Untimely Reflections #18 - Quinn Williams - The Time-Atom Fragment

In this conversation, my friend Quinn and I dare to journey into one of the most labyrinthine passages ever to come from Nietzsche's hand: the 1873 fragment, Zeitatomenlehre, usually translated as the "Time-Atom" or "Time-Atomism" Fragment. Providing a description of this passage in any concise way will be about as impossible as summarizing this conversation, and our interpretations of it, but at the very least, I will offer that this essay is a radical re-evaluation of how we could consider reality, in which the underlying spatial nature of our thought is challenged. Nietzsche follows philosophically in the footsteps of the Pre-Platonic figures, and makes a daring attempt at a metaphysics so outlandish that there is nothing else like it in western thought. We approached this conversation knowing that figuring out the passage is very difficult, and decided to work through it as best as possible - although I think Quinn had it down more solidly than I did. While this conversation bears no relation to the overarching topic of this season, that's perfectly fine, since I've wanted to do this episode for a long time, and it makes sense for it to be "out of time" or "out of tempo" with the rest of the season anyway. I would actually put a warning label on this conversation to suggest that if you're new to the podcast, this might be too much to follow. For previous episodes that may help in approaching this one, check out episode 5 in season one and episodes 45 & 46 in season two.