Lecture 9
"Nietzsche's thinking focuses on deliverance from the spirit of revenge. ...... The space of freedom from revenge is where Nietzsche sees the superman's essential nature. That is the space toward which he who crosses over is moving---the superman---'Caesar with the soul of Christ."
"We are asking for the bridge from the one to the other. The bridge, in Nietzsche's own words, is the deliverance from revenge."(p. 88)
"In the final and highest instance, there is no being other than willing. Willing is primal being and to it alone [willing] belong all [primal being's] predicates: being unconditioned, eternity, independence of time, self-affirmation. All philosophy strives only to find this highest expression."(p. 91, cited from Schelling)
".......what Leibniz said about the Being of beings, and yet not to understand in the least what Leibniz thought when he defined the Being of beings from the perspective of the monad, and defined the monad as the unity of perceptio and appetitus, as the oneness of perception and appetite."(p. 91)
"To modern metaphysics, the Being of beings appears as will. But inasmuch as man, because of his nature as the thinking animal and by virtue of forming ideas, is related to beings in their Being, is there by related to Being, and is thus determined by Being---therefore man's being, in keeping with this relatedness of Being(which now means, of the will) to human nature, must emphatically appears as a willing."(p. 92)
<From the Nietzsche's revenge, Heidegger advances toward Willing as being. This willing is the way the representational thinking is in.>
"Since long ago, that which is present has been regarded as what is. But what representational ideas can we form of what in a way is no longer, and yet still is? What ideas can we form of which was? At this 'it was' idea and its willing take offense. Faced with what 'was,' willing no longer has anything to say. This 'it was will no longer has anything to propose. This 'it was' becomes a stumbling block for all willing. It is the block which the will can no longer budge. Then the 'it was' becomes the sorrow and despair of all willing which, being what it is, always wills forward, and is always foiled by the bygones that lies fixed firmly in the past. Thus the 'it was' is revolting and contrary to the will. This is why revulsion against the 'it was' arises in the will itself when it is faced with this contrary root within willing itself. Willing endures the contrary within itself as a heavy burden; it suffers from it---that is, the wil suffers from itself. Willing appears to itself as this suffering from the 'it was,' as the suffering from the bygone, the past. But what is past stems from the passing. The will---in suffering from this passing, yet being what it is precisely by virtue of this suffering---remains in its willing captive to the passing· Thus will itself wills passing. It wills the passing of its suffering, and thus wills its own passing. The will's revulsion against every 'it was' appears as the will to pass away, which wills that everything be worthy of passing away. The revulsion arising in the will is then the will against everything that passes---everything, that is, which comes to be out of a coming-to-be, and endures. Hence the will is the sphere of representational ideas which basically pursue and set upon everything that comes and goes and exists, in order to depose, reduce it in its stature and ultimately decompose it. This revulsion within the will itself, according to Nietzsche, is the essential nature of revenge."(p. 93)
<I could understand why willing should crumble and suffer from the 'it was,' but I can hardly understand why on earth 'the willing wills the passing of its suffering, and thus wills its own passing. And what does it mean to decompose, to depose? Heidegger advances the argument to the concept of time in relation to the Being of the being and will. Ah...How can I comprehend all this argument about Being and Time?>
"Nietzsche says: Revenge is the will's revulsion. We have since noted that 'will,' in the language of modern metaphysics, does not mean only human willing, but that 'will' and 'willing' are the name of the Being of beings as a whole." (p. 95)
"He says: Revenge is "the will's revulsion against time and its 'it was.'""(p. 95)
"But what about 'time'? After all it is not a bundle in which past, future, and present are wrapped up together. How do matters stand with 'time'? They stand thus: time goes. And it goes in that it passes away. The passing of time is, of course, a coming, but a coming which goes, in passing away. What comes in time never comes to stay, but to go. What comes in time always bears beforehand the mark of going past and passing away. This is why the everything temporal is regarded simply as what is transitory.
Summary and Transition
"Deliverance from revenge remains from the outset partly determined by what revenge itself is. For Nietzsche, revenge is the fundamental characteristic of all thought so far. That is to say: revenge marks the manner in which man so far relates himself to what is. Nietzsche thinks of the nature of revenge in the light of this relation. Merely by relating himself to what is, man places and faces beings in their Being. Seen in the light of what is, the facing, the idea of beings always goes beyond beings. For instance when we are facing the cathedral, we are faced not just with a church, a building, but with something that is present, in its presence. But the presence of what is present is not finally and also something we face, rather it comes before. Prior to all else it stands before us, only we do not see it because we stand within it. The facing, the idea of what is, judged from what is, is always beyond what is---meta{in greek}."(pp. 97~98)
<As long as our thinking is representational, we are dealing with what is past. Because in this manner of thinking, What is present in its present cannot be thought, because process of thinking itself is re-presenting what was before us. Willing, or willing to act, perceive, manipulate, is always designated to the future. It cannot goes to the past---if it wants so, it fails. Willing as the beings of ourselves---unity of perceptio and appetitus---cannot keep what is present from passing, that is to say, from being passed away. It always represents what is passed away. Although Roughly, we comprehend the relation between will as being and time. There is task left which is to comprehend them in the light of revenge. It is not yet clear at all. Let me see>
