New Left Review 86, March-April 2014

Anti-Nietzsche

Nihilism and the paradoxes of egalitarianism are at the heart of Malcolm Bull’s Anti-Nietzsche (Verso, 2011 and newly out in paperback). The Friedrich Nietzsche of this study is a figure in and for political theory, and his thought is ‘the limit-philosophy of the modern imaginary’, to be resisted in more than the conventional terms of philosophical disagreement and disapproval. Bull’s approach is characteristically disarming. Where the earlier Seeing Things Hidden (1999) centred its consideration of apocalypse on the value of hiddenness, and The Mirror of the Gods (2005) wittily profaned the significance of classical mythology in Renaissance art, here his philosophical counter-strategy sets out from the commitment to ‘reading like a loser’, in the interest of ‘a negative ecology’ of value and an indefinitely sustained practice of social ‘levelling out’ or ‘permanent revolution’. In the following pages, three critics from contrasting philosophical backgrounds engage with key arguments in Anti-Nietzsche, each striking different emphases. Peter Dews begins with reflections on the characteristic critical dynamics of European philosophy since Kant, then moves to an assessment of one of the main philosophical issues at stake—the role of transcendental argument in the thesis of will to power—and a detailed discussion of Heidegger’s relation to Nietzsche and nihilism. The question of transcendental claims recurs in Raymond Geuss’s contribution, along with the matter, much debated, of the philosopher’s perspectivism and the problems of egalitarianism, with particular reference to Marx. The last of these problem-areas is the special focus of Kenta Tsuda’s critique, in which distributive justice is the framing concern and a theory of needs the crux. Malcolm Bull brings the symposium to a close with his reply to critics.

malcolm bull

THE POLITICS OF FALLING

It is a privilege to have critics to respond to, particularly ones whose analyses are as incisive as those offered here. But readers sometimes have surprises for authors, and that is true in this case. Two phrases in particular have proved to be hostages to fortune: ‘transcendental argument’ and ‘distributive justice’. There is very little in the book about either, but it is right for critics to seize upon them. There is more to be said. Have I attributed to Nietzsche a transcendental argument that isn’t one (or, at least, not a good one), and am I advancing a theory of distributive justice while claiming not to have one? I will try to respond to both questions, taking in other points along the way.

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