Nietzsche's Ghost: Nietzsche in the Western Postmodern Context: Nietzsche in the Western Postmodern Context

Author: Wang Min'an
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-01-01
Features: So, what happens in a state of emotion, in the sublime emotional state, the high level of thought I wish to maintain? Have I not yet transcended the boundaries? And thereby devalued the ordinary code of the symbol? This is either because thought has abandoned me, or because I can no longer distinguish between the fluctuations coming from the outside and those coming from the inside. So far, in the ordinary sense, thought has always been able to rely on the usage of the term "myself." But at such an intensity, thought no longer includes me within the term "myself" and invents a symbol, using it to denote its own logic. Then, at this degree, what does my own logic become? If this is not my own thought, does it mean that I am excluded by all possible logics? If this is still my thought, then how can I imagine it denoting the absence of intensity at the highest intensity? Let us assume that the image of the cycle is formed when the soul reaches the highest state: my thought happens, and my thought dies because of this symbol—then my thought is indeed no longer my own. Or, my thought is so closely identical with this symbol that it even invents the symbol, the cycle, and even signifies the power of all thought. Does this mean that the subject of thought will lose its own subject because the logic of thought itself excludes that very nature? Here, nothing can distinguish the intensity of denotation from the intensity of the denoted—meaning, nothing can re-establish the ordinary logic between the self and the world as constructed by ordinary usage. The same cycle brings me back to the ordinary code of the symbol, and once I attempt to explain the events represented by these symbols, it once again places me under the control of the symbol. At this indescribable moment, if I hear it say: "You will return to this moment—you have already returned to this moment—you will return to this moment infinitely," according to the symbol of the cycle from which this moment originates, this seems as logically consistent as the proposition itself, while at the same time preserving the same proposition, because it is indeed me in the context of ordinary symbols, and thus I am caught in a contradiction. Here, contradiction manifests in two forms: both related to the logic of the very thought itself and to the ordinary code of the symbol. According to the latter, I can only will myself once; precisely on this basis, my entire reference and its meaning are communicable. But to will myself again means that nothing can be constituted as a single meaning at once. This cycle opens the door to meaninglessness for me, while at the same time locking me into the following options: either everything returns because nothing has happened to give meaning to anything, or things have never had any meaning unless through the endless regression of all things. This is the symbol, in which I am nothing, yet I always return to this symbol—needing nothing. As for my contradiction, or the perfect logic of this thought