Can Nietzsche’s Nachlass be used as evidence for his philosophy? (Departmental Seminar)

Abstract:

This talk addresses a curious phenomenon in Anglophone Nietzsche scholarship: while scholars working on philosophers such as Kant and Husserl increasingly value their unpublished writings, the so-called Nachlass, those studying Nietzsche often devalue his Nachlass, denying it independent philosophical weight for clarifying his positions. Even those who profess to only grant Nietzsche’s published works a “qualified” priority tend to relegate the Nachlass to a derivative, subordinate status, useful only when consistent with published material. Against this background, I revisit the oft-cited story of Nietzsche requesting some of his notes be burned, probing its implications for how we should treat his Nachlass. I then address the following key questions: If Nietzsche did not want to see a text in print, does this usually imply a low assessment of its quality? Is Nietzsche’s use of his notes unique in such a way as to suggest that texts unpublished before his mental collapse were abandoned? Are views and arguments that purportedly appear only in Nietzsche’s Nachlass, particularly the cosmological version of the will to power theory and cosmological eternal recurrence, so obviously preposterous that we should not treat them as part of his considered philosophical outlook? Should the works Nietzsche intended to publish be given general priority in the interpretation of his philosophy?

Delivered in English.
All are welcome.