Tracing Nihilism: Heidegger to Nietzsche to Derrida Bela Egyed I. Rhetoric and Nihilism
This collection of essays is not intended as an introduction to Nietzsche. Rather, it is, as its title suggests, an exploration of two themes and a reflection on the possible connections between them. Nietzsche had much to say about nihilism. It might even be argued that it is the single most important theme running through his works. He says comparatively little about rhetoric. But one could assert that rhetoric is strongly implicated as one of Nietzsche's permanent concerns. Indeed, it could be argued that such Nietzschean themes as perspectivism, nihilism, will to power, eternal recurrence, or the overman lose altogether their force and novelty if they are not seen as just so many elements in Nietzsche's rhetorical arsenal. And it could be argued further that Nietzsche has created a new place for rhetoric in the history of Western thinking, that he has restored to it a legitimacy it once enjoyed. Not all the essays here are written from the same point of view. Nietzsche, because of the way he wrote and because of his attitude toward reading and writing, never had a devout circle of followers. Hence, those who follow him do so as individuals not so much in search of some one truth, but more in search of words and ideas around which they can weave their own words and ideas, giving the latter a unique texture. Among these varied and personalized perspectives on Nietzsche's words some have left marks on his corpus which none of us today can ignore. And, without doubt, the reader who had the widest impact on our generation was Heidegger. One could almost say, with only slight exaggeration, that everything that is said or thought about Nietzsche today is said or thought, directly or indirectly, for or against Heidegger. Indeed, this holds true for the essays that compose this book. I would say further that the majority of the authors of these essays take their specific position with respect to Nietzsche not only with Heidegger in the background but also with what has come to be known as the "French" interpretation of Nietzsche. This French interpretation has evolved as a result of a confrontation with Heidegger's thoughts on such fundamental topics as "metaphysics," "nihilism," and "difference." The names of Heidegger, Deleuze and Derrida come up time and time again in this book and even where there is no explicit mention of them their influence is easily discerned. In order to enable our readers to see this more clearly, I shall set out as briefly as possible, first, Heidegger's critique of Nietzsche, then Deleuze's implicit critique of Heidegger's critique, and finally I shall try to indicate how Derrida's deconstruction is a development of Nietzsche's conception of philosophy and rhetoric and that it is in an important sense a critique of both Heidegger and Deleuze. 1