“Older than Language Is the Mimicking of Gestures”: The Body as the Origin of Language. Nietzsche’s early philosophical ideas about language and its origin occupy a central place in scholarly discussions of his work. In order to examine Nietzsche’s interpretation of the constitution of human language, this article focuses not only on his early writings, but also on the first volume of Human, All Too Human as well as on his later period, in particular his work in 1887 and 1888. (...) The central claim of this article is that Nietzsche begins to view the body, with its gestures and movements, as the site of origin for instinctive unconscious language and the subsequent emergence of conceptual language. Already in 1872, and with the influence of contemporary scientific ideas, he begins to conceive the movement and gesture of the human body as the foundation for the origin of language. Strengthened in Human, All Too Human, this idea appears again in his later writings in 1887, when Nietzsche connects it to Charles Féré’s theories of “psychomotor induction” and “mental suggestion.” Finally, it is the Dionysian artist of 1888 who enjoys par excellence the capacity for suggestion, affect and immediate representation, and who thus becomes the master of communication. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca apresentar a perspectiva do jovem Nietzsche em Verdade e mentira em sentido extramoral, segundo a qual o sentido moral de verdade é construído a partir de convencionalização e regulamentação das práticas e dos usos dossignos linguísticos. Para cumprir essa tarefa, pretende-se dividir o texto em três argumentos principais: Nietzsche e o estatuto da linguagem natural para o pensamento filosófico: metáfora como fator subjetivo da significação, uso e significação: a construção interpessoal do sentido moral de verdade e (...) o que é moral no registro do simples pensar? (shrink)

While he did not believe in the idea of a perfect society and humanity, for Nietzsche development [Entwicklung] implied growth and intensification of the will to power of a single organism or a social organism. Development has no final goal or ‘purpose'. Nietzsche interpreted ‘struggle' differently from Darwin as evidence of the most basic sustaining quality of all life: ‘Herrschaft' [rule, government] or ‘Macht' [power]. Nietzsche's genealogical approach would contend that structural alterations in societal considerations are illusions, since the foundation, (...) the genealogy, remains the same. Nietzsche's reception of Darwin through the work of C. von Nägeli allows us to understand how his philosophy interacted with one of the most important scientific theories of his time. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(4) 2005:260-272. (shrink)

El artículo investiga las distancias o cercanías entre literatura, filosofía y psicoanálisis estudiando la metáfora de la sublimación. En primer lugar, traza los vínculos de Nietzsche y Freud con la Retórica de Aristóteles, es decir, los muestra deudores de aquella tradición literaria y retórica que, según Aristóteles, se sirve de un tipo de discurso afín a las cuestiones humanas, signadas por la posibilidad y la deliberación, antes que por la necesidad y la demostración. En segundo lugar, especifica cómo para Nietzsche (...) y para Freud la literatura no puede ser entendida ya bajo el paradigma que el propio Aristóteles comparte, esto es, la idea de que la literatura enseña o place. Tanto en Nietzsche como en Freud la literatura es una forma de sublimación y no un discurso que puede ser visto a la luz de los modelos tradicionales de la enseñanza moral o de la restringida esfera del deleite estético. Ahora bien, al servirse ambos de esa metáfora para dar cuenta del proceso que la literatura pone en obra, radicalizan, de distinta manera, una experiencia moderna: la conciencia de la paulatina elaboración de las construcciones culturales. Y entienden que dichas construcciones suponen un complejo proceso de transformación de determinados elementos, más específicos y delineados en Freud, más abiertos y dúctiles en Nietzsche. En especial se destaca la concordancia con Aristóteles para tomar la literatura como un discurso afín a las acciones humanas, pero se señala el significativo giro que la experiencia moderna comporta, pues la metáfora elegida subraya comprender el ámbito de lo humano bajo el signo de la transformación. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe know from Nietzsche’s posthumously published notebooks and correspondence of his plan in 1868 to compose a doctoral dissertation in philosophy on the subject of teleology in nature and the concept of the organic, with reference to Kant. The bulk of my discussion represents an attempt to extrapolate from Nietzsche’s letters and preparatory notes the view he arrived at. Since the notes do not defend explicitly any single definitive thesis, their interpretation is unavoidably conjectural. I argue that, if Nietzsche’s remarks (...) are considered with close reference to the philosophers who at that point dominated his horizons, namely Kant, Schopenhauer, and Lange, with Goethe also playing a key role, a plausible account can be given of the broad conclusions Nietzsche reached as a result of his early engagement with the problem of teleology. This outlook maintains the necessity and distinctiveness of philosophical reflection, but takes a skeptical view of its basis. In 1868 Nietzsche had no clear idea of how to proceed from this point, but in the end I propose, as others have done, that Nietzsche’s reflections on Kant and teleology helped to lay the ground for The Birth of Tragedy. In conclusion, I hypothesize that Nietzsche’s later philosophy involves no change of metaphilosophical standpoint. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca apresentar a perspectiva do jovem Nietzsche em Verdade e mentira em sentido extramoral, segundo a qual o sentido moral de verdade é construído a partir de convencionalização e regulamentação das práticas e dos usos dos signos linguísticos. Para cumprir essa tarefa, pretende-se dividir o texto em três argumentos principais: Nietzsche e o estatuto da linguagem natural para o pensamento filosófico: metáfora como fator subjetivo da significação, uso e significação: a construção interpessoal do sentido moral de verdade (...) e o que é moral no registro do simples pensar? (shrink)

Against the apparent casting away of poetry from contemporary philosophy of language and aesthetics which has left poetry forceless, I argue that poetry has a linguistic, philosophical, and even political force. Against the idea that literature (as novel) can teach us facts about the world, I argue that the force of literature (as poetry) resides in its capacity to change our ways of seeing. First, I contest views which consider poetry forceless by discussing Austin’s and Sartre’s views. Second, I explore (...) the concept of force in the realm of art—focusing on Nietzsche’s philosophy and Menke’s Kraft der Kunst—and the relations between linguistic, artistic, and political forces. Third, I consider how the transformative force of poetry can be considered political by turning to Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language and Meschonnic’s conception of poetry according to which the poem does something to language and the subject. To illustrate this transformative force of poetry, I analyse Caroline Zekri’s poem ‘Un pur rapport grammatical’. I therefore think of poetry not only as doing something with language, but also as doing something to language. To rephrase Austin’s famous title, and thus reverse his evaluation of poetry, poetry might reveal to us not only How to Do Things with Words, but how to do things to words and, through this doing, how to transform and affect the world. (shrink)