Nietzsche on Unity
From “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense”:
“This peace treaty [the social contract quelling the war of all against all] brings in its wake something which appears to be the first step toward acquiring that puzzling truth drive: to wit, that which shall count as ‘truth’ from now on is established. That is to say, a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things” (2).
What is the status of unity, here? On one hand unity seems to be something that people invent as a convention by which they do politics and overcome antagonism, but on the other hand the imposing of unity on people seems to produce a new antagonism between those that are united (citizens) and those who don’t fit in the unity (criminals/discontents). So on one hand the idea of unity seems like a communist idea, radically inclusive and caring for everyone according to their needs, but on the other hand the idea of unity seems like an authoritarian idea, radically totalizing and granting exception to the ruling class. [For more, see Laclau’s On Populist Reason or Zizek’s contribution the Utopia issue of Umbr(a).]
Nietzsche’s references to the philosophy of science tell us that he isn’t just talking about social unity, but the unity of experience. On one hand unity seems to be something that the understanding invents as a convention by which it experiences and overcomes the incoherence of sensation, but on the other hand the imposing of unity on sensation seems to produce a new antagonism between the senses that fit the unity (objects of science) and those that don’t fit in the unity (illusions). [For more, we could return to Kant’s first Critique.]
We might now extend our analysis to psychological unity. On one hand unity seems to be something that therapists/psychiatrists invent as convention by which they practice medicine and overcome psychological disease, but on the other hand the imposing of unity on the psyche seems to produce a new antagonism between the psychic functions that fit (sanity) and the psychic functions that don’t fit in the unity (madness). [For more, see Foucault’s History of Madness.]
Now more examples from different fields (e.g. education) could be given, but we see that each unified field (politics, science, medicine) has a constitutive exclusion (criminals, illusions, insanity). Is there any discourse that does not have a constitutive impasse? Could there be a neutral, self-transparent discourse? I don’t think so and Nietzsche agrees, “What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him-even concerning his own body-in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness[?]” (2). But should we thereby abandon all discourses and return to a pre-discursive state? This isn’t possible, obviously. So how do we deal responsibly with that which is occluded from us? And what is the constitutive exclusion of the discourse of responsibility?
Nietzsche helps us begin to answer these questions by telling us, “There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic” (11). So our dispute over the status of unity amounts to a disagreement over whether or not the glass of unity is half-empty or half-full. This is not to say that the included and the excluded are a match/unity made in heaven, but that the unity of the included and the excluded is already the antagonism between the included and excluded, so e.g. the limits of experience are already the conditions of possibility of experience. Therefore Nietzsche is much more of a Kantian than he would like to admit.
“This peace treaty [the social contract quelling the war of all against all] brings in its wake something which appears to be the first step toward acquiring that puzzling truth drive: to wit, that which shall count as ‘truth’ from now on is established. That is to say, a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things” (2).
What is the status of unity, here? On one hand unity seems to be something that people invent as a convention by which they do politics and overcome antagonism, but on the other hand the imposing of unity on people seems to produce a new antagonism between those that are united (citizens) and those who don’t fit in the unity (criminals/discontents). So on one hand the idea of unity seems like a communist idea, radically inclusive and caring for everyone according to their needs, but on the other hand the idea of unity seems like an authoritarian idea, radically totalizing and granting exception to the ruling class. [For more, see Laclau’s On Populist Reason or Zizek’s contribution the Utopia issue of Umbr(a).]
Nietzsche’s references to the philosophy of science tell us that he isn’t just talking about social unity, but the unity of experience. On one hand unity seems to be something that the understanding invents as a convention by which it experiences and overcomes the incoherence of sensation, but on the other hand the imposing of unity on sensation seems to produce a new antagonism between the senses that fit the unity (objects of science) and those that don’t fit in the unity (illusions). [For more, we could return to Kant’s first Critique.]
We might now extend our analysis to psychological unity. On one hand unity seems to be something that therapists/psychiatrists invent as convention by which they practice medicine and overcome psychological disease, but on the other hand the imposing of unity on the psyche seems to produce a new antagonism between the psychic functions that fit (sanity) and the psychic functions that don’t fit in the unity (madness). [For more, see Foucault’s History of Madness.]
Now more examples from different fields (e.g. education) could be given, but we see that each unified field (politics, science, medicine) has a constitutive exclusion (criminals, illusions, insanity). Is there any discourse that does not have a constitutive impasse? Could there be a neutral, self-transparent discourse? I don’t think so and Nietzsche agrees, “What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him-even concerning his own body-in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness[?]” (2). But should we thereby abandon all discourses and return to a pre-discursive state? This isn’t possible, obviously. So how do we deal responsibly with that which is occluded from us? And what is the constitutive exclusion of the discourse of responsibility?
Nietzsche helps us begin to answer these questions by telling us, “There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic” (11). So our dispute over the status of unity amounts to a disagreement over whether or not the glass of unity is half-empty or half-full. This is not to say that the included and the excluded are a match/unity made in heaven, but that the unity of the included and the excluded is already the antagonism between the included and excluded, so e.g. the limits of experience are already the conditions of possibility of experience. Therefore Nietzsche is much more of a Kantian than he would like to admit.