Umdrehung des Platonismus

Nietzsche's self-described project, recorded already in 1870/71: "Meine Philosophie umgedrehter Platonismus: je weiter ab vom wahrhaft Seienden, um so reiner schöner besser ist es. Das Leben im Schein als Ziel" (IX, 190). Heidegger reads the Umdrehung in *Nietzsche I* I.18-22 as a project that begins as inversion (Umdrehung — swap of priority between sensible and supersensible) but becomes, in its mature form, Herausdrehung — turning-out-of Platonism altogether. The mature form is achieved only in 1888, in Götzen-Dämmerung's "Wie die wahre Welt endlich zur Fabel wurde": with the abolition of the true world the apparent world also falls. There is no "above" and no "below" anymore — only the one perspectival shining of the real.

What the Concept Does

  1. Distinguishes inversion from stepping-out. A simple Umdrehung swaps priority but leaves the Above-Below structure intact. Heidegger argues this is not what Nietzsche eventually achieves. Herausdrehung dismantles the structure itself: with the abolition of the true world, the apparent world (which was the apparent of the true) also disappears. What remains is not the "previously low" raised to the high, but the elimination of the high-low schema.

  2. Distinguishes Nietzsche's mature position from Positivism. A Positivist Umdrehung would say: the supersensible is fiction; only the sensible is real. This leaves the high-low schema intact (now: sensible-truth above, supersensible-fiction below). Nietzsche's Herausdrehung abolishes the schema. He is not a Positivist, even though he passed through extreme Positivism in 1879-81.

  3. Specifies the textual locus of the mature Umdrehung. Götzen-Dämmerung's "Wie die wahre Welt endlich zur Fabel wurde" (1888) is the moment of Herausdrehung. The six-stage history (Plato → Christianity → Kant → Positivism → Nietzsche's own early → "Mittag, INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA") shows the abolition of the entire framework.

  4. Distinguishes Plato from Platonism. Heidegger insists (heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i line 1923) that Plato is not yet Platonism. Plato's "true world" is "noch nichts Platonisches" — not yet doctrinally calcified. The "Platonism" Nietzsche reverses is the doctrinaire shell of Plato's thinking (especially as inherited through Christianity).

What It Rejects

  • Reading Nietzsche as Positivist. Heidegger acknowledges Nietzsche's 1879-81 extreme Positivism but argues the mature position transforms it.
  • Reading the Umdrehung as cosmetic — a swap that leaves the metaphysical schema intact. Heidegger's reading shows that the mature Umdrehung is Herausdrehung — actual exit from the schema.
  • Reading the Umdrehung as completed early. Heidegger places the Herausdrehung in 1888 (Götzen-Dämmerung); much of the Wille zur Macht-period is transitional, still operating within Umdrehung-as-inversion.
  • Conflating Plato and Platonism. Plato's actual thinking is creative-active; Platonism is the doctrinaire calcification.

Stakes

  • The "Übermensch" is the figure who comes into view at the threshold of Herausdrehung. "Mittag; Augenblick des kürzesten Schattens; Ende des längsten Irrtums; Höhepunkt der Menschheit; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA" — the closing stage of the six-fold history.
  • The Zwiespalt zwischen Wahrheit und Kunst follows from the Umdrehung. Only after the framework "true world / apparent world" is dissolved can art and truth stand in their erregender discord as perspectival modes of the one reality.
  • Nietzsche's perspectivism is the form-of-life of post-Platonist thinking. Without Above-Below, all is perspectival shining; truth is festgemachter Anschein, art is Aufscheinen.
  • Cross-tradition: MP's relation to Plato is structurally cognate but distinct. MP also rejects the supersensible-sensible schema, but via embodied perception rather than willed perspectivism. The wiki's experimental-platonism page tracks MP's Plato-relation; Heidegger's Umdrehung-Herausdrehung is a different (parallel) operation.

Relation to Experimental Platonism

The wiki has an existing concept page experimental-platonism tracking MP's (and others') Plato-readings. Heidegger's Umdrehung-Herausdrehung is not the same operation; it is Nietzsche's, on Heidegger's reading. The two operations are:

  • MP's experimental Platonism (cf. existing wiki page): MP's selective retention of Platonic structures (the idea, the recurrence of forms) within an embodied phenomenological frame.
  • Heidegger's Nietzschean Umdrehung-Herausdrehung: Nietzsche's destruction of the supersensible-sensible schema as such, achieved in 1888.

The two operations agree in rejecting naive Platonism but differ in what they preserve. Experimental Platonism preserves the idea in transformed form; Heidegger's Nietzschean Herausdrehung preserves no Platonic structure beyond perspectival shining.

Connections

  • is the operation by which the Platonic schema "true world / apparent world" is dismantled in friedrich-nietzsche
  • is anchored in Nietzsche's IX, 190 (1870/71) and Götzen-Dämmerung's "Wie die wahre Welt endlich zur Fabel wurde" (1888)
  • is the precondition for the erregender-zwiespalt-wahrheit-kunst in its mature form
  • opens the way to the Übermensch and the threshold of "INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA"
  • is not Positivism — Heidegger explicitly distinguishes
  • is not identical with experimental-platonism — different operation; see Relation to Experimental Platonism above
  • *is read by Heidegger as still operating within Western metaphysics — the Herausdrehung is from Platonism, not from metaphysics

Open Questions

  • Is the Herausdrehung-reading dependent on a specific construal of Götzen-Dämmerung's six-fold history? Other readings (e.g., Lampert) might place the Herausdrehung differently or deny it altogether.
  • How does the Herausdrehung relate to the Beständigung thesis? If Nietzsche's Herausdrehung exits Platonism but his Beständigung preserves Greek Sein-as-presence, the two operations are in tension. Heidegger's resolution: Herausdrehung exits Platonism (the doctrinaire shell) while Beständigung preserves Greek metaphysics (the originary form of the Leitfrage). The two operations are compatible because Platonism is a late form of the Greek determination.

Sources

  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — I.18 "Wahrheit im Platonismus und im Positivismus. Nietzsches Versuch einer Umdrehung des Platonismus aus der Grunderfahrung des Nihilismus" (lines 1536-1614). I.22 "Nietzsches Umdrehung des Platonismus" (lines 1900-1963), with detailed exegesis of Götzen-Dämmerung's six-fold history. I.23 "Die neue Auslegung der Sinnlichkeit und der erregende Zwiespalt zwischen Kunst und Wahrheit" (lines 1965+) draws the consequence.