Vocabulary nietzschéen

Friedrich Nietzsche uses a particular vocabulary. It created a certain number of philosophical concepts and worked on concepts from which the range extends beyond its only works.

Critical of the language

The Langage is for Nietzsche an implicit metaphysics: he sees of it the most convincing index in the fact that the cultures bound by a linguistic history have the same philosophical problems. The reason is thus for him only one linguistic effect: the philosophers think of the words, not of the things.

“At the beginning there was this great harmful error which considers the will as something which acts, - which wanted that the will is a faculty … Aujourd'hui we know that it is only one vain word there… Much later, in a world thousand times more lit, the safety , the subjective certainty in the handling of the categories of the reason, came (with surprised) to the conscience from the philosophers: they concluded that these categories could not come empirically, - all empiricism is in contradiction with them. From which do they thus come ? - And in India as in Greece one made the same error: “It is necessary that we remained formerly in a higher world (instead of saying in a quite lower world , which had been the truth!), is needed that we were divine, because we has the reason! ”… Indeed, nothing had until now a force of more naive persuasion than the error to be it, as she for example was formulated by Éléates: because it has for it each word, each sentence which we pronounce! - The adversaries of Éléates, them also, succumbed to the seduction of their design to be it: Démocrite, inter alia, when he invented his atom… “Reason” in the language: ah! what a misleading old woman! I fear well that we never get rid of God, since we still believe in grammar…”

This judgment of the language leads Nietzsche to two more or less compatible positions: the philosopher who thinks the things and not the words , must invent a language, a vocabulary which will be the expression of a individual Grammaire philosophical; in the contrary case, when the philosopher subjects to the Logique ordinary Langage, it produces a philosophy which is only one popular thought a little more subtle. The second thesis of Nietzsche is that the Idiosyncrasie of the philosopher who was delivered common thought is not communicable.

Such as it practices the philosophical writing, Nietzsche reverses the linguistic practice of the philosopher: where the philosopher employs a specific vocabulary under which one finds only one popular thought (the one time morals, of people), Nietzsche employs its own vocabulary little, and is expressed in a seemingly accessible literary way, manner that it sometimes happens to him to translate in his own words.

Vocabulary of Nietzsche

This is an not-exhaustive list of the vocabulary nietzschéen. It is not a question to explain these words (for that, we return to the articles), but to analyze the use of it.

Superman: the name appears in Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra . It is employed little by Nietzsche, even in its notebooks.
Will for power
Nihilism: this concept is strongly associated with the thought of Nietzsche. However, it appears little in the texts published. Nietzsche especially wrote on the nihilism in the fragments of 1887 - 1888.
Eternal return
Genealogy
Resentment
Last Apollinian man
Decline: taken again word of French, with Paul Le Bourget. Although this word is strongly associated with the 19th century, the use that makes Nietzsche of it supports on the Physiologie, the Psychiatrie and the Psychologie; also the whole of the analyzes of Nietzsche on this concept can be brought closer, without being reduced to it, of phenomena studied today under the names of Addiction, of depression (Aboulie, psychomotor deceleration, etc), of nervous Tension, Hystérie.

Metaphors of Zarathoustra

Voir Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra

In addition to this vocabulary whose conceptual contents can be given by certain of its texts, Nietzsche abundantly uses the Allégorie and the Métaphore, not only in Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra , which is a work rich in philosophico-poetic figures, but sometimes in some other texts. One can quote: the child, the lion, the snake, the eagle, sun, Zarathoustra, the dwarf.

The use of the quotation marks

Nietzsche does not only have, like others Philosophe S before him, invented words or expressions. It used various easy ways to prevent its readers from seeing in its texts only one whole of words to the direction become obvious by the force of education, the practice or of haste. Nietzsche uses the aphorism thus in order to stimulate the intelligence of the reader, who sees himself forced to seek the good entry in this labyrinth of texts. But it is the use of the quotation marks which relates to more the vocabulary nietzschéen. Indeed, it often happens that, in the same text, a word is used with and without quotation marks, thus forcing to wonder whether these quotation marks also do not determine, as much as what one names usually vocabulary, the direction of the remarks of Nietzsche.

Specific uses of certain words

The examples of a specific use of common words are rather numerous. In the sentence:

“Der Wille zur Wahrheit, DER ones noch zu manchem Wagnisse verführen wird, jene berühmte Wahrhaftigkeit, von DER ale Philosophen bisher put Ehrerbietung geredet haben”

“the will of truth, which will still lead us worms of many dangerous adventures, this famous veracity, about which the philosophers spoke up to now with veneration”

Nietzsche employs the adverb bisher (Up to now, until now) to be opposed what was thought up to now. This employment is very frequent in its texts and expresses an important philosophical articulation, since Nietzsche thus underlines what he regards as the originality of his thought. Other adverbs have also a philosophical role, like erst , in this sentence:

“Was sich erst beweisen lassen muss, STI wenig werth. ”

The philosophical importance of this adverb is visible if several translations are compared. Henri Albert translates thus, forgetting the adverb:

“What has need to be shown to be believed is not worth large-thing. ”

Jean-Claude Hémery, in the Gallimard translation, does not translate either this adverb:

“What has need to be proven is not worth large-thing. ”

On the other hand, it east restores in the translation of Patrick Wotling, with the Flammarion editions:

“What must initially be shown is not worth large-thing. ”

The last sentence does not have the same direction as the two first. In the first two sentences, the direction is that Nietzsche denies that, in all the cases , which needs demonstration has a great value. The third translation restores the direction of the German text, which is that the demonstration is not what establishes in first the value, without excluding that it can have a place thereafter.

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