Examine Nietzsche‟S Statement in the Birth of Tragedy That It Is Only as an „Aesthetic Phenomenon‟ That Existence Can Be „Justified‟ to Eternity.
Examine Nietzsche’s statement in The Birth of Tragedy that it is only as an ‘Aesthetic Phenomenon’ that existence can be ‘justified’ to eternity.
According to the qualities of ‘eternity’ and ‘existence’ that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer prescribe; it is by definition that something can only be justified in the phenomenal world: the world of ‘existence’. Although this statement describes existence justifying itself to eternity, The Birth of Tragedy tends to illustrate the inverse: eternity justifying itself appearing through existence. However the movement between the states of the ‘physical’ and ‘virtual’ is not directional in the empirically spatiotemporal manner that Schopenhauer takes on. Unlike transcendentalist ideas, what Nietzsche depicts is an apparent duality born in the fusion of the minds twofold reality that has knowledge and perception only of existence. Aesthetic phenomenon offers us “delight in semblance” and simultaneously offers a greater, metaphysical delight in “the destruction of the visible world of semblance” (BT: 24).
The requirement that a phenomenon must be ‘aesthetic’ is universal in the sense that there is no requirement as to what an ‘aesthetic’ thing is. Supposedly it can be anything phenomenal “even the ugly and disharmonious is an artistic game which the will, in the eternal fullness of its delight, plays with itself.” (BT:24) Clearly there are degrees of ‘aesthetic’ quality that render more delight, but the delight is equally achievable in the interpretation as it is in the ‘phenomenon’ that is acting as a trigger. Maybe it is more appropriately imagined that ‘eternity’ justifies itself in the phenomenal: because the ‘justification’ takes place when an object awakens a sense of the ‘eternal’, so it is really a matter of seduction, and how effectively this ‘aesthetic phenomenon’ allows the noumenal to thrust itself upon the perceiver. But to say that this takes place wholly on account of how ‘aesthetic’ the phenomenon is, would
According to the qualities of ‘eternity’ and ‘existence’ that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer prescribe; it is by definition that something can only be justified in the phenomenal world: the world of ‘existence’. Although this statement describes existence justifying itself to eternity, The Birth of Tragedy tends to illustrate the inverse: eternity justifying itself appearing through existence. However the movement between the states of the ‘physical’ and ‘virtual’ is not directional in the empirically spatiotemporal manner that Schopenhauer takes on. Unlike transcendentalist ideas, what Nietzsche depicts is an apparent duality born in the fusion of the minds twofold reality that has knowledge and perception only of existence. Aesthetic phenomenon offers us “delight in semblance” and simultaneously offers a greater, metaphysical delight in “the destruction of the visible world of semblance” (BT: 24).
The requirement that a phenomenon must be ‘aesthetic’ is universal in the sense that there is no requirement as to what an ‘aesthetic’ thing is. Supposedly it can be anything phenomenal “even the ugly and disharmonious is an artistic game which the will, in the eternal fullness of its delight, plays with itself.” (BT:24) Clearly there are degrees of ‘aesthetic’ quality that render more delight, but the delight is equally achievable in the interpretation as it is in the ‘phenomenon’ that is acting as a trigger. Maybe it is more appropriately imagined that ‘eternity’ justifies itself in the phenomenal: because the ‘justification’ takes place when an object awakens a sense of the ‘eternal’, so it is really a matter of seduction, and how effectively this ‘aesthetic phenomenon’ allows the noumenal to thrust itself upon the perceiver. But to say that this takes place wholly on account of how ‘aesthetic’ the phenomenon is, would
Bibliography: Pg153: Nietzsche 's philosophy of science: reflecting science on the ground of art and life - Babette E. Babich Pg 295 Nietzsche Knows no Noumenon – David B. Allison Pg199 Nietzsche, philosopher, psychologist, antichrist- Walter Arnold Kaufmann The Eternal Return of the Overhuman: The Weightiest Knowledge and the Abyss of Light. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 30 (1):1-21. – Keith Ansell-Pearson. Pg 39 The Prophet- Kahlil Gibran The Birth of Tragedy- Friedrich Nietzsche (Cambridge texts)