Christoph Cox > Quotes

“Nietzsche's ontological theory presumes neither a pre-given world of unknowable becoming nor a pre-given world of ordinary objects. Against all realisms, Nietzsche maintains that every ontology is the construction of an interpretation and that no world would remain over after the subtraction of every interpretation. Against idealism, he argues that interpretations are not the productions of isolated subjects or minds but complexes of evaluation and power that traverse the entire spectrum of organic life and are discernible even in the inorganic world. Indeed, Nietzsche short-circuits the distinction between idealism and realism by dissolving the poles of subject and object into the unified field of interpretation or will to power.”
― Christoph Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation

“Anton Webern moved composition to the brink of silence.”
― Christoph Cox, Audio Culture, Revised Edition: Readings in Modern Music

“Nietzsche insists that a thoroughgoing "naturalism" cannot be a scientism; that is, it cannot accept the Quinean view that "[t]he world is as natural science says it is" and "[n]aturalism looks only to natural science [ . . . ] for an account of what there is and what what there is does." Nietzsche's genealogy of European thought uncovers a residual theology in the modern scientific project's claim to describe the way the world really is. He argues that, if one carries through the naturalistic program implicit in modern science, one will discover that science overcomes itself, giving way to another discourse that can claim to be more rigorously naturalistic and that reveals the scientific to be but one among many true accounts of the world. That discourse is the aesthetic, which affirms sensuousness, materiality, multiplicity, becoming, historicity, creativity, and the irreducibility of interpretation. The aesthetic cannot and does not claim to take the place of science as the one true theory. It justifies itself holistically, by reference to a genealogical story; and it challenges the very idea of a single, final account.”
― Christoph Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation

“The apparent relativism of perspectivism is held in check by Nietzsche's naturalism (which offers the doctrines of becoming and will to power in place of all theological interpretations) and that the apparent dogmatism of these doctrines is mitigated by his perspectivism (which grants that these doctrines are themselves interpretations yet ones that are better by naturalistic standards).”
― Christoph Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation