TLS matters
Tom Stern on Nietzsche
Tom Stern wrote a review for the TLS (4 September) of a number of new books on Nietzsche, including the Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, edited by Gemes and Richardson. The review can be found here.
Brian Leiter wrote a letter to the TLS, which was published on 11 September:
Sir, – As one of thirty-four contributors to the Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, and one of the minority in the volume conversant with what remains of “analytic” philosophy, I was astonished to learn from Tom Stern (September 5) that the Handbook represents “the Analytic Nietzsche”. “Analytic philosophy is broadly ahistorical in outlook”, Stern notes, but much of my own work has been devoted to showing how ignorance of the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Germany, in particular the rise of German materialism, has distorted readings of Nietzsche. Other contributors examine in detail the influence of Greek philosophy and culture, the German Romantics, and Kant and neo-Kantians. Stern asserts that Nietzsche was “heart and soul, a brilliant nineteenth-century German”, for whom Wagner and Bismarck were very important. There are six dozen references to Wagner in the Oxford Handbook, many extended discussions, though fewer of Bismarck. Nietzsche himself would have stoutly denied Stern’s cramped characterization of him, and the content of the essays in the volume (which are hardly discussed) belies it rather decisively, as does the wide resonance Nietzsche has had across time and cultures.
Stern continues: “Analytic philosophy favours clear definition. Nietzsche once wrote that only that which has no history can be defined”. Good philosophy, like good scholarship, generally favours clarity in exposition, but not necessarily definitions (as Nietzsche himself quipped: “Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity”). Nietzsche’s point from the Genealogy of Morals that the meaning of concepts (like “punishment”) varies across historical and cultural epochs (and thus cannot be defined) has no relevance to whether or not that claim can be clearly stated and evaluated. Finally, Stern declares that “analytic philosophers kneel before the Dread God of Consistency: if you hold ‘P’ you cannot also hold ‘not-P’”. Actually, Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Husserl and Habermas, among others, all accept the law of non-contradiction, though I assume they are not “analytic” philosophers, despite their kneeling. Indeed, it’s hard to see what philosophical exposition of Nietzsche would look like if it were as cavalier about non-contradiction as Stern appears to be.
I have a different hypothesis about Stern’s invention of the bogeyman of “the Analytic Nietzsche”. Anglophone Nietzsche studies have improved dramatically in the past two decades in terms of historical scholarship, sensitivity to textual evidence and nuance, and philosophical sophistication. All this has been rather jarring to the lazy and superficial readers and sophomoric enthusiasts Nietzsche’s brilliant writing sometimes attracts. They want to cabin off serious historical and philosophical scholarship as “analytic”, so they can ignore it. But they have lost that philosophical battle in the anglophone world, and are gradually losing it in Continental Europe. Nietzsche, who lauded the “art of reading well”, would have been pleased.
Brian Leiter
University of Chicago
In the following week’s issue (18 September), the TLS published the following letter from Sebastian Gardner:
Sir, — I write in response to Brian Leiter's letter (September 12) concerning the review by Tom Stern (September 5) of the Oxford Handbook to Nietzsche, to which I am, like Leiter, a contributor, and also one with an 'analytic' orientation.
Two points are at issue. The first concerns the extent to which the Handbook represents the standpoint of 'analytic Nietzsche' in place of other approaches, in particular ones that would seek to understand Nietzsche in primarily historical terms. Here I cannot see that Stern gets anything wrong. The Handbook's centre of gravity is plainly analytic, and the practice of rational reconstruction which characterizes analytic philosophers' work in the history of philosophy puts historical contextualization firmly in the back seat.
The second concerns the value of analytic philosophy's engagement with Nietzsche. Here I do not see that Stern says what Leiter takes him to say. Stern praises the ('excellent') Handbook and the job that its editors have done, and he affirms analytic Nietzsche's achievement, saying that it 'wins, hands down, on clarity of expression and conceptual complexity', indeed that it 'may be the best' interpretation of Nietzsche. What Stern questions is the fit between Nietzsche's disorderly texts and the coherent conceptual order which analytic Nietzscheans seek to find in them, and consequently the extent to which analytic Nietzscheans can claim to be expounding views which Nietzsche really held. It seems to me right to press this question. Nietzsche presents in an acute form the general difficulty encountered in the history of philosophy, as currently practised in much of the anglophone world, of satisfying the double demands of historical truth and philosophical insight. There is no simple formula for their correct combination, and the possibility that we interpret texts in congenial and inspiring, but historically inaccurate ways is perfectly genuine and especially salient in the case of Nietzsche. To voice this concern is not to deny that anglophone Nietzsche studies have, as Leiter says, improved dramatically in the past two decades. On the contrary, the call for more methodological self-consciousness should be heard as coming from within analytic Nietzsche.
Sebastian Gardner
UCL
Tom Stern wrote a review for the TLS (4 September) of a number of new books on Nietzsche, including the Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, edited by Gemes and Richardson. The review can be found here.
Brian Leiter wrote a letter to the TLS, which was published on 11 September:
Sir, – As one of thirty-four contributors to the Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, and one of the minority in the volume conversant with what remains of “analytic” philosophy, I was astonished to learn from Tom Stern (September 5) that the Handbook represents “the Analytic Nietzsche”. “Analytic philosophy is broadly ahistorical in outlook”, Stern notes, but much of my own work has been devoted to showing how ignorance of the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Germany, in particular the rise of German materialism, has distorted readings of Nietzsche. Other contributors examine in detail the influence of Greek philosophy and culture, the German Romantics, and Kant and neo-Kantians. Stern asserts that Nietzsche was “heart and soul, a brilliant nineteenth-century German”, for whom Wagner and Bismarck were very important. There are six dozen references to Wagner in the Oxford Handbook, many extended discussions, though fewer of Bismarck. Nietzsche himself would have stoutly denied Stern’s cramped characterization of him, and the content of the essays in the volume (which are hardly discussed) belies it rather decisively, as does the wide resonance Nietzsche has had across time and cultures.
Stern continues: “Analytic philosophy favours clear definition. Nietzsche once wrote that only that which has no history can be defined”. Good philosophy, like good scholarship, generally favours clarity in exposition, but not necessarily definitions (as Nietzsche himself quipped: “Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity”). Nietzsche’s point from the Genealogy of Morals that the meaning of concepts (like “punishment”) varies across historical and cultural epochs (and thus cannot be defined) has no relevance to whether or not that claim can be clearly stated and evaluated. Finally, Stern declares that “analytic philosophers kneel before the Dread God of Consistency: if you hold ‘P’ you cannot also hold ‘not-P’”. Actually, Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Husserl and Habermas, among others, all accept the law of non-contradiction, though I assume they are not “analytic” philosophers, despite their kneeling. Indeed, it’s hard to see what philosophical exposition of Nietzsche would look like if it were as cavalier about non-contradiction as Stern appears to be.
I have a different hypothesis about Stern’s invention of the bogeyman of “the Analytic Nietzsche”. Anglophone Nietzsche studies have improved dramatically in the past two decades in terms of historical scholarship, sensitivity to textual evidence and nuance, and philosophical sophistication. All this has been rather jarring to the lazy and superficial readers and sophomoric enthusiasts Nietzsche’s brilliant writing sometimes attracts. They want to cabin off serious historical and philosophical scholarship as “analytic”, so they can ignore it. But they have lost that philosophical battle in the anglophone world, and are gradually losing it in Continental Europe. Nietzsche, who lauded the “art of reading well”, would have been pleased.
Brian Leiter
University of Chicago
In the following week’s issue (18 September), the TLS published the following letter from Sebastian Gardner:
Sir, — I write in response to Brian Leiter's letter (September 12) concerning the review by Tom Stern (September 5) of the Oxford Handbook to Nietzsche, to which I am, like Leiter, a contributor, and also one with an 'analytic' orientation.
Two points are at issue. The first concerns the extent to which the Handbook represents the standpoint of 'analytic Nietzsche' in place of other approaches, in particular ones that would seek to understand Nietzsche in primarily historical terms. Here I cannot see that Stern gets anything wrong. The Handbook's centre of gravity is plainly analytic, and the practice of rational reconstruction which characterizes analytic philosophers' work in the history of philosophy puts historical contextualization firmly in the back seat.
The second concerns the value of analytic philosophy's engagement with Nietzsche. Here I do not see that Stern says what Leiter takes him to say. Stern praises the ('excellent') Handbook and the job that its editors have done, and he affirms analytic Nietzsche's achievement, saying that it 'wins, hands down, on clarity of expression and conceptual complexity', indeed that it 'may be the best' interpretation of Nietzsche. What Stern questions is the fit between Nietzsche's disorderly texts and the coherent conceptual order which analytic Nietzscheans seek to find in them, and consequently the extent to which analytic Nietzscheans can claim to be expounding views which Nietzsche really held. It seems to me right to press this question. Nietzsche presents in an acute form the general difficulty encountered in the history of philosophy, as currently practised in much of the anglophone world, of satisfying the double demands of historical truth and philosophical insight. There is no simple formula for their correct combination, and the possibility that we interpret texts in congenial and inspiring, but historically inaccurate ways is perfectly genuine and especially salient in the case of Nietzsche. To voice this concern is not to deny that anglophone Nietzsche studies have, as Leiter says, improved dramatically in the past two decades. On the contrary, the call for more methodological self-consciousness should be heard as coming from within analytic Nietzsche.
Sebastian Gardner
UCL