Nietzsche 2 Macht 2 Grösse Nietzsche 2 Philosoph der Grösse der Macht oder der Macht der Grösse Herausgegeben von Volker Caysa und Konstanze Schwarzwald Im Auftrag der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft e.V. De Gruyter Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:43 PM ISBN 978-3-11-024571-4 e-ISBN 978-3-11-024572-1 ISSN 2191-5733 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nietzsche-Kongress (2009 : Naumburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) Nietzsche 2 Macht 2 Grösse : Nietzsche, Philosoph der Grösse der Macht oder der Macht der Grösse / herausgegeben von Volker Caysa und Konstanze Schwarzwald. p. cm. 2 (Nietzsche heute) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-024571-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 184421900 2 Congresses. 2. Power (Philosophy) 2 Congresses. 3. Spectacular, The 2 Congresses. I. Caysa, Volker. II. Schwarzwald, Konstanze, 19772 III. Title. B3318.P68N54 2009 1932dc23 2011021715 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. g 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston Druck: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen vy Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:43 PM Small moment and individual taste Pietro Gori 1. Science and society The subject of my study is the note 11 [156] from 1881 (NF, KSA 9, 500 f.), a very interesting but neglected page in which Nietzsche deals with the qualities of the individual. What is peculiar of this text is Nietzsche<s viewpoint, since his statements on the role played by the scientific knowledge are but the starting point of a consideration on morals and society that he<ll carry out during the later years of thought. Furthermore, from the ideas presented in this text one can infer a view on the relationship between the individual and the State which can be compared with Nietzsche<s later observations on perspectivism. In particular, in this note Nietzsche highlights that if the single man wants to define himself, then he cannot refer to an "idiosyncratic" perspective, since the basis which he starts from to build up the fiction of his "ego" reveals its being completely impermanent. Thus, the reference point of the process of subjectivization can only be the "normalized" taste peculiar to the herd, which is created by science, religion and society. Before starting with the analysis of the text, let me just consider that these observations take place in an important notebook, since one finds them a few pages after the first presentation of the idea of eternal recurrence and – most notably – of its description as a scientific cosmology. One must not forget it, since even though in this note Nietzsche doesn<t refer to his new thought, his talking about the "unendlich kleine Augenblick" and his stating that this is but a "Blitzbild aus dem ewigen Flusse" clearly shows that he<s looking at this topic from a quite definite point of view. The starting point of Nietzsche<s reasoning is the role played by the scientific knowledge on the creation of a standardized type of man. He directly relates science with society and religion, since they all concern with the definition of the notion of man and subject. Both science and religion are involved in the process of education and growing of single human beings, which they carry on by standardizing their taste, i. e. by establishing a generalized world view. Their main aim is to achieve the uniBrought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM formity of sensation, a fact that reveals a deep hostility to any individualization. Moreover, the qualities of the common type of man that they create have ever been seen as peculiar to the single human being, and one usually refers to them to define its essence. The role played by the science is not different. According to Nietzsche, one of its aims is to define the essence of the species instead of that of the individual, since science considers the former more important than each single man. Moreover, science works with concepts, that could only be referred to not-existing things (bodies, atoms and substances); thus, the scientific world description presents a "reality" in which everything is reduced to a general form.1 In the first lines of the note 11 [156] Nietzsche deals with his theory of knowledge. Since Human, all too human he thinks that the process of adaptation and selection of our species led to peculiar ways of modifying the sense data, and therefore to the creation of a "reality" that he describes as false and illusory. Then, one must not consider this mere falsification as a knowledge capable of finding the inner qualities of things – i. e. that can be properly seen as true. Nevertheless, despite of its being false and illusory, this image of our world has revealed its usefulness to the preservation of the species – that<s why we now call it "true".2 These ideas are clearly stated in the notebook from 1881, since Nietzsche writes, [...] dass mit der Feststellung des Wesenhaften nichts fKr die RealitNt [zu] beweisen sei als dass die Existenz des Menschen bis jetzt vom Glauben an diese "RealitNt" abgehangen hat (wie Kçrper Dauer der Substanz usw.). [...] Die erreichte ?hnlichkeit der Empfindung (Kber den Raum, oder das 1 This thought rises from the main ideas on human knowledge which Nietzsche dealt with since the 1870<s, and that he developed as a biologic and evolutionary theory of knowledge. In many writings (both published and unpublished) Nietzsche shows his conceiving the cognitive process as based upon the Darwinian selectionist model (see for example MA, KSA 2, 36 ff. ; FW, KSA 3, 110–11; NF, KSA 13, 336 ff.). In my opinion, one should include Nietzsche in the list of those thinkers who upheld a natural selection epistemology or, as Donald Campbell wrote in his essay devoted to the philosophy of Karl Popper, an evolutionary epistemology (see Donald Campbell, Evolutionary Epistemology, in: Paul A. Schlipp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, La Salle 1974, vol. I, pp. 413– 463). I concerned with this subject in Pietro Gori, The Usefulness of Substances. Knowledge, Science and Metaphysics in Nietzsche and Mach, in: Nietzsche-Studien 38 (2009), pp. 111–155. 2 One can read this statement in some of Nietzsche<s notes of the same years. See for example NF, KSA 9, 306 and NF, KSA 9, 537. Pietro Gori156 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM ZeitgefKhl oder das Grossund KleingefKhl) ist eine Existenzbedingung der Gattung geworden, aber mit der Wahrheit hat es nichts zu thun. Despite of these observations, the main subject of this note are not pure theoretical questions. Rather, Nietzsche starts from them to deal with the role that this kind of knowledge plays on the social plane and, most of all, on the definition of the essence (Wesen) of the individual. In fact, Nietzsche writes that the transmission of the standardised world image build up by the science contributes to the education of each single man, and involves significant consequences on how he looks at both himself and the external world. Thus, one can see how close Nietzsche<s theory of knowledge and the main questions concerning both the social plane and the anthropological one that he deals with in his later writings are. Science is not only a tool created by human beings to master the nature and become more powerful. Rather, it<s part of their cultural background, of their history, and one must admit that the world view that follows from the scientific investigations has many important consequences on human life. 2. Evaluation of the individual in N V 4 (Autumn 1880) Both the way of arguing and the topics that Nietzsche presents in this note can be found in the notepad "N V 4" from the autumn of 1880 (group 6, NF, KSA 9, 194 ff.), which one can refer to, to enlighten his later observations. During that year Nietzsche wrote some notes on the common morals, that he contrasted with the idea that one must attribute the highest values to the individual qualities. What he criticised at the most in these pages is the creation of a standardized and indeterminate type of man, a generalization of the human being rose from the removal of its peculiar traits. Thus, in these notes both the society and the State are described as institutions geared to the definition of the homo communis, and therefore opposed to the development of an individual type. Nietzsche doesn<t agree with this aim. On the contrary, he wants to give value to the single man with his peculiar view. Therefore he states that the individual taste could be a resource for the society, if one considers its value among other individuals: "Der Fortschritt der Moral bestKnde in dem Zberwiegen altruistischer Triebe Kber egoistische und ebenso der allgemeinen Urtheile Kber die individuellen? Ist jetzt der locus communis. Ich sehe dagegen das Individuum wachsen, welches seine wohlverstandenen Interessen gegen andere Individuen vertritt." Small moment and individual taste 157 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM (NF, KSA 9, 238 f.) Of course, the observations that Nietzsche writes in this notepad are related with his ideas on morals and tradition that one can find in the published books, and that constitute one of the most studied topics of Nietzsche<s philosophy. Instead of dealing with his statements on the role played by the moral norms, I<d like to pay attention to his concerning with the individual and emphasize the fact that in 1880 he relates it with the social plane, arguing that the latter is the basis out of which the essence of the single man arises. In defining his own anthropology Nietzsche gives the higher value to the individual, since he thinks that it<s the most relevant subject of an investigation concerning the social structure. One can say that this statement is in compliance with his way of reasoning, since anytime he<s to describe something he usually pays attention to what can create development, i. e. to the dynamic elements capable of modifying the whole structure. According to this perspective, what Nietzsche sees on the political plane is hopeless, since the morals of his society is built upon an abstract, fixed and unchanging – i. e. unreal – type of "man". "Aus den bisher bekannten kann der Begriff []Mensch<] nur so gewonnen sein, dass man das Individuelle abstreift", writes Nietzsche, stating that this concept of man cannot be found, but one must create it, since thereHs nothing but individuals (NF, KSA 9, 237). Contrariwise, hismorals would be devoted to a development of the qualities of the individual, to let the single man improve his own attributes and thus define himself among the other human beings. Thus, "dem Menschen seinen Allgemeincharakter immer mehr zu nehmen und ihn zu spezialisiren, bis zu einem Grade unverstNndlicher fKr die Anderen zu machen" (NF, KSA 9, 237). The outcome of these observations, as one can imagine, is the complete rejection of any statement defining a standardized being, which Nietzsche discredits as inferior to each individual nature with its peculiar traits. According to him, the individual trying to assert itself and its taste is the starting point of a way that leads to a higher form of existence, whose main attributes will be defined by the relationship between individuals. Moreover, this single beings would not be erased by the supremacy of one of them; rather, their being different would be useful to an endless change of their own qualities. In the same notepad from 1880 Nietzsche shows his upholding a morals that could make the "individual taste" stand out, a morals that could be understood and rightly developed only by higher natures. One can compare the way in which Nietzsche defines these type of man with the statements on perspectivism that he writes during the later years of thought, since they are the example of Pietro Gori158 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM how individual, not-shared views can be asserted – or the example that there can be a taste peculiar to just one subject. For instance, in the note 6 [175] 1880 (NF, KSA 9, 242 f.) one reads: "ein singulIres Werthmaass im GefKhle haben macht die hçhere Natur". In contrast to the common natures, the highest nature trusts in the individuals and in their peculiar qualities, since it recognises as "human" this skill of asserting themselves as single beings. An asserting that does not lead to a kind of autarchical isolation, but rather to a relationship with and self-identification among many other human beings stating the same kind of individual values. Thus, the type of man that Nietzsche describes in this notepad is neither the member of an herd, who has lost his human nature, nor an absolute master claming to assert his own taste and overcome the other individuals. On the contrary, the social model capable of recognising the value of the individual as single human being is a society in which anyone can state his own perspective, and compare it with that of the other citizens. As one can read in the note 6 [163] (NF, KSA 9, 238 f.), there could be justice between equals only if each individual promotes other men as individuals ("Gerechtigkeit unter Gleichen, insofern es [das Individuum] das andere Individuum als solches anerkennt und fçrdert"). 3. The infinitely small moment as the highest truth If one turns now to the note 11 [156] 1881 and compares it with the observations that Nietzsche states in his notebook from 1880, one can find many correspondences between them, but also a new perspective on the role played by the normal taste in defining the essence of human beings. As stated above, with his evaluation of the role played by the science on the social and cultural plane Nietzsche highlights that it leads human beings to a kind of feeling (taste and see) that is standardized, common. This is what Nietzsche calls the uniformity of sensation, something very useful for creating a social community, but opposite to the identification of single individuals as members of it. With its description of the world (according to Nietzsche, a mere schema, a simplification of the "real" world3), the science carries on the creation of a standardized life, which has no peculiar quality, an thinks it to be a good definition of the essence 3 See FW, KSA 3, 472 f. and JGB, KSA 5, 28 f. Small moment and individual taste 159 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM of human being itself. For this reason Nietzsche judges this knowledge in a negative way: DieErkenntniss, ruhend auf demGlauben an dasBeharrende, steht imDienst der grçberen Formen des Beharrens (Masse Volk Menschheit) und will die feineren Formen, den idiosyncrasischenGeschmack ausscheiden und tçdten – sie arbeitet gegen die Individualisirung, denGeschmack, der nur fKr Einen Lebensbedingung ist. (NF, KSA 9, 500 ff.) As one can easily see, Nietzsche contrasts once again a common, standard nature with a living being asserting its individual perspective. In the last part of the note Nietzsche deals with the qualities of this individual being, but he doesn<t reveal which is the relationship between each single men and the social community that he<s in mind. The basic element of Nietzsche<s determination of the individual is the idiosyncratic taste, i. e. the perspective from which anyone sees and interprets the world that should define each single man, since anyone have a different place among the others. According to Nietzsche, the individual, trying to assert itself over the species, "kNmpft fKr seine Existenz, fKr seinen neuen Geschmack, fKr seine realtiv einzige Stellung zu allen Dingen – es hNlt diese fKr besser als den Allgemeingeschmack und verachtet ihn. Es will herrschen" (NF, KSA 9, 501). One can define a human being as an individual just from this attribute, since it<s the basis of its characterization and distinction from the generic qualities of the species. That<s why the individual gives the highest value to its own taste, and claims that one must see it as different from the normal taste generated by the herd instinct. The individual refers to this element, since it could be the only ground to find a sense of its existence and define its peculiar attributes. But, when it seems to be sure of its being able to assert its own view, the individual finds an upsetting truth, and has to reassess the conditions of defining its attributes. In fact, according to what Nietzsche writes in this note, the single man realizes that his own taste is completely impermanent, i. e. that one cannot take it as basis of any kind of determination. The individual entdeckt, dass es selber etwas Wandelndes ist und einen wechselnden Geschmack hat, mit seiner Feinheit gerNth es hinter das Geheimniss, dass es kein Individuum giebt, dass im kleinsten Augenblick es etwas Anderes ist als im nNchsten und dass seine Existenzbedingungen die einer Unzahl Individuen sind: der unendlich kleine Augenblick ist die hçhere RealitNt und Wahrheit, ein Blitzbild aus dem ewigen Flusse. (NF, KSA 9, 502) Pietro Gori160 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM To understand the statements that Nietzsche presents in this note, one must come back to the notebook from 1880. In fact, the observations on the role played by the unendlich klein Augenblick on the individual are strictly related with another topic which Nietzsche deals with many times: the question of the individual substance. Nietzsche criticizes this notion as the sign of a metaphysical view in search of some absolute and unchanging elements to build its own world description. His observations on the ego play a leading role in his whole thought, and follow from his reading many scientific essays published during the second half of the 19th century. For example, one can compare the observations written by Nietzsche during 1880–1881 and his claim that the idea of soul rises from the dynamic relation of inner drives with the work of W. Roux4. In the same notebook from 1880 seen upon one can find many interesting observations on this subject, that could be resumed with this statement: Das Ich ist nicht die Stellung Eines Wesens zu mehreren [...] sondern das ego ist eine Mehrheit von personenartigen KrNten, von denen bald diese, bald jene im Vordergrund steht als ego und nach den anderen, wie ein Subjekt nach einer einflussreichen und bestimmenden Aussenwelt, hinsieht. Das Subjekt springt herum. (NF, KSA 9, 211 f.)5 This excerpt is written a few pages after another note that could be relevant for the topic I<m dealing with, since Nietzsche argues that we feel the external world anytime in different ways "weil sie sich gegen den jedesmal in uns Kberwiegenden Trieb abhebt" – an ever-changing drive; "so ist im kleinsten Momente unsere Empfindung der Aussenwelt immer werdend und vergehend, also wechselnd" (NF, KSA 9, 209). Thus, in 1881 Nietzsche puts the individual in front to the idea of an impermanent ego and tries to imagine what could happen. His conclusion, according to what he writes in the note 11 [156] 1881 is that once the individual realizes this truth it loses its certainties on what it supposed to be the basis of its self-definition. Both its inclination in asserting itself as single subject and its complete rejection of the normalized existence build up 4 See on this topic Wolfgang MKller-Lauter, Der Organismus als innerer Kampf. Der Einfluss von Wilhelm Roux auf Friedrich Nietzsche, in: Nietzsche-Studien, 7 (1978), pp. 189–223. 5 The question of the ego is one of the main topics that one can find in Nietzsche<s later notebooks. He dealt with it during the 1880<s, and presented some outcomes after a long lasting reflection concerning the conscience (see for example JGB, KSA 5, 29 ff.). A detailed study on this subject has been carried out by Luca Lupo in his Le colombe dello scettico. Riflessioni di Nietzsche sulla coscienza negli anni 1880–1888, Pisa 2006. Small moment and individual taste 161 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM by the social institutions (state, religion and science), collide with the inexistence of any ontological ground which it could refer to. 4. Towards a dialectic of the individual The end of the note 11 [156] from 1881 leaves the reader confused. In thinking about the role played by the individual taste as ground of human beings< self-determination, Nietzsche realizes that this idea is in contradiction with his early statements concerning the ego, but he doesn<t carry his arguing to a solution of this problem. The possible conclusions of this thought could be two: (a) The individual simply does not exist. It comes from the "herd" and cannot be defined on its own. Any description of the essence of human beings, any definition of a subject, must be referred to the normal taste. (b) The individual taste can be taken as basis of the definition of a self, but one cannot overcome the standardized taste, since the former is impermanent. The social community – the place where the relationship between individuals takes place – is the necessary reference point to define the single human beings. Both the conclusions deny the starting claim of the individual. The single man cannot win the struggle for his existence just upholding his own taste against the "normal" one. However, (a) is not in compliance with Nietzsche<s observations from 1880, since in that year he stated some ideas in defence of the individual. Even though one year later he enriched his wordlview with some new ideas (one must remember that in the group 11 from 1881 one finds the first notes on the eternal recurrence), it seems not suitable to say that Nietzsche completely rejected the role played by the single subjects presented before. In fact, some pages after the note in which Nietzsche states the disorientation of the individual in realizing that the idiosyncratic taste is not stable and unchanging, one finds some observations that are in compliance with the others written one year before. In 11 [182] 1881 Nietzsche writes that each single man get his own attributes from the State, since he<s part of a community. Therefore, only as member of the State he can recognise himself as individual. Only afterwards he becomes an opponent of the State, and looks at it as a menace for his asserting his own qualities – even if he<s been created by the State itself. Pietro Gori162 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM Er hat jene anderen Eigenschaften noch nicht und erwirbt sie erst als Organ des Gemeinwesens: als Organ bekommt er die ersten Regungen der sNmmtlichen Eigenschaften des Organischen. Die Gesellschaft erzieht erst das Einzelwesen, formt es zum Halboder Ganz-Individuum vor (...). Der Staat unterdrKckt ursprKnglich nicht etwa die Individuen: diese existiren noch gar nicht! Er macht den Menschen Kberhaupt die Existenz mçglich, als Heerdenthieren. Unsere Triebe Affekte werden uns da erst gelehrt: sie sind nichts UrsprKngliches! Thus, Nietzsche doesn<t denies the existence of the individuals; he just limits their ontological value. Then, if one wants to complete the observations presented in 11 [156] one should consider (b), and imagine that in 1881 Nietzsche is thinking about a kind of "dialectical" relationship between the individual and the State. This relationship can be summed up in this way: 1. the State generates a normal taste and defines the individuals as single subjects sharing it; 2. the individual develops a taste of its own and tries to get rid of the State, claming that the idiosyncratic taste could be a good basis to define its essence; 3. the individual becomes aware of the ontological lack of content laying under its self-defining as subject opposed to any common being. Thus, it needs someone to recognise it as holder of a peculiar perspective of world-interpretation, since otherwise its singularity must be denied. But the source of this identification can only be the State itself. Therefore, the dialectical relationship: the individual wants its taste to master the standardized view of the State, but it needs the State to make sense of its being individual. This way of arguing – a mere hypothesis on how to complete Nietzsche<s observations – is not far from the ideas that he presented in those years, and also later. In fact, even though Nietzsche criticized many time the State for its generating a normalized life being, during the 1880 he admits that it plays a leading role in defining the essence of the single human beings. Moreover, as stated above, is exactly the State that gives sense to the "highest natures" (see NF, KSA 9, 242 f.). But the statements presented in 11 [156] can also be related with another important topic which Nietzsche dealt with during the last years of thought. In fact, some of his reflections concerning the perspectivism are in compliance with this way of looking at the relationship of the mass (from 1881 "herd") and the individual, so as with the observations on science and knowledge presented in the first part of the note. Even though the idea of a perspectival interpretation is usually related with the statement according to which there are as many viewpoints, as the number of beings (and for that reason one can relate the observations Small moment and individual taste 163 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM written in the notebook from 1880 with it), when Nietzsche talks about the social plane the question seems to be different. Briefly, one can consider what Nietzsche writes in Gay Science 354, where the single viewpoints, the single perspectives of world interpretation are described as less relevant than the wider perspective of the herd. Nietzsche<s observation in 11 [156] 1881, his stating "dass es kein Individuum giebt, dass im kleinsten Augenblick es etwas Anderes ist als im nNchsten und dass seine Existenzbedingungen die einer Unzahl Individuen sind" (my italic) sounds quite similar to his claim that the subject of the perspectivism is the herd, and not any single human being.6 Of course, the perspective of the State (expressed by science, religion and society) is unnatural, artificial, it<s something created by human beings during their history. Nevertheless, it<s the only view that could be seen as (relatively) stable, and for that reason one can take it as basis of a world description. As stated above, is the lack of content of the idiosyncratic taste and its being unstable that make impossible a definition of the essence of the individual on its own. 5. Critique and AufklNrung If one accepts (b), then one can sum up Nietzsche<s statements in other terms, and say that in 1881 he<s arguing that the individual<s inclination to be a stateless cannot be developed, since there<s no ground out of which it can rise. The final outcome of his thought is therefore to see the State as the only place where human beings could become subjects. The question: "What can help us to solve this dialectic, or at least to de6 In 4 [172] 1882 (NF, KSA 10, 162) one can find this idea, that Nietzsche will present to his readers only five years later: "Es sind nicht unsere Perspektiven, in denen wir die Dinge sehen; aber es sind Perspektiven eines Wesens nach unserer Art, eines grçsseren: in dessen Bilder wir hineinblicken". In the last part of Frçhliche Wissenschaft 354 (FW, KSA 3, 590 ff.), after some important remarks on conscience, Nietzsche talks about "the true phenomenalism and perspectivism", claming that there cannot be any individual view, but only a standardized one, which is useful to the preservation of the species. Of course, one must discuss this statement, first of all for its apparently being opposite to other well known notes in which Nietzsche talks about "every centre of force" as holder of a peculiar world view. For further details on this topic see Pietro Gori, Fenomenalismo e prospettivismo in Gaia Scienza, 354, in: Giuliano Campioni, Chiara Piazzesi, Patrick Wotling (a cura di), Letture della Gaia Scienza. Atti del convegno GIRN di Reims (12–13 marzo 2009), Pisa 2010, pp. 105–118. Pietro Gori164 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM fine it in a better way?" can thus be answered by referring to another author which statements are strictly related to Nietzsche<s thought: Michel Foucault. The investigation of the political power as basis of a process of subjectivization is one of the main contributions of Foucault<s thought. With regard to the subject of my study, I<m interested in the observations that he presents on the notions of AufklIrung (as stated by Kant) and critique. The writing I<m referring to is a late lecture in which Foucault deals with this topic: QuHest-ce que la critique? (Critique et AufklIrung)7. Beyond the question of power, which plays a leading role in Foucault<s thought, this lecture concerns another subject that could be related with the observations on the relationship between individual and society – or between individual and form of government – that one finds in Nietzsche<s notebooks from 1880 and 1881. What one especially finds in this writing is Foucault<s stating the active role that each man should be able to play in the social dimension and that he needs to recognise himself as subject. Foucault considers the relationship between power, truth and subject, and shows that the latter must not be seen as bound by an unchangeable definition of itself. Rather, it can play an active part in the evaluation and renewal of the existing form of government. According to Foucault, the notion of AufklIrung involves a well definite relationship between the citizen and the State. What is peculiar of this relationship is the active role played by the individual, since each single man both checks the State<s working and claims his right to call it into question – an even modify it. Moreover, Foucault writes that the questions involving power, truth and subject are all interlinked; thus, "the critique is the starting point of a movement through which the subject claims his right to call into question both the truth as having effects on the development of power and the power as defining what is truth"8. In the Kantian notion of AufklIrung, and of course in his idea of "human being<s emergence from his self-incurred minority", Foucault finds this new way of thinking the relationship between the single man and the 7 Michel Foucault, QuHest-ce que la critique? (Critique et AufklNrung), in: Bullettin de la Societ` FranÅaise de Philosophie, Paris 1990, pp. 35–63. Another text in which Foucault deals with some questions related with the subject of this speech is The Subject and Power, in: Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Brighton 1982, pp. 208–226. 8 Michel Foucault, QuHest-ce que la critique? (Critique et AufklNrung), in : Bullettin de la Societ` FranÅaise de Philosophie, Paris 1990, p. 39. Small moment and individual taste 165 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM power. Therefore, the critique is related to the inclination of the subject of being stateless and to its restlessness, which characterize each man even if he accepts to shape his individuality in a new form, as condition to be part of the society.9 Then, the question is: in which way should one conceive the power? Even though one needs it to set up a society, the power can change its forms, together with the other subjects involved in this process. In other words – as one can read in Foucault<s lecture – one must not conceive the power as supremacy, as lordship, as a basic and unchangeable ground, which would be the only explicative principle and therefore a necessarily law: on the contrary, one must consider it as one single part of a field of relations, i. e. as gather together with forms of knowledge by a link that cannot be released. One always finds the power into a field of possibilities, therefore of reversion, i. e. it can be modified at any time.10 The critique finds place in this field of possibilities, and its working obviously involves the question of the subjectivization, too, since it<s related with the existing power which defines both the society and all its members. If one calls into question the form of government, that involves also his own characterization. According to Foucault, this could be the only possible way of getting rid of the State, since it would promote new forms of subjectivity.11 If it<s not possible a complete liberation from the State, the critique is the only tool one can use to claim both the maturity and the independence of the individual. In my opinion, the observations stated by Foucault can be linked with Nietzsche<s view to complete the reasoning that the latter outlines in his notebooks. The notion of critique can be useful to define in a better way the dialectical relationship between the individual and the State, since this form of political participation considers both the subjects involved in this relationship, the wider one (the society) and the single one (each individual). Both the necessity of the State and the active role played by each citizen are preserved, without leading the society to a form of static balance. In other words, through the critique one can define a morals that 9 As one can read in Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power, in: Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Brighton 1982, p. 214. 10 Michel Foucault, QuHest-ce que la critique? (Critique et AufklNrung), in: Bullettin de la Societ` FranÅaise de Philosophie, Paris 1990 p. 52. 11 Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power, in: Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Brighton 1982, p. 216. Pietro Gori166 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM could account for the value of each single man, who would control the worth and legitimacy of the existing government and find in it the source of his being subject. Small moment and individual taste 167 Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS Authenticated | 212.87.45.97 Download Date | 9/7/12 4:39 PM