On Nietzsche and posthumanist philosophy

Focusing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s reception of the life sciences of his day (including concerns with insects and the emergent social properties they exhibit) and his reflections on technology—research areas as central to Nietzsche’s work as they are to posthumanism—Edgar Landgraf provides fresh readings of Nietzsche and a critique of posthumanist and transhumanist philosophies in his new book, Nietzsche’s Posthumanism. Here, Landgraf is joined in conversation with Christian Emden and Stefan Herbrechter.

Edgar Landgraf is distinguished research professor of German at Bowling Green State University. He is author of Nietzsche’s Posthumanism and Improvisation as Art, and coeditor of Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism and Play in the Age of Goethe.

Christian Emden is Frances Moody Newman Professor at Rice University where he teaches German intellectual history and political thought. He is author of several books on Nietzsche, including Nietzsche’s Naturalism and Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body.

Stefan Herbrechter is former Reader in Cultural Theory at Coventry University and former professor of English and cultural studies at Heidelberg University in Germany. He is an independent scholar of critical posthumanism and author of several books including Before Humanity and Posthumanism.

Episode references:

Friedrich Nietzsche

Cary Wolfe

Baruch Spinoza

Jane Bennett

Alfred Espinas

Bernard Stiegler

Ernst Kapp

Charles Darwin

Rosi Braidotti

Francesca Ferrando

Patricia MacCormack

Tamar Sharon 

Reading list:

Vibrant Matter / Jane Bennett

On Animal Societies / Alfred Espinas

Nietzsche’s Animal Philosophy / Vanessa Lemm

Meeting the Universe Halfway / Karen Barad

Nietzsche’s Naturalism / Christian J. Emden

Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body / Christian J. Emden

How We Became Posthuman / N. Katherine Hayles

Staying with the Trouble / Donna Haraway

Posthumanism / Stefan Herbrechter

The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism / Arthur Kroker

Insect Media / Jussi Parikka

Before the Law / Cary Wolfe

Keywords: Nietzsche, posthumanism, transhumanism, critical posthumanism, swarm theory, insects, history of technology, human agency, posthumanist ethics, posthumanist politics

What is University of Minnesota Press?

Authors join peers, scholars, and friends in conversation. Topics include environment, humanities, race, social justice, cultural studies, art, literature and literary criticism, media studies, sociology, anthropology, grief and loss, mental health, and more.

Christian Emden: 00:04

What is the nature in humanism, and what does nature have to contribute about the question of of posthumanism ultimately?

Stefan Herbrechter: 00:12

We need to develop a much, much richer and much more open minded historical awareness of of all those kind of knowledges that have been produced and have been repressed as well. So Nietzsche is is a good, case study.

Edgar Landgraf: 00:27

Nietzsche was not necessarily pro democracy, which is not surprising at the end of the nineteenth century, but his philosophy can actually help us reinvigorate democracy. Hello everyone. My name is Edgar Landgraf. I'm a professor of German at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. And today I have the honor and I'm grateful to talk to Christian Emden and Stephan Herbrechter, two leading scholars, in Nietzsche and Persueminism, to discuss my book on Nietzsche's Persueminism.

Edgar Landgraf: 00:58

I'd say my personal interests in Nietzsche go all the way back to high school in Switzerland, wrote a few articles in between, but never booked till now. And my interest in prosumanism predate prosumanism a little bit as a term. Go back to graduate my graduate studies in the nineteen nineties in Baltimore where we did all kind of different theories that today would be considered at least precursors to, posthumanist theories. So maybe I'd let Christiane and Stefan introduce themselves too, briefly so you can associate the voices too with their names, and then we'll take it from there again.

Christian Emden: 01:33

I'm Christian Emben. I'm the, Francis Moody Newman professor at Rice University, where I mainly teach, intellectual history, German intellectual history, and, with an emphasis also on political thought. And, of course, I have an interest in Nietzsche. I've written several books on Nietzsche, including, one on Nietzsche's naturalism. And some of the themes of that particular book overlap, of course, with, Edgar's brilliant book on Nietzsche's posthumanism.

Stefan Herbrechter: 02:01

Hi. I'm I'm Stefan Herbrecher. I used to be a leader in cultural theory at Coventry University and professor of English and Cultural Studies at Heidelberg University in Germany. I I guess I'm included in this because I wrote a positive report on on Edna's book, of course. And my investment is mainly in, the term critical posthumanism.

Stefan Herbrechter: 02:21

I think I wrote the first first book about it using that label in 02/2009. The German edition came out as a translation in 02/2013. I'm the, the director of the, Critical Posthumanism Network, which has just published the, Paul Grave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism, to which, Edgar also contributed. And, we have an online project called The Genealogy of the Posthuman. And, I also direct a book series on Critical Posthumanism.

Stefan Herbrechter: 02:52

So that's going to be my focus on this discussion.

Edgar Landgraf: 02:56

Great. Thank you. Yes. And and as I said, I'm very grateful for you spending your time here to discuss my book, with me. Again, Stefan Habergehta's book, Beneventas a few years back now really sparked the idea for my book, as you put Nietzsche at the beginning of a genealogy of prosumerism.

Edgar Landgraf: 03:13

And I thought at the time, absolutely, and there's more to it. And and few years later found the time to really engage that more critically and more systematically, really. I also wanted to mention briefly before we maybe talk or profile a little bit more what we mean by posthumanism, which is this very diverse field with often contradictory strands of thought and arguments. I also wanted to address, which I do in my introduction, the apparent contradiction to write a book on posthumanism on a single author, no less on the author who is known to, or at least in the popular understanding, to promote exceptionality and and sovereignty and the very things that posthumanists or critical posthumanists like to challenge. But the the impetus here is, of course, not so much to to write a book on Nietzsche, but really to understand Nietzsche himself in a context, not just the philosophy of his time, but also the scientific findings of his time that he studied quite intensely.

Edgar Landgraf: 04:04

And and Christian Emdon really contributed heavily to our better understanding what kind of sciences that, Nietzsche engaged and to which he responds philosophically. And that already foreshadows kind of contemporary prosumerism, which breaches the difference between the humanities and the natural sciences and tries to to mediate between these two areas. Now within that frame too in posthumanism and with Nietzsche, it's, it's not so much the idea to run away from humanism, but to redefine a little bit how the human in the singular, which is problematic already, is understood, how concepts of life, of self, of self interest, of will, of agency understood. And, there too, even a superficial understanding of Nietzsche shows that he is contesting these kind of concepts of our thinking. And so contributes to a larger episteme that once or believes as Carey Wolf, you know, puts it, that thinking itself has to change to become really posthumanist.

Edgar Landgraf: 04:58

And so it's it's that kind of approach to Nietzsche that I'm pursuing in my book. Stefan, maybe you wanna say a few more words about posthumanism, critical posthumanism, different kinds of posthumanism?

Stefan Herbrechter: 05:10

Yeah. Thanks. I can try. As you rightly said, Ed Gey, I use Nietzsche as a sort of entrance into the whole topic of posthumanism. But I'm, of course, as you know, not a Nietzsche scholar as such.

Stefan Herbrechter: 05:22

But Nietzsche, of course, played a very important part in, post structuralism and deconstruction, and the anti humanist stance that prevailed in those formations who used Nietzsche as an ally in their project to deconstruct the liberal humanist subject and so on. Posthumanism, if you want, my take on it has always been that it is a discourse because it is an ism. Any ism is a discourse. And in the case of posthumanism, it's sort of double discourse. On the one hand, it is the discourse on this figure you can call posthuman, the idea that we are no longer or content with, being human in the traditional sense, in a humanist sense.

Stefan Herbrechter: 06:09

It's also the discourse that critiques or tries to go beyond humanism, itself a discourse. So it's quite it's complicated. So there's there's three elements, posthumanism in this work, and, it's not always made quite clear in the way in which people use the term. There's a very popular notion of posthumanism that everybody will have come across, it, which sort of, I would say, is actually transhumanism because it's about overcoming the limits of the human through technology. The idea that we can soon be able to download our minds into computers or the idea that AI will soon take over and, and help humans to overcome their natural biological limitations, all these kind of things, I would put in the, in the bracket of transhumanism.

Stefan Herbrechter: 06:58

Posthumanism, in my view, is a bit more more complicated and also a bit more critical. Not all of it, but my take is that it's a critique, the ongoing critique or deconstruction, if you want, of what humanism is and was and wants and the idea of the human that underlies humanist discourse. There are a couple of questions that focus this discussion and this this critique. One is the return of the question of technology. What role does technology play in colonization and becoming human and therefore also becoming something other than human?

Stefan Herbrechter: 07:34

Of course, that cannot just be an instrumentalist role. No. It's not just a tool. It goes a lot more, let's say, deeper than that, our implication with with technology. On the other hand, of course, this this is happening in the context where we are becoming increasingly aware that humans are maybe not such nice people in terms of environmental deterioration that that we are causing, the the keyword of the Anthropocene here, which has been exercising people's minds.

Stefan Herbrechter: 08:04

And I want the idea that humans have become the main geological force and are now sort of in a responsibility situation towards non human others and the planet and so on. What do we do with this knowledge, right? What does the human do with this knowledge? And and so there's this this second aspect, if you want to predict the consumer, which is an attempt to to think post anthropocentrism seriously. Think it through.

Stefan Herbrechter: 08:29

What what would a post anthropocentric world look like? A world, not necessarily a world without humans, but a world where humans are no longer on a confrontational course with one human, others, and the planet, and the environment. I guess this is this is what posthumanism, if it's taken seriously, is about. And the critical posthumanism that I've been working towards, and I think Ed Gass's book is very much going in the same direction, is the the additional one for one dimension is that it has a genealogical dimension. It's not something that is purely future oriented.

Stefan Herbrechter: 09:07

It is, hence, the interest in Nietzsche. It has precursors. It has important thinkers and discussions that, have opened up avenues not taken necessarily but still there and to which we can return. That's why it's not a purely future oriented discourse in my in my sense.

Christian Emden: 09:25

I can jump in and complicate things a little bit, of course, And sort of like jump right into the sort of like the the fray of the title of your book on Nietzsche's posthumanism because there could also be a question mark behind that particular title that reflects on some of the issues that, Stefan Haberge just mentioned. Namely, the sort of like uneasy and strange presence and relationship that Nietzsche has in those debates just, you know, that we just discussed. On the one hand, Nietzsche is this uncanny presence in all of these debates. He pops up constantly like another prominent figure in the history of philosophy namely Spinoza. But while the sort of like the image and discussion of Spinoza in posthumanism, is often more focused, Nietzsche is sort of, like, often sort of, like, presented as something interesting, but it's not really, you know, clear what nature has to contribute to this to this particular debate, which is, I guess, always Nietzsche's fate to some extent.

Christian Emden: 10:22

But so the the great achievement of the book, as I think I've mentioned before, is is to clarify this particular point. Namely, what is the Nietzsche inhumanism and what does Nietzsche have to contribute about the question of of posthumanism ultimately? Is Nietzsche sort of like a posthumanist in the sense that we discuss this sort of discourse today? Of course, he's not because he's a child of the nineteenth century in many ways. But in many ways also what he has to say about the relationship between self and nature or between nature and culture to use sort of like an old fashioned sort of like opposition tie in very nicely and very well and very fruitfully with current discussions about posthumanism that raise exactly this particular point.

Christian Emden: 11:10

This kind of like brings us so in that sense, on the one hand, Nietzsche is and is not a posthumanist at the very same time. It depends a little bit on how you read them, ultimately. Within that context, of course, Nietzsche's reception of the life sciences in particular, in the context of the nineteenth century play a crucial role. And that is also in many ways then philosophically a link to Spinoza, that second prominent philosophical figure of debates in in posthumanism. This opens up, you know, as far as Nietzsche is concerned, this sort of like tableau of topics and links and problems that his philosophical project presents, generally speaking, but also in particular to our discussion of posthumanism.

Christian Emden: 11:54

And one aspect that I hope we can return to later on again is also the question of the political import of nature's, attempt to rethink the self as constitutive of nature and not as separate from nature in any way.

Edgar Landgraf: 12:10

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. If if I just can connect a little bit to these two complex and interesting comments here. In some sense, of course, my project tries to use Nietzsche a little bit in Nietzsche's philosophy, and it's it's a close reading of his philosophy, including his epistemology, his kind of social theory and his takes on technology to use it a little bit to sort out the different often rather superficial takes of Nietzsche in the posthumanist literature.

Edgar Landgraf: 12:37

So so I I know the great divide, for example, within critical pursue not within posthumanism generally. And so I think Nietzsche can give us some kind of direction here or or orientation a little bit, where the fault lines are, where the differences are, and what's at stake in these various debates. And, and, and see in each chapter kind of there's some reflection, where I put Nietzsche in dialogue with particular theories. For example, this new materialism in the epistemology chapter, kind of the vitalist Jean Bennett line with, Doulouse Guattari, etcetera. And on the other hand, I found it also very interesting to come back to Nietzsche with kind of the questions and concepts and ideas that contemporary posthumanism is engaged in.

Edgar Landgraf: 13:19

And it had opened new venues, new outlooks on Nietzsche's philosophy too. So I found this kind of dialogue really productive. For example, something that I don't think anyone had really written about on Nietzsche before, the idea that there's actually some kind of anticipation of it comes in a later twentieth century known as swamp theory as my two chapters on insects in Nietzsche expand or find actually that Nietzsche was familiar with the entomological research of his time. And that he had read, for example, very carefully this book by Alfred Espinat, French writer on on animal societies, it's called, where he extensively discusses the research on insects, on insect hives, on beehives, on anthills, etcetera, in the nineteenth century. And and Switzerland at the time, Michel was a resident of Switzerland, was the hotbed of entomological studies.

Edgar Landgraf: 14:07

And so there is evidence that he was familiar with what was going on in this regard. So that, that really, I think, opened up a new venue to also think about Nietzsche's philosophy and, and focus on things that had been a bit neglected before. Similarly in technology, I think there have been a few things written about technology, but, my book, I try to take a wider angle on technology and how was technology actually understood in the nineteenth century, which is quite different from the kind of gadget orientation that we have today when we talk about technology. And, and which brings us then to a concept, Stephan, I have, had mentioned already of harmonization, right? We cannot separate the evolution of humans from the evolution of technology.

Edgar Landgraf: 14:49

The two go hand in hand and that is really only established fully in the twentieth century. Bernas Dieckler comes to mind here as as really spelling this out as the paleontological research to it and has been done and has, you know, has continued to being done and and finds these interesting developments in how simple tools have allowed the human body even physically to evolve. The space same time that that Nietzsche writes, the first philosophy of technology by name by Ernst Kapp is published in in 1872, if I remember correctly, which makes already these kind of arguments. Kapp is kind of a dialectical thinker, a Hegelian thinker in essence, that, are tools, basic simple tools have allowed humans to evolve the way they did. And this process continues, of course, today, and we're maybe a little bit more aware today, but it's interesting to find this theme also in the theme of harmonization, the hominization effects of technology to find this already in Nietzsche.

Edgar Landgraf: 15:45

Maybe we go back to the social theory on insects, which challenges kind of the popular understanding of Nietzsche as a promoter of individualism of, you know, just strong survive and the weak will die etcetera. And these kind of simplistic readings. But close readings of his work show and then also of his notes is that he was trying to understand how social aggregates form. And if you think of insects that they provide us a wonderful example how social aggregates can accomplish amazing things. In the nineteenth century, we knew already that insects would not just build elaborate architectures, hives, and and anthills, etcetera, but that they would actually do something akin to farming.

Edgar Landgraf: 16:30

They can domesticate other species. They map the environment. All these things were being recognized already. And they do these things, obviously, without the individual members of the hive or of this the individual ant doesn't know what the whole hive is doing. And they do it without having kind of an authority dictating or plan what needs to happen.

Edgar Landgraf: 16:51

So it also challenges this kind of social hierarchy idea that is often associated still with Nietzsche. Instead, it shows what today we show, you know, we call emergent properties, how through interactive processes, structures emerge over time and in time where the individual contribution is not one of dictating things, but very much needs to be understand in reference or in relation to what's going on in the surroundings and through the interactions between the members of a group. If we then look, for example, at and we we can kind of pinpoint when Nietzsche was most engaged with this kind of research because we have this personal copy of him of reading a of Ed Espinath's book, and we have the markings that I looked at, which can look at these things online now, which is really, really interesting how he really puts three lines and exclamation marks next to what he thinks are interesting or important arguments. It doesn't always mean means he agrees, but it means that he noticed them and and saw them as significant. And then articulations of of the will that we find, for example, in beyond good and evil, which he deconstructs as we say today and develops very much an analog to kind of the interactive processes from which, again, insects or other species gain kind of agencies and directionalities.

Christian Emden: 18:08

I can, elaborate a little bit more on this particular aspect because also it raises many sort of, like, philosophical questions that are really that go to the core of nature's project as a whole. The question of the will, the question of teleology, and also the question of sort of like how to look at the human social world from this particular perspective, with this particular perspective in the background of insects and a whole range of other animals and species that he considers, and insects are particularly prominent and interesting. Nietzsche often speaks about sort of almost as though he wants to deliver a kind of like a zoology of the human instead of really a social theory of the human. Because he does consider this particular background or this particular perspective as as crucial for understanding what human societies do, and especially what individuals within that society do and how they how they conceive of themselves, both morally, politically, but also socially, and what they do in terms of what does human agency actually mean seen from this perspective. And one of the issues that comes up when you look at sort of, like, insects broadly speaking is the question of teleology.

Christian Emden: 19:17

So I mean, Darwin uses this wonderful example of like, you know, the bees building the beehive and that led to a debate among commentators of Darwin. Is Darwin a teleologist or isn't he a teleologist? Does he believe there's an overarching goal of the bees or not? And Nietzsche's, like, picks up on this. He's very sort of, like, attuned to those to those debates and often reads sort of, like, between the lines of the many texts that he reads.

Christian Emden: 19:39

He links this to broader philosophical issues about how evolution works also with regard to humans. So what's important in that context is that Nietzsche on the one hand certainly does deny the existence of teleology, for instance. The idea that nature as a whole or human agency is in some way goal directed. He would fundamentally deny this, but he does not give up in light of sort of evolutionary debates on the question of the directedness of societies, how societies develop. It's just that he understands sort of like this directedness as something that is built into the path dependent development of societies rather than looking at it from the perspective of some goal.

Christian Emden: 20:24

And the same can be said with regard to, of course, like how insects respond to their environment. There is not a sort of like a goal directed teleology that is that is really at stake here, but it's something that is emergent as in a sense while something is happening on the ground. And that that I think is a very important, you know, aspect of nature's thinking about nature for want of a better term. I just wanted to say a couple of things also about Nietzsche's reading habits because they're actually quite wonderful. There are few philosophers where we have such detailed knowledge about his reading habits because we have access to all all but most of the material that he actually read.

Christian Emden: 21:01

And he was a prolific underliner and constantly writing comments in the margins. And sometimes they're very cryptic. And sometimes you can see this like the imprint of the pencil when he disagrees or agrees with something very fervently. And there's this materiality of this engagement with scientific texts that is really crucial and fascinating. Now, of course, it's, like, more easily accessible because most of this is online and you can look at it.

Christian Emden: 21:26

I remember that when I wrote my PhD way back when in the nineties, you still had to go to the archive and you had this example, these books in your hand with like Nietzsche's underlinings. That's because this is like a tangible aspect of this deep involvement with the natural sciences of his time. Sometimes commentators of Nietzsche from analytic philosophies have like pushed this a little bit to the side and argued that, well, Nietzsche just always read the foreword or the introduction and then the conclusion and didn't really read anything in between. So he really doesn't have any clue about what's going on in the natural sciences in the nineteenth century. But then you look at this material and, yeah, sure, sometimes he misunderstands things.

Christian Emden: 22:04

Sometimes you just wonder why could he possibly have underlined a particular sentence which makes no sense anymore, but made perfect sense to Nietzsche clearly. But he was an avid reader of all this material. So when you actually look at the entire list of his personal library and also, as far as we know, what he borrowed as a professor from the university library in Basel in Switzerland. There are two kinds of books that really dominate. Early on, it's philology, of course, because that's his profession.

Christian Emden: 22:31

Later on, a bit more philosophy. But books on the natural sciences are really dominant throughout his entire career. Sometimes he consulted them in more detail, sometimes in in less detail. But he was completely aware of both the overall trends of the natural sciences in the nineteenth century as well as the disunity and debates among the sciences in the nineteenth century. And that, in many ways, also informs his sort of philosophical take on some of those particular kind of issues.

Edgar Landgraf: 23:04

Thank you. Yes. I think I read somebody else. 10% of his library was was really books from the natural sciences, which which is amazing considering he's a philologist by profession. In my insect chapter, the the most interesting part from the Espinar book is is a lengthy footnote, which is in the middle of the book.

Edgar Landgraf: 23:21

So he did read this book in much detail, including the footnotes, etcetera. Stefan, maybe if I can pitch that back to you, but the swamp theory also raises, a term, I think, you mentioned earlier of embeddedness, which is in posthumanist theory today, quite important, social embeddedness, environmental embeddedness. And we we see kind of a recognition of that thinking in Nietzsche already based on these kind of studies from the life sciences. Maybe if you wanna take it back a little bit to the posthumanist angle

Stefan Herbrechter: 23:52

there. Yeah. So this is, as I said before, I'm not here as a as a Nietzsche scholar. But what what I like about your book, of course, Edgar, is that you provide these detailed and historically founded connections between Nietzsche and the natural sciences of this time. And as you say, this is a good nurturing ground for the kind of ideas that are that have been coming back in, in a posthumanist context, to be the idea that the humanities and the sciences are, again, interested in each other, at least from from reading that humanities point of view, that's that's the case.

Stefan Herbrechter: 24:27

I'm not so sure how many scientists actually read posthumanist theory. But the idea that solutions to problems that that we face can only be approached or be gleaned from a new, you know, willingness to cooperate between, you know, all sorts of humanistic backgrounds and natural science and life science backgrounds backgrounds in new contexts, which Gary Wolfe has called the posthumanities, if you want. The fact that your book is is appearing in the series is, of course, no coincidence because the meeting ground is mired with misunderstanding. It's also very rich, right, in terms of information that is there and which needs to be excavated and and returned to. If we want to, address problems like climate change and the future of humanization or post humanization, then of course we need to develop a much, much richer and more open minded historical awareness of of all those kind of knowledges that have been produced and have been repressed as well.

Stefan Herbrechter: 25:32

So Nietzsche is a good case study here, I'd say, for this sort of, as you call it, embeddedness. This is not just a success story of individuals that have acquired rational knowledge in order to produce fantastic scientific and technological exploits and have gone to, you know, are about to go explore space or whatever and find exoplanets. Where are we going to start this whole success story all over again? No, I think I think embeddedness goes back to what I said about postantopocentrism, actually. You know, the idea that that our self identity as exceptional outcomes of biological and technological evolution needs to be complicated.

Stefan Herbrechter: 26:15

We need to re anchor ourselves in, in all sorts of biopolitical, biotechnological ways to address, the current crisis. If we don't do that, there will no there will not be a continuation of the success story. So the embeddedness is is actually ontologically vital if we want to continue our story, if we want to survive, but also if we want the planet to survive. So I think your book in this series, Posthumanity series, which is exceptional, as far as I can tell, in bringing together studies and authors that look at this current problem from a highly political but also from a genealogical point of view, so going back to previous, maybe avenues not taken. And this is I think this is what constitutes the fascinating thing that is this series.

Stefan Herbrechter: 27:06

Hearing you talk about Nietzsche, of course, I think we need to address, and Kristin also already pointed towards this topic. Right? We need we need to talk about Nietzsche as a highly ambiguous and also highly dangerous figure. Right? Let's let's face it.

Stefan Herbrechter: 27:21

You know, we need to talk about the bugbear. I mean, Nietzsche's overman because of the two ways in which Nietzsche is being read again today, right, as, on the one hand, as a precursor of all sorts of critical questions that continue to haunt us, and on the other hand, as the guy who showed us the way how to overcome ourselves in in a transhumanist fashion. In terms of political explosiveness of Nietzsche, we need I think we need to address this.

Edgar Landgraf: 27:48

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And and I do address it. I think that's kind of the central topic of of my last chapter, but it comes up earlier already. And I'm gonna detour just a little bit, not avoiding the question, but leading to it through the two technology chapters, which I think reveal as a a larger theme.

Edgar Landgraf: 28:03

I think Nietzsche's philosophy can be really helpful in understanding better how the humanist tradition fails to live up to its own ideals. These ideals include creating a more humane, sustainable civil society. Right? In my technology chapters, I focus first on, advantages and disadvantages of history for life, where when Nietzsche embeds a really visionary critique of the mass media of his time, the printing press, and of the modern educational system, which he argues rather than through knowledge that become more civil, has actually produced these technologies have produced a way of processing information that makes us more barbaric, desensitizes us actually towards he mentions the the a war and that is, you know, put into a newspaper a thousand times before it's even over that has no real effect anymore. We're not taking it seriously anymore.

Edgar Landgraf: 28:57

So it's this kind of really interesting, communication media technology critique and cultural critique embedded here that is targeting this kind of enlightenment belief in education equals less violence, equals more civility, etcetera. Nietzsche turns this on its head. Another area, and this is in the second chapter on on technology in my book, a return to the genealogy of morals, which I think can also be read as Nietzsche trying to understand better how western society has cultivated or how we've been harmonized to certain interpretive and even economic strategies that have produced a consolidation of power, but not really a reduction of violence, just a consolidation and institutionalization of violence. Nietzsche interestingly has some really, I mean, today would say progressive views on on punishment, for example, which just reveals or hides the underlying violence that is still part of society in the late nineteenth century that prides itself in its enlightenment and civilized status and advanced status. You know, there's no excuse, Nietzsche argues, for punishing people anymore.

Edgar Landgraf: 30:10

It's it's it's like they used to punish sick people. Why do we continue to do this? And and I know Christiane has written about this this too and maybe, we're moving towards a political here already. This is where Nietzsche, I think, yes, is dangerous, but also really helpful in understanding the contradictions and problems within the larger humanist discourse and and facing up to its own, let's say, power assertions to its, and failing to address really systemic problems by focusing much too much on moral compass of of individuals, etcetera.

Christian Emden: 30:43

I can jump right in there, of course. Not only because it's a bit of a intellectual hobby also, of course, but, you know, it goes to the core of some of my own work on nature. I think we need to make a number of distinctions here. Nietzsche is dangerous only to those who want to avoid uncomfortable questions. And Nietzsche poses plenty of uncomfortable questions about the reality of what it means to be human, of what it means to live in a society, and what society really looks like.

Christian Emden: 31:13

And one of those uncomfortable questions is concerned with violence, the presence of violence, and whether humans have been able and will ever be able to avoid violence. Nietzsche is very skeptical about that, also in the sense in which he sees the overall evolution and development of any morality, of any ethical claims as intimately connected to forms of violence. That's a very crucial understanding in our societies and relatively affluent liberal democracies where violence is seen as sort of like a deviation from the norm. Nietzsche reminds us that as far as the human species is concerned, violence has been part of our history, will be part of our history, and that poses uncomfortable questions about what to do with this. So in a sense, you know, sort of like, I'm already indicating that in the political realm, Nietzsche is far more of a realist in many ways than we often give him credit to.

Christian Emden: 32:08

And the reason why sort of like he appears to be dangerous has, of course, a lot to do with his reception in in the sense that, of course, you know, sort of like the Nietzsche image, especially the popular Nietzsche image, is in many ways shaped by the very different sort of, like, strange ways in which he has been read in the already in the context of the first World War, where, you know, Nietzsche sort of like especially the idea of the Ubermensch, of the over human, became particularly popular. And in fact, the German military even doled out to its soldiers in the French trenches copies of Zarathustra, which I I doubt anybody any of them really read and other things to do. So there is a reception of Nietzsche on the far right, especially, that is very different from what Nietzsche says about many of these topics. Much of the misunderstanding of Nietzsche as a sort of, like, a particularly dangerous thinker in that respect has, of course, something to do with the metaphors and models that Nietzsche uses. Think about the will to power, the overman.

Christian Emden: 33:05

These are sort of like intentionally polemical terms with which Nietzsche, of course, wants to have an effect, but he also wants to describe something really complicated. Another example is sort of like the way in which Nietzsche is, because of his reception during the Nazi regime, is often seen as sort of like, well, his biological philosophy, of course, entails a certain racism. And he uses the term race, of course, throughout his writings. But the way in which race as a concept is being used in some of those philosophical debates in the nineteenth century does not map at all and not easily on the way in which race as something exclusionary is being used today in the contemporary debate. So we need to sort of, like, you know, make all kinds of distinctions here between original context and what we can learn from the original context on the one hand and the sort of, like, broad popular reception of Nietzsche and reading that is also often highly problematic, both on the left as well as on the right.

Christian Emden: 34:00

This is sort of like something that sort of, like, happens on on both sides of the political divide in many ways. There is one particular area in which I think Nietzsche is particularly helpful with regard to the political dimension of the debate about posthumanism, but also new materialism. And that is the question of normativity. How do norms, the norms that guide us and the norms that sometimes we disagree with and sometimes we embrace, how do they actually come about if we think about this in natural terms and in terms of emergent properties and so on? One of the problems of, new materialism in particular is a relatively flat ontology that does not allow, ultimately, for making flat ontology that does not allow, ultimately, for making normative distinctions between certain things.

Christian Emden: 34:45

So on the one hand, you have a a broader intellectual trend and new materialism that wants to say something distinctly political that speaks to our current situation. But at the same time, it has great difficulties in making normative distinctions because its own ontology does not allow for, you know, a valid concept of normativity. And on the other side, you have critical theory and political liberalism and political theory. So I'm thinking about Rawls and Habermas, of course, and and others who have a strong sense of normativity and how norms come about, but they connect them to reasons and to forms of justification. And they completely ignore the natural context within which these justifications actually occur and what makes these justifications possible.

Christian Emden: 35:28

What Nietzsche here brings to the table is ultimately a way to think about this particular relationship between, on the one hand, an ontology that is deeply rooted in the idea that there is nothing special about humans and that we are part of whatever else we call nature. But on the other hand, also that there is something about humans as this particular kind of species that allows us to make normative distinctions. Think about the sort of, like, the figure of the sovereign individual, in the context of the genealogy of morality. Nietzsche uses interesting metaphor of that sovereign individual is something that the ripest fruit on the tree of human evolution. I don't know whether I really wanna be a ripe fruit, but there we go.

Christian Emden: 36:09

But it's the ripest fruit on the tree of human evolution. And then he explains, well, what really distinguishes the sovereign individual from their precursors is that he doesn't have to make any promises. The sovereign individual has a right to make promises. But a right to make promises doesn't mean that you have to make a promise, that it means you don't have to engage within a particular, say, moral or ethical setting or even a particular political context. What Nietzsche is sort of like going on about here is in a sense can also be understood sort of like in a different way.

Christian Emden: 36:40

Ultimately, he accepts the way in which natural or what we call nature for want of a better term, serves as sort of like the condition or the possibility of having norms. But what we ultimately do with that possibility is something entirely different. We have as humans, as it were, sort of like a framework, a sort of like a context of possibilities within which we can operate and within which we have a certain kind of freedom that is actually provided by something that does not allow for freedom. This is kind of the paradox, which is nature, of course. And I think Nietzsche makes a really valuable contribution about how to think about the fundamental conditions of political norms, which is something that I think posthumanism has great difficulties with.

Christian Emden: 37:24

But equally, critical theory and political liberalism have great difficulties with because they ignore the side of nature ultimately.

Edgar Landgraf: 37:31

Thank you. Yes. Very interesting. I I do think the ripest fruit is actually a negative metaphor even though it seems like a great accomplishment here. He uses the same metaphor in the second untimely meditation already, and that's clearly used in a in a critical sense.

Edgar Landgraf: 37:43

But it maybe also curious this idea of a new morality that needs to grow that does not repeat the pitfalls. And I try to pin this down in how he explains how we were harmonized, what interpretive strategies has created this modern human, ultimately, the sovereign individual that harks a lot back on this kind of I call it a a psychoeconomic calculus that somehow there is equivalency in somebody doing something that needs to, we say today, you know, that ask for payback. But what what is being paid back if you punish somebody? Right? This is really interesting analysis.

Edgar Landgraf: 38:20

In some sense, what Nietzsche challenges us to understand better is is how much our modern institutions, even when we show mercy, is still built on this kind of tradition of seeking equivalencies or a a reward and punishment regiment institutionally, politically, you know, in education even. That is, at least from today's perspective, not very helpful in addressing the kind of challenges, environmental challenges we talked about, migration challenges, etcetera, that we face today. So in many ways, I think Nietzsche can help us understand a little how humanist modes of thinking persist that are, let's say, too simple to actually address the main challenges humanity faces today, which in part are brought in, you know, through technologies, obviously, the Anthropocene we've mentioned. So my reading there is a little bit I I fully agree, of course, both the far right appropriation of Nietzsche and the liberal critique of Nietzsche. They're very superficial readings of of Nietzsche.

Edgar Landgraf: 39:17

Like, Beiner would say, we have to take him by his word. Well, we're not taking him by his word when Nietzsche says he doesn't wanna take be taken by his word, which caused, again, which I hope I do a little bit in my book for a closer analysis, actually, what the arguments are rather than working with some of the legacy, I call it, of of Nietzsche's philosophy that often does not really engage critically on Nietzsche's philosophy. And there, it's interesting that in recent years, in recent ten years, we've had a number of arguments actually in Nietzsche's scholarship that have pointed out how Nietzsche was not necessarily pro democracy, which is not surprising at the end of the nineteenth century when he writes, but his philosophy can actually help us reinvigorate democracy. And this is an area where I I try to engage a little bit also some of posthumanist ethics, in particular, Rosie Breitotti, Francesca Farandu, Patricia McCormack, who kind of emphasized this idea of community, of togetherness, of a new togetherness that needs to be defined or found to tackle the, dangers and and and challenges we face today as a society. And that obviously doesn't mesh well with with Nietzsche's philosophies.

Edgar Landgraf: 40:22

Whether I personally might think about this or not, these are great ideals. But Nietzsche's insistence that we cannot avoid competitiveness, competition, opposition. I think we need to take seriously as prosumanists too in articulating an ethics that doesn't fall back into some kind of idealist stance and the idealization of community that ultimately will have to turn against community in the name of creating community that prolongs or extends this kind of humanist thought patterns that, again, I I think ultimately the lesson here from Nietzsche is I'm not able to counter effectively the challenges that humanity faces today. And so I I kind of end in this last chapter on on promoting, this might be a little disappointing for some, a more pragmatist approach with Nietzsche. The idea that, I think, with Nietzsche, we we should focus more on our embeddedness and what within the circumstances within individuals find themselves, can be done rather than maybe articulate moral ideals.

Edgar Landgraf: 41:25

And I Stephan, we kind of approached your dangerousness question appropriately here.

Stefan Herbrechter: 41:31

I don't think there's a there's an appropriate way of of doing this. But, I mean, we we cannot ignore the fact that, Nietzsche is again being hijacked by, transhumanists like Steve Fuller. There is something in Nietzsche, undoubtedly, that allows for that. And then it's it's no there's no need to argue argue that away. I mean, Nietzsche is a self stylized provocateur.

Stefan Herbrechter: 41:56

He wants to smash, with his big hammer. And and, of course, the pieces, yes. There's a great deal of, let's say, nihilism that can be appropriated in all sorts of ways. And I I think it's best to accept this, but this is the case with a number of of important thinkers. I think it's ultimately a political question.

Stefan Herbrechter: 42:15

Right? And and that's where the pragmatism comes in. I have a lot of time for a certain kind of pragmatism that in the end sort of says, oh, to hell with the idealist philosophical questions. What does that mean politically? What what can we do?

Stefan Herbrechter: 42:30

What is to be done? I mean, that that's the the way I think pragmatism, in the end, manages to, to bring people around. It's a move that isn't entirely problematic in itself. Right? Pragmatism is not is not the solution necessarily, but it's it is a point in an argument where you have, you know, you have to sort of come to a critical distance where you say, but, yes, but what does that mean?

Stefan Herbrechter: 42:53

What what do we do with this? What do we do with posthumanism? What do we do with Nietzsche and posthumanism? And then, and I agree with with Edgar very much in his conclusion that that, yes, there's a need for all these philosophical arguments, these ethical questions, about violence and why why humanism continues to to disappoint us. Where does the violence come from?

Stefan Herbrechter: 43:18

Now, I said at the beginning, I'm not a Nietzsche, in in in that's in in the same way that you are engaging with with Nietzsche. And I think I would want to poke a little bit further than than Nietzsche's Darwinism here. Maybe the the idea of violence is a very hot topic for for all sorts of reasons because we're we seem to be returning to to more violent patterns of behavior, which we thought we'd overcome. But, no, they're still there. And why is that so?

Stefan Herbrechter: 43:45

And I guess you could reproach humanism with this idea of perfectibility, right, where where, you know, the the the the maybe naive or idealist idea that, you know, through cultural refinement, we we become less violent. This has been disproven for some time, but but I think it's still one of the pillars of, liberal humanism. Right? But if you take that away, if you destroy that with your big Nietzschean hammer, what remains? What's the alternative?

Stefan Herbrechter: 44:14

Pragmatically, you know, where does that leave you? And the question here where I found, Edgar's book is really important is and I don't I don't know exactly where where you say it or whether you actually say it out loud or whether I just heard it. Is the question of address. Who is this addressed to? Who is this critique of violence actually addressed to?

Stefan Herbrechter: 44:36

Who is this all wonderful embedded posthumanist politics actually addressed to, if not in the end, a liberal humanist subject again? This is the most political question that you can probably ask right now. What kind of address would you have to configure that goes or falls outside these three main political discourses that you mentioned? You know, liberalism, fascism, communism, socialism, if you want. How do you get people, but not just people, everybody, right, into the political sphere which you need to create in order to address problems that no longer just concerns unions?

Stefan Herbrechter: 45:14

And that's where I found your book really opens up that question. And I think in my report, I said, that's where I knew you mentioned some people might be disappointed. I I was both disappointed but also intrigued because that's where the follow-up will have to be.

Edgar Landgraf: 45:29

There's an article in the works on addressing this more heads on, I I think. And I do come back to this at the very end of the book. Right? And and I do try to situate too my own book, who am I talking to, which is, you know, I'm not naive about. It is an academic book.

Edgar Landgraf: 45:45

I'd I'd hope it's accessible. I'd try my writing to make demanding arguments accessible to an interested readership. But just to bring it back to Nietzsche in a second, and at the end in the book, if you remember, I'd quote Thomas Sheeran, who very concretely, pragmatically tries to analyze what do you do, for example, in a Google health system complexities where you have come together economic questions, questions of regulation, questions of medicine, of science, etcetera. And people that work in that environment have to make very complex decisions. There are no simple answers here.

Edgar Landgraf: 46:20

Right? And she just in a parenthesis says and and kind of tomorrow lies here is not helpful. It just doesn't take us anywhere. And I think that Nietzsche's proshumanism can can open up a little bit to hear the perspective on a a more pragmatic approach needs to be contextual and negotiate these complexities. And I would include, by the way, that once once in a while, it might be quite pragmatic to be idealist about things in certain settings.

Edgar Landgraf: 46:44

I don't want to deny that at all. I just thought that in a posthumanist discussions of ethics, a dose of Nietzsche can be really helpful and maybe, challenging. I want to thank Kristina Emden again, Stephan Herbichter for volunteering your time. I really, really appreciate it and your expertise on the topic and your support. I also want to thank the University of Minnesota Press.

Edgar Landgraf: 47:06

It's been a great team, a tutorial team. The feedback channel I got and copy editing and and now even making this podcast possible, I think, has been really wonderful, and I'm I'm really grateful. I'd like to thank everyone again, for making this possible. And, again, Stefan and Christian for for this, I think, very productive discussion.

Christian Emden: 47:24

Thank you for writing this this book in the first place. I think we'll have a a a really lasting impact in two different fields.

Edgar Landgraf: 47:31

Thank you.

Stefan Herbrechter: 47:32

Yeah. It was a it was a pleasure, Edgar. Of course. I hope you'll sell loads of copies.

Edgar Landgraf: 47:37

I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes.