This short note concerns something I have wanted to write about for a while. It concerns the use of a term deployed by Friedrich Nietzsche in his mature works such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Gay Science. This term has a triple meaning, and the threefold meaning of this word is exploited extensively by Nietzsche and is an important part of his philosophy.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche makes repeated use of the German verb "untergehen" and the noun “Untergang”. It is an expression introduced very early into the story, which in German has three typical meanings. It means "going down", which is in fact its literal meaning: "unter" means under or down and "gehen" means to go, so the expression literally means "to go down/under". The word is also used with reference to the sun: “Untergang der Sonne” is the setting of the sun. But it also means to perish or destroy.
As translator RJ Hollingdale writes in his footnotes to Zarathustra, "there is much play upon this triple meaning throughout the book." Zarathustra at the beginning of the story has been living in the mountains for ten years. He "goes down" from the mountain: “I must descend into the depths … and bring light to the underworld.”
The entire story is framed as Zarathustra descending. On the first page of the book, Nietzsche characterizes the tale as that of “Zarathustra’s down-going”. This is a parable of one who needs to descend: “I must go down [untergehen]- as men, to whom I want to descend, call it”.
Zarathustra already has achieved wisdom and desires to go down into the world of men and spread the word. In this, he wills his own loss of status. Also, taken in another sense, the passage translates differently: “I must perish [untergehen].” Zarathustra knows that going-down into the world of men will also result in his humiliation.
The triple sense of “untergehen” is clearly in play here: Zarathustra is literally descending, but he is also figuratively lowering his status by deigning to be among men, and, finally, destroying himself to be reborn. One word, three meanings.
In this I have also found a parallel with a totally different concept used by philosopher GWF Hegel in his work. Hegel makes extensive use of a term with a threefold meaning, and Hegel’s tripartite distinction is significant in his system. Famously, Hegel used the word "aufheben" in this triple sense. Aufheben means to cancel, to raise up and to hold on to. The three terms are all related yet seem at the same time to contradict each other. So it is with Nietzsche's expression, to go down/to set; to destroy and to go under.
The philosophies of Hegel and Nietzsche are, at least at first hand, wildly divergent, but there is something with both these terms that express things unique to either philosopher. Having seemingly little in common with each other, it is fruitful to think that one may be an inversion of the other.
It points to the radically different approaches of Hegel and Nietzsche. Hegel was the philosopher of reconciliation: through conflict, all is ultimately resolved, so that seemingly opposed forces in society find a higher resolution. Nietzsche is often thought of as the anti-Hegel (by others rather than himself) and untergehen can be thought of as an opposite to aufheben.
Nietzsche does not want to reconcile, but to obliterate the old order and go under and behind what was previously thought, in order to forge a transvaluation of all values. “A change in values - that means a change in the creators of values. He who has to be a creator always has to destroy,” Nietzsche writes in Zarathustra.
Nietzsche actually did have a begrudging admiration for Hegel. Later in life he writes, in The Gay Science, how Hegel paved the way for Charles Darwin, with Hegel drawing praise from Nietzsche for his focus on the concept of “becoming” in his philosophy. The problem for Nietzsche was that Hegel delayed the advent of atheism by seeing history as the unfolding of a deity or rationality that works in such a way as to make human salvation its goal. Where Hegel sought to preserve, transcend and hold on to what was rational in the world, Nietzsche wanted to undermine and destroy.
Of course, my notes here are just a first impression. Nietzsche never created an intellectual system like Hegel and often Nietzsche, ever the individual, seems to be having an ongoing conversation with himself rather than anyone else. Yet it is still remarkable how texts from the nineteenth century still provoke and challenge in unexpected ways. We are still coming to terms with the most significant Untergang of all: that of God.
The greatest recent event - that “God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable - is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe. For the first few at least, whose eyes - the suspicion in whose eyes is strong and subtle enough for this spectacle, some sun seems to have set [untergegangen] and some ancient and profound trust has been turned into doubt …
The Gay Science §343
The question for us now is, when trust has been turned into doubt, what do we hold on to and what do we let perish?