Human, All Too Human 161ity was designated coolly as the logically "disclosed essence of the
world" (2,30; HH\ § 10). With this concept, Nietzsche sought to hold
himself aloof from "religion, art, and morality," all of whose presenti-
ments, feelings, and states of ecstasy somehow drew him to the mystery
of the wodd. These are illusions, he explained, and with them "we are
not touching the 'essence of the world in itself'" (2,30). We remain in
the realm of the imagination, and no amount of presentiment will carry
us further. And yet we cannot do without this concept of the "disclosed
essence of the world." It is necessary' as a logical postulate to understand
the relativity and perspectivem of various accesses to reality. We cannot
know anything about this disclosed essence of reality; it only serves to
liberate us from the prison of our concepts of the world. The "disclosed
essence of the world" is an empty point, a vanishing point, a way out
into indeterminacy. Since, however, any determination can be relativized
from a point of indeterminacy, this vanishing point of indeterminacy
becomes an Archimedean point that can shake the foundations of our
wodd by contesting its truth value. Nietzsche later contended that there
are only interpretations, with no archetypal text to which we can trace
them back- The logical postulate of every interpretation is that an arche-
typal text does exist, but no one knows it. The same situation applies to
the "disclosed essence of the world." Nietzsche was obviously deter-
mined to leave aside something that had stimulated and enchanted him
in his Dionysian phase, namely ecstatic participation in absolute reality.
He called this phase "icing up" (2,16; HHIPreface § 3).
In the mid-1870s, Nietzsche studied a treatise called Denken und
Wirklichkeit (Thought and Reality, 1877), by the philosopher Afrikan
Spir. This work had long been consigned to oblivion, but it had a lasting
impact on Nietzsche. Section 18 of Human, All Too Human cited Spir,
not by name, but by presenting a "proposition by an outstanding logi-
cian" (2,38; HH I §18). Spir's philosophy was based on the notion that
the concept of substance has no reality whatever, since in reality there is
only a continual becoming. The identity theorem of A = A applies only
in the sphere of logic; there is nothing that is truly identical with itself,