Author(s): Bernard Reginster

Fiction

Nietzsche continues to occupy a special place - not only for a broad range of academics but also for members of a wider public, who find some of their most pressing existential concerns addressed in his works. Central among these concerns is the question of the meaning of a life characterized by inescapable suffering, at a time when the traditional responses inspired by Christianity are increasingly losing their credibility. While most recent studies of Nietzsche's works have lost sight of this fundamental issue, Bernard Reginster brings it sharply into focus. For Reginster, Nietzsche's central motivating problem is the problem of nihilism, a problem caused by the "death of God." His argument then dissects nihilism into two distinct problems: on the one hand, the problem of disorientation, the sense we have that our highest values lack metaphysical grounding or justification; and, on the other, the problem of despair, our sense that our highest values are unrealizable in this world. Reginster argues that the nihilism of disorientation has to be faced and answered before one can grapple with (or indeed be seized by) despair. It is only when we have restored to ourselves a sense of the worth of these values, by some successful answer to the problem of disorientation, that we can feel the full force of the problem of despair. The problem of disorientation, Reginster then argues, is successfully solved by Nietzsche through his doctrine of perspectivism, understood as the idea that all our reasons are contingent. Nietzsche argues that the existence of contingent perspectives is a necessary condition for any practical reasoning, and therefore cannot possibly spell the downfall of our aspirations to find reasons. Reginster then turns to the despair problem, showing the depth of Nietzsche's engagement with Schopenhauer's pessimism. Offering the most philosophically serious and interesting discussion of Schopenhauer I have seen in the literature, he then argues that the doctrine of the Will to Power is Nietzsche's response. Instead of seeking satisfaction, Nietzsche argues, we basically seek the overcoming of resistance. If this is so, we ought to will the continued existence of suffering (understood as the effect of resistance to our will), so thatwe have struggles still to win. First published 2006.