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출처 | 2014 |
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Self-overcoming – East and West.pdf
Self-overcoming – East and West
-Self-overcoming is not a favorite term in modern societies with their life-styles directed towards well-being and happiness, because it smacks of asceticism and self-denial. But asceticism has two sides, one of self-negation and self-abuse, the other one of strengthening body and mind through discipline and training as every athlete can confirm.1 Self-overcoming however is more than a limited strengthening of certain faculties or talents since it is concerned with the whole self. Self-overcoming wants to strengthen or improve the whole self by overcoming a weak, false or even bad and evil self, a task that has been taken up in the East as well as in the West by many eminent teachers and philosophers. As examples for the discussion of self-overcoming in East and West I will take a closer look at (Zen-)Buddhism and Ramana Maharshi for the East, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger for the West, although we should not forget that the term “Self-overcoming” is prominently used only by Nietzsche.2 What follows is intended to demonstrate that it is also a
1 In the third essay of the Genealogy of Morality Nietzsche did not only sharply criticize the negative influence of ascetic ideals but he also stressed its usefulness especially for the philosopher, who “smiles” at its sight because he sees in it “an optimum condition of the highest and boldest intellectuality [Geistigkeit]” (GM III, KSA 5, 351). After its misuse by the church, Nietzsche wanted to naturalize asceticism again, focusing on strengthening and not negation. Just like other values, asceticism has not to be abolished, but re-evaluated (NL 9[93], KSA 12, 387, NL 10[165], 552). Cf. Michael Monahan: The Practice of Self-Overcoming: Nietzschean Reflections on the Martial Arts, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2007); http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=phil_fac.
2 Nietzsche didn’t like the term ‘self-overcoming’ very much either because it is such a “beautiful” and flattering word when applied to oneself, carrying a strong moralistic overtone (CW, Preface, KSA 6, 11), but he used it anyway in a moral - supra-moral sense (BGE, 257, KSA 5, 205), which means also just because of its moralistic connotations, “and how might we cease talking morally!” (NL 17[4], KSA 11, 578). Claus Zittel (Selbstaufhebungsfiguren bei Nietzsche, Würzburg 1995) treats „Self-overcoming“ only as a „synonym“ for „Self-sublation“ (Selbstaufhebung), even though Nietzsche uses self-overcoming much more often than self-sublation, which is characterized only as a final step, demanded by the “law of necessary ‘Self-overcoming’ in the essence of life” (pp. 10, 90). For Werner Stegmaier (Nietzsches ‘Genealogie der Moral’, Darmstadt 1994, pp. 218, 82-83), ‘self-overcoming’ is likewise only a ‘clarification’ of ‘self-sublation’, because the former is supposed to be, at least in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, mainly an ‘ethical demand’, whereas ‘self-sublation’ is not. ‘Self-sublation’ is for Stegmaier an extreme form of a ‘shift of meaning and ‘identity’ (Sinn- und Identitätsverschiebung). However, not only in GM but also in Zarathustra, ‘self overcoming’ is ‘necessary’ or ’must’ be, which means, that it cannot only be an ‘ethical demand’, which could be fulfilled or not. Zittel’s “figurations” of “self-sublation” remain rather abstract, applied only to entities and “selves” like tragedy, culture, science, language and morality and are neglecting the roots of “Self-overcoming” in Nietzsche’s own life, of which he writes to Franz Overbeck (Dec. 31, 1882): „My Self-overcoming is after all my greatest strength. I have recently thought about my life and realized that I have done nothing else so far.“ Whereas for Zittel “nothing remains” through self-sublation (p. 69), for Nietzsche a new self emerges through self-overcoming, because it is not only “going under” (Untergang) but also a “going over” (Übergang), just as a ‘shift of meaning and identity’ does not simply result in pure meaninglessness and dissolution, but in the case of ‘self-overcoming’ in a new and opposite self compared to the former ‘self’. The “self-sublation” of “justice” for example is “grace” or “clemency” (GM II, 10, KSA 5, 309; cf. Zittel, 49-50, where this is omitted), of the “moralist” the
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fruitful concept for the understanding of other ‘philosophers’ and a comparison of eastern and western ‘philosophies’ as well.3 Nietzsche could be the provider of the idea of ‘self-overcoming’ in a double sense, firstly influencing other philosophers like Heidegger,4 and secondly giving the writer of this article a tool to compare eastern and western philosophies, at least in a brief and first sketch, focused on self-overcoming. If it could be shown to be a widespread, but so far undiscovered underlying structure used even across different philosophies and cultures, “necessary ‘self-overcoming’” could prove to be not only an ‘idea’ Nietzsche had, but really the discovery of a fundamental ‘law’, as he proclaimed. If the ‘ascetic ideal’ of self-overcoming was so far the only ideal that gave meaning to humans, as Nietzsche also claims, this shouldn’t even surprise us. The question is rather how Zarathustra’s ‘counter-ideal’ of overcoming the human towards the overhuman differs from it (EH, KSA 6, 353). The answer should be found in the already mentioned difference between a weakening and strengthening kind of self-overcoming, in other terms, in diminishing or increasing the ‘will to power’. The basic structure of self-overcoming can be illuminated by the following questions which I will take as guide-lines:
1. What is Self-overcoming?
2. Why should we overcome ourselves?
3. What is the Self? Or: Who am I (not)?
4. How to overcome oneself?
5. Self-overcoming of self-overcoming?
“immoralist” (EH, KSA 6, 367) and of the “human” the “overhuman” (Za I, KSA 4, 14). Neither did history come to an end nor did Nietzsche's own self-overcomings lead to nothing but to many transformations. Cf. Michael Skowron, Posthuman oder Übermensch.War Nietzsche ein Transhumanist?, Nietzsche-Studien 42, 2013, pp. 256-282, 267-270.
3 In a recent publication André van der Braak has taken up the term in a comparison of ‘Nietzsche and Zen’, but self-overcoming is for him without a self (Nietzsche and Zen. Self-overcoming without a Self, Lexington Books, Lanham 2011; cf. my review in Frontiers of Philosophy in China 9:1, 2014, pp.166-171). The translation of Keiji Nishitani’s book ‘Nihilism’, originally published in 1949, uses in its title Nietzsche’s expression of “The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism” (NL 9[164], KSA 12, 432; NL 13[4], KSA 13, 215), because it “evokes the spirit of the text more fully – especially as it obviates the impression that nihilism is to be overcome by means of something other than itself” (Nishitani, p. XXVII). Nihilism is for Nishitani “first of all a problem of the self” and not appropriate for a detached spirit for whom it is “no more than a topic of conversation” (The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, transl. by Graham Parkes with Setsuko Aihara, Albany 1990, p. 1).
4 In general one could say, that Heidegger interpreted not only ‘self-overcoming’ but also other Nietzschean terms in the spirit of his ‘fundamental ontology’: ‘décadence’ becomes ‘falling’ (Verfallen, Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (BT), transl. by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Oxford 1962, § 38), the ‘overhuman’ (Übermensch) becomes a ‘factical ideal of Dasein’ (BT § 62, p. 358/310), the ‘moment’ (Augenblick) the ‘authentic Present’ as a modus of ‘authentic temporality’ (BT § 68a), nihilism the forgetfulness of Being. Nietzsche’s influence on the early Heidegger is far deeper than the few explicit references in “Being and Time” concerning death (BT § 53, p. 308/264), conscience (BT § 55, p. 492/272) and history (BT § 76, p. 448/396) are suggesting.
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1. What is Self-overcoming?
1.1. “Self-overcoming” is formally an overcoming of a self by and for itself. Self-overcoming does not need an external power to overcome itself. In religious terms, self-overcoming doesn’t need a redeemer or savior as for example in Christianity. We can redeem ourselves by and through our own ability and effort. Thus Nietzsche has understood the Buddha as “the teacher of the religion of self-redemption” that doesn’t need a God, and Nietzsche followed the Buddha in this respect (D 96, KSA 3, 87).
Ramana Maharshi, even though he is using ‘God’ as a synonym for ‘Self’ (besides ‘Reality’, ‘Guru’, ‘Heart’), when asked how the individual soul by its own efforts can attain self-realization without God’s Grace, answered: “As the Lord denotes the Self and as Grace means the Lord’s presence or revelation, there is no time, when the Lord remains unknown. If the light of the sun is invisible to the owl it is only the fault of that bird and not of the sun. Similarly, can the unawareness of the Self - which is always of the nature of awareness - by the ignorant, be other than their own fault? How can it be the fault of the Self? It is because grace is of the very nature of the Lord that He is well known as ‘the blessed grace’. Therefore the Lord, whose nature itself is grace, does not have to bestow His grace. Nor is there any particular time for bestowing His grace.”5 Since the Grace of the ever existing Self is always already bestowed and present, it can only be our own fault if we don’t see it and we have to overcome our own mistake.
For Nietzsche self-overcoming is a power and force inherent in life itself, “the law of life, the law of necessary ‘Self-overcoming’ in the essence of life”. (GM, KSA 5, 410) The expression contains a paradox, since the ‘necessity’ seems to exclude ‘Self-overcoming’ and vice versa. But in the ‘essence of life’ ‘necessity’ and ‘freedom’ do not exclude each other but are the same just as ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’.6 For Heidegger too, “Dasein [his title for the human being] can be authentically itself only if it makes this possible for itself of its own accord.”7
5 The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Boston & London 1988, p. 22.
6 Michael Skowron, Selbstüberwindung, in: Nietzsche-Lexikon, ed. by Christian Niemeyer, Darmstadt, 2nd ed. 2011, p. 347-348. For the convergence of freedom and necessity in creativity, see Nietzsche’s account of his “inspiration” in EH, Za 3, KSA 6, 339-340. In “necessary ‘Self-overcoming’” the two types of “self-overcoming” which Aaron Ridley (Nietzsche’s Conscience. Six Character Studies from the “Genealogy”, Ithaca and London 1998) distinguishes, one in the sense of overcoming one’s own inclinations, for example one’s own laziness, which is “achieved by severity against one’s heart”, the other one in the sense that the overcoming is brought about by “the logic immanent to a concept or an institution”, for example “the transformation of justice into mercy […] or the destruction of the ascetic ideal in accordance with its own ‘inner conscience’”, are also
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1.2. Self-overcoming is not the overcoming of others, but of ourselves. In the Dhammapada we find Buddha’s word: „If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another man should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself; and neither the gods in heaven above nor the demons down below can turn into defeat the victory of such a man.“8 Here the overcoming of others is compared to self-overcoming and the latter is considered to be of much higher value and meaning than the former. Gods or demons are neither needed to initiate or cause self-overcoming, nor can they prevent it or turn it into defeat.
As for Nietzsche, if we think of the “will to power” as a will to overcome others, we should not forget that in Thus Spoke Zarathustra the “will to power” appears at first in the chapter On Self-Overcoming as the life “which must always overcome itself” (Za II, KSA 4, 148). Robert Pippin concludes in his examination of self-overcoming and freedom in Nietzsche that “the true realization of the will to power has nothing to do with gaining and holding power as traditionally understood, except as an indifference to power in this sense. […] the true realization of the will to power, genuine freedom, has rather to do with self-overcoming.”9
Becoming one's true Self is even a necessary precondition for truly and authentically being able to be with others who are not enlightened, since otherwise being together is more like a gathering of phantoms (not true selves), who cannot really help each other. In Buddhism attaining enlightenment comes first before instructing and saving all beings.10 Ramana Maharshi also gives the advice: “See yourself first and then see the whole world as the Self.”11 For Nietzsche, only the “perfect ego” has “love”, whereas there is “something else” but not real love on previous stages, when complete solitude and self‐consummation is not yet attained (Nietzsche: KSA 9, p. 520, 11[197]). For Heidegger authentic being with
basically one, because the self is in it as much “divided against itself” as the division is a “structural feature[s] intrinsic to its very constitution.” (pp. 142-143)
7 BT § 53, p. 308/263.
8 The Dhammapada. The Path of Perfection, transl. from the Pali by Juan Mascaró, London/New York 1973, VIII, 103-105, p. 50. For Zarathustra too, “the worst enemy” for someone to encounter on the way to himself “will always be yourself” (Za I, On the Way of the Creator, KSA 4, 82).
9 Robert Pippin, How to Overcome Oneself: Nietzsche on Freedom, in: Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, ed. by Ken Gemes and Simon May, 2009, pp. 69-87, p. 86.
10 Seung Sahn, The Compass of Zen, Massachusetts 1997, pp. 13-18.
11 David Godman (ed.), Be As You Are. The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, New Delhi/London 1992, p. 207.
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