The 'overcoming' of Metaphysics and Nihilism, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Building on the ideas that have begun to form (See featured post) from reading the pre-amble of Steven Critchley's book, "Very Little, ... Almost Nothing; Death, Philosophy and Literature", (2004) Routledge Press, London, Critchley talks a great deal about the ideas of nature and his theories of nihilism, being reinterpreted by Heidegger in terms of Heidegger's argument of making a distinction of nihilism from its overcoming. Heidegger proposes that rather than overcoming nihilism, it is perhaps really about delineating it instead.

What this means for me, after many days of reflection whilst creating my own interpretation, at the same time almost meditating whilst building the formations of my artistic artefact using chickenwire, it dawned on me that this twisting and turning and in particular "overcoming" to use Nietzsche's word, of the problem of metaphysics, by Nihilism, (which was Nietzsche's assertion), and then applying Heidegger's notion that in order for nihilism to exist it is necessary for metaphysics to exist, their intrinsic twisting together can be shown thus;

Figure 1. - Metaphysics and Nihilism are intertwined, not one 'overcoming' another

And what is interesting, is Heidegger's notion of "delineating" nihilism can be thought of as a pulling on both ends of the lines of metaphysics and nihilism, which when applied physically to the metaphorical representation, would indeed provide an unravelling of both!

Figure 2. - The idea that Metaphysics is to be "overcome" by Nihilism = Nietzsche's assertion

but....

Figure 3. Metaphysics and Nihilism are dependent on each other/ i.e. intertwined = Heidegger,
(but with a modified "gap" which is explained later)

Fig. 4.  So... Pulling on both ends of the argument... They become separate 'lines' of enquiry 

The deconstructive (and to some extent, this hints of the word of Jaques Derrida), again can be seen from the above example in Figures 3 and 4.
 In more poetic terms, the matrix that is formed by the twisting together of metaphysics and nihilism, into the mesh, provides a wonderful metaphor for the fabric of life, which then could arguably become a useful analogical reference to how Bruno Latour sees it, as described by Graham Harman (e.g. Prince of Networks, Harman, 2010) (See Figure 5).

Fig. 5, The intertwining of multiple layers, to create nodes (arguably, "actants") into
a rudimentary network, (viz. Bruno Latour / Graham Harman)

Conclusions;

... This idea of a fabric consisting of a series of twisted connections or nodes (and here it could be stretched to mean 'Actants'), is somewhat different to the traditional ideas that are sometimes used to describe the "interwoven" concepts of 'threads' of existence, in which the weave and the weft are interlaced as layers (see Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 The Weft and the Weave

 In order for that metaphor to be appropriate, it requires an existing metaphysical framework, that is, metaphorically the weft (On the left of Fig. 6.),  that Weaver sets up upon his loom (i.e. the Metaphysical), the vertical 'structure' that necessarily has to exist "a priori" before the events of life can then be weaved (the horizontal component) to create the fabric. (See Fig. 7).  In this analogy, the metaphysical concept of the loom and the weft is the 'World' as created by God, which is 'a priori'

Fig. 7. 'Existance' that we
weave for ourselves

 In a traditional philosophical sense, the analogy suggests we weave our own destiny, that is, 'We' as individuals, are the metaphorical shuttle, and the thread can be seen as an unbroken line of our experiences (That is, our memory also).

Fig. 8 The wire frame 'mesh'

However, if the thread breaks in the shuttle, then the cloth will no longer form (death). However, if the thread breaks after the cloth is already woven, there is very little damage to the structure and integrity of the cloth...



Now, moving on with this allegorical concept, the difference from a woven fabric, to a mesh (Fig. 8), can be shown when the mesh is damaged.... (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. A damaged mesh, but it retains most of it's integrity.

In this final example, if the mesh becomes damaged, it does not necessarily loose it's integrity, although some nodes (actants) may unravel.  In a similar way, if our own neural network (of life experiences) are damaged, then this articulates quite nicely, the idea of a memory fading... As in, The Things We Leave Behind...

References;

"Very Little, ... Almost Nothing; Death, Philosophy and Literature", Stephen Critchley, (1997) and  (Second ed. 2004) Routledge Press, London.
"Prince of Networks; Bruno Latour & Metaphysics", Graham Harman (2009), Re-press, Melbourne, Australia.