I will explain how Lyotard in his
text Libidinal Economy (Économie Libidinale 1974) approaches the
Platonic tradition, which is understood in this case through the structures
which govern reality. In doing so, I believe that Lyotard is positioning an
account of nihilism which correlates to Nietzsche’s concerns.
In Libidinal Economy, there is a distinct upturning of the Platonic
tradition in which Lyotard will tell us that libidinal intensities or energy is
dissipated by the signification of rational thought which stems from Plato. My
intention is to show how this correlates with Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (Die
Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik 1872), Twilight of the Idols (Götzen-Dämmerung,
Oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer Philosophirt 1888) and Ecce Homo (Ecce homo:
Wie man wird, was man ist 1888) whereby the intelligible order under
the Platonic tradition, which extends throughout Western metaphysics quells the
individuation of a pure primordial energy.
Section I, Nietzsche’s Reading of Plato:
I will initially address the
consideration of the deintensification of energy which drives the art impulse
in The Birth of Tragedy, in which
Nietzsche recognises the death of poetry in the Greeks through Socrates pursuit
for a knowable truth, and the influence the Socratic-Platonic tradition has on Western
metaphysics. The intention of this correlates to Lyotard’s libidinal intensity
which in a similar turn is the slowing of an energetic intensity which creates
rational, static and homogenous structures of reality.
The
Birth of Tragedy, briefly put, focuses on two Greek deities; Apollo and
Dionysus. Apollo presented as the god of individuation and Dionysus the god of
intoxication. These two poles operate as essential drives of art when Nietzsche
brings them together; when divorced from one and other, as Ullrich Haase writes:
Apollo represents a knowledge without truth,
Dionysus presents the idea of a truth without knowledge[1].
Nietzsche considers that it is in Nature
where the energy that drives art is ‘longing for release’[2],
and it is through the transformation from Nature into the personal and
collective unconscious.
Nietzsche turns towards a
metaphysical account, telling us of the ‘Primal Unity’, which he regards as
eternal suffering. This is contrary to individuation, which he considers as ‘a
perpetual becoming in time, space and causality’[3].
The implication holds that the world in general is a manifestation of the
Primal Unity; the underlying energy can only be represented.
I maintain that in Nietzsche’s text
we see the drive of creation which correlates to the will, and its affect (sadness),
together (the primal and the eternal) is ‘the sole basis of the world’[4].
Nietzsche is outlining the notion
of an undercurrent of energy which drives the creation of art. For example,
Nietzsche tells us that the Dionysian artist, who is identified with the Primal
Unity, which he considers as being in this case ‘pain and contradiction’[5],
recasts or imitates the Primal Unity through the medium of music. Nietzsche
refines this stance by suggesting that without the symbolism, images or
representation which is inherent to the empirical world, the Dionysian artist
is ‘pure primordial pain’[6];
which I understand as a flow of energy which emerges from Nature.
However, following the text we see
how Nietzsche considers the suppression of these energies which drive the art
impulse under the Platonic tradition. I will further discuss the implication of
the Primal Unity after addressing some key issues which I highlight in Book VI & VII of Plato’s Republic. However, it is important to highlight
Nietzsche’s criticism of Plato and Socrates in The Birth of Tragedy.
Nietzsche tells us that Plato
appears in the shadow of Socrates, and that Plato ‘first of all burned his
poems’ in order that ‘he might become a student of Socrates’[7].
This is followed by suggesting that Plato’s condemnation of tragic art, which
is considered lower than the ‘empiric world’[8]
follows behind his ‘master’, referring to Socrates.
Nietzsche discusses Socrates as the
destroyer of Greek tragedy, regarding Socrates as the ‘Cyclops eye […] fixed on
tragedy, an eye in which the fine frenzy of artistic enthusiasm had never
glowed’[9].
Nietzsche tells us that Socrates did not think that the tragic arts was able to
“tell the truth”[10],
that the tragic arts are not useful, and require complete separation from the
philosophical. However, Nietzsche makes claims towards artistic truth and
Natures impulse, explaining that even ‘the dumb man […] is the image of Nature
and her strongest impulses’[11],
and in the heart of Nature can account for the proclamation of truth. That is,
the expression of Nature is the expression of truth, it is not as we will see,
signified or symbolised through appearances. Hereon, I will refer to the tragic
arts in light of the ‘pure primordial’ energy, which could better be thought of
as the seed of which the tragic arts are born (hence the title The Birth of Tragedy).
In section 13-15 of the text,
Nietzsche begins discussing Socrates as the opponent to tragic art[12].
Nietzsche tells us that Socrates calls upon ‘the greatest statesmen, orators,
poets and artists’ and accuses that they were ‘without proper insight’ to their
professions, relying on instinct without knowledge[13],
Nietzsche writes:
“Only by
instinct”: with this phrase we touch upon the heart and core of the Socratic
tendency. With it Socratism condemns existing art as well as existing ethics.
Wherever Socratism turns its searching eyes it sees lack of insight, it sees the
force of illusion.[14]
Nietzsche’s reads Socrates as a
negative and destructive energy which empowers knowledge above the tragic arts
or the energy of instinct. I maintain that Plato/Socrates calls for the
intelligibility of all things; that knowledge is the height of all human
endeavour which disempowers the impulse of the tragic arts. In this text, Nietzsche
is opening the problem of the Socratic notion of the ‘theoretical man’[15]
in regard to the dissolution of the Dionysian tragedy, which following an interpretation
by Catherine Zuckert; leaves poetry in the tragic age of the Greeks subservient
to philosophy[16].
It is in section 15 where Nietzsche
talks of the influence of Socrates extends to the present moment ‘like an
ever-increasing shadow in the evening sun’[17].
One which Nietzsche considers all cultures at some stage to have become
constrained by the Greeks ‘restricted institutions’, as he writes:
‘And so one
feels ashamed and afraid in the presence of the Greeks, unless one prizes truth
above all things’[18].
What Nietzsche recognises is the
very notion that Socrates was more concerned with the search for truth than
truth itself. Maintaining the power of knowledge above all things and ensuring
that existence seem intelligible, giving man a justified reason to live.
These implications, which are
apparent in the Birth of Tragedy,
Nietzsche calls upon the Primal Unity or an energy which gains momentum or is
charged in Nature and is released in the form of artistic representation. The
issue that Nietzsche raises, I maintain from the above discussion, is that the
Platonic-Socratic tradition devalues artistic impulse and its pure intensity in
search of an absolute, knowable truth. If we consider this consideration of
individuation to be the birth of the tragic arts, then Socrates and Plato bring
about its death.
In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche makes further and direct criticisms
of the Platonic tradition. At this point, I will outline the problems that
Nietzsche found in Plato’s division of the sensible world and the intelligible
world. This will lead me to further interpret the consideration of the Primal
Unity or the primal flux and its relation to the apparent world.
In the chapter; How the ‘Real World’ at last became a myth
which is found in Twilight of the Idols,
Nietzsche gives us six fragments which recount the story of Western metaphysics
beginning at Plato. In these six steps, Nietzsche addresses nineteenth-century
scepticism, and following his own philosophical anticipations, as Haase
recognises in the text, Nietzsche in the ‘overturning of Platonism, then, means
to become the inheritor of this metaphysics, and, at the same time, its end’[19].
Nietzsche’s initial fragment which
will be the consideration of this essay, is as such:
1. The
real world, attainable to the wise, the pious, the virtuous man – he dwells in
it, he is it.
(Oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple,
convincing. Transcription of the proposition ‘I, Plato, am the truth’)[20]
Following an interpretation by Zuckert,
Nietzsche is accusing Plato of dissimulation[21].
To fully understand Nietzsche’s
claim it would be worth recognising how the ‘visible world’ and the
‘intelligible world’ appears in Plato. To seek this, I will apply this inquiry
into Book VI and Book VII of Plato’s Republic,
in which we have the Analogy of the Sun,
Analogy of the Divided Line and the Analogy
of the Cave to interpret what is meant by the two levels of reality[22].
In the Divided Line, Plato begins by suggesting two powers, which can
be thought of as the Form of the Good and the Sun, which seeks to divide the
world from the visible and the intelligible. The Form of the Good, following a
discussion by Richard Kraut in response to this feature in Republic, tells us that Plato regards the Forms not as an
‘aggregate of abstract objects’, rather they are ‘connected to each other’.
This notion follows that, in Republic,
there is one Form that is central to the knowledge of everything; the form of
the Good[23].
The implication of the Forms suggests a structured unity which stems from the
idea of the Good, as Kraut writes ‘the goodness of a complex group of objects
consists in their unification’[24].
To recognise the Forms, as we will see with the Analogy of the Cave, is to have the knowledge and ability to
compare the particular sensible instantiations of an object or property to a
Form[25].
The Analogy of the Sun takes the Form of the Good and the Form of the
Sun and sets out a comparison. For example, the visible world is illuminated by
the Sun and thus endows the eye with power of seeing the objects of sense etc.,
the Form of the Good gives intelligibility, reality and truth to objects of
thought and power of knowing to the mind[26],
in which Socrates is wrote to have said to Glaucon:
And we go on to
speak of beauty-in-itself, and goodness-in-itself, and so on for all the sets
of particular things we have regarded as many; and we proceed to posit by
contrast a single form, which is unique.[27]
To summarise the Analogy of the Sun, Plato writes that to
perceive an object under starlight dulls the vision; the object is obscured.
However, when the sunlight hits the object our vision is clear. That is the
position of the visible world, the Sun makes the objects appear to us,
otherwise when an object is obscured in the dark we can only have opinions, we
‘seem to lack intelligence’. The intelligible world ensures that the objects
perceived are illuminated by truth and reality, Plato writes that we
‘understand and know them, and its possession of intelligence is evident’. What
Plato holds is that what ensures truth in the perceived object is the Form- in
this case, it is the Form of the Good[28].
The Form of the Good, in this case, correlates to be ‘being’ and ‘reality’[29].
However, the Divided Line which follows from the Analogy of the Sun, seeks to demonstrate how we apprehend the two
orders. The divisions made, as we will encounter, are on the one hand between
all things contained in the sensible world (objects and their images
illuminated by the Sun) and on the other hand the intelligible world presided
over the idea of the Good[30].
Socrates begins by returning to the
two powers (form of the Good and the Sun), and tells us of a further division
whereby the line is divided into two unequal parts, and divided again in the same
ratio to ‘represent the visible and intelligible orders’. Socrates, as Plato
writes, holds that the visible order in the sub-section of the images which are
said to be reflections in water or shadows represent the foundations of opinion
(doxa)[31].
However, the further division holds
knowledge (épistēme)
over the order of conjecture, whereby the mind uses the images to base its
inquiries and assumptions on. Plato gives an example of students of geometry
drawing figures to base assumptions and calculations. The example holds that
the students make use of the visible figures, however it is not in these
imitations that they are drawing their conclusions upon but ‘about the
originals which they resemble’. The example is used to discuss how the actual
figures (which are the lower level visible things such as reflections or
shadows) are treat as images only, and the real objects that they resemble are
only visible to the ‘eye of reason’. The notion of apprehending the
intelligible realm (to noēton)
is described through a succession of corresponding levels beginning at the
level of opinion. The levels as we can see in the metaphor of the
mathematicians, draws itself up from the ‘illusion’ (eikasia), to ‘belief’ (pistis),
to mathematical reason (dianoia) and
finally ‘intelligence’ (nóēsis)[32],
Plato writes:
The whole
procedure involves nothing in the sensible world, but moves solely through
forms to forms, and finishes with forms.[33]
The
Analogy of the Cave presents the idea with a more gradual or continuous
movement from the sensible realm to the intelligible rather than the strong
division which is made in the Analogy of
the Divided Line, it could be said that the Analogy of the Cave is a graphic representation of the Analogy of the Divided Line, which draws
a narrative upon the distinction made of belief and illusion to the ascent
towards pure philosophy or the intelligible realm.
The analogy begins by presenting a
cave; the cave has a fire burning which illuminates a far wall ‘like the screen
at a puppet show’. The cave contains a group of prisoners who are bound to the
wall and floor of the cave, facing an adjacent wall which is illuminated. The
narrative tells us that the men have been prisoners since they were children[34].
Plato continues to write that
behind the prisoners are men carrying shapes which project silhouettes onto the
wall, the shadows of which are apparent to the prisoners (but the artefact
bearers are not visible to them). The leading assumption here follows that the
shadows cast on the cave wall are ‘real things’ to the prisoners. That is, the
objects mentioned are to the prisoners the truth, they cannot know anything
outside of the cave or the mechanics which construct the images on the cave
wall[35].
The analogy goes on to hypothesise
a prisoner who escapes the bonds, and looks toward the fire. The prisoner now
sees the objects which cast the shadows onto the cave wall, beginning to adapt
and gradually witnessing the truth of objects and learn of the mechanics that
construct the visible order. The gradual ascent towards the world above the
cave correlates to a liberation of human knowledge, demonstrating how the
prisoner comes to learn of the Forms, Plato writes:
Later he would
come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces the changing seasons and
[…] everything in the visible world[36]
The analogy corresponds to the
analogy of the Divided Line in so far
as the narrative can be transposed on to it, and blends the more definite
distinctions with a continuity of progress, Plato writes:
The realm revealed
by sight corresponds to the prison, and the light of the fire in the prison to
the power of the sun. And you won’t go wrong if you connect the ascent into the
upper world and the sight of the objects there with the upward progress of the
mind into the intelligible region[37].
However, the analogy touches upon the
image of the human condition; it supposes that humans who are untouched by
philosophy are likened to the prisoners, who take the shadows caused by the artificial
light as truth. The suggestion follows that reality to the prisoners is so
limited that they do not regard their confines as anything other than their
reality. The prisoners, as Plato writes, are the uneducated and have no
knowledge of the truth. The proposition holds that the images of the cave are
less real than the realm of objects, which are more real than anything that
they saw in the cave. Plato writes that this is the ascent to the vision of the
Good, which is the ‘highest form of knowledge’[38].
The Platonic distinction, to summarise, distinguishes between the sensible and
the intelligible, the intelligible satisfies the term metaphysics, as it
institutes sense beyond the physical world[39].
As Nietzsche wrote in the History of Error, the real world is only
attainable to the wise. It is in the Platonic tradition, and following the
discussion of the distinction made between the sensible and the intelligible,
where the seeds of nihilism can be found. Nietzsche makes a clear development
of this point in Ecce Homo of his
‘craft’ of overthrowing idols, in which he contends that the Platonic tradition
or metaphysics has deprived reality of its value, meaning and truthfulness[40].
Nietzsche writes echoing what I have discussed in the Twilight of the Idols:
The “true world”
and the “apparent world” – that means: the mendaciously invented world and
reality.[41]
The result of the Platonic
tradition accordingly follows that the ideal has been a ‘curse on reality’, the
suggestion of nihilism is evident in Nietzsche’s proposition that mankind has
become false to the point of worshiping ‘the opposite values of those which alone would guarantee its health
[…and] the lofty right to its future’[42].
Where the value lies for Plato in the readability of the intelligible world and
the human becomes nothing more than a unit to be understood.
The notion of the pure primordial
force or the Primal Unity opens the concern of nihilism as a result of Plato’s
downgrading of the sensible world. Nietzsche acknowledges that the language of
the arts is observable unlike the energy which it grows from. He tells us that
Schiller, for example, in the creative process did not have a series of images
of creation or any ordered thoughts, rather he was in ‘a musical mood’[43],
and goes on to suppose that the ‘artist has already surrendered his
subjectivity in the Dionysian process’[44],
that is, the artist recognises the world of symbols and language and thus the
flow of energy ‘produces a copy of this Primal Unity’[45].
The implication here, which follows Nietzsche’s criticism of the Platonic
tradition points towards the deintensification of the Primal Unity, or this
underlying force which is born and shaped in the tragic arts. As I understand
it, the sensible world is one whereby the energy is charged and then exhausted
in empirical reality, which opens up the void of nihilism inherent to the known
world.
Section II, Libidinal Intensity in Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy:
In this section, I will satisfy my
question by suggesting that Lyotard in his text Libidinal Economy is in agreement with Nietzsche and invokes a
Nietzschean rhetoric. It is in Lyotard’s distinction of libidinal intensities
which exemplifies the energy beneath the surface of representation whereby the
correlation of Nietzschean nihilism is positioned. This will be outlined in Lyotard’s
illustration of the cooling of libidinal intensities which transforms them into
regulative structures of reality.
The expression which Lyotard addresses
follows the psychoanalytic tradition which takes form in Freud and Lacan;
thinking back to Nietzsche whereby Western metaphysics continues from the
‘mendaciously invented world’, it is as if the Platonic torch of
intelligibility has extended up to Lacan[46].
In Libidinal Economy, Lyotard defines
this Platonic inheritance in the philosophic tradition succinctly, writing;
Before engaging with Lyotard’s
text, I will explain the position of ‘jouissance’, which appears in Lacanian
terminology as an extension or repositioning of the Freudian notion of
desire-wish into an antinomic polarity[48].
The purpose of which will elucidate the position Lyotard takes towards a ‘true
philosophy’, whereby the emphasis of a ‘theoretical fiction’ is used to bypass
the limitations of traditional academic theory[49]
and inform us of the unobservable condition of intensities.
As mentioned, the polarity of
jouissance exists between the conventional use of desire (desire is lack, which
I understand as meaning only what is lacking can be wanted[50]),
and in respect to pleasure. As Néstor A. Braunstein writes in Desire and Jouissance in the Teachings of
Lacan (whose interpretation I will follow):
If desire is
fundamentally lack, lack in being, jouissance is positivity, it is a
“something” lived by a body when pleasure stops being pleasure. It is a plus, a
sensation that is beyond pleasure.[51]
Jouissance is an ineffable or
undefinable intensity; following the above use of desire as fundamentally lack,
the drive of desire as the experience of despair and helplessness is followed
by an ideal. This ideal which Braunstein describes as being alien to speech, or
the inscription of a mythical satisfaction; is the foundation of the
unconscious which Freud would call the ‘primal repression’ (Verdrängung)[52].
This endows jouissance with an indescribable intensity, one which is beyond the
pleasure principle. Lacan tells us that jouissance is not centralised, it has
all the characteristics of ‘inaccessibility, obscurity and opacity’. It is
presented as the ‘satisfaction of a need’, but Lacan insists that it is in fact
the ‘satisfaction of a drive’[53].
Jouissance as the cornerstone of Lacan’s thought leads him to consider the
concept to be ‘the only ontic to which we may confess’[54].
Lyotard acknowledges jouissance in
his libidinal philosophy. In his short text On
a Figure of Discourse Lyotard tells us that jouissance is the unthinkable
condensation of the strongest and weakest intensity. He goes onto say that
jouissance is the model of the ‘anaphora’, and that it transgresses or breaks
past the regulation of language and the regulation of the instituted body[55].
However, for Lyotard the language
of psychoanalysis exposes ‘the exclusion of intensities’. He writes that desire
as an intensive force does not enter the structural account of language, the
fundamental issue for Lyotard is that its object has to ‘relate to a system or
be a system’[56].
Lyotard, I maintain, is
presupposing the energy of desire which takes place before it is signified,
that although in jouissance there is a certain formlessness about the term,
Lacan still formulates it. Lyotard suggests in Libidinal Economy that jouissance is unrecognizable and yet
immediately recognized[57].
For Lyotard, the notion of desire or the libidinal transforms from the
incommunicable to the communicable; it becomes absorbed in language through
individuation, Lyotard writes:
The desire that
energy be dissolved into language inevitably leads analysis to assume that the
unconscious is structured like a language.[58]
Lyotard call’s the text Libidinal Economy a ‘theoretical fiction’,
as we will see, terms such as ‘libidinal band’ are posed as fictions. The
notion of this, as Bennington distinguishes, follows Freud’s use of
‘theoretical fiction’ to illustrate his account of the ‘primary process’, in
virtue of it never being observable (similar to the interpretation of
jouissance)[59].
Likewise, Lyotard exercises theoretical fiction to escape the subjective notion
that these intensities can and should never be a formal representation as such,
and therefore leads Lyotard to be consistent towards maintaining the
indistinguishability of the primal energy prior to its manifestation into a
readable subject. These terms, which stem from the psychoanalytic are used
metaphorically, Lyotard divorces the terms from the human subject and
repositions them onto the workings of reality[60].
I will firstly distinguish the
theatrical-representation set-up which is discussed throughout the first
chapter of Libidinal Economy, which
is titled The Great Ephemeral Skin.
Following Geoffrey Bennington’s
interpretation, the consideration of the theatre for Lyotard suggests an inside
and an outside; reality exists external to the theatre. The interior of the
theatre divides the act and the audience. This division marks the place
observed from the area which it is observed[61].
There is also a backstage or areas essential to the production of the theatre
that is not exposed to the observers etc. Behind the scenes, which Lyotard
places the ‘underside of politics’[62]
which are considered the mechanics which structure the represented act. The
notion of the stage and its contents are ‘out of reach’ to the audience,
therefore, we can consider this the absence or lack[63].
The stage is the prioritised space for these acts to take place, we can see in
the essay Des Dispositifs Pulsionnels
(1973) which Bennington draws us towards; Lyotard makes the claim that the
force of desire seeking fulfilment, or libidinal intensities cannot be discharged in a specific action relative
to reality and are themselves represented on a stage opened ‘inside’ the
psychical apparatus – and opened by […] lack’[64]
Lyotard writes that the
theatrical-representative set-up results from the labour of the ‘Moebian band’.
This band correlates to the opening of the text whereby the ‘libidinal body’,
which accordingly is made up of heterogenous parts that are joined to form a
‘Moebius skin’. The parts of the band are made up of ‘bone, epithelium, sheets
to write on, charged atmospheres, swords, glass cases, peoples, grasses, canvases
to paint’[65].
The result of which lies in an attempt to think of a system which is ‘more
true’ and more powerful, which takes the form of the libidinal energy[66].
If we consider the notion of
jouissance being ontic, we can agree with Lyotard that libidinal intensities
provide for a real experience or real events which cannot be bound to any
formal structures nor be observed. Lyotard presupposes an underlying intensity
which takes the fictional form of the libidinal band.
Returning then to the distinction of
the theatre, Lyotard tells us that the theatrical space and its exterior is
brought together by the cooling of libidinal energy, and writes:
The
representative chamber is an energetic dispositif.[67]
The term dispositif is quite broad, however, to give a brief example of the
term we can look to an interview between Alain Grosrichard and Michel Foucault
titled Confessions of the Flesh,
Grosrichard asks Foucault about the methodological function of the term dispositif (apparatus) of sexuality.
Foucault responds with the suggestion that the term relies of a heterogenous
ensemble of ‘discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory
decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical,
moral and philanthropic propositions’[68].
Foucault tells us that it is the dispositif
or apparatus themselves which is the ‘system of relations that can be
established’ between these knowledge structures[69].
Lyotard repositions the term in Libidinal
Economy, its function is designed to suggest that libidinal intensities are
drawn towards particular dispositifs.
Lyotard considers the moebius skin
of heterogenous parts to circulate on one surface, he writes that the ‘more
quickly it turns on itself, the more energy it employs and expends and heats
the travelled zone’[70].
Libidinal intensity is what drives the rapid rotation of the libidinal band[71].
The Moebian skin that Lyotard
constructs has no interior or exterior due to it circulating only on one
surface, and leads him to acknowledge that it can never be imprisoned in the
‘volume of the stage/auditorium’[72].
Following this narrative, the band
leaves behind ice in proportion to the energy ‘sucked up’[73],
its cooling forms what Lyotard calls ‘the disjunctive bar’, which separates ‘this from the not-this’[74]).
The cooling of these libidinal intensities and its transformation into the
disjunctive bar represents the formulation of dominant rational thought[75],
Lyotard writes:
A libidinal dispositif, considered, precisely, as a
stabilization and even a stasis or group of energetic stases is, examined
formally, a structure.[76]
Lyotard is claiming that the deintensification
of libidinal energy which is generated on the fast rotation of the libidinal
band produces a dispostif. To
correlate this with Nietzsche, the cooling of intensification could be the
emergence of the energy into art, which is subservient under the shadow of the
Platonic-Socratic tradition. Likewise, the libidinal intensity when cooled is knowable
to the audience in the theatrical-representative set-up.
In conclusion, following this
complex set of fictions which occur in Libidinal
Economy, the overturning of Platonism exists in the theatre-representation
set-up. The theatre which Lyotard discusses places emphasis on the division of
truth and its appearance[77].
The theatre analogy follows the Analogy
of the Cave, both of which hold that representation is always the
representation of absence, due to the notion that something is always at work
operating the figuration of what appears[78].
This distinction satisfies the Nietzschean nihilism, following that the
knowable world gives weight to the underlying momentum which then dissipates.
The distinction calls upon the
Nietzschean concern which reads nihilism into the Plantonic tradition; Lyotard
writes that the closure of representation should not be confused by thinkers
who come and tell us ‘what is outside is really inside’, such as the Platonic
notion that our sensible world is informed by the intelligible[79].
He goes on to tell us that the artefact-bearers who project creatures onto the
wall for the prisoners ‘do not even exist’, but that ‘they themselves are only
shadows in the cave of the sunlit world’[80].
I take this to place weight on the notion of the energy which is inherent to Nature
or the sunlit world, which supposes that these institutions are assemblages
which are structured from the disempowerment of intensities.
Lyotard is Nietzschean, not insofar
as he provides a commentary on Nietzsche, but through the puncturing of
discourse systemic to the Platonic tradition.
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Available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/lyotard/#H3 [Accessed 14 May 2017].
Zuckert, C. (1985). Nietzsche's
Rereading of Plato. Political Theory, 13(2), pp.213-238.
[1] Haase,
U. (2008). Starting with Nietzsche p
105-6
[2]
Nietzsche, F. and Fadiman, C. (1995). The
Birth of Tragedy. 1st ed. New York: Dover Publications, Inc p 10
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid. p 11
[5]
Ibid. p 14
[6]
Ibid. p 15
[7]
Ibid. p 49
[8]
Ibid.
[9] ibid.
p 48
[10]
Nietzsche, F. and Fadiman, C. (1995). The
Birth of Tragedy. p 48
[11]
Ibid. p 28
[12]
Ibid. p 46
[13]
Ibid.
[14]
Ibid.
[15]
Ibid. p 51
[16] Zuckert,
C. (1985). Nietzsche's Rereading of Plato.
Political Theory, 13(2), p 214
[17]
Nietzsche, F. and Fadiman, C. (1995). The
Birth of Tragedy p 51
[18]
Nietzsche, F. and Fadiman, C. (1995). The
Birth of Tragedy p 52
[19] Haase,
U. (2008). Starting with Nietzsche p
116
[20]
Nietzsche, F., Hollingdale, R. and Tanner, M. (1990). Twilight of the idols and The Antichrist. 1st ed. London: Penguin
Classics p 50
[21] Zuckert,
C. (1985). Nietzsche's Rereading of Plato.
p 229
[22] Lee,
D. and Lane, M. (2007). Plato, The
Republic. 5th ed. London: Penguin Group p 194
[23] Kraut,
R. (1992). The Cambridge Companion to
Plato. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p 13-14
[24]
Ibid. p 14
[25] Brickhouse,
T. and Smith, N. (2017). Plato |
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [online] Iep.utm.edu. Available at:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/plato/#SH6b [Accessed 14 May 2017].
[26] Lee,
D. and Lane, M. (2007). Plato, The
Republic. P 231
[27]
Ibid. p 232
[28]
Ibid. p 234
[29]
Ibid.
[30] Kraut,
R. (1992). The Cambridge Companion to
Plato. p 184
[31] Lee,
D. and Lane, M. (2007). Plato, The
Republic. p 238
[32]
Ibid. p 236
[33]
Ibid. p 239
[34]
Ibid. p 241
[35]
Ibid.
[36] Lee,
D. and Lane, M. (2007). Plato, The
Republic. p 243
[37]
Ibid. p 244
[38]
Ibid.
[39]
Lyotard, J., Chrome, K. and Williams, J. (2006). The Lyotard reader and guide. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press p 24
[40]
Nietzsche, F., Kaufmann, W. and Hollingdale, R. (1989). On the Genealogy of Morals & Ecce Homo. 1st ed. New York:
Vintage p 218
[41]
Ibid.
[42]
Ibid.
[43]
Nietzsche, F. and Fadiman, C. (1995). The
Birth of Tragedy. p 14
[44]
Ibid.
[45]
Ibid.
[46] Bennington,
G. (1988). Lyotard Writing the Event.
1st ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p 14
[47] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 7
[48] Rabate,
J. (2013). Cambridge companion to Lacan.
1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p 103
[49] Woodward,
A. (2017). Lyotard, Jean-François |
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [online] Iep.utm.edu. Available at:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/lyotard/#H3 [Accessed 14 May 2017].
[50]
Lyotard, J., Chrome, K. and Williams, J. (2006). The Lyotard reader and guide. p 28
[51] Rabate,
J. (2013). Cambridge companion to Lacan.
p 104
[52]
ibid. p 109
[53]
Ibid. p 104
[54]
Ibid. p 102
[55]
Lyotard, J., Harvey, R. and Roberts, M. (1993). Towards the Postmodern. 1st ed. London: Humanities Press
International, Inc p 14
[56]
ibid p 14
[57] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 20
[58] Lyotard,
J., Harvey, R. and Roberts, M. (1993). Towards
the Postmodern. p 21
[59] Bennington,
G. (1988). Lyotard Writing the Event.
p 23
[60] Woodward,
A. (2017). Lyotard, Jean-François |
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [online]
[61] Bennington,
G. (1988). Lyotard Writing the Event.
p 10
[62]
ibid. p 13
[63]
Ibid. p 14
[64]
Ibid. p 15
[65] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 2
[66] Bennington,
G. (1988). Lyotard Writing the Event.
p 15
[67] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 3
[68]
Foucault, M., Gordon, C., Mepham, J. and Soper, K. (1980). Power/Knowledge, Selected Interviews and Other Writings (1972-1977).
1st ed. London: The Harvester Press p 194
[69]
Foucault, M., Gordon, C., Mepham, J. and Soper, K. (1980). Power/Knowledge, Selected Interviews and Other Writings (1972-1977)
p 194
[70] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 15
[71] Bennington,
G. (1988). Lyotard Writing the Event. p 44
[72] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 3
[73]
ibid. p 15
[74]
Ibid.
[75] Woodward,
A. (2017). Lyotard, Jean-François |
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [online]
[76] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 26
[77]
Lyotard, J., Chrome, K. and Williams, J. (2006). The Lyotard reader and guide. p 28
[78]
Ibid.
[79] Lyotard,
J. and Grant, I. (1993). Libidinal Economy.
p 4
[80]
Ibid.