#matthew rampley

[vqt-blog-berlin]

Matthew Rampley - Nietzsche: Aesthetics and Modernity.

Matthew Rampley - Nietzsche: Aesthetics and Modernity.

[silentfrenzies]

Nietzsche’s thought represents in many senses the first deconstruction of the philosophical tradition.  By this I mean that his work contains both a sceptical de-struction of metaphysics and a post-metaphysical con-structive moment.  The sceptical moment is familiar to his readers, and it is his polemics against contemporary society, his relentless tirades against Christianity and Plato, and his ridicule of Kant, the ‘great Chinaman of Königsberg,’ which constitute his identity in the eyes of most.  I am arguing, however, that this scepticism is itself a strategic moment of negation that is posited in order to be superseded once more.  Nietzsche’s construction of a post-metaphysical thinking is not executed by a complete departure from the tradition, but is rather undertaken by a pushing through to their limits the implications in the thought of Kant, Descartes, Hegel and others.  […]  Because of its simultaneous negation and appropriation of metaphysics Nietzsche’s thinking is often characterized as an ironic discourse: not in the sense of a wilful playing with forms, though this may be what he aims to accomplish in many cases, but rather in the sense of maintaining a pathos of distance.  Distance toward one’s own values and those of one’s culture, knowing them to be purely interpretative stances towards the world, lacking resilience when put under scrutiny, while simultaneously adhering to them as if they had something more than a purely contingent worth.

–Matthew Rampley, Nietzsche, Aesthetics and Modernity