The title of the second chapter of Philosophy as Conversation is "Between Hegel and Nietzsche." This theme was already announced in the first chapter: we need to understand the fundamental issues that arose in the 19th century in order to better comprehend 20th-century philosophy. When I was writing this chapter, "Between Hegel and Nietzsche," I was primarily thinking about the contrast between Nietzsche's emphasis on human finitude—our physical, embodied existence—and Hegel's insistence on human infinitude—the idea that humanity is the bearer of the absolute spirit, and thus the bearer of infinity.
Hegel versus Nietzsche. Can a bridge actually be built between them? Nietzsche’s way of philosophizing is not systematic; it is literary in nature, consisting of aphorisms and critiques of existing schools of thought without laying a complete foundation for an alternative. He did attempt such a foundation later in life, but the result exists only as a collection of fragments—what you might call sketches or attempts that were never organized into a proper book.
In the chapter, I put it this way (though I probably wouldn't repeat it now) by saying that Nietzsche asks the questions that are relevant to us. By that, I meant the questions that were bound to arise in our culture once Christian faith ceased to be the dominant mode of thought. However, I argue that only in Hegel do we find a method for truly formulating the answers. The relevant questions come from Nietzsche, but the relevant answers must be found by setting something in motion, by employing a method that is most powerfully present in Hegel.
Here is a quote from Nietzsche I use: "Truth is the kind of error without which a certain kind of living being could not live. What matters in the end is the value for life." Now, that is, of course, not a question but an answer, stating that truth is a form of error. This is a somewhat exaggerated way of asserting that truth as we normally approach it—making statements about reality that correspond to that reality—is not what matters. What matters are conceptions that promote life.But not long before this, Hegel, speaking to students at the start of an academic year, said the following: "A still healthy heart has the courage to desire truth. The realm of truth is the home of philosophy; it is the structure to which philosophy contributes, and in which we, through study, come to share. What is true, great, and divine in life is so through the Idea. The goal of philosophy is to grasp the Idea in its true form and universality."
So: truth is a form of error, value for life is decisive. And on the other hand: truth is what we desire, for everything true in life comes through the Idea, and the Idea is the ultimate object of philosophy. This is the contrast I sketch here. What is this "healthy heart," this "divine truth," this "Idea," and so on? These are all words belonging to the early nineteenth century. For us in our time—and by that I mean 1995—they no longer have direct, self-evident relevance. And that, in itself, is quite interesting.
The chapter unfolds into a rather complex discussion where I do something quite difficult: I talk about the dialectical method, reconciliation in a higher unity, and similar methodological issues. This is perhaps not the wisest approach for a second-year student. Fortunately, I also do something more accessible: I sketch how Nietzsche's cultural critique naturally appeals to us more than the lofty idealism found in Hegel.
Nietzsche, I write, taught us to critically question the function that reason—rationality—serves for life, and to make life itself the norm for reason. This doesn't mean all rationality is discarded, but at the very least, it challenges the rationality concerning the meaning of life. Nietzsche states in Zarathustra that the body is the higher form of reason. All forms of thought find their justification in the usefulness a particular conception holds for life.This philosophical development coincides with another: the rise of technology in our society. Technology, paradoxically, is rationality par excellence. We seem to know what we are doing technically, yet we appear to have started a development that is unsustainable and almost has its own autonomous momentum. It remains, however, an immense achievement of human reason. So, simultaneously with Nietzsche's critique of rationality, we are confronted with an enormous development of that very rationality in the form of technology—the technical unfolding of reason.
It is against this backdrop that we must once again inquire into the relationship between finitude and infinitude, the perspectives of Hegel and Nietzsche. Nietzsche seems to be speaking about European culture alongside and outside of this technical development. Hegel, on the other hand, was not yet acquainted with this technological development. So, in a sense, this creates a question—a question about technology—that we can pose directly to both Nietzsche and Hegel.The technological development, however, might suggest that Nietzsche is correct about the finitude of human rationality. Technology, following its own autonomous path, could be precisely an indication of the limits of our rationality. On the other hand, we find in Hegel the attempt to systematically comprehend the totality of reality. For us, this would imply the need to also incorporate technology into philosophical analysis.
The importance of dialectical philosophy is given its own section here. The general significance of philosophers lies in their critical examination of the cultural absolutes with which modern humanity is constantly confronted. A form of essential self-knowledge is possible, one that allows us to understand ourselves and the objective world we create through our technology, and to unmask illusions. This experience, in a certain sense, gives expression to the infinitude of humanity. And this is where I introduce the central theme of the entire book.
For this infinitude of humanity is precisely found in the experience of conversation. Phenomena such as language, society, history, culture, and religion cannot be viewed merely as products of the finite mind. Rather, they are forms and levels of the human search and striving for the absolute. The form of conversation—as opposed to monological thought, individual perception, or social meaning-making—is the only one appropriate for the absoluteness that manifests itself in these phenomena. The form of conversation, therefore, makes possible the appearance, the very experience, of the absolute.
Well, that is what I articulate in that second chapter. And now, rereading it, I ask myself: did I actually manage to fulfill this promise in the rest of the book? I summarize it as follows: a contemporary philosophy can learn from Nietzsche what diagnosis of our time must be made. This includes the limitations of rationality in its search for truth, and the negative side-effects of technological rationality.
But a contemporary philosophy must learn from Hegel how to be the comprehension of our culture. That is to say, how to understand the unity of our culture and its foundation, with all its contradictory aspects: technology versus life experience, faith versus rationality, science versus our existential search for meaning. All these contradictions must be expressed in a comprehensive understanding of our culture.
In Nietzsche, the ultimate foundation for such a vision of the whole of culture is precisely what is missing. God is dead. So we are left with only that enormous multiplicity of contradictions, of tensions within culture, without any absolute basis for it. The perspective is different in Hegel. For every diagnosis—for example, a diagnosis of our time from a Nietzschean perspective—presupposes a point of view from which that diagnosis can be made. It presupposes a kind of standard, a criterion.
Every rejection of human rationality—an extreme form of Nietzscheanism, so to speak—presupposes precisely that form of rationality which makes such a diagnosis possible in the first place. Therefore, a philosophy of conversation is the only possible way to both maintain philosophy's classical dignity, in the manner of Hegel, while simultaneously doing justice to the Nietzschean critique and, consequently, to the great cultural shift for which Nietzsche, as a seismograph, registered the tremors.
I understand, in retrospect, what I meant by this back then. But precisely this second chapter is extraordinarily difficult to read. It is an outline of a project situated between Hegel and Nietzsche, seeking a philosophy of conversation in which the peculiarities of our modern culture—now, indeed, our postmodern culture—can be brought to comprehension, can be truly understood: the underlying unity, that is, of our contradictions and paradoxes.
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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant
