Nietzsche’s Perspectivism And Musil’s Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften

This study put an emphasis on Robert Musil’s opinion on perspective in his masterpiece Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Compared with Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s Perspectivism, Musil’s thoughts on perspective identifying the protagonist Ulrich present the radical difference, which are pursuing surpass the fixed perspective or valuing changing view point. Two distinctive features distinguish Nietzsche’s Perspectivism and Musil’s perspective opinion. First is objectivity, Nietzsche’s Perspectivism is based on personal subjective life, while Musil’s work reflects his deep spiritual connection with scientific positivism on his perspective view. It is closely related to one of the novel’s narrative characteristics "Essayismus" besides. Second, the author finds out that Musil’s work implies an inclination contrary to the Nietzsche’s Perspectivism on body. Musil attaches great importance to spirits and souls, which brings him back to the Western traditional philosophy since Plato.This article, thus, attempts to discuss the text in the light of its distinctions with Nietzsche’s Perspectivism. The introduction presents principally Robert Musil’s novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften and briefly summarizes the previous research on the comparison between Robert Musil and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche both in China and worldwide. The research methodology and the thesis of the article are presented as while.The first two chapters of the thesis focus on the feature of objectivity of Musil’s opinion on perspective compared with Nietzsche’s Perspectivism. The first chapter titled" Ulrich and Perspectivism". starts with the analysis of the distinctive way of seeing of the protagonist Ulrich, while his observation shows the inclination of surpassing the fixed perspective. The objectivity has connection with Musil’s "Essayismus"The second chapter titled "Viewing Devices and Perspectivism", surrounding one of Musil’s essays called "telescope", the author continues to explore the source of feature of objectivity, and attribute it to the scientific positivism.The last two chapters of the thesis put an emphasis on the relationship between the body and spirit. The third chapter titled "Body and Perspectivism" examines the status of the body in Musil’s work by interpreting a metaphor in one of his speech in 1934.It seems that Musil keeps reserve and criticize towards the body, which constitutes a sharp contrast with Nietzsche.The last chapter titled "Mathematics and Perspectivism", discussing the unique way of Musil’s literature creation. By combining mathematics and his writing, Musil returns to the tradition at last.Different from Nietzsche, beneath the surface of destroying the center of perspective, Musil actually expresses his underlying identification with the western traditional values and creates a utopia in his work. Generally, his ideological tendency is conservative.