Nietzsche (Philologist, Philosopher and Cultural Critic)

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The book contains the proceedings of a Seminar, Nietzsche: Philologist, Philosopher and Cultural Critic held at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in November 2004. The papers appearing here were written by scholars from India, France, Germany and Spain. They also come from several disciplinary backgrounds such as Philosophy, Literature, Political Science, Semiotics, Mathematics and Aesthetics. The authors deal with different and varied aspects of the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's life and work.

Nietzsche has been one of the most important influences on contemporary cultural criticism. Post-structural and post-modern thought in the late 20th century French context owes much to Nietzsche's philosophical critique of European culture, in particular and by extension, of any totalising cultural, political and ethical theory or practice anywhere. Beginning his career as a trained philologist, Nietzsche employed a mode of critical hermeneutics in order to deconstruct the highly cherished values and orientations of Europe, especially those associated with post-Socratic Greek thought, puritan Christianity and modern science. Nietzsche's critical relationship with philology was similar to that between post-structuralism and structuralism in the 20th century.

Nietzsche was a controversial, colourful and multifaceted philosopher. The effects of his philosophy have been felt in fields as diverse as literature, aesthetics, religion, ethics, music criticism, ecology and feminism. The over-valuation of art with respect to the domain of knowledge was one of his enduring contributions to modern / post-modern philosophy. Nietzsche is also known, not the least, as a stylist of philosophical writing: the transformation and transgression of the limits of the dominant discourse being one of his more important philosophical concerns.

Franson Manjali teaches linguistics and semiotics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research interests include: Ethics, Aesthetics & Linguistics, Philosophies of Discourse, Poetics and Politics of Language, Metaphors in Cultural Discourse, Semiotic Analysis of Narratives. His major publications are: Literature and Infinity (2001), Meaning, Culture and Cognition (2000), Nuclear Semantics - Towards a Theory of Relational Meaning (1991). He has also edited the following books: Language, Culture and Cognition (1998), Language and Cognition (1993), Language, Society and Discourse (1992), Poststructuralism and Cultural Theory: The Linguistic Turn and Beyond (2006). He is the translator from French of the book Morphogenesis of Meaning (2004) by Jean Petitot.

I wish to gratefully acknowledge the support and encouragement received from several institutions and individuals leading to the publication of this book. First of all, I should thank the Centre of Linguistics and English, Jawaharlal Nehru University for its support in the organisation of the seminar bearing the same title as this book. I received a regulatory grant from the university, for which I am grateful to the former Vice-Chancellor and the Rector of the University. A number of people actively collaborated with me for the success of the seminar. Of these, the most important was Anil Bhatti of the Centre of German Studies, and currently Dean of School of Arts and Aesthetics. Professor Bhatti was most forthcoming in providing his advice at various stages of the seminar, till its conclusion and after, during consultations on the project of publishing the proceedings. Much of what became possible would have been impossible without his help and guidance. Saugata Bhaduri, my colleague in the Centre of Linguistics and English and co-director of the Seminar, was similarly a great source of help and inspiration. Specially worthy of mention as far as the conduct of the Seminar of is concerned is the role of the Chairpersons of various sessions, viz., Jonardon Ganeri, Shadi Farrokhyani, Rekha Kamath-Rajan, Margit Koves, Gurpreet Mahajan and Rajendra Dengle,

I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Balveer Arora, Rector of the University, for his helpful suggestions regarding the publication of this volume. Especially for connecting me up with Mr. Jean-Claude Tribolet, Cultural Counsellor of the French Embassy in New Delhi, which has provided a generous subsidy for this publication. Without the kind of gesture of Mr. Tribolet, this book would have not found its well deserved appearance. I am very grateful to him.

The French Cultural Centre, under the leadership of Mr. Tribolet, had also taken up the responsibility of inviting three European scholars for participating in the seminar. The travel and other expenses of Gerard Bensussan, Antonia Bensussan and Renate Muller-Buck were met by them. In this context, I should specially mention the role of Agnes Macquin, Director of the French Information Resource Centre, New Delhi, who warmly received and looked after each of the above-mentioned participants. I thank her for her sincere and cordial association.

Presented here are the proceedings of a Seminar held under the auspices of the Centre of Linguistics and English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, from the 2nd to the 4th November 2004. The title of the seminar was the same as that of this volume: Nietzsche: Philologist; Philosopher and Cultural Critic. Not all the papers that appear here, were however actually presented by their authors in the seminar. The paper by Jean-Luc Nancy, the English translation of a previously written text in French, was presented in absentia.' Marc Crepon, who had to withdraw his intended participation in the seminar due to pressing engagements in his institution in Paris, subsequently sent his contribution for publication. The paper by Simi Malhotra who could not attend the seminar due to illness, is also included here.

For the benefit of the readers who were not aware of the taking place of this seminar, we present below the initial note disseminated to potential participants:

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the foremost German philosophers of 19th century has been the most important influence on contemporary cultural criticism. Post-structural and post-modern thought in the late 20th century French context owes much to Nietzsche's philosophical critique of European culture in particular and by extension, of any totalising cultural, political and ethical theory or practice anywhere. Beginning his career as a trained philologist, Nietzsche employed a mode of critical hermeneutics in order to deconstruct the highly cherished values and orientations of Europe, especially those associated with post-Socratic Greek thought, puritan Christianity and modern science. Nietzsche's critical relationship with philology was similar to that between post-structuralism and structuralism in the 20th century.

Nietzsche was a controversial, colourful and multifaceted philosopher. The effects of his philosophy have been felt in fields as diverse as literature, aesthetics, religion, ethics, music criticism, ecology and feminism. The over-valuation of art with respect to the domain of knowledge was one of his enduring contributions to modern / post-modern philosophy. At the same time, some of his pronouncements have been misunderstood and misused in the more recent political history of Europe. Serious interpreters have however noted that Nietzsche was in fact thinking beyond the given historical, moral and geographical limits of a Europe that he felt was increasingly sinking into nihilism marked by populism and traditionalism. His cultural critique strode beyond the confines of a self-congratulating modernity that was enveloping not only the whole of Europe, but through Europe the entire world. It was all this and specially his critique of excessive historicism that must have earned him the epithet of the 'philosopher of future.' Nietzsche is also known, not the least, as a stylist of philosophical writing: the transformation and transgression of the limits of the dominant discourse being one of his more important philosophical concerns.

The speakers at the proposed seminar are expected to dwell on one or more themes mentioned above. Emphasis, will of course be on the theoretical and contextual relevance of the issues dealt with, though particular historical perspectives on the philosopher's work would also be welcome.

During the course of the seminar, the participants were naturally following their own intellectual trajectories, and not following the above script with any degree of consistency or uniformity. In fact, as the director of the seminar, I was delighted to see a wide range of themes discussed there. Those who were actually part of the space-time frame of the seminar would have, I hope, relished the diversity of perspectives and orientations that were evident during those three days. It is a matter of regret however that I am not able to include in this publication, in spite of my earnest efforts, three of the papers which were actually presented in the seminar. These are: "Kant and Nietzsche: Reason versus Passion in Human Will" by Raghawendra Pratap Singh of Jawaharlal Nehru University, "Post-human in an All-too-human World" by Aniket Jaaware of the University of Poona, and "Mark and Memory: Nietzsche, Butler and Some Thoughts on the Body" by Udaya Kumar of the University of Delhi. I am certain that this volume would have been further enriched by these contributions. The readers of this book, I am afraid, will be exposed to a lesser intellectual fare than was the experience of those who attended the seminar.

Nietzsche has been variously described as a prophet, a philosopher and a madman. His writings reveal him to be a stormy figure, ready to jolt any signs of intellectual decadence and stultification that characterised the bourgeois-colonial consolidation of late 19th century Europe. From the point of view of the seminar, it was rather incidental that the year 2004 marked the 1601h anniversary of his birth. More pertinent is the fact that it was being held in a spatial and temporal context quite remote from that of Friedrich Nietzsche. I understand that there have already been a couple of seminars in India to mark the centenary of his death in the year 2000. Though it is not necessarily the central question for us, it is worth asking at this juncture as to how Nietzsche has been received in India. Was he hailed as a prophet and a philosopher or dumped as a madman? We know very little of this.

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