Zarathustra and the Ethical Ideal: Timely meditations on philosophy

235 Pages·1991·19.02 MB·English

by  Robert H. Cousineau

ZARATHUSTRA AND THE ETHICAL IDEAL

ZARATHUSTRA AND
THE ETHICAL IDEAL
TIMELY MEDITATIONS ON PHILOSOPHY
ROBERT H. COUSINEAU
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1991
"Vita contemplativa, that is taking a walk
with thoughts and friends."
The Gay Science, n. 329.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cousineau, Robert Henri.
Zarathustra and the ethical ideal : timely meditations on philosophy / Robert H.
Cousineau.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900 - Ethics. 2. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm,
1844-1900. Also sprach Zarathustra. I. Title.
B3318.E9C68 1991
193 -- dc20 91-21726
ISBN 90 272 2078 6 (Eur.) / 1-55619-114-6 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1991 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
CONTENTS
Preface vii
INTRODUCTION 1
PART ONE
UNDERWAY TO ZARATHUSTRA. THE PROTO-LOGUE 17
Chapter 1 The Question and Quest of Human Existence 19
Chapter 2 Living with the Strange and the Familiar 39
Chapter 3 Laughter and Fear. A Symbiotic Text of Existence 63
THE INTERLUDE
A PRO-LOGUE TO ZARATHUSTRA 85
Zarathustra's Prologue 86
On the Three Metamorphoses 91
PART TWO
ZARATHUSTRA'S WORD 99
Chapter 4 The Analogue 101
Chapter 5 The Unsaid 115
Chapter 6 The Logos 135
PART THREE
DIALOGUE 159
Chapter 7 Ontological Dialogue 161
Chapter 8 Movement of the Spirit 179
AN EPILOGUE
NIETZSCHE'S AND HEIDEGGER'S STANCE 195
Abbreviations 203
Notes 205
Index of Texts 221
Index of Names 225

PREFACE
Nietzsche brought forth a tremendous vision in the character of Zarathus
tra who, in turn, nurtured the author. Yet, Zarathustra belongs to the main
current of Western culture, if we do not mistake the power of cascading
words for an abyss. My work is scarcely a commentary. I shun the
attitude and style that hanker after a clearly defined textual analysis laden
with univocal thoughts. Such an approach unwittingly promotes illusions
about the nature of meaning, as if an ultimate success would snatch a
stream-cleaned diamond ready for the philosopher's knowing glint. Later,
many disabused people over-react and attack any depth of "presence" as
mere pretense in the current of our lives. But we do encounter meaning
that positively resists our honest efforts to encompass it as it calls us to
an authentic stance with the world. I intend to meditate such meaning.
A modest shift of standpoint can invite us to rethink how to
overcome some relevant impasses of contemporary analytic, hermeneutic
and (post)deconstructionist thought. But we should not look dead-on at
these problems lest our critical thinking carry along their encumbering
traces. Except at the start and in the last parts I avoid direct references to
other formulations. Let the main body of the work shift ever so slightly
the ground so as to experience a more holistic understanding without
trying to label what is about to take place. I proceed by reflecting on our
human comportment rather than on thoughts as such. Thus, this work
cannot be innocent of religious, social, psychological and ethical implica
tions; I choose to gradually bring to the fore the ethical. This work
comments on our time as a time in need.
I do not wish to talk of texts and thoughts. I prefer to seek to
dialogue with them and the reader. Now, an honest dialogue is risky
business. As we journey, we are unsure how we shall be drawn out.
Moreover, I do not alleviate the anxiety by taking hold of a method as
some tool to frame and command meaning. Such a betrayal of the will to
power would ask us for a last word about 'truth' or for a nihilist declar
ation that the questioning is an endless, endemic illusion of humankind.
ZARATHUSTRA AND THE ETHICAL IDEAL
For one, I am not content to end with the nagging question: Have I met
the meaning and missed the experience?
Zarathustra ends with "The Sign" that marks a renewed beginning.
A high point in the art of reading signs - any sign of existential import -
comes in our encounter with Zarathustra as "The Convalescent" in
dialogue with his symbolic animals. An effective "reading" requires a
comportment. His animals instruct us by stumbling into the unsayable. In
an all-too-human way, they want to say the last word, in this case, on
how we cohere in our very being with "the sense of the earth".
An existential reading constitutes at once an experience and its
meaning. The experience both allows and curbs what can be said while
this expressed dimension "interprets", "ex-poses" or "lays out" (auslegen)
a saying along with its unsaid. Such an understanding happens as an
event. And it takes place when our own interpreting action becomes an
effective sign. "Our own?" Yes, mine and the reader's.
How shall we know whether such a sign comes to exist as a
genuine communication with the text? Not by following a path to ascer
tain propositions for their own sake. And surely not by putting up a norm
of humanly inaccessible assurance so that the meaning of "I have forgot
ten my umbrella" becomes in principle undecidable. We learn to recog
nize the validity of our understanding by our dialogical experience of
Nietzsche-Zarathustra. With meditative reflections along the way, we
uncover the sources of our "reading" ability as inadequately separable
from the experience itself (the so-called content) and yet as touching the
foundations of all our interpretative acts in such a way that we can better
undertake our hermeneutic task.
Our experience shows an originative unity to which we should
strive to be faithful: our (self)-understanding-(world). The hyphens suggest
we cannot long hold apart this lived, complex act of understanding with
its attendant willings and emotions and also maintain our sanity. The par
entheses point out that we can thematize an aspect while the others
silently sustain this focus of attention. Thus, when we expose a meaning
of the world, we realize at the same time an understanding of our self,
and vice versa. Moreover, we can reflect on the process of relational
understanding while maintaining a lived unity.
Zarathustra provides splendid occasions to reflect how our under
standing is wedded to affective modes. I choose to thematize especially
PREFACE ix
laughter, fear, awe and hope. Throughout, the role of image is paramount.
At times, I shall render "image" (Gleichnis) as "parable". When? In
poignant situations that push us up against an aconceptual word, and
Zarathustra knows how to constitute such situations. Then in a primal
unity of thinking, acting and feeling, an image moves us and addresses
us. An image is at stake, we are at issue because we have to carry
ourselves forward 'to realize' the meaning of the situation. As we do so,
the image becomes a parable-comportment. We shall see how according
to its root image-meaning "parable" meshes with that of "metaphor" and
points to an existential ground that signifies by positively resisting
conceptual thought.
There is a dearth of analogy in our time. We must try to alleviate
it. Why? It gave us "the death of God", and is now doing Man in.
We shall see how interpretation is also morality. But many strong
currents of today would reverse it, and much more. Some even turn the
mind around to meet its measure in the computer. Zarathustra would call
that cybernetic gesture a sign of "the last man".
The above is frightfully compact. Such is the peril of sketching
insights. We have, however, many meditative steps to go. But first some
contrasting moments to foster an introductory mood. I wish to evoke
general styles and differing modes of thought without the distraction of
detailed references.
R.H.C., sj
St. Peter's College, N.J.