1868 - Nawrath - Friedrich Nietzsche On The Concept of The Since Kant
1868 - Nawrath - Friedrich Nietzsche On The Concept of The Since Kant
1868 - Nawrath - Friedrich Nietzsche On The Concept of The Since Kant
During his time as a soldier Nietzsche had a riding accident that caused him
physical pain for several weeks. But at the same time he learned that he did not
want to stay a private first class (“Gefreiter”), but to become a free civilian again
(“Befreiter”).1 He finished his letter to Paul Deussen with the sentence: “Please leave
the military address line aside.”2
c) Becoming Structured
After some kind of an introduction about teleology in general the first group of
notes, captioned Natural-Philosophically [naturphilosophisch], is supposed to lead
the reader to a refutation of Kant’s thought. It seems to be intended to contain
the following steps of discussion: (1) The presentation of the problem; (2) Kant’s
rejection of other approaches to the problem; (3) Approaches of natural philosophers
after Kant; (4) Criticism of Kant’s opinion. Such a structure would have matched the
standards of a dissertation, presenting a problem, a plain discussion, and a clear
result.
So far, so good. Since Nietzsche had a plan on hand, he could get into detail
now, outlining each thesis he had to prove or reject. The next group of notes—
on `purposiveness´—states two such theses: positively (1) we only recognize the
mechanism; and negatively (2) we do not recognize the organism. To prove these
ideas, Nietzsche could have employed several contemporary approaches, especially
those of the Young Hegelians, who formed his horizon until then. Or he could have translated and
employed arguments of Schopenhauer, who was his main interest at that time.
But he did not. In fact Nietzsche named the third section Goethe’s experiments, annotated by
introducing a very special perspective on the issue: the concept of a force and not of
Th. Nawrath,
May 1868), KGB, sect. 1, vol. 2, p. 267-271. My translation.
3 In the draft Nietzsche says: “Teleology like optimism is an aesthetic product.” (KGW, Paderborn
sect. 1 vol. 4, p. 554)
4 Especially the Musarion edition (Friedrich Nietzsche: Jugendschriften. Dichtungen, Auf-
sätze, Vorträge, Aufzeichnungen und Philologische Arbeiten 1858-1868. Munich 1922; p. 269-
291) construes a text too easy to read by adding comments and arranging parts arbitrarily. Agonist 87
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
an individual for it was not an appropriate notion of organic purposiveness.
Next, the draft’s short fourth section, A wrong opposition, applies this change
of paradigm in four steps: (1) Elimination of the extended imagination of teleology;
(2) Borders of the concept. The purposive in nature; (3) Purposive equals capable
of existence; (4) Organisms as multiplicities and unities. These “multiplicities and
unities” can be considered as the achieved result of the argumentation and the
reason why Nietzsche seized on the approach of Goethe, although it was as odd
among scientists at that time as today.
Despite these apparent problems, one can already find several insightful aspects
in the draft that point to the unexpectedly far distanced thoughts of Nietzsche at that
time. He was going to employ works of empirical research. But in the actual draft he
mainly refers to philosophical authors like Empedocles, Goethe, and Schopenhauer.
In fact he was going to write what we would call an interdisciplinary treatise. Or
Translation
should I say: a multi-perspectival investigation?
Beside this nucleus of a perspectivism, the text deals with the possibility of forms
arising out of chaos. Such an idea of natural perfectibility is known from Nietzsche’s
history of the mind, which is present in the tension between the types of life
described in the Genealogy of Morals and the several notions of the Übermensch and
his wandering to real-ideal independence and actual freedom. In the draft Nietzsche
struggles with these problems, too. He thinks about such questions as: How can Agonist 88
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
there be anything we can only consider completely with our intellectual faculty? Does
it belong to our reason or to any reason at all?
While the first question would lead to radical idealism, the second one would lead
to a teleological proof of the existence of God. (Or what one might call his `God´.)
Contrary to the Genealogy of Morals the dissertation draft does not state a negative
argument against the existence of things that require to be created purposively, but
it positively tries to present a third way to answer the puzzle: chance.
The draft is still written under the influence of Schopenhauer: “All parts of nature
comply with each other because there is a will.” But Nietzsche does not simply
employ the idea of a will without any further reflection. If there is a will that solves
the problem of organisms, does that will have to solve the problem of the antagonism
among the organisms as well? The problem of evil in the world arises. Or traditionally:
theodicy.
Now we face the sharp problem that has been seen by Nietzsche and has made
him stop at that point: How to reject the metaphysics of teleological judgment and
simultaneously not to get into an even more metaphysical meshwork? What is the
`organism´ in itself?
Schopenhauer provides two starting grounds to answer these questions: (1) there
is a concept of cognition different from Kant’s; (2) and there is an omnipresent will to
be considered in every speculation about reality. Now, if Nietzsche did not add further
arguments, there would be no great difference from Schopenhauer’s own treatment.
But in fact it is not the only support he accepted. Actually Nietzsche quotes Goethe’s
ideas on the formation of organisms. He summarizes: “There are no individuals in
reality; rather, individuals and organisms are nothing but abstractions.” We can
conclude briefly that Schopenhauer’s concept of will allowed Nietzsche to reject
Kant’s notion of an organism while Goethe’s concepts of individuality and holism
allowed him to reject Schopenhauer’s pessimism concerning the effects of the will.
Agonist 89
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
Friedrich Nietzsche
[549] On Teleology
In addition; the analogy of human experience provides the random, i.e. not
meditated emergence of the purposeful, e.g. in the happy coincidence of talent and
destiny, lottery tickets etc.
Therefore, the convenient and purposive cases must be within the infinite
plenitude of real cases, too.
The necessitation that Kant deals with exists hardly anymore for our time: but
one may consider that even Voltaire himself regarded teleological proof as non-
compelling.
Optimism and teleology go hand in hand: both are down to disclaiming the non-
purposeful as something really inexpedient.
[550] In general the weapon against teleology is: proof of the inexpedient.
Thereby it will only be evinced that the highest reason acts only sporadically,
that there is an area for a lower reason, too. Therefore there is no unique teleological
world; but a creating intelligence.
The conjecture of such a one is made by human analogy: why can there be no
power unconsciously creating the purposive, i.e. nature: one may think of the instinct
of the animals. This [is] the standpoint of natural philosophy.
Also one no longer places the act of knowing outside the world.
But we get stuck in metaphysics and have to bring up the thing in itself.
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
One, roughly anthropological, places an ideal man outside the
world;
the other one, metaphysical as well, resorts to an intelligible world
in which the end is immanent to things.6
Natural-Philosophically [naturphilosophisch].
The simple idea unfolds in a multiplicity of parts and states of the organism, but
it remains as a unity in the necessary conjunction of the parts and functions. This is
the act of the intellect.
The purposiveness of the organic [and] the regularity of the inorganic are brought
into nature by our reason.
The same idea as enhanced presents the explanation of outer purposiveness. The
thing in itself must show its unity in the harmony of all phenomena. All parts of nature
comply with each other because there is a will.7
But the contrary to the whole theory is formed by that awful battle of the individuals
(who also manifest an idea) and the species. Hence the explanation presupposes a
continuous teleology: which does not exist.
That which is difficult is just the assemblage of the teleological and the non-
teleological world.
The question has its similarity to that of the freedom of the human will where
they were looking for its solution in the field of an intelligible world because they
disregarded the possibility of coordination.
Against this we know the method of nature as to how such a ‘purposive’ body
emerges, a senseless method. According to that purposiveness proves itself only as
viability, i.e. a condition sine qua non. Chance can reach the most beautiful melody.
Secondly we know by [or through] the method of nature how to preserve such a
purposive body. By senseless recklessness.
But teleology moots a lot of questions which are unsolvable or are not solved until
now.
[554] Purposive.
We see a method for achieving the end or more correctly: we see existence and
its means and conclude that these means are purposive. The recognition of a high or
even the highest degree of reason does not lie herein yet. Translation
monde moral (1770). Nietzsche cites the French title in the German text, too.
11 Hermann Hettner: Geschichte der französischen Literatur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert,
vol. 2 (Braunschweig 1860).
12 Jacob [Jakob] Moleschott: Der Kreislauf des Lebens. Physiologische Antworten auf
Liebig's Chemische Briefe(Mainz 1852).
13 There is a paronomasia in the German text: ‘highest purposiveness’ is ‘höchste Zweck-
mäßigkeit’ and ‘At the utmost we could’ is ‘Wir können also höchstens’ (italics by the transla-
tor). Agonist 92
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
Thereupon we marvel at the complicated14 and conjecture (by human analogy) an
extraordinary wisdom therein.
The marvelous for us is really organic life: and we call all means to preserve
it purposive. Why does the concept of the purposive stop in the inorganic world?
Because we have nothing but unities here, but not interacting parts belonging
together.
The removal of teleology has a practical value. It all depends only on rejecting the
concept of a higher reason: so we are already satisfied.
[555] The strict necessity of cause and consequence excludes ends from
unconscious nature. Because the representations of ends do not originate in nature,
they must be regarded as motives injected from external causality here and there;
whereby the strict necessity is just continually interrupted. Existence15 is perforated
by miracles.
We attribute those effects to chance where we do not see its nexus with causes.
Things do exist, therefore they must be able to exist, i.e. they must have the
conditions of existence. translated and
14 The German text states: “das Complicirte” (cf. Beyond Good and Evil, § 19).
annotated by
15
16
The German text states: “Dasein”.
Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747) was a German poet who wrote lyrics on nature
Th. Nawrath,
and man’s direction to God. Already in the 18th century he was rejected as a trivial and art-
less observer without any message by the German philosophers of the Enlightenment, like J. J. Paderborn
Breitinger or J. C. Gottsched.
17 David Friedrich Strauß: Kleine Schriften, Neue Folge (Berlin, 1866).
18 Eduard Zeller: Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Drit-
ter Theil. Die nacharistotelische Philosophie, erste Hälfte (Leipzig 1865). Agonist 93
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
If man construes something, i.e. wants to make it capable of existence,19 he
considers under which conditions this might take place. Later he calls the conditions
of the existence of the finished work purposive.
[556] Therefore he calls the conditions of the existence of things purposive, too:
i.e. only under the hypothesis they were originated like human works.
When a man draws a lot out of an urn and this time it is not the lot of death:
then it is neither non-purposive nor purposive but, as man says, random, i.e. without
previous consideration. But it states the condition of his ongoing existence.20
“An organism is that in which everything is an end and mutually also a means.”
[§ 66]22
“Everything that lives, Goethe says, “is no individual, but a plurality: even insofar
as it appears as an individual to us, it keeps a gathering of living independent beings.”
[Formation and Transformation of Organic Natures. Introduction]23
[557] What understanding recognizes by its concept of nature is nothing but the
effect of a moving force, i.e. mechanism. What is not purely mechanically recognized,
that is no keen natural scientific insight.
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
Explaining mechanically means explaining by outer causes.
Through the concept of mechanical regularity the architecture of the world,27 but
no organism can be explained.
Now there is, according to Kant, a necessitation in our organization that makes us
believe in organisms, too.
[559] The organic body is a matter the parts of which are composed purposively
with each other.
Therefore we demand causes that are able to compose the parts of a matter
purposively, i.e. Kant says30 organizing causes which must be thought as effective
by ends –
The precondition is that the living can originate from mechanism. Kant denies
this.
In reality what is sure is that we can only recognize the mechanical. What is
beyond our concepts is completely unrecognizable. The origin of the organic is insofar
a hypothetical one: as we imagine a human understanding has been present.
But now even the concept of the organic is just human; one has to point out the
analogous: the viable originates among a vast amount of non-viable. Therewith we
come closer to the solution of the organism.
[560] We see that much that is viable originates and is preserved and see the
method.33
Assuming the force which acts in the viable and in those things that originate and
preserve to be the same: so this [force] must be very unreasonable.
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
The idea of the effect is the concept of the whole.
In the organism the effecting principle is the idea of the effect to bring forth.
But the concept of the whole is our achievement. Here the source of the imagination
of an end lies. The concept of the whole does not lie in things, but in us.
There are no individuals in reality rather individuals and organisms are nothing
but abstractions.
We presume that the force which generates organisms of one kind is an integrated
one.
Then the method of how this force creates and preserves the organisms is to be
considered..
[561] Here it turns out that we just call purposive what is viable.
Schopenhauer means that there is an analogy to the organism (World as Will and
Representation [loc. cit.]. “The will [is] the moving; what moves it [is] the motive
(causa finalis).”36
34 The German text states: “Die rasende Verschwendung setzt uns in Erstaunen”. It con-
tracts the following passage of Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation: “Wenn wir
uns der Betrachtung des so unaussprechlich und endlos künstlichen Baues irgend eines Thie-
res, wäre es auch nur das gemeinste Insekt, hingeben, uns in Bewunderung desselben versen-
kend, jetzt aber uns einfällt, daß die Natur eben diesen, so überaus künstlichen und so höchst
komplicirten Organismus täglich zu Tausenden der Zerstörung, durch Zufall, thierische Gier
und menschlichen Muthwillen rücksichtslos Preis giebt; so setzt diese rasende Verschwen-
dung uns in Erstaunen. Allein dasselbe beruht auf einer Amphibolie der Begriffe, indem wir
dabei das menschliche Kunstwerk im Sinne haben, welches unter Vermittelung des Intellekts
und durch Ueberwältigung eines fremden, widerstrebenden Stoffes zu Stande gebracht wird,
folglich allerdings viel Mühe kostet.” (Zurich edition, vol. 2, p. 384; italics indicate the part
translated and
Nietzsche cited)
35 The German text contracts the passage that follows directly after his previous quota-
annotated by
tion: “Der Natur hingegen kosten ihre Werke, so künstlich sie auch sind, gar keine Mühe; weil
hier der Wille zum Werke schon selbst das Werk ist; indem, wie schon gesagt, der Organismus
bloß die im Gehirn zu Stande kommende Sichtbarkeit des hier vorhandenen Willens ist.” (Zur-
Th. Nawrath,
ich edition, vol. 2, p. 385; italics indicate the part Nietzsche cited)
36 The German text contracts the following passage: “Denn, was man auch zwi-
Paderborn
schen den Willensakt und die Körperbewegung physiologisch einschieben möchte, immer
bleibt hier eigenständlich der Wille das Bewegende, und was ihn bewegt, ist das von außen
kommende Motiv, also die causa finalis; welche folglich hier als causa efficiens auftritt.” (Zur-
ich edition, vol. 2, p. 387; italics indicate the part Nietzsche cited) Agonist 97
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
Goethe’s Experiments:
Metamorphosis belongs to the explanation of the organic out of the one of the
effectuating cause.
Thus no one demands final causes in inorganic nature because there are no
individuals but forces to be noticed;
[562]
Only that much can be completely conceived as one can construe and effectuate
by concepts oneself.37
A Wrong Opposition38
If only mechanical forces prevail in nature, so the purposive phenomena are only
illusionary, too; their purposiveness is our idea.
The blind forces act unintentionally; therefore they cannot effectuate anything
purposive.
The viable is configured according to a chain of failed and half successful trials.39
[563] Life, the organism does not prove any higher intelligence: no continuous
degree of intelligence at all.
37 See Kant: Critique of Judgment, § 68 (academy edition vol. 5, p. 384). Nietzsche quotes
this sentence later again.
38 The Kritische Gesamtausgabe adds another paragraph before this subheading that
seems to be taken out of context: It is about Nietzsche’s teaching schedule.
39 The Kritische Gesamtausgabe adds another paragraph after this one that seems to be
taken out of context: It is about Nietzsche’s teaching schedule again.
40 The German text states: “existenzfähig”. Agonist 98
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
Kant:
Why?
[564] [If] the understanding is supposed to comprehend the whole from the parts,
then it will proceed mechanically, [if] it is supposed to comprehend the given parts
out of the whole, then it can only deduce them from the concept of the whole.4142
Within an organism not only the parts are conditioned by the whole but also the
whole by the parts.
Now initially the parts are considered and decomposed in their parts: so one gets
for instance to the cell.
Final causes as well as mechanisms are human ways of intuiting. Purely one only
knows the mathematical. translated and
The law (in inorganic nature) as a law is something analogous to final causes. annotated by
What in nature is not just mechanically constituted, this is no object of the
Th. Nawrath,
41 The German text puts an undefined conditional clause (without a subjunction). This
style rhetorically implies the unsuccessfulness of the condition. Paderborn
42 The generatio aequivoca is a scientific hypothesis that asserts an original origination
of organic individuals from inorganic matter. For Nietzsche cf. Kant’s Universal Natural History
and Theory of the Heavens which contains the so called Kant-Laplace theory.
43 See Kant: Critique of Judgment, § 68 (academy edition vol. 5, p. 384). Agonist 99
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
understanding.
“Only that much can be completely conceived as one oneself can construe and
effectuate by concepts.”44
Therefore one can only completely conceive the mathematical (therefore formal
understanding). For the rest one faces the unknown. To cope with this man invents
concepts which however only aggregate a sum of appearing attributes, but do not
come close to the thing.
Force, matter, individual, law, organism, atom, final cause all belong here.
Kant catches the meaning of mechanism as the world without final causes: the
world of causality.
The emergence u and preservation of organic beings—in how far does it belong
to the final causes?45
[566] Ends in nature: in siring, preservation of the individual and the species.
Therewith compare § 62.46
Then Kant foists the concept of a thing (§ 63) and loses sight of the general forms
of purposiveness.
The randomness of its form in relation to reason (which is found in the crystal,
too).
“A thing exists as a natural end if it is a cause and effect on its own.”47 This
proposition is not deduced. A single case is taken.
44 Nietzsche puts the question (the second part of the sentence) with a singular subject
although there are two concepts given in the first place. Grammatically there can be no defini-
tive decision which one of them is meant (or if he means both of them covered in rhetorical
style).
45 See Kant: Critique of Judgment, § 65 (academy edition vol. 5, esp. p. 374), not § 62. Translation
46 The quotation refers to: “Ich würde vorläufig sagen: ein Ding existirt als Naturzweck,
wenn es von sich selbst (obgleich in zwiefachem Sinne) Ursache und Wirkung ist; denn hierin
liegt eine Causalität, dergleichen mit dem bloßen Begriffe einer Natur, ohne ihr einen Zweck
unterzulegen, nicht verbunden, aber auch alsdann zwar ohne Widerspruch gedacht, aber nicht
begriffen werden kann. Wir wollen die Bestimmung dieser Idee von einem Naturzwecke zuvör-
derst durch ein Beispiel erläutern, ehe wir sie völlig auseinander setzen.” (Academy edition
vol. 5, p. 370-1; italics indicate the part Nietzsche cited). Nietzsche regards neither Kant’s pre-
liminary remark that this is only a provisory attempt nor his insertion that this is no univocal
concept yet.
47 The German text states “Existenzfähigkeit”. Agonist 100
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
The deduction, that organisms are the sole natural ends, has not been
accomplished.
Against this the same has to be said: this organism is purposive and this organism
is viable. So not: the existence of this thing is the end of nature: but: what we call
purposive is nothing but us finding a thing viable and following this, its conditions as
purposive.
“But, Kant says, “this concept now leads necessarily to the idea of the whole
nature as a system by the rule of ends.
“by the example, nature provides in its organic products, one is authorized to
expect it and its laws to be nothing but what is purposive in toto.”50
“Now if one introduces the concept of God into natural science and in its context
to make purposiveness in nature explicable, and needs this purposiveness hereafter
again to prove that there is a God: then in none of both sciences is there any
48 Nietzsche refers to the following passage in Kant: “Ein Ding seiner innern Form halber
als Naturzweck beurtheilen, ist ganz etwas anderes, als die Existenz dieses Dinges für Zweck
der Natur halten.” (Academy edition vol. 5, p. 378; italics indicate the parts Nietzsche pres-
ents). Anything about the ‘inexpedient method’ cannot be found in Kant’s Critique of Judgment
at all.
translated and
49 The quotation refers to Kant’s Critique of Judgment: “Aber dieser Begriff führt nun
nothwendig auf die Idee der gesammten Natur als eines Systems nach der Regel der Zwecke,
annotated by
welcher Idee nun aller Mechanism der Natur nach Principien der Vernunft (wenigstens um
daran die Naturerscheinung zu versuchen) untergeordnet werden muß. Das Princip der Ver-
nunft ist ihr als nur subjectiv, d.i. als Maxime, zuständig: Alles in der Welt ist irgend wozu gut;
Th. Nawrath,
nichts ist in ihr umsonst; und man ist durch das Beispiel, das die Natur an ihren organischen
Producten giebt, berechtigt, ja berufen, von ihr und ihren Gesetzen nichts, als was im Ganzen Paderborn
zweckmäßig ist, zu erwarten.” (Academy edition vol. 5, p. 378-379; italics indicate the parts
Nietzsche cited). The quotation is shortened and therefore a little reconverted but is in the
main correct.
50 The word “substance” is given as the translation of the German “innerer Bestand”. Agonist 101
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
substance51 and an elusive vicious circle52 brings each in uncertainness, through
which they make their borders merge with one another.”53
[568] To infer the emergence of organisms at all out of the method of nature
during preservation etc. of the organism: is not the Empedoclean view. But the
Epicurean one indeed. But it presupposes that chance might be able to assemble
motley organic beings: while here the point at issue lies. A tragedy can be pieced
together out of letters (against Cicero), an earth out of meteor pieces: but it is
questionable now what ‘life’ is, whether it is just a simple principle of order and form
(like the tragedy) or something completely diverse: However one has to admit that
within organic nature there exists no other principle for the behavior of organisms
than within inorganic nature. The method of nature in treating things is equal, it is an
impartial mother, hard towards inorganic and organic children in equal measure.
Chance rules by all means, i.e. the opposite of purposiveness in nature. The storm
that carries the things around is chance. This is conceivable.
Here the question appears whether the force that makes things is the same as the
one which preserves them? etc.
Within the organic being the parts are purposive for its existence; i.e. it would
not live if the parts were inexpedient. But therewith nothing is arranged for the sole
part yet. It54 is a form of purposiveness: but it is not to make out that it is the only
possible form. Hence the whole does not command the parts necessarily, while the
parts necessarily command the whole.55 Who asserts the first, too, [569] asserts the
highest purposiveness, i.e. the highest purposiveness selected from the different
possible forms of purposiveness of the parts: whereby he assumes that there is a
sequence of steps of purposiveness.
Which is the idea of effect now? Life under the conditions necessary thereto? This Translation
is one idea of effect common to all organisms?
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
Life in a form under the conditions necessary thereto? But the form and the
conditions coincide here, i.e. if a form is set as a cause, so the degree of purposiveness
is thought right into the cause, too. Because life in one form is just organism. What
else is organism than form, formed life?
But if we say about the parts of the organism, they were not necessary, then we
say, the form of the organism is not necessary: in other words we place the organic
into somewhere else than the form. But furthermore it is simply still life. So our
proposition will be: for living56 there are different forms i.e. purposivenesses.
Each of these forms is purposive: but because a welter of forms exists, so there is
a welter of purposive forms, too.
Therefore a57 reason does not reveal itself in the ‘purposive’ organisms.
[570] Therefore what the cause of the effect is as an idea, that is only the form
of life. Life itself cannot be considered as an end because it is assumed to act by
ends.
In other words employing final causes we do not approach the explanation of life
but only of form.
Now we do not conceive anything at all of a living but forms. The eternally
becoming58 is life; by the nature of our intellect we conceive forms: our intellect is
too obtuse to apprehend the perpetual metamorphosis: that which is cognizable to it,
it calls form. Truly there can be no form because in each point sits an infinitude. Each
thought unity (point) describes a line.
A similar concept like form is the concept individual. So one calls organisms units,
centers of ends. But there are only units for our intellect. Each individual has an
infinitude of living individuals within itself. It is only a coarse intuition, maybe firstly
taken from the body of the human being.
translated and
All ‘forms’ can be diced out, but life! annotated by
56 In German it is not clear whether Nietzsche wants to refer to the one reason or a rea-
son at all.
Th. Nawrath,
57 `The eternally becoming´ (“Das ewig Werdende”) will remind a German speaking
reader to a very similar expression in Goethe’s drama Faust (last verse of part 2) where he Paderborn
names the teleological force of the eternal process of being itself `the eternally feminine´
(“Das ewig Weibliche”).
58 The German text states “sich selbst Organisiren” which could also be given in transla-
tion as `autopoiesis´. Agonist 103
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
The idea of the whole as cause: thereby it is said that the whole conditions the
parts: nothing more: for that the parts construe the whole is self-evident.
[571] If one deals with final causes, one only means that in the building of the parts
the form of the whole was in mind, that a form cannot have emerged mechanically.
Life along with procreation is that which is not enclosed among final causes. The
‘act of self-organization’59 is deduced arbitrarily in Kant.
Does one need final causes to explain that something is alive? No, only to explain
how it lives.
No, ‘life’ is something completely dark upon which we can thus spend no light by
dint of final causes, either.
When60 we say ‘the dog is alive’ and ask now ‘why is the dog alive?’ it does not
belong here. Because here we have taken ‘living’ equally for ‘being’.61 The question
‘why is [there] anything’ belongs to outer teleology and falls outside our area.
(Childish anthropomorphic examples also in Kant).
We cannot explain the dog mechanically; that demands that he is a living being.
As a matter of fact we are even necessitated to look for final causes in an increasing
crystal.
but
59 The German text states “Wenn”, which could also be translated as “if”. I have chosen
“when” because the next thought is introduced with “jetzt” (“now”).
60 The German text opposes the two verbs “leben” (“living”) and “dasein” (“being”).
61 The German “Naturforscher” refers especially to those who employ empirical research.
62 Arthur Schopenhauer: Über den Willen in der Natur (1836). Agonist 104
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
questionable what ‘life’ is.
To read are
63 Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, Beiträge zur Aufklärung der Erscheinungen und Gesetze
des organischen Lebens, 4 vols.(Bremen, 1831-1832).
64 Heinrich Czolbe: Neue Darstellung des Sensualismus. Ein Entwurf(Leipzig, 1855).
65 Nietzsche employs these quote marks to indicate that the text in question belongs to
the same author as the previous line.
66 Heinrich Czolbe: Die Grenzen und der Ursprung der menschlichen Erkenntnis im Ge-
gensatz zu Kant und Hegel. Naturalistisch-teologische Durchführung des mechanischen Prin-
cips (Jena, 1865).
67 Jacob [Jakob] Moleschott: Der Kreislauf des Lebens. Physiologische Antworten auf
Liebig's Chemische Briefe (Mainz, 1852).
68 Jacob [Jakob] Moleschott: Die Einheit des Lebens; Vortrag bei der Wiedereröff-
nung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule am 23. November
1863 gehalten (Giessen, 1864).
69 Rudolf Virchow: Vier Reden über Leben und Kranksein (Berlin, 1862).
70 Rudolf Virchow: Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur wissenschaftlichen Medicin
(Frankfurt (Main), 1856).
71 Friedrich Adolf [Adolph] Trendelenburg: Logische Untersuchungen (Berlin,
translated and
1840) (later editions Leipzig).
72 Friedrich Ueberweg: System der Logik und Geschichte der logischen Lehren
annotated by
(Bonn 1857).
73 Hermann Helmholtz: Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft. Eine physikalische Abhan-
Th. Nawrath,
dlung (Berlin, 1847).
74 Hermann Helmholtz: Ueber die Wechselwirkung der Naturkräfte und die darauf bezügli-
Paderborn
chen neuesten Ermittelungen der Physik. Ein populär-wissenschaftlicher Vortrag gehalten
am 7. Februar 1854 (Königsberg 1854).
75 Wilhelm Wundt: Vorlesungen über Menschen- und Thierseele (Leipzig, 1863). Agonist 105
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
Wundt, Lectures on the Human and Animal Spirit.76
Lotze, Polemics.77
” Medical Psychology.78
November 1854
February 1856.79
” 3. Life force. = 87
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
Which right do we assume to comprehend the aspect of appearance88 of a thing
e.g. of a dog as preexistent? Form is something for us. Considering it as a cause thus
we award a phenomenon the worth of a thing in itself.
[574] Therefore recognition of rationality does not fall within the concept of
purposiveness.
What is supposed to be cause as the idea of effect, cannot be ‘life’ but only
form.
A thing lives—therefore its parts are purposive: the life of a thing is the end of its
parts.
But to be alive, there are infinitely different ways i.e. forms i.e. parts.
Purposiveness. Is not an absolute, but a very relative one: from another point of
view, usually inexpedience.
The concept of the whole is only related to the form, not to ‘life’.
translated and
On the Possibility of an Emergence of the Organisms
annotated by
from ‘Chance’, ‘Inexpedience’. (Mechanism)89
“way of appearance”) because on p. 574 Nietzsche uses the term referring to the epistemo-
Th. Nawrath,
logical “form” which is rather an ‘aspect’ of appearing than a ‘way’.
88 I consider this line as a subheading, but it could probably also be read as an ordinary Paderborn
text line.
89 The German “Reich” is given as “realm” because there is no political notion here.
The concept seems to refer to the neutral term “Reich der Natur” like “Pflanzenreich” (“plant
world) or “Tierreich” (“animal world”). Agonist 107
Volume III — Issue I — Spring 2010
[575] Kant admits to the possibility, but disavows the possibility of cognition.
But our understanding is discursive. But even that is sufficient if the mechanism
is explained.
What we see of life is form; how we see it, individual. What is behind it is
unrecognizable.
Procreation is not included within final causes: because it asks: for which end
shall this being become? This belongs to outer teleology i.e. in a system of the ends
of nature.
‘Life’ occurs together with sensing: therefore we take sensation91 for a condition
of the ‘organic’.92
[576] The question of the organism is this one: whence the humanlike in nature?
www.nietzschecircle.com
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Concept of the Organic since Kant
Fries, Mathematical Philosophy of Nature.94
Sal. Maimon, Berlin Journal of Enlightenment, ed. by A. Riem, vol. 8, July 1790.97
We cannot imagine ‘life’ i.e. the sensing, growing existence other than analogously
to the human. Man recognizes several humanlike and human-alien102 in nature and
asks for an explanation.
I have observed that one constantly thinks asleep from time to time: an accidental
awakening informs of it as there are still smithereens of the recent thoughts in the
head.
[577] In inorganic nature, e.g. in the constitution of the universe there is regularity
and purposiveness very well considerable as a consequence of mechanism.
Therein Kant saw an orderly necessity103, the opposite of chance (Kuno Fischer
Most notable passage: “Me thinks one could say in a certain sense without any
arrogance: give me matter, I will demonstrate you how a world shall emerge out of
it” – – – etc.104
It is hard for Kant to project alien philosophems.: what is very characteristic for
an original thinker.
[578] Nice words against the theological standpoint on the occasion of teleology.
“For it is something very absurd to expect enlightenment from reason and however
to predict it prior which way must necessarily result” (Cr. o. Pur. Reas. 2. sect.).�
stande ohne Vermessenheit sagen: Gebet mir Materie, ich will eine Welt daraus bauen! das
ist, gebet mir Materie, ich will euch zeigen, wie eine Welt daraus entstehen soll. Denn wenn
Materie vorhanden ist, welche mit einer wesentlichen Attractionskraft begabt ist, so ist es
nicht schwer diejenigen Ursachen zu bestimmen, die zu der Einrichtung des Weltsystems, im
Großen betrachtet, haben beitragen können.” (Academy edition vol. 1, p. 229 et seq.; italics
indicate the parts Nietzsche quoted) The quotation is part of the preface. It is shortened, but
apart from that almost correct; Nietzsche confutes “Verstande” with “Sinne” which might be
of no harm here. But he does not consider that Kant’s text is from 1755 and belongs to Kant’s
earliest period of work—about 25 years before the critical turn in 1781. Nietzsche seems to
quote this passage of Kant from Kuno Fischer: Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, loc. cit.,
vol. 3, p. 132 (book 1, chap. 1, no. 4); different from Nietzsche Fischer quoted Kant correctly. Translation
104 Johann Georg Hamann to Johann Gotthelf Lindner (12 October 1759): “Seine [= Kants]
Gründe verstehe ich nicht; seine Einfälle aber sind blinde Jungen, die eine eilfertige Hündinn
geworfen. Wenn es der Mühe lohnte ihn zu wiederlegen; so hätte ich mir wohl die Mühe geben
mögen, ihn zu verstehen. Er beruft sich auf das Ganze, um von der Welt zu urtheilen. Dazu
gehört aber ein Wißen, das kein Stückwerk mehr ist. Vom Ganzen also auf die Fragmente zu
schließen, ist eben so als von dem Unbekannten auf das Bekannte.” (italics indicate the parts
Nietzsche quoted) In: Hamanns Briefe, ed. by Walther Ziesemer and Arthur Henkel, 1955-
1979, vol. 1, p. 425. Nietzsche seems to quote this letter of Hamann from Kuno Fischer: Ge-
schichte der neueren Philosophie, loc. cit., vol. 3, p. 143 (book 1, chap. 1, no. 6).
105 Cf. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, B 775; German quotation is completely correct. Agonist 110
www.nietzschecircle.com