Nietzsche’s Texts on European Nihilism

We will newly read Nietzsche’s texts on decline within the context of what happened at the center and the periphery and parallelly read the sophist Gorgias. This is a very productive activity because, according to Nietzsche, sophists were those who argued and fought with philosophers and did not accept philosophers’ views. Unlike Socrates, who was confident in his own ideas, Nietzsche sees sophists as those who made Greece healthy and vibrant. Nietzsche interprets philosophy as born from decadence and tries to explain the characteristics of other types of discourse and practices in relation to sophistry. In this context, European nihilism texts start with a firm claim that there is no ultimate goal.

The Problem of Dialectical Reading

Hegel is remarkable because he considers everything to be true in a particular way. That is, when truthfulness transcends itself, it transforms into its opposite. Thus, truthfulness is no longer in the realm of ideological morality but a truthfulness opposing all ideology. Here, the way of reading ideology is very indirect and strategic. This answer targets Spinoza, and the extreme form of nihilism, namely eternal recurrence, is a significant issue. Spinoza took a positive stance as long as each moment had logical necessity and achieved a logical victory. Nietzsche challenges the interpretation that people need to secure unity that permeates every moment to sustain themselves. In other words, something always identical exists inherently in this process. This is Nietzsche’s view on Spinoza, which is correct because this is an important issue for Spinoza but cannot be understood synchronically. We should read the text advancing towards eternal recurrence not simply as a concept of dialectical inversion but that all dialectics are fundamentally subordinated to the logic of identity, mediated by the logic of otherness.

Spinoza and Hegel

From Nietzsche’s perspective, Hegel and Spinoza are interpreted similarly. Although it might be unprecedented for philosophers, replacing Plato with Spinoza is evident to Nietzsche. Regarding Plato’s phrase, "The world of truth is accessible to the wise, the pious, the virtuous," Nietzsche added a satirical interpretation, "He lives in this world of truth. And he is the world of truth. That is, I, Plato, am the truth." Nietzsche also believed that the same interpretation obviously fits Spinoza, who was devoted to pantheism: "I, Spinoza, am the truth." The attempt to integrate Hegel, Plato, and Spinoza now clearly shows that Nietzsche no longer speaks within the framework of philosophical discourse. Nietzsche now wants to propose that no matter the form, once people create their own logic, they can gift themselves with logic to escape predicaments.