As I read it, the problem is the traditional western philosophical thinking about grounds and ends which argues that truth must originate in something unchanging.
The abyss for Nietzsche is a necessary and equal part of the process of meaning as Will. Will is a self-overcoming which implies both presence and absence, ground and abyss.The rope doesn't escape from the abyss. As a bridge it implies and include abyss as necessary to what Will to Power is.

Would it be safe to characterize the abyss as a sort of given then? You mention western philosophy as anchoring in truth that is unchanging... Therefore, do you mean that the abyss is another reiteration of "thruth" whatever that may be as a "given" that needs to be looked beyond in a manner of "facts can be true, yet statement still be false"?

When Zarathustra enters the town he asks :

All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man? (Prologue 3)

When Zarathustra first descends from the mountain he meets a saint who says:

Go not to men, but stay in the forest! Go rather to the animals! Why not be like me—a bear amongst bears, a bird amongst birds?” (Prologue 2)


This is one option. To not cross the rope, to remain a beast. The saint represents the end of the line, what Nietzsche calls the “last man”. The ebb of the great tide of self-overcoming. He lives alone and does not perpetuate the species.

But self-overcoming, creating something beyond themselves is what all beings have hitherto done. To overcome himself man must reject the values of his past. He must undergo a metamorphosis, there must be, what he calls in the three metamorphoses of the spirit a “sacred no”. The problem is, having rejected his past man’s future remains undetermined. The sacred no must be followed by a “sacred yes”. The rejection of the old values must be followed by the creation of new higher values. The abyss is what stands between the old values that have been rejected and the new values that have yet to be created. This is the problem of nihilism - the absence of values.

Nihilism for Nietzsche isn't simply the absence of values, it's the concept of valuation itself understood through the metaphysical tradition of the West. And the overcoming of Nihilism isnt the replacement of older values with higher values. That would be to remain within the bounds of the historical tradition of nihilism. Heidegger says

"Nietzsche himself interprets the course of Western history metaphysically, and indeed as the rise and
development of nihilism. In a note from the year 1887 Nietzsche poses the question,
"What does nihilism mean?" (Will to Power, Aph. 2). He answers: "That the highest values are devaluing themselves."
“For Nietzsche nihilism is not in any way simply a phenomenon of decay ; rather nihilism is, as the fundamental event of Western history, simultaneously and above all the intrinsic law of that
history. The "revaluing of all previous values" does indeed belong to complete,consummated, and therefore classical nihilism, but the revaluing does not merely replace the old values with new. Revaluing becomes the overturning of the nature and manner of valuing. The positing of
values requires a new principle, i.e., a new principle from which it may proceed and within which it may maintain itself. The positing of values requires another realm. The principle can no
longer be the world of the suprasensory become lifeless. Therefore nihilism, aiming at a revaluing understood in this way, will seek out what is most alive. Nihilism itself is thus transformed
into "the ideal of superabundant life" (The Word of Nietzsche:" God Is Dead")

I like where both of you Joshs and Fooloso4 have gone... Both of you seem to point towards the abyss as a place and time of Interregnum... Thinks of Gramsci and his death of the old and birth of the new... The abyss here understood as the time of monsters. Old values have run their course and reimagining of these values is about to take place. Man as a mediator ( in a Hegelian sense) is spanning across the spectrum of choices, yet knows that there is no turning back toward "state of nature" thus forging ahead is the only free choice. Nihilism here serving as a driver of action rather than simple rejection of former structures.

But does that not give to much to the "old"? Absence of values is one thing, where as rejection or revaluation is another. Are we saying that what Nitschean man encounters is a problem or rejection of former narratives or is he encountering a problem of obsolescence of the former? Or maybe more naivley he is simply still transitioning, himself being a monster, before golden age ahead?

If we were to think the movement from one paradigm or valuative system to the next as a kind of Kuhnian non-linear development, that would keep our thinking within a dialectical teleology, the consummation of Western metaphysics. Talk of obsolescence and golden ages also remain with the old thinking if they imply better and worse valuative schemes.
For Nietzsche what is 'better' about Will to Power as Principle of Principles, and what allows it to overcome metaphysics, is that it is not itself a valuative scheme, but the self-displacing impetus within all valuative schemes. Human history as the replacement of one value system by another is not any kind of progression. It doesn't go anywhere. It is the eternal return of the same self-overcoming, not bringing us closer to some final destination.

Nihilism for Nietzsche isn't simply the absence of values — Joshs

If by saying it is not simply the absence of values you mean that having any values, whatever they may be, is sufficient to overcome nihilism, then I agree. But if you mean that nihilism is not the absence of value then I do not agree.

I am not sure that introducing Heidegger is helpful. It presents two problems. First it compounds the problem of interpretation because now we must interpret Heidegger in addition to interpreting Nietzsche. Second, Heidegger situates Nietzsche within the history of Being, and in doing so this raises the question of whether his view of history influences his understanding of Nietzsche.

"If you mean that nihilism is not the absence of value then I do not agree."
Nihilism would have to do with loss or destruction of value, meaning , truth, understood in some way or other. But Nietzsche defines nihilism in different ways. According to Nietzsche, nihilism is understood according to Western metaphysics as the loss of faith in the meaning of traditional values like truth, morality, progress, etc. But coupled with this perceived loss is the continued holding onto the importance of these values, so this sort of nihilism is a mourning based on the maintaining of the metaphysical structure that made these values desirable in the first place.“The philosophical nihilist is convinced that all that happens is meaningless and in vain; and that there ought not to be anything meaningless and in vain.”

Nietzsche opposes this orientation toward values to his Will to Power, which doesn't simply abandon the possibility of finding meaning in truth, progress, morality, God, but no longer finds it desirable to wish for such things. Will to Power celebrates what traditional metaphysics held to be nihilistic, the mere positing of values which in and of themselves are not true or moral or progressive, which are celebrations of plurality and difference and contingency and decadence as well as power. So there is a moment of nihilism in Will to Power but it is not a falling away from what is critical to life. Nietzsche says , "Nihilism as a normal phenomenon can be a symptom of increasing strength. Partly, because the strength to create, to will, has so increased that it no longer requires these total interpretations and introductions of meaning ("present tasks," the state, etc.)." "Nihilism" an ideal of the highest degree of powerfulness of spirit, the over-richest life--partly destructive, partly ironic."

"And do you know what "the world" is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This
world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude
of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only
transforms itself; this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally
self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my "beyond
good and evil," without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without
will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself--do you want a name for this
world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed,
strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?-- This world is the will to
power--and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power--and
nothing besides!"

I added the first few pages of Nietzsche's discussion of nihilism from Will to Power. It seems to me that Heidegger did a good job of summarizing its content.

WILL TO POWER

1. Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of all guests? Point of
departure: it is an error to consider "social distress" or "physiological
degeneration" or, worse, corruption, as the cause of nihilism. Ours is the most
decent and compassionate age. Distress, whether of the soul, body, or intellect,
cannot of itself give birth to nihilism (i.e., the radical repudiation of value,
meaning, and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of
interpretations. Rather: it is in one particular interpretation, the Christian-moral
one, that nihilism is rooted.

2. The end of Christianity--at the hands of its own morality (which cannot be
replaced), which turns against the Christian God (the sense of truthfulness,
developed highly by Christianity, is nauseated by the falseness and mendaciousness
of all Christian interpretations of the world and of history; rebound from "God is
truth" to the fanatical faith "All is false"; Buddhism of action).


3. Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive. The end of the moral
interpretation of the world, which no longer has any sanction after it has tried to
escape into some beyond, leads to nihilism. "Everything lacks meaning" (the
untenability of one interpretation of the world, upon which a tremendous amount of
energy has been lavished, awakens the suspicion that all interpretations of the
world are false). Buddhistic tendency, yearning for Nothing. (Indian Buddhism is not
the culmination of a thoroughly moralistic development; its nihilism is therefore
full of morality that is not overcome: existence as punishment, existence construed
as error, error thus as a punishment--a moral valuation.) Philosophical attempts to
overcome the "moral God" (Hegel, pantheism). Overcoming popular ideals: the sage;
the saint; the poet. The antagonism of "true" and "beautiful" and "good".

4. Against "meaninglessness" on the one hand, against moral value judgments on the
other: to what extent has all science and philosophy so far been influenced by moral
judgments? and won't this net us the hostility of science? Or an antiscientific
mentality? Critique of Spinozism. Residues of Christian value judgments are found
everywhere in socialistic and positivistic systems. A critique of Christian morality
is still lacking

5. The nihilistic consequences of contemporary natural science (together with its
attempts to escape into some beyond). The industry of its pursuit eventually leads
to self-disintegration, opposition, an antiscientific mentality. Since Copernicus
man has been rolling from the center toward X.*

6. The nihilistic consequences of the ways of thinking in politics and economics,
where all "principles" are practically histrionic: the air of mediocrity,
wretchedness, dishonesty, etc. Nationalism. Anarchism, etc. Punishment. The
redeeming class and human being are lacking--the justifiers.

7. The nihilistic consequences of historiography and of the "practical historians,"
i.e., the romantics. The position of art: its position in the modern world
absolutely lacking in originality. Its decline into gloom. Goethe's allegedly
Olympian stance.

8. Art and the preparation of nihilism: romanticism (the conclusion of Wagner's
Nibelungen).



What does nihilism mean? That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is
lacking; "why?" finds no answer.


Radical nihilism is the conviction of an absolute untenability of existence when it
comes to the highest values one recognizes; plus the realization that we lack the
least right to posit a beyond or an in-itself of things that might be "divine" or
morality incarnate.
This realization is a consequence of the cultivation of "truthfulness"--thus itself
a consequence of the faith in morality.


What were the advantages of the Christian moral hypothesis?
1. It granted man an absolute value, as opposed to his smallness and accidental
occurrence in the flux of becoming and passing away.
2. It served the advocates of God insofar as it conceded to the world, in spite of
suffering and evil, the character of perfection-including "freedom": evil appeared full of meaning.
3. It posited that man had a knowledge of absolute values and thus adequate
knowledge precisely regarding what is most important.
4. It prevented man from despising himself as man, from taking sides against life;
from despairing of knowledge: it was a means of preservation.
In sum: morality was the great antidote against practical and theoretical nihilism.

But among the forces cultivated by morality was truthfulness: this eventually turned
against morality, discovered its teleology, its partial perspective--and now the
recognition of this inveterate mendaciousness that one despairs of shedding becomes
a stimulant. Now we discover in ourselves needs implanted by centuries of moral
interpretation--needs that now appear to us as needs for untruth; on the other hand,
the value for which we endure life seems to hinge on these needs. This
antagonism--not to esteem what we know, and not to be allowed any longer to esteem
the lies we should like to tell ourselves--results in a process of dissolution.

This is the antinomy:
Insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence.

The supreme values in whose service man should live, especially when they were very
hard on him and exacted a high puce--these social values were erected over man to
strengthen their voice, as if they were commands of God, as 'reality," as the true"
world, as a hope and future world. Now that the shabby origin of these values is
becoming clear, the universe seems to have lost value, seems "meaningless"--but that
is only a transitional stage.

The nihilistic consequence (the belief in valuelessness) as a consequence of moral
valuation: everything egoistic has come to disgust us (even though we realize the
impossibility of the unegoistic); what is necessary has come to disgust us (even
though we realize the impossibility of any liberum arbitrium or intelligible
freedom"). We see that we cannot reach the sphere in which we have placed our
values; but this does not by any means confer any value on that other sphere in
which we live: on the contrary, we are weary because we have lost the main stimulus
"In vain so far!"

Pessimism as a preliminary form of nihilism.

Pessimism as strength--in what? in the energy of its logic, as anarchism and
nihilism, as analytic.
Pessimism as decline--in what? as growing effeteness, as a sort of cosmopolitan
fingering, as "tout comprendre and historicism.
The critical tension: the extremes appear and become predominant.

The logic of pessimism down to ultimate nihilism: what is at work in it? The idea of
valuelessness, meaninglessness: to what extent moral valuations hide behind all
other high values.
Conclusion: Moral value judgments are ways of passing sentence, negations; morality
is a way of turning one's back on the will to existence.
Problem: But what is morality?

Nihilism as a psychological state will have to be reached, first, when we have
sought a "meaning" in all events that is not there: so the seeker eventually becomes
discouraged. Nihilism, then, is the recognition of the long waste of strength, the
agony of the "in vain," insecurity, the lack of any opportunity to recover and to
regain composure--being ashamed in front of oneself, as if one had deceived oneself
all too long.--This meaning could have been: the "fulfillment" of some highest
ethical canon in all events, the moral world order; or the growth of love and
harmony in the intercourse of beings; or the gradual approximation of a state of
universal happiness; or even the development toward a state of universal
annihilation--any goal at least constitutes some meaning. What all these notions
have in common is that something is to be achieved through the process--and now one
realizes that becoming aims at nothing and achieves nothing.-- Thus, disappointment
regarding an alleged aim of becoming as a cause of nihilism: whether regarding a
specific aim or, universalized, the realization that all previous hypotheses about
aims that concern the whole "evolution" are inadequate (man no longer the
collaborator, let alone the center, of becoming).

Nihilism as a psychological state is reached, secondly, when one has posited a
totality, a systematization, indeed any organization in all events, and underneath
all events, and a soul that longs to admire and revere has wallowed in the idea of
some supreme form of domination and administration (--if the soul be that of a
logician, complete consistency and real dialectic are quite sufficient to reconcile
it to everything). Some sort of unity, some form of "monism": this faith suffices to
give man a deep feeling of standing in the context of, and being dependent on, some
whole that is infinitely superior to him, and he sees himself as a mode of the
deity.--"The well-being of the universal demands the devotion of the
individual"--but behold, there is no such universal! At bottom, man has lost the
faith in his own value when no infinitely valuable whole works through him; i.e., he
conceived such a whole in order to be able to believe in his own value.
Nihilism as psychological state has yet a third and last form.

Given these two insights, that becoming has no goal and that underneath all becoming
there is no grand unity in which the individual could immerse himself completely as
in an element of supreme value, an escape remains: to pass sentence on this whole
world of becoming as a deception and to invent a world beyond it, a true world. But
as soon as man finds out how that world is fabricated solely from psychological
needs, and how he has absolutely no right to it, the last form of nihilism comes
into being: it includes disbelief in any metaphysical world and forbids itself any
belief in a true world. Having reached this standpoint, one grants the reality of
becoming as the only reality, forbids oneself every kind of clandestine access to
afterworlds and false divinities--but cannot endure this world though one does not
want to deny it.

What has happened, at bottom? The feeling of valuelessness was reached with the
realization that the overall character of existence may not be interpreted by means
of the concept of "aim," the concept of "unity," or the concept of "truth."
Existence has no goal or end; any comprehensive unity in the plurality of events is
lacking: the character of existence is not "true," is false. One simply lacks any
reason for convincing oneself that there is a true world. Briefly: the categories
"aim," "unity," "being" which we used to project some value into the world--we pull
out again; so the world looks valueless.

Suppose we realize how the world may no longer be interpreted in terms of these
three categories, and that the world begins to become valueless for us after this
insight: then we have to ask about the sources of our faith in these three
categories. Let us try if it is not possible to give up our faith in them. Once we
have devaluated these three categories, the demonstration that they cannot be
applied to the universe is no longer any reason for devaluating the universe.
Conclusion: The faith in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism. We have
measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely
fictitious world.

Final conclusion: All the values by means of which we have tried so far to render
the world estimable for ourselves and which then proved inapplicable and therefore
devaluated the world--all these values are, psychologically considered, the results
of certain perspectives of utility, designed to maintain and increase human
constructs of domination--and they have been falsely projected into the essence of
things. What we find here is still the hyperbolic naivete of man: positing himself
as the meaning and measure of the value of things.


Nihilism represents a pathological transitional stage (what is pathological is the
tremendous generalization, the inference that there is no meaning at all): whether
the productive forces are not yet strong enough, or whether decadence still
hesitates and has not yet invented its remedies.
Presupposition of this hypothesis: that there is no truth, that there is no absolute
nature of things nor a "thing-in-itself." This, too, IS merely nihilism--even the
most extreme nihilism. It places the value of things precisely in the lack of any
reality corresponding to these values and in their being merely a symptom of
strength on the part of the value-positers, a simplification for the sake of life.

Values and their changes are related to increases in the power of those positing the
values.
The measure of unbelief, of permitted "freedom of the spirit" as an expression of an
increase in power.
"Nihilism" an ideal of the highest degree of powerfulness of spirit, the
over-richest life--partly destructive, partly ironic.

“Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” — Avro

Nietzsche’s vision reflected how he grasped the essence of his time. Further, it served as a grounding point for such thinkers as Foucault and Deleuze. Man is no more than an artificial
construction, oscillating between the two substantial poles, between self and the thought from outside. In “I think; therefore I am,” “therefore” is no more than the abyss, covered by a rope or a bridge.

Deleuze:
“Self, the spontaneity of which I am conscious in the “I think” cannot be understood as the attribute of a substantial and spontaneous being,
but only as the affection of a passive self which experiences its own thought.”
”The I which is fractured according to the order of time and the Self which is divided according to the temporal series correspond and find a common descendant in the man without a name, without family, without qualities, without self or I, the already-Overman.”

The man on the tightrope has rejected what was but has not reached the other side. The no to what was without a yes to what he will become creates an abyss. Using the tightrope metaphor, he has not gotten over, he has not overcome himself. Nihilism would be the result of the failure of this getting over.

From the Three Metamorphoses:

Common translation:

But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?

Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.

Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: ITS OWN will, willeth now the spirit; HIS OWN world winneth the world’s outcast.

Kaufmann translation:

But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred "Yes." For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred "Yes" is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.

I do not want to go too far off topic with a discussion of Heidegger, but his concept of history, especially in his later works, makes man a participant, and in some cases a passive participant, who hearkens to Being in Being's own self concealment and unconcealment. Nihilism for Heidegger is fundamentally the failure to think the meaning of Being itself. He situates Nietzsche within the metaphysical tradition of the West, and thus concludes that Nietzsche has not overcome nihilism.

The question is whether this is a Nietzsche that Nietzsche himself would recognize? I don't think so. As far as I can see for Nietzsche man makes history. Nietzsche rejects particular metaphysical beliefs, but these same beliefs were themselves an overcoming and the source of a new level of man's strength. They have, however, become the source of weakness and thus must now be overcome. It may be that Heidegger thinks that Nietzsche too must be overcome, but in my opinion if we are to understand a philosopher we must do so first and foremost in his own terms and not those of Heidegger or anyone else. It is only from this vantage point that we can evaluate his place within the context of someone else's work.

It is also worth mentioning that Nietzsche was a very careful writer. The notes that were compiled to form The Will to Power were not compiled by Nietzsche. It is not a book written by Nietzsche. If those notes were to be the basis of a book we do not know which ones would have been included or rejected or revised. We do not know what their order would be or what would have qualified what and so can evaluate them in context.

"In my opinion if we are to understand a philosopher we must do so first and foremost in his own terms and not those of Heidegger or anyone else. It is only from this vantage point that we can evaluate his place within the context of someone else's work."
The summary of Will to Power and Nihilism that Heidegger wrote, and that I mentioned above, was Heidegger's attempt to understand Nietzsche in his own terms. Only later in the piece does Heidegger then introduce his critique of Nietzsche. It is impossible to represent any author's intentions without filtering those intentions through one's own interpretation. The reason I included it is because I agree with it completely , so it is not just Heidegger's attempt to read Nietzsche faithfully ,it is also mine.

As far as Heidegger's critique of Will to Power, for Heidegger Nietzsche is the last metaphysician because he determines truth in relation to the establishment of value-scheme. Heidegger argues that beginning from schematism and its overcoming is starting too late. Starting from beings as value-structures turns Will to Power itself into a value, the highest value. What Nietzsche fails to do is think from WITHIN, that is , AS the supposed self-presencing lingering of the schematism. The fore-structuring gesture of transcendence is not what goes beyond schematism, or before it as its condition of possibility, but what is 'built into' it, what happens IN the 'is', AS the 'is.https://www.academia.edu/38288335/Heidegger_Will_to_Power_and_Gestell

("As I can see for Nietzsche man makes history". Sometime you and I should talk about how you think Heidegger understands Being in relation to history and temporality)

There are plenty of writers who don't agree with Heidegger's critique of Nietzsche, but let's talk about those who agree with his(and my) summary of Nietzschean nihilism.
Because everyone reads Nietzsche through their own lens, there are distinct camps of Nietzsche readers.
The camp that coalesces around the interpretation I put forth include the French post-structuralists (Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Lyotard, Nancy), William Connolly, Protevi, among others.
Opposing them is a community of Nietzscheans(including kauffman) who see him within an existential orbit. I'm getting the sense you are reading him this way.

I think the difference between these groups comes down to this. The existentialist interpreters think the movement from one paradigm or valuative system to the next as a kind of Kuhnian non-linear dialectical development, a pragmatic construction, dismantlement and reconstruction of schemes of understanding for the purpose of adaptively making sense of the world. They don't necessary believe in metanarratives, but still hold onto truth as a primary value.
The hermeneutic philosopher and psychologist Shaun Gallagher depicts the post-structuralist Nietzscheans:
“Radical or deconstructive hermeneutics [Heidegger, Derrida , Foucault] , following Nietzsche, would argue that the only truth is untruth, that all interpretations are false, that there is no ultimate escape from false consciousness, that the whole metaphysical concept of truth requires deconstruction. Gadamer contends that in following Nietzsche’s radical venture both Heidegger and Derrida have been led away from the primary aspect of language:conversation.”

Getting back to your Zarathustra passage, "the man on the tightrope has rejected what was but has not reached the other side", my guess is from your reading, 'the other side', the 'yes' is a new valuation to replace the old discarded one, along a developmental trajectory.

For the poststructuralists, by contrast, the 'other side' is not a new valuation to join an endless series of prior and future valuations, but revaluation of the whole motivation (search for truth, the real, the good) behind the construction and replacement of paradigms. Not desire for a better and truer explanation, but celebration of the act of value positing itself for its own sake, without aim or development. The overman on the far side of the abyss of metaphysical nihilism is salvation as madness.

I love this interpretation. Deleuze understands Nietzsche like few others.

The summary of Will to Power and Nihilism that Heidegger wrote, and that I mentioned above, was Heidegger's attempt to understand Nietzsche in his own terms. Only later in the piece does Heidegger then introduce his critique of Nietzsche. — Joshs

In an earlier post you said:

Nihilism for Nietzsche isn't simply the absence of values, it's the concept of valuation itself understood through the metaphysical tradition of the West. — Joshs

This sounds like Heidegger. Where does Nietzsche say this? Although Nietzsche focuses primarily on the Western tradition, self-overcoming is universal and applies to all living things. He calls man the esteemer, not Western man. Both to value and nihilism are universal and apply to all men, not just Western man or the metaphysical tradition. And, of course, there is the question of just what the metaphysical tradition is according to Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Opposing them is a community of Nietzscheans(including kauffman) who see him within an existential orbit. I'm getting the sense you are reading him this way. — Joshs

I have used Kaufmann's translation but have never read any of his commentary. In fact, I spent years reading Nietzsche before I read any secondary literature. Fundamental to my reading of Nietzsche is the recognition of his irony and the importance of the art of writing, which requires an art of reading attuned to that art.

Getting back to your Zarathustra passage, "the man on the tightrope has rejected what was but has not reached the other side", my guess is from your reading, 'the other side', the 'yes' is a new valuation to replace the old discarded one, along a developmental trajectory. — Joshs

I said nothing about a developmental trajectory. The third metamorphosis is the child, a forgetting, a new beginning. That is not a developmental trajectory. What I did say is that it must always be in the service of life, the revaluation of values always takes play within an environment. As I see it, this has nothing to do with the overcoming of metaphysics. The goal, now as forever, is to create values that promote health, strength, and life. To the extent that it could be seen as an overcoming of metaphysics, it is the overcoming of Platonism.

The overman on the far side of the abyss of metaphysical nihilism is salvation as madness. — Joshs

This requires elaboration. What is its etiology? Plato's Socrates calls philosophy divine madness, but such madness is not the same as Nietzsche's madness caused by syphilis or some other medical illness. I suspect this has something to do with Dionysus.

" Self-overcoming is universal and applies to all living things. Both value and nihilism are universal and apply to all men, not just Western man or the metaphysical tradition."

I'm not talking about what applies to all men, I'm talking about Nietzsche's quarrel with Western philosophy since the Greeks and up through the metaphysics of Kant, Hegel, and Schopernauer. He also has a problem with eastern ascetic traditions, and the valuative systems of socialist atheism. Some of these metaphysical approaches specifically posit self-overcoming(Hegelian and Marxist dialectics, for example). What is Nietzsche's critique of Hegelian and Marxist self-overcoming? How is Nietzsche's understanding of negation, opposition, absence and nihilism different from theirs?

"I said nothing about a developmental trajectory. The third metamorphosis is the child, a forgetting, a new beginning. That is not a developmental trajectory. What I did say is that it must always be in the service of life, the revaluation of values always takes play within an environment."

Two sets of questions: 1)Do you see the history of science as developmental trajectory , as do Popper and Kuhn, in different ways? I don't mean a linear , cumulative progress, but simply the replacement of one paradigm with another that in some central, pragmatic way can be said to be better than the previous in terms of parsimony, predictiveness, comprehensiveness, or other empirical standard (or as Popper would argue, a better approximation of the real world). Is the aim of science the correspondence of our theoretical representations with a real world? Is there a dialectical movement to ideas?

2)Are you making a distinction between the trajectory of the history of science
and Nietzschean metamorphosis of values? If this metamorphosis is ,as you say, 'in the service of life, the revaluation of values always takes play within an environment', is this revaluation a move toward 'better' values in the sense of being more adaptive to an environment?

"As I see it, this has nothing to do with the overcoming of metaphysics. The goal, now as forever, is to create values that promote health, strength, and life. To the extent that it could be seen as an overcoming of metaphysics, it is the overcoming of Platonism."
It is also the overcoming of truth as a superior value to falsity, and the overcoming of the idea of life as adaptation to an environment.

Does Platonism include the Kuhnian philosophy of science that says that science evolves through revolutions, via the overthrow of extant paradigms by new ones?

Nietzsche wrote:"Our faith in science is still based on a metaphysical faith, – even we knowers of today, we godless anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire from the blaze set alight by a
faith thousands of years old, that faith of the Christians, which was also
Plato’s faith, that God is truth, that truth is divine."

"Plato's Socrates calls philosophy divine madness, but such madness is not the same as Nietzsche's madness caused by syphilis or some other medical illness. I suspect this has something to do with
Dionysus."

I think it has to do with the Overman's world being that of "mad chaos of confusion and desire".

"Behold, I teach you the overman: he is this lightning, he is this madness! ”

Metaphysicians believe "things of the highest value must have another, separate origin of their own, – they cannot be derived from this ephemeral, seductive, deceptive, lowly world, from this mad chaos of confusion and desire. Look instead to the lap of being, the everlasting, the hidden God, the ‘thing-in-itself ’ – this is where their ground must be, and nowhere else!” – This way of judging typifies the prejudices by which metaphysicians of all ages can be recognized: this type of valuation lies behind
all their logical procedures. From these “beliefs” they try to acquire their “knowledge,” to acquire something that will end up being solemnly christened as “the truth.” The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is the belief in oppositions of values. It has not occurred to even the most
cautious of them to start doubting right here at the threshold, where it is actually needed the most – even though they had vowed to themselves “deomnibus dubitandum.” But we can doubt, first, whether opposites even exist and, second, whether the popular valuations and value oppositions
that have earned the metaphysicians’ seal of approval might not only be foreground appraisals."

Nietzsche says the opposite of madness is metaphysics:

"The greatest danger that always hovered over humanity and still hovers over it is the eruption of madness – which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing, and hearing, the enjoyment of the mind’s lack of discipline, the joy in human unreason. Not truth and certainty are the opposite of the world of the madman, but the universality and the universal binding force of a faith; in sum, the
non-arbitrary character of judgments. We others are the exception and the danger – and we need eternally to be defended."

I'm not talking about what applies to all men — Joshs

But the question has to do with the abyss the tight rope walker must walk over.

Do you see the history of science as developmental trajectory ...the replacement of one paradigm with another ... — Joshs

That is part of science, but I don't think relativity or quantum mechanics is simply the replacement of one paradigm with another. There are some cosmologists who claim that what other cosmologists are doing - string theory, multiverse, is not even science.

Is the aim of science the correspondence of our theoretical representations with a real world? — Joshs

Again, that is a part of it, but much of day to day science is not theoretical but practical.

Is there a dialectical movement to ideas? — Joshs

That depends on what you mean by dialectical, but I suspect that whatever it is you mean the answer will be as above.

Are you making a distinction between the trajectory of the history of science
and Nietzschean metamorphosis of values? — Joshs

Yes. Consideration of values includes the value of science.

is this revaluation a move toward 'better' values in the sense of being more adaptive to an environment? — Joshs

No. It is not a matter of adaptation but of overcoming.

It is also the overcoming of truth as a superior value to falsity — Joshs

That is part of the overcoming of Platonism.

Does Platonism include the Kuhnian philosophy of science that says that science evolves through revolutions, via the overthrow of extant paradigms by new ones? — Joshs

In that Platonism is about a transcendent world the answer is no. It has been a long time since I read Kuhn and cannot say what his views on the progress of science entails.

Nietzsche wrote:"Our faith in science is still based on a metaphysical faith, – even we knowers of today, we godless anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire from the blaze set alight by a faith thousands of years old, that faith of the Christians, which was also Plato’s faith, that God is truth, that truth is divine." — Joshs

This supports what I said about Platonism.

I think it has to do with the Overman's world being that of "mad chaos of confusion and desire". — Joshs

Do you think this is meant to be taken literally? The overman and the overman's world are not the same. Is there not already within us mad chaos of confusion and desire? I find it amusing that as we sit here in our relatively safe and ordered rooms we talking about chaos and confusion as if that is the world the higher man strives for.

Behold, I teach you the overman: he is this lightning, he is this madness! — Joshs

This really does not answer the question, does it? Do you think that when Nietzsche literally went mad he became the overman? Could one who is literally chaos and confusion create works of philosophy? Dionysus, the god who philosophizes, is also the god of the mask. Nietzsche too loves the mask.

Metaphysicians believe "things of the highest value must have another, separate origin of their own, – — Joshs

More Platonism. Here's the problem. You said:

Nihilism for Nietzsche isn't simply the absence of values, it's the concept of valuation itself understood through the metaphysical tradition of the West. — Joshs

It is not the concept of valuation that Nietzsche finds nihilistic but rather what is held to be of value in terms of Platonism, that is, transcendent truths. Why this is a problem becomes clear when you say:

As far as Heidegger's critique of Will to Power, for Heidegger Nietzsche is the last metaphysician because he determines truth in relation to the establishment of value-scheme. — Joshs

Heidegger shifts from Nietzsche's meaning of metaphysics, that is, Platonism, to his own meaning.

Starting from beings as value-structures turns Will to Power itself into a value, the highest value. — Joshs

What is the "concept of valuation itself understood through the metaphysical tradition of the West"? Here we see the ambiguity, the shift from Nietzsche's rejection of metaphysical values in the Platonist sense to Heidegger's identification of Nietzsche with metaphysics because he fails to make the ontological distinction, and thus treating valuation itself as if it were nihilism.

"The greatest danger that always hovered over humanity and still hovers over it is the eruption of madness – which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing, and hearing, the enjoyment of the mind’s lack of discipline, the joy in human unreason ..." — Joshs

But of course Nietzsche was an extremely disciplined person and thinker. We must keep in mind his use of irony and masks. This should not be taken at face value as the whole of the story. After all, there are plenty of people who arbitrary, and lack discipline and reason. They are not Nietzsche's higher man.

"Do you think that when Nietzsche literally went mad he became the overman? Could one who is literally chaos and confusion create works of philosophy?"

I think Nietzsche is using madness as a metaphor for that thinking which opposes itself to "the universality and the universal binding force of a faith; in sum, the non-arbitrary character of judgments." The madness in Will to Power is its shattering of faith in non-arbitrariness as the grounding of truth, its embrace of logical and inferential incommensurability between successive value structures.

The question I have for you is , if Nietzsche's objection to metaphysics is its attachment to Platonism, then which modern philosophical traditions qualify as Platonic? I think you and I can agree that Kantian and Hegelian Idealism fit the bill, as well as Husserl's transcendental ego. But what about Kierkegaard? Gadamerian hermeneutics? Are Marxist and Frankfurt school accounts Platonic(Adorno? Feuerbach,?Habermas?)?

IWhen Shaun Gallagher says :“Radical or deconstructive hermeneutics [Heidegger, Derrida , Foucault] , following Nietzsche, would argue that the only truth is untruth, that all interpretations are false, that there is no ultimate escape from false consciousness, that the whole metaphysical concept of truth requires deconstruction", is he describing Nietzsche's response to Platonism?.

You say part of science is correspondence to a real world. Isn't the correspondence theory of truth a Platonism, truth as the mirror of nature, according to Rorty?

"Much of day to day science is not theoretical but practical."

What does that mean? Doesnt the practical orient itself in relation to interpretive accounts of meaning? Don't all facts presuppose valuations that frame them? Don't most scientists today still operate under Kantiann assumptions concerning the nature of objectivty as subjective constructions attempting to correspond to what is out there? And scientific progress via Popperian falisfication?
Wouldn't Nietzsche argue that most contemporary scientists still are beholden to this platonism, regardless of how 'practical' their focus is?

My key question for you is , do you think Nietzsche was a radical relativist? Are all aims of reaching the social good, the moral, of progress, not only unattainable but ultimately incoherent for Nietzsche? Even for the individual , isn't the notion of the good relative to value structure, and as the value- positing Will to Power overcomes itself in eternally, what one wants and achieves via a valuative structure is incommenusrable with what one finds oneself wanting and beleivding in the next valuative positing?

The question I have for you is , if Nietzsche's objection to metaphysics is its attachment to Platonism, then which modern philosophical traditions qualify as Platonic? I think you and I can agree that Kantian and Hegelian Idealism fit the bill, as well as Husserl's transcendental ego. But what about Kierkegaard? Gadamerian hermeneutics? Are Marxist and Frankfurt school accounts Platonic(Adorno? Feuerbach,?Habermas?)? — Joshs

I don't know the writings of any of them well enough to say. From what I have read of Kierkegaard I think his faith may be a form of transcendence. Gadamer's fusing of horizons suggests the idea that we are historically situated in terms of our understanding of both ourselves and in our interpretation of the tradition. I have come across the idea the Marx held a messianic view, but I do not recall the details of the argument.

When Shaun Gallagher says :“Radical or deconstructive hermeneutics
[Heidegger, Derrida , Foucault] , following Nietzsche, would argue that the only truth is untruth, that all interpretations are false, that there is no ultimate escape from false consciousness, that the whole metaphysical concept of truth requires deconstruction", is he describing Nietzsche's response to Platonism?. — Joshs

I have not read Shaun Gallagher and without specifics cannot comment on false consciousness or the requirement to deconstruct truth

You say part of science is correspondence to a real world. Isn't the correspondence theory of truth a Platonism, truth as the mirror of nature, according to Rorty? — Joshs

The correspondence between a scientific theory and the reality it is a theory of is not the same thing as a correspondence theory of truth. The problems that arise from a correspondence theory of truth need not arise with a scientific theory of something in the physical world. What is true of the world and a theory of truth a very different things.

Doesnt the practical orient itself in relation to interpretive accounts of meaning? — Joshs

The practical has to do with the day to day activities of what you might find someone in a lab doing. Purifying a compound or testing some set of variables against a control, for example.

Don't most scientists today still operate under Kantiann assumptions concerning the nature of objectivty as subjective constructions attempting to correspond to what is out there? — Joshs

That depends on the science. Most biologists and chemists would have no idea what you are talking about. Their concern is with how organisms function. Even if it were explained to them they would not agree that they are operating under such assumptions. A physicist might know what you mean but they are split with regard to the question of realism.I do not think that the majority think of space and time as a priori representations in the mind.

My key question for you is , do you think Nietzsche was a radical relativist? — Joshs

Does the rejection of fixed eternal truths mean his was a radical relativist? Does the fact that he did not hold all values to be of equal value mean that he was not a radical relativist?

One thing that I find puzzling is that the idea of the eternal return seems to be an eternal truth.