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Abstract
According to the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito, Einverleibung (incorporation or embodiment) is an immunzation device that offers a response to both life’s need for self-preservation and life’s need for cultivation. Esposito claims that with Nietzsche, the category of immunization has already been completely elaborated. This article addresses the problem of immunization in late modernity through an analysis of the Nietzschean conception of Einverleibung. Nietzsche recurs to two different semantics to understand the process of incorporation: on the one hand a semantics of appropriation according to which Einverleibung reflects a process of life through which ever more powerful wholes are constituted and preserved by the annihilating and excluding incorporation of the other; and, on the other hand, a semantics of creative transformation where Einverleibung is driven by a receiving and hospitable force, an openness to the other that furthers the pluralization and diversification of life. While the first logic of incorporation reflects the problem of the preservation of life by means of an immunization that carries with it all the dangers inherent to what Foucault refers to as thanatopolitics, Esposito raises the question of whether it is possible to preserve life by means of immunization without thereby destroying itself. This article argues that the idea of Einverleibung in Nietzsche understood as a creative transformation offers an answer to the question posed by Esposito. It moreover points to a different politics of immunity, where immunity does not name the including exclusion of the other, but the openness of life to the horizon of justice and community.
Notes
1 I am grateful to Alexander Zibis for providing me with the NWS-Belegliste ‘Leib’. The translation of ‘Einverleibung’ as ‘Incorporation’ or as ‘embodiment’ is, as is well known, misleading because it does not account for the German distinction between ‘Körper’ (body, corpus) and ‘Leib.’ For the importance of this distinction, see Heidegger Citation1992. As has already been pointed out by Keith Ansell-Pearson (Citation2006), the literature on the notion of Einverleibung in Nietzsche is surprisingly sparse. While Blondel (Citation1991) briefly touches on the question of Einverleibung, a systematic treatment is missing in Wotling (Citation1995).
2 In this article, I rely on the following abbreviations of Nietzsche’s work: KSA=Sämtliche Schriften, Kritische Studienausgabe in 12 Bänden Colli/Montenari (references provide the volume number followed by the relevant fragment number and any relevant aphorism. In some cases I additionally provide the number of the volume followed by the page number). I also rely on the following abbreviations of books: HH=Human all too Human; GS=Gay Science; HL=Second Untimely Consideration; GM=On the Genealogy of Morals; D=Dawn; BGE=Beyond Good and Evil; AOM=Assorted Opinions and Maxims. Abbreviations of books are followed by the number of the aphorism.
3 According to Leo Strauss, this task is that of the philosopher of the future (Strauss, Citation1983: pp. 189–91).
4 On continuity, see KSA 12:7[2] and KSA 13:11[111] 13.52.
5 Nietzsche claims that, for example, in the case of artists, we take their talent to be a reflection of their superior nature when, in fact, their talent is nothing but the result of a long process of education: ‘an old piece of learning, appropriating, incorporating (ein älteres Stück Lernens, Aneignens, Einverleibens)’ (D: p. 540; KSA 3.309). The same holds true with respect to the ‘instinct of self-preservation,’ the most deeply incorporated instinct of the human being: ‘because within them nothing is older, stronger, more inexorable and invincible [unüberwindlicher] than this instinct’ and hence Nietzsche writes that this instinct ‘constitutes the essence of our species and herd [Wesen unserer Art und Heerde]’ (GS 1; KSA 3. 369). Finally, Nietzsche claims that what we believe to be our ‘immediate feelings [unmittelbare Gefühle]’ are nothing but the effect of old, deeply incorporated errors (KSA 9:11[302] 9.557).
6 Considering the relation between the organic and the inorganic, Nietzsche defines life as ‘a continuous process of sizing up one’s strength, where the antagonists grow in unequal measure. Even in obedience a resistance subsists; one’s power is not given up. Similarly, in commanding there exists a concession that the absolute power of the rival is not defeated, not incorporated [einverleibt], not dissolved. “To obey” und “to command” are forms of competitive play’ (KSA 11:36[22] 11.561).
7 For an excellent treatment of the problem of immunity in contemporary political theory, see Cohen, Citation2009.
8 This plastic force can be found at the core of each of the three forms of history in the service of life: while the monumental expresses the power to develop out of oneself in one’s own way, the antiquarian expresses the power to transform and incorporate what is past and foreign, and the critical form of history is defined by its power to heal wounds, replace what has been lost and recreate broken forms. I further develop the relation among life, history and justice in the three forms of history for life in Lemm (Citation2011).
9 For another occurrence of Einverleibung as a force which participates in the construction of the future, see the figure of the poet in AOM 99; KSA 2.419 and the example of the immigrating working class (Arbeiter Stand) who incorporate ‘much good reason and moderateness (Billigkeit)’, ‘much healthy suspicion (viel gesundes Misstrauen)’ of their mother Europe, but whose incorporated virtues turn into ‘wild and beautiful naturalness (wilde schöne Natürlichkeit)’ and ‘heroism’ when it comes to constructing a new future (D 206). Finally, see GS 83 where Einverleibung measures the historical sense of particular time, i.e. its ability to use the past as material out of which to create the new, as reflected in their translations of the great authors of another time. The idea of the becoming active (future) of the deeply embedded (past) can also be found on the level of organic life in Nietzsche’s definition of instinct: ‘By instinct I mean any kind of judgment … which has been incorporated to such an extent that it now acts spontaneously and does not require stimuli to be activated’ (KSA 9:11[264] 9.505).
10 In a note from the late Nachlass, Nietzsche identifies justice as the representative of life where justice is associated with the activities previously related to the monumental, antiquarian and critical mode of history: ‘The ways of freedom [Die Wege der Freiheit] … Justice as a constructive [bauende] [monumental], excluding [ausscheidende] [antiquarian] destructive [vernichtende] [critical] way of thought, based on judgments of value [Werthschätzungen]: the highest representative of life’ (KSA 11:25[484] 11.140f). This note is central to Heidegger’s interpretation of justice in Nietzsche as truth (Heidegger, Citation1998, 1980).
11 On the logic of Einverleibung as appropriation in the context of Nietzsche’s reflections on the state, see also AOM 317; KSA 2.507, where Nietzsche argues that property only makes the individual free to a certain degree. Property does not liberate, but rather possesses the property owner insofar as the latter is incorporated (einverleibt) into the state and feels morally obliged to it. Property thus turns out to be dis-appropriating. On property as an immunizing device, see Esposito, Citation2004.
12 Nietzsche speculates that ‘the judgment of the equal and similar and persistent [das Urtheil des Gleichen und Ähnlichen und Beharrenden]’ must have something to do with the satisfaction of the nutritional needs of life, i.e. with the preservation of life (KSA 9:11[269]).
13 On the law as a mechanism of inclusion by way of exclusion, see Agamben (Citation1998).
14 In a fragment from the same period, Nietzsche describes the same process but this time from the perspective of life, in other words, from the perspective of society as a function of organic life. According to this perspective, Nietzsche insists that the free individual (freigewordener Mensch) does not exist prior to the formation of society but rather reflects its latest development. In this account, the human being begins as part of a whole which enables the existence of the human being as a herd. The individual is an organ of the community (Gemeinwesen) and has incorporated all its judgments and experiences: ‘As long as we are concerned with self-preservation, the consciousness of the ego is unnecessary [unnöthig]’ (KSA 9:11[316]). Nietzsche therefore contests the idea of the social contract understood as an agreement between individual human beings, as if the latter could exist prior to the former. Nietzsche rejects the idea of the social contract and the so-called ‘state of nature’ for it denies the fact that the human being is, before all, inscribed within the greater horizon of life and its conditions for preservation. Only later does the individual emerge, generally in times of corruption, when the ties of society are broken. It reflects a weak form of life which stands in need of a complete re-organization and re-creation of its own conditions of life which may in turn result in the re-organization and re-creation of the whole (KSA 9:11[182] 9.509f.; see in comparison KSA 9:11[193] 9.518 and BGE 262). On the importance of the free individual for the whole, see also KSA 9:12[90] 9.592, where Nietzsche claims: ‘All wisdom and reason in our life, is the result of the development of singular individuals who slowly imposed, forced, disciplined, incorporated their wisdom and reason into humanity – in such a way that nowadays it seems as if they would have always belonged to the essence of the human being [Alle Klugheit und Vernunft auf der unser Leben ruht, ist die Entdeckung Einzelner gewesen und ganz allmählich der Menschheit aufgedrungen, aufgezwungen, angeübt, einverleibt worden – so dass es jetzt wie zum unverrückbaren Wesen des Menschen zu gehören scheint].’
15 This is why Nietzsche rejects the Darwinian conception of progress – the struggle of existence – where the species advances through the achievements of the strong.
16 Nietzsche makes this point as follows: ‘Two things rather must come together: firstly, the augmentation of the stabilizing force through the union of minds in belief and communal feeling; then the possibility of the attainment of higher goals through the occurrence of degenerate natures and, as a consequence of them, partial weakening and injuring of the stabilizing force; it is precisely the weaker nature, as the more tender and more refined, that makes any progress possible at all. A people that becomes somewhere weak and fragile but is as a whole still strong and healthy is capable of absorbing the infection of the new and incorporating it to its own advantage’ (HH 224). According to Nietzsche, Machiavelli was fully aware of this double bind in matters of government when he assigned greater importance to the stability (duration) of rule over the form of rule (HH 224).
17 See in comparison KSA 10:4[113]: ‘Now the murderer is taken to be sick: this is how deep moral judgments have been incorporated [Jetzt erscheint der Mörder als krank: so sehr sind die moralischen Urtheile einverleibt]’ (see also KSA 10:4[151] and KSA 10:5[1]177).
18 See also in comparison KSA 9:11[162] 9.540f. This question has been discussed by Keith Ansell-Pearson in two essays (Ansell-Pearson, Citation2005). While Ansell-Pearson discusses the question of how truth can be incorporated with an emphasis on the question already raised by Heidegger (Heidegger, 2004: p. 28), namely, ‘what kind of truth is it that stands outside incorporation and that now challenges us in the manner of incorporation’, I pursue this question with an emphasis on the notion of incorporation as a strategy of immunization. From this perspective, the problem is not so much what kind of new truth or knowledge must be incorporated but, rather, how it is being incorporated, i.e. by way of an immunizing excluding inclusion or by way of an inclusion of a pluralizing openness.
19 In KSA 9:11[320] 9.566, Nietzsche insists that such a process takes a long time: ‘Ideas for the most part only appear later [Ideen treten oft spät erst in ihrere Natur auf], they need time to incorporate themselves and to grow’ after they have for a long time remained in an embryo-like weak state.
20 See also KSA 9:11[134] 9.490 where Nietzsche identifies this function of Einverleibung as a means of compensating for the kind of weakness associated with a lower form of life. On compensation as a strategy of immunization, see also (Esposito, Citation2004). See also KSA 10:7[107], for the opposite meaning where Einverleibung is the expression of a conquering instinct, a sign of a surplus of power that molds and creates ‘its own image in forgein matter’. According to Nietzsche, the instinct to conquer the other is, for example, found in a person´s intention to communicate where the latter is a means of appropriating the other: ‘to incorporate the will of the other [den Willen des Anderen sich einverleiben]’ but also where ‘communication [Verstehen]’ denotes the recognition of the others power (KSA 10:7[173] 10.298).
21 In fact, for Nietzsche, memory reflects the continuity of life: ‘all that which we have experienced is alive: it is digested, ordered, incorporated [verarbeitet, zusammengeordnet, einverleibt]’ (KSA 11:25[409] 11.119).
22 On science as a means of domination of nature for the sake of nutrition, see KSA 11:26[448].
23 Sarah Kofman has shown that translating the human being back into nature means unmasking all metaphysical illusions (Kofman, Citation1983: pp. 133–45).
24 See also, ‘Once you incorporate the thought of thoughts [Nietzsche is refereeing to the eternal return of the same], it will transfigure you [Wenn Du Dir den Gedanken der Gedanken einverleibst, so wird er Dich verwandeln]’ (KSA 9:11[143] 9.496). On the relation between Einverleibung and eternal return, see the interesting treatment of Barbara Stiegler (Stiegler, Citation2005: pp. 142–77).
25 See in comparison KSA 10:4[80] and also KSA 12:7[9] on the difference between Einverleibung in the Nietzschean und Anpassung in the Darwinian sense.