Volume 53, Issue 1

Empedocles in the Face of Mythological Deities. A Reading of Nietzsche’s Dramatic Drafts. This article examines Nietzsche’s interest in Empedocles. Less prominent in Nietzsche’s thought than other pre-Socratic philosophers, Empedocles is difficult to classify. He is characterized by his tensions and ambivalence. By examining Nietzsche’s various drafts for a drama about the death of the philosopher from Agrigento, I will show how philological studies combine with Nietzsche’s philosophical thinking to question Empedocles’ ambivalence toward mythological divinities. Art of staging, excessive desire for knowledge, expression of disgust with existence, recognition of the true measure of the living: the death of Empedocles is as ambiguous for Nietzsche as his conception of nature, torn between wonder, demystification and poetic fervor.

Nietzsche’s portrayal of Pyrrho is predominately contained in two of his notebooks from 1888, and they present a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward him. In this article, I offer an explanation for Nietzsche’s variegated observations, and contend that his interest in Pyrrho is not really founded upon his radical scepticism as one might expect. Rather, it is Nietzsche’s preoccupation with decadence in general – and its ancient Greek philosophical incarnations in particular – that drives his scrutiny of Pyrrho. I describe Nietzsche’s evolving depiction of Pyrrho as one that ultimately develops into a critique, whereby Pyrrho is associated with a number of types of decadence, as well as exhibiting the characteristic traits of a decadent. I close by examining the cogency and soundness of Nietzsche’s interpretation of Pyrrho as a specific exemplar of decadence.

Nietzsche employs the concept of pregnancy metaphorically at various points in his writings; discussing the pregnancy of philosophers (GM III 8, BGE 292), spiritual pregnancy (EH, Clever 3; GS 72) and being pregnant with thoughts or deeds (D 552). I explore how Nietzsche uses the notion of pregnancy in Dawn , arguing that it connects to the theme of self-cultivation. I employ the various associations that Nietzsche makes with pregnancy, including the unknown, selfishness, strangeness, and solitude, to elucidate Nietzsche’s understanding of self-cultivation. I show how the metaphor of pregnancy, in which we do not control what we give birth to, both expresses and helps us explore the problem of what, if the self is made up of and directed by many competing drives, shapes and directs self-cultivation. I argue that Nietzsche’s deliberate references to the context of Plato’s discussion of pregnancy involve a self-conscious challenge to Plato’s concept of the philosopher, and of philosophy, and a reimagining of what they will give birth to. The appropriation of Plato’s famous metaphor thus underscores how Nietzsche’s concept and method of self-cultivation contrasts to Plato’s care for the soul and is rooted in attentiveness to the body and its drives.

With his doctrine of the “complete irresponsibility of man,” Nietzsche in different ways complicates the opposition between responsibility and irresponsibility. This article traces the different and conflicting senses of irresponsibility throughout Nietzsche’s development. First, the doctrine is shown to build on Nietzsche’s early study of Heraclitus (section I), whom Nietzsche admired for expounding and embodying a radical “innocence” that was both responsible and irresponsible in different senses. When presented as “philosophical conviction” in Human, All too Human , Nietzsche paradoxically speculates about the doctrine’s incorporation out of a sense of responsibility for the future of mankind (section II). Section III shows how Nietzsche’s later writings evince an increasing awareness of this paradox by explicitly positing complete irresponsibility as his own redemptive doctrine in Twilight of the Idols . After 1881, he has come to affirm a new notion of responsibility and criticizes a weak sense of irresponsibility as the abdication of one’s task. I end by discussing the relation of these different senses of irresponsibility, and argue that the fact that Nietzsche’s texts often deliberately complicate rather than clarify such distinctions is an important reflection of how he textually takes responsibility for “complete irresponsibility” (section IV).

The Thought of Eternal Recurrence: From Discourse to Doctrine. This article gives a new interpretation of eternal recurrence, based on the observation that the central debate about this idea in Nietzsche studies is quite unique in the history of philosophy. This debate is based on a rather radical conflict between Lehre and Rede , doctrine and discourse. Purely doctrinal interpretations tend to underestimate the significance of the discursive form chosen by Nietzsche to express his thought in favor of the Nachlass , whereas discursive readings are generally characterized by an anti-doctrinal, parodic and purely critical function. However, it is possible to reconcile the specificity of the discourse of the eternal recurrence in Nietzsche’s published works with his attempt to establish a real philosophical doctrine. By considering the fictional structure of eternal recurrence in Nietzsche’s published works, we can reinterpret the meaning of Nietzsche’s philosophy of affirmation, which implies a new relationship with life, reality, and values, as well as a new kind of belief. Indeed, we find in fiction a paradigm for such an affirmation of life, which Nietzsche discusses in his analyses of appearance and Greek tragedy.

Nietzsche’s Hermeneutics of Loneliness. Transformations in the Labyrinth of Truth. This article delves into Nietzsche’s intricate exploration of solitude and its multifaceted manifestations in Thus Spoke Zarathustra . By distinguishing between various instances of solitude experienced by Zarathustra, including his initial journey, recurring returns, and dreamt solitude, the study unveils the creative nature of his solitude. Unlike the ascetic pursuit of transcendent truth, Nietzsche reevaluates solitude, highlighting its eternal ambiguity and challenging the notion of a fixed self or ultimate truth attainable through isolation. The hermeneutics of solitude in Nietzsche’s philosophy illustrates how perspectives and self-interpretation intertwine, shaping one’s experience within the labyrinth of truth. The article further examines the intimate relationship between solitude and perspective, emphasizing that genuine solitude emerges only through communication. Through a comprehensive analysis of shame as a mirror-motif of solitude, this study underscores the inherent connection among these concepts, rooted in the dynamics of human communication and self-revelation. It concludes that one’s position toward truth is fundamentally linked to one’s role as an interpreter and something interpreted, offering insights into the complexities of human existence and self-understanding.

The passages composed by Nietzsche around the time he spent at Sorrento reflect an engagement with the anarcho-utopian socialist milieu into which he had been introduced by Malwida von Meysenbug. The “Sorrentino politics” that appear in Human, All Too Human I and II and later works need to be understood in the context of an affirmative form of political thought that could remedy the pessimism and nihilism that he finds in the politics of all sides. Nietzsche argues that the monarchical state, modern industrialism, and the restricted ownership of capital and property all undermine the goal of creating a life-affirming culture for Europe. He also provides a criticism of a utopian teleology of equality in the future – whether religious or socialist – that imposes an objective notion of purpose. Nietzsche rejects the Schopenhauerian pessimism of resignation while affirmatively engaging with the thought of Alexander Herzen and Guiseppe Mazzini.

At first glance, Fichte and Nietzsche might strike us as intellectual contraries. This impression is reinforced by Nietzsche’s disparaging remarks about Fichte. The dearth of critical literature comparing the two thinkers also could easily lead us to believe that they are, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant to one another. In this paper, however, I argue that their theories of subjectivity are in many respects remarkably similar and worthy of comparison. But I further explain how, despite this convergence, their normative philosophies end up so conspicuously at odds with one another. After examining the resemblance between their denials of the substantial self, I respectively analyse Fichte’s and Nietzsche’s positive accounts of subjectivity, self-cultivation, and the political preconditions of self-cultivation. I locate the conceptual juncture at which their practical outlooks begin to part ways in their divergent drive psychologies and in their distinct conceptions of conscience . These apparently minor theoretical differences generate a large-scale disagreement regarding the political systems they believe best enable self-cultivation, with Fichte favouring a democratic regime, while Nietzsche opts for a markedly more aristocratic one. I close by sketching a possible way out of this dilemma.

The thesis that humanity progresses in a lawlike manner from inferior states (of wellbeing, cognitive skills, culture, etc.) to superior ones dominated eighteenth- and nineteenth- century thought, including authors otherwise as diverse as Kant and Ernst Haeckel. Positioning himself against this philosophically and scientifically popular view, Nietzsche suggests that humanity is in a prolonged state of decline. I argue that Nietzsche’s rejection of the thesis that progress is inevitable is a product of his acceptance of Lamarck’s use-and-disuse theory of evolution and his belief that society selects for traits beneficial to society and negatively selects for traits that promote individual flourishing. This explains Nietzsche’s emphasis on self-development as cultivating traits that Nietzsche views as valuable and that would, by Lamarck’s theory of evolution, become heritable and so help steer our evolutionary trajectory, correcting our decline.

This article examines a subject that has received relatively little attention in the literature on Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality : the pivotal role played by the emergence of consciousness ( Bewusstsein ) as an epistemic faculty in the development of conscience ( Gewissen ) as a moral faculty. To achieve this objective, I will (1) introduce the inquiry, (2) elucidate Nietzsche’s hypothesis regarding the emergence of consciousness, (3) establish a connection between consciousness and the genesis of conscience, and (4) expound upon the cognitive capacities involved in the formation of conscience as a moral faculty.

Chronology of the Manuscripts 1885–89. Appendix to KGW IX. After the completion of the topological manuscript edition in section IX of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke (KGW IX), the additional chronological indexing of the late Nachlass remained a desideratum. The current manuscript closes this editorial gap. As an appendix to KGW IX, the chronology of the manuscripts 1885–89 provides the date for each distinguishable layer of inscription for every manuscript and note edited in KGW IX. In the first part of the following chronology, the dated inscription layers for all late manuscripts from notebook N VII 1 to the scattered notes are recorded topologically. In the second part, the inscription layers are indexed chronologically from spring 1885 to the beginning of January 1889.

Five Unpublished Letters by Friedrich Nietzsche. Five unpublished letters by Nietzsche to Louise Röder-Wiederhold, as well as an unknown letter (draft) from her own hand suggest that Nietzsche’s negative judgment of her, which has dominated biographical Nietzsche research up to now, was anything but definitive and can be strongly relativized. The new documents also prove that Röder-Wiederhold was not only a temporary “secretary” for Nietzsche, but also an intellectual and humorous, interested, compassionate and independent-thinking correspondence partner, even if she did not enter into a closer friendship with him. What particularly connected the two and remained an almost constant theme of their correspondence was the difficult life situation of their mutual friend, the unsuccessful composer Heinrich Köselitz, and how one could help him to get access to orchestras and opera stages in German-speaking countries which might perform his works.

This essay examines Nietzsche’s inversion of Terence’s formula “I am the closest to myself” into “Everyone is furthest from himself [ Jeder ist sich selbst der Fernste ]” (GM, Preface 1). In a contextual reading, I am going to ask how Nietzsche relates this formula to the difficulty of acquiring self-knowledge, as emphasized at the beginning of On the Genealogy of Morality . First, I argue that Nietzsche does not prohibit self-knowledge, but instead invites us to think about it differently; and second, I will show that the formula according to which “everyone is furthest from himself” can also be understood as an injunction to keep the self always at a distance. I will link these two aspects by arguing that Nietzsche replaces self-knowledge in the classical sense by an interpretation of the self, and that this interpretation must never be thought of as an undertaking that seeks to reify their self. Nietzsche urges us to make ourselves into creative projects, even this will entail fiction and illusion.

Alois Riehl’s View of Friedrich Nietzsche and His Relationship with Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Alois Riehl and Friedrich Nietzsche were contemporaries – both were born in the same year, 1844. But the philosophical paths they followed could hardly be more different. Nevertheless, Riehl recognized Nietzsche as one of the most important thinkers of his time. He was one of the first academic philosophers to devote a detailed analysis to Nietzsche’s writings. And Riehl saw in Nietzsche’s work a complementary counterpart to the scientific philosophy that he developed in his Philosophical Criticism . At the heart of the present paper is a speech given by Riehl on October 15, 1903, on the occasion of the reopening of the Villa Silberblick and the unveiling of Max Klinger’s bust of Nietzsche. The argument is divided into three parts. First, it reconstructs the background to these events historically in light of the friendly relationship between Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Riehl, as well as Riehl’s hesitation to give a speech. Second, Riehl’s ambivalent attitude in his reception of Nietzsche is analyzed through a close reading of his text. Third, the paper concludes with a final look at the specific event of October 15, 1903, based on historical material.

New Publications on Nietzsche’s Musical Aesthetics and Philosophy of Music. The significance of music in Nietzsche’s aesthetic writings is undisputed. However, the question of the role that music played in Nietzsche’s thought and writing process still yields divergent answers which are not free of speculative interpretations. New publications on Nietzsche’s aesthetics of music cover a wide range of themes: from the significance that the syllabic rhythms of Greek antiquity held for Nietzsche to the relationship between sounds and language in poetic texts, for example, and the processes to which Nietzsche applied himself as a composer of music. This makes it very clear that music is not simply a complementary element to express what cannot be said in language, nor is it a form of relief from the tragic perception of life.