164 NietzscheThe "logical denial of the wodd" is somewhat analogous to the
Kantian "thing in itself." We can rest easy with it It simply reminds us
that every act of cognition is always just "for us," but never can com-
prehend the "in itself" of things. It is a cool form of transcendence that
is neither more nor less than the ever obscure flip side of our imagina-
tion. Kant's curiosity about a world beyond our imagination was piqued
from time to time as well, but he muted it with an astute analysis of the
antinomies of our reason by indicating that reason is troubled by meta-
physical questions that it cannot dismiss but also cannot answer. Our
reason, which must inquire into the absolute without being able to com-
prehend it, is faced with a contradiction that we have to endure, but we
are able to do so because we get along quite well with our transcenden-
tally delimited knowledge in a world that is "in itself" unknown.
Although we do not possess any absolute knowledge, our reasonably
effective insights allow for a gradual mastery of nature.
This Kantian "thing in itself" evolved in a peculiar way. It acted on
Kant's successors like a hole in the closed wodd of knowledge through
which disturbingly drafty air was seeping. Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling
did not want to leave this "thing in itself" alone; they wanted to seize it
at any price and penetrate into what they presumed to be the heart of
things, which Fichte called "ego," Schelling "nature," and Hegel "spirit."
They sought to peer behind the veil of maya, and if there was no magic
word to be found, they wanted to invent one, which is precisely what
they did.
Just as "Dionysus" had been Nietzsche's magic word to shake the
world out of its slumber, now he was trying out Kantian composure. He
repeatedly stressed that this logical and nominalist denial of the wodd
(which disputes the absolute truth value of the world of experience) was
altogether compatible with a "practical affirmation of the wodd" (2,50;
HHl § 29).
Aphorism § 16 carries the heading "Appearance and Thing in Itself"
(2,36; HH I § 16). Here Nietzsche analyzes several possible ways of
reacting to the difference between the world of experience and the thing