Nietzsche’s Voices is one book in a recent series focused on publishing John Sallis’ lecture courses from the 1970s. Potential readers will note that the writing is as accessible as Sallis’ most popular book, Being and Logos (Indiana University Press), it is not, I stress, as dense linguistically as books such as Platonic Legacies (SUNY Press. This is not to suggest in any way that the material itself, the unique and detailed analysis of Nietzsche’s philosophy, is not challenging and thought provoking.
It offers a unique reading of Nietzsche that does not reduce him to a metaphysician, but gathers and organizes issues such as will to power, morality, truth, nihilism around an interpretation of time (e.g., the three moments associated with living an authentic historical existence), expressive of the “Dionysian philosopher” embracing the eternal recurrence of the same. This is not to say that Sallis offers readers a systematic Nietzsche (as in Heidegger), but instead convincingly argues, breaking open a vista into Nietzsche as a holistic thinker, in that the groundwork (i.e., the Apollonian, Dionysian, and wisdom of Silenus) established in Nietzsche’s early book The Birth of Tragedy is traced through its evolutionary development throughout Nietzsche’s ever expanding, prodigious corpus.
I note that Sallis takes great care in examining Nietzsche’s later assessment of his philosophy in Ecce Homo, whereas many scholars tend to dismiss this book as being not only strange, but in the extreme, unserious, and hence are dismissive of its value when assessing Nietzsche’s philosophy.
The bulk of the book is focused on a colorful analysis of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and remains true to Nietzsche’s deft use of vibrant imagery over concepts, a creative element of the poetic text that separates it from the traditional use of concepts associated with the history of metaphysics. Thus, Sallis offers detailed readings of such aspects of Zarathustra as the “songs” (emphasizing the central role music and dance plays in Nietzsche’s philosophy), the embodiment of time expressed through Zarathustra’s’ animals, the eagle and snake, and the imagery associated with the mountains, valleys, and the cave of solitude, and the juxtaposition of night-light, fountain-well, lover-revenger, and warmth-ice. So, with that stated, Sallis’ book differs from the excellent analysis of Zarathustra found in Laurence Lampert’s book, Nietzsche’s Teachings.
There is an undeniable and important "deconstructive" aspect bound up with Sallis' reading, e.g., in Nietzsche it is science and morality that ultimately self-destructs- at the periphery of the limits of knowledge, they "devour their own tails".
Nietzsche’s philosophy indeed speaks or sings in and through a multiplicity of voices, but Sallis brilliantly shows us that these voices sing in harmony, through a resonating tone transcending nihilism and the death of God. I highly recommend this text.
Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy & Religious Studies/College of Dupage
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2024
