o f the Enlightenment from its dialectical
developm ent and not, as it is for Nietzsche, to put it to use on the project
o f going beyond or destroying rationalism . Th is intent to reconstruct a
 1

i $i P h i l i p p e R a y n a u d

minim al rationalism also com es through, despite W ebers hesitations, in

his m oral reflection; contrary to a much too w idespread interpretation,
the ethics o f responsibility are not a choice am ong others: they ex
press better than any other aco sm ic m orality the tragic aspect o f the
human condition, as it becomes apparent in the reflection on the perm a
nent antinom ies o f action .26
W hat gives W ebers oeuvre its great w orth is that he dealt in the
most serious m anner possible with the objections Nietzsche made
against m odernity while being aw are that those criticism s acquire real
m eaning only within the fram ew ork o f a pursuit o f the m odern project.
It is, m oreover, not im possible that this apparent infidelity is the effect o f
a more secret, deeper faithfulness. It is, in any case, significant that the
only problem in which W eberian decisionism cannot be overcom e is
that o f the relation between grace and nature: we kn o w that, when we
are acting in the w orld , the acosm ic form s o f the ethics o f conviction
are pretenses, but nothing can guarantee us that our salvation happens
in this w orld. Weber is here at once very far from and very close to
Nietzsche: very far, since the latter takes for granted the possibility o f a
form o f hum anity superior to the highest incarnations o f the Christian
spirit, but also very close, since the problem o f a possible deterioration
o f hum anity as the outcom e o f the critique o f religion is at the center o f
Nietzsches thought.27

W ebers ow n greatness consisted in sensing the paths that remained

open in an intellectual situation m arked, on the one hand, by the consti
tution o f the human sciences, and, on the other, by the crisis o f mod
ern rationalism , in which w h at w as philosophically at stake had been
expressed by N ietzsche before the twentieth century took care to dem
onstrate its political significance. Th e division o f W ebers posterity
from C arl Schm itts decisionism to H ab erm ass renewed rationalism
indicates all the sam e that the problem o f the relative im portance to be
assigned to the legacy o f the Enlightenm ent and to its most radical cri
tiques remains open. T h at being so, nothing can assure us that the disre
pute irrationalism has fallen into today is definitive, and the eclipse
N ietzsches fame is going through today in France could well be tem po
rary. But it seems to me that, even if our contem poraries should in the
future once again becom e N ietzscheans in som e form o r another, it
w ould be in a m anner very different from that o f the sixties or seventies:
N ietzsches oeuvre no longer seems today to be a going beyond m oder
F

N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r 15 }

nity, but rather to be an clement o f a discussion that is no doubt destined

to go on indefinitely. It seems to me to be particularly clear that we can
no longer adopt the form ulations, once so seductive, o f Deleuze or
Foucault. The radicalization o f Kantian critique ( We arc in com m and )
exposes itself to a double objection: if its goal is to destroy the m eta
physics o f subjectivity, its hard to see w hat could protect it from a
Heideggerian criticism ; if, on the contrary, its purpose is to com plexify
the problem atic o f autonom y, it must limit itself and once again make
mini mal room fo ra practical philosophy o f a Kantian tonality. In paral
lel fashion, the relative situations o f the human sciences and o f new
discursive form ations such as psychoanalysis cannot easily be de
scribed by the opposition between m ans privilege (the em pirico-
transcendental doublet) and the arrival o f some hitherto unknow n fig
ure that has been made possible by his death ; it is, on the contrary,
quite possible to consider that it is for essential reasons that the most
radical critiques o f hum anism were form ulated within the epistemol-
ogy o f sciences o f the m ind or o f the human sciences, as is shown
by both N ietzsches dependence on post-Kantian historicism and by
H eideggers debt tow ard D iltheys w ork. W hat stays alive, on the other
hand, is the obstinate feeling that som ething has been lost since the En
lightenment, and that a w ay o f thinking like Nietzsches can help us
make o f this loss a new opportunity.
If N ietzsches w ritings have maintained a place o f im portance in
contem porary philosophy, it is because they give expression to tw o e x
periences that are difficult to go beyond. T he first is that o f the loss o f the
co sm os, or the fading aw ay o f the reference to a nature that is at the
same time coherent and tending tow ard certain ends. This experience
dom inates the evolution o f historical consciousness: if W ebers thought
is once again exem plary here, it is because it liberates the preoccupation
with an intelligibility to history from the reference to a privileged cen
ter o f perspective that w as still the design o f nature as late as K an t
and N ietzsches criticism s are well and truly at the center o f this mu
tation.28 Th is bursting apart of the w o rld is also at the heart of
contem porary aesthetics,29 which is also one o f the clearest m anifesta
tions o f the other experience, once referred to as the death o f the su b
ject, but which should rather be understood as the appearance o f a
new figure o f subjectivity. We know the contribution psychoanalysis
has made to this interpretation o f extrem e m odernity: the model o f the
split subject (sujet b ris) seems to call for the abandonm ent o f any
IJ4 P h i l i p p e R a y n a u d

idea o f a reappropriation o f the m eaning o f his w o rk by the subject, in

whom the cure could only produce a new arrangem ent o f the elements
o f a d yn am ic unconscious;30 on the other hand, it does seem as
though the idea o f a reconquered autonom y, beyond the division o f
the subject, can be elim inated only w ith equal difficulty once w e aim to
show the m eaning o f the cu re.31 T h is debate seems to me to illustrate
rather well w hat is at stake in the relations w e have today with the irra-
tion alist critics o f subjectivity, w h o are often the conscious or uncon
scious heirs to N ietzsche. Th ey have not only reminded us that the
subjects full transparency to itself is an illusion: they have dem on
strated that the developm ent o f the for-itself is itself sustained by a
creativity, o r by an unconscious force that w e can n ot wish to elim i
nate; yet, on the other hand, w e can not give ourselves a subjectively in
telligible project other than that o f autonom y, w hich presupposes
our acceding to the condition o f su bject. It is within this parad o x that
we must learn to live and to think.32
There is, finally, a last reason for the contem poraneity o f this
unm odern (or untim ely ) author. Since the turn o f the century, re
flection on Nietzsche hasnt ceased being brought to life again by the
discussions em anating from the developm ent o f m odern democracy.
Even w ithout going back to the declared adversaries o f dem ocracy (who
were not necessarily either mediocre spirits or fanatics),33 w e m ay recall
first o f all that the ideas and schemes underlying, in France, the great
m ovem ent going from the sixties to to d a y s postm odernity were cre
ated in a context (the thirties) w hich w as precisely one o f a political
crisis for the Enlightenm ent, in the classical country o f their republi
ca n realization:34 the critique o f the rationalist and progressive
philosophical heritage w as connected to the consciousness o f this crisis.
A fter a tortuous evolution, dialectical and p arad o xical, including
various round trips between Paris and C aliforn ia, the sam e ideas have
curiously ended up as an integral part o f the dom inant culture and have
been put to the service o f dem ocratic passions. T h is evolution is som e
times disapproved o f for tw o types o f opposing reasons: because it en
dangers dem ocracy by prom oting principles hostile to it, but also
because it subm its to reactive forces a kind o f thinking which should,
quite precisely, contain them .35
It seems to me to be more fruitful to consider that the task for
dem ocratic political thinking is analogous to that which I have tried to
define for philosophy: as an antidote to the m odern spirit, N ietzsches
 N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r SS

thought should be taken by modernity as a privileged means for self-

criticism . It is in that respect, more than as a master o f truth, that N ietz
sche is an educator.

N O T E S

1 . Gilles D eleuze, La philosophie critique de Kant {K an ts critical philos

ophy), Paris: Presses U niversitaires de France, 1 9 7 1 , 3d d., p. 2 3 .
2. G illes D eleuze, Nietzsche el la philosophic, Paris: Presses U niver
sitaires de France, 2d d., 19 6 7 , p. 1 0 2 (Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh
T om linson, N e w Y o rk : C olum b ia U niversity Press, 19 8 3 ).
3. See O n the G enealogy o f Morals, II, 2 5 ; Twilight o f the Idols: H o w
the True W orld Becam e a F ab le.
4. Deleuze, Nietzsche et la philosophie, p. 10 3 .
5. O n these aspects o f D eleuzes thought, see Vincent D cscom bes, Le
mme et l'autre: Quarante-cinq ans de philosophie franaise
Paris: ditions de M in u it, pp. 1 7 8 - 9 5 .
6 . M ichel F oucault, Les mots et les choses: Une archologie des sciences
humaines. Paris: G allim ard , 19 6 6 , p. 3 5 3 . (The O rder o f Things).
7. Ib id., pp. 3 8 5 - 9 8 .
8. We kn ow that M ichel Foucault alw ays rejected the ascription stru c
turalist : as an arch eo lo gist o f kn ow ledge, he placed him self outside the dis
ciplines that incarnate its ongoing m utation. T h e reader m ay judge for him self
the proportionate im portance, in assum ing such a stance, o f the h istorian s
m odesty and o f the philo soph ers pride.
9. A s D eleuze has sh ow n , the su b versive cinem a o f the 19 6 0 s and
1 9 7 0 s itself destroyed the optim istic m yths that anim ated progressive aesthetics
in those days ( the people are m issing ): see G illes D eleuze, Cinma II: Limage-
temps, Paris: Editions de M in uit, 1 9 8 3 - 8 5 , pp. 2 8 1 - 9 1 . T h e sam e evolution
took place in philosophy and in avan t-gard e criticism through the critique o f
M arxist hum an ism . T h at opened up tw o possibilities: a recom position o f
radical critical discourse (of w hich D eleuzes political w ritin gs are them selves a
good exam ple) or, on the contrary, a con servative position.
10 . F. Nietzsche, The Birth o f Tragedy, 7 (trans. W alter K aufm ann).
1 1 . Ibid.
1 2. See on this point the first unm odern observation , D avid Strauss, the
C on fessor and W riter.
13 . M a y I be allo w ed , on this point, to refer the reader to the preface I
w rote for a French paperback edition o f The D aw n (Aurore, Paris: H achette,
19 8 7 ).
56 P h il i p pe R a y n a u d

1 4. N ietzsche dedicated Human, All-Too-H um an to V oltaire, in o rd er t

render personal hom age . . . to one o f the greatest liberato rs o f the sp irit
( einem der grssten B efreier des G eistes . . . eine persnliche H uldigun g
darzub ringen ).
i 5. Human, All-Too-H um an, part 1 : O n First and Last T h in g s, 8.
1 6. N ietzsche, Ecce H om o, D a w n , 2. In Basic Writings o f Nietzsche,
trans. and ed. W alter K au fm an n , N e w Y o rk: M od ern Lib rary Editions, 19 9 2
[ 19 6 6 ], p. 7 4 7 -
1 7 . See especially The D aw n, 3 0 7 .
18 . The G ay Science, 3 4 6 , 3 5 4 , 3 7 4 .
19 . Ibid., 3 7 4 ; Nietzschean perspectivism is therefore directed against
K an t, w h o put the question W hat is m an ? at the center o f philosophy.
20. M a x Weber, D ie O bjektivitt sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozial
politischer E rken ntnis" (The o b je ctivity o f kn ow ledge in the social and polit
ical sciences), Gesamm elte Aufstze zur Wissenschaftslehre, i d ed., Tbingen:
M ohr, 1 9 5 1 , p. 17 6 .
2 1 . H . R ick ert, Grenzen der naturtvissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung,
Berlin, 18 9 6 , 19 0 2 .
22. M . Weber, pp. 1 8 3 - 8 4 .
2 3 . Ibid.
24. F. N ietzsche, Human, All-Too-H um an, I, 26.
2 5 . See on this point The D aw n, 14 .
26. O n all these points, allo w me to refer back to m y b ook M ax Weber et
les dilem mes de la raison m oderne (M a x W eber and the dilem m as o f m odem
reason), Paris: Presses U niversitaires de Fran ce, 19 8 7 .
2 7 . See on this point h ow the N ietzschean description o f the last m an
is taken up again at the end o f The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit o f Capitalism.
28 . See on this Philippe R a y n a u d , M ax Weber et les dilem mes de la rai
son m oderne, pp. 6 2 - 6 7 .
29. Lu c Ferry, H om o Aestheticus: The Invention o f Taste in the D em o
cratic Age. C h icag o : T h e U niversity o f C h icag o Press, 19 9 3 (trans. R obert de
Loaiza). See also, in an oth er perspective, G illes Deleuze, Cinm a 1: L image-
mouvement. Cinm a II: L image-temps, Paris: ditions de M in u it, 1 9 8 3 - 8 5 .
3 0 . It could be show n that the distant origin s for this m odel are to be
found in the ro m an tic" overturn in g o f Leibn izs p roblem atic o f the un con
scious w hich w eaves through the entire h istory o f G erm an idealism , from K an ts
theory o f the g en iu s to the H eidcggerian reconstruction o f phenom enology,
and w hich found one o f its m ost pow erful expression s in N ietzsche.
3 1 . Lu c Ferry and A lain R en au t, French Philosophy o f the Sixties, Spe
cially the chapter on French Freudianism (L a ca n ).
3 2. T h is problem is at the heart o f C orn elius C a sto ria d iss w o rk , and spe
cially at the center o f his reflections on psychoanalysis.
3 3 . W e need only think o f G eorges So rel, o r o f the T h o m as M an n o f
Considerations o f an A political Man.
34 . T h is point has been quite well stressed by Vincent D escom bes, Phi-
 N i e t z s c h e as E d u c a t o r 7

losophie par gros temps, Paris: ditions de M in u it, 19 8 9 , chap. 4: L a crise

franaise des Lu m ires, pp. 6 9 - 9 5 .
35. Som etim es both critiques co exist, as is the case in A llan B loom s w rit
ings, w here they are integrated into a So cratic interrogation on the problem
o f education and culture (The Decline o f the American Mind).