Reading Nietzsche through the Ancients: An Analysis of Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Principle of Non-Contradiction

by Matthew Meyer

Overview

Nietzsche’s work was shaped by his engagement with ancient Greek philosophy. Matthew Meyer analyzes Nietzsche’s concepts of becoming and perspectivism and his alleged rejection of the principle of non-contradiction, and he traces these views back to the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that Plato and Aristotle critically analyze in the Theaetetus and Metaphysica IV, respectively. At the center of this Heraclitean-Protagorean position is a relational ontology in which everything exists and is what it is only in relation to something else. Meyer argues that this relational ontology is not only theoretically foundational for Nietzsche’s philosophical project, in that it is the common element in Nietzsche’s views on becoming, perspectivism, and the principle of non-contradiction, but also textually foundational, in that Nietzsche implicitly commits himself to such an ontology in raising the question of opposites at the beginning of both Human, All Too Human and Beyond Good and Evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934078419
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Series:	Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung , #66
Pages:	317
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.45(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements vii

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

Reading Nietzsche's Philosophy 1

Reading Nietzsche's Published and Unpublished Writings 12

Reading Nietzsche's Project through the Ancient Greeks 24

Chapter 1 Becoming, Being, and the Problem of Opposites in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 34

1.1 Introduction 34

1.2 Tragic Philosophy in The Birth of Tragedy 36

1.3 A Turn to Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 39

1.4 Nietzsche's Doctrine of Heraclitean Becoming in the Secondary Literature 44

1.4.1 Christoph Cox on Heraclitean Becoming 45

1.4.2 John Richardson on Heraclitean Becoming 50

1.5 Heraclitean Becoming in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 54

1.6 The Response of Nietzsche's Parmenides to Nietzsche's Heraclitus 63

1.7 A Rebirth of Antiquity? 67

Chapter 2 Aristotle's Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in Metaphysics IV 75

2.1 Introduction 75

2.2 Nietzsche's Critique of Logic 78

2.3 An Overview of Aristotle's Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction 83

2.4 Three Formulations of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in Metaphysics IV 84

2.5 Aristotle's Elenctic Defense 88

2.6 The Devastating Consequences of Denying PNC-Ontological 94

2.7 Empiricism, Naturalism, and the Denial of PNC-Ontological 102

2.8 Aristotle's Critique of the Heraclitean-Cratylean Theory of Change 104

2.9 Aristotle's Critique of Protagoras on Perception 108

2.10 Some Concluding Remarks 114

Chapter 3 Naturalism, Becoming, and the Unity of Opposites in Human, All Too Human 116

3.1 Introduction 116

3.2 Maudemarie Clark on the Falsification Thesis 119

3.3 Natural Science, Heraclitean Ontology, and the Falsification Thesis 123

3.4 Natural Science and Heraclitean Ontology in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers 128

3.5 A Turn to Human, All Too Human 130

3.6 Natural Science and Heraclitean Ontology in Human, All Too Human 1-2 135

3.7 Heraclitean Ontology and the Falsification Thesis in Human, All Too Human 140

3.8 The Tragic Philosophy of Human, All Too Human 147

3.9 Human, All Too Human and the Development of the Free Spirit 150

Chapter 4 Heraclitean Becoming and Protagorean Perspectivism in Plato's Theaetetus 153

4.1 Introduction 153

4.2 justifying the Turn to Plato's Theaetetus 156

4.3 Knowledge is Perception and the Four Theses 158

4.4 Knowledge is Perception 161

4.5 From Knowledge is Perception to Protagoras' Homo Mensura 162

4.6 From Homo Mensura to the Secret Doctrines of Heraclitus 164

4.7 A Preliminary Account of Perception and a Puzzle 168

4.8 Heraclitean Ontology and a Secret Theory of Perception 170

4.9 The Final Stage of the Secret Doctrine 175

4.10 Some Preliminary Objections to Protagoras' Homo Mensura 178

4.11 Protagoras' Homo Mensura and the Problem of Self-Refutation 181

4.12 The Incompatibility of Heraclitean Ontology and Knowledge is Perception 189

4.13 The Refutation of Knowledge is Perception 192

4.14 Some Concluding Remarks 195

Chapter 5 Heraclitean Becoming, Protagorean Perspectivism, and the Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil 198

5.1 Introduction 198

5.2 Nietzsche's Perspectivism in the Secondary Literature 202

5.3 Perspectivism in Gustav Teichmuller's Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt 210

5.4 Nietzsche's Perspectivism in The Gay Science and On the Genealogy of Morals 214

5.5 Some Preliminary Remarks on Beyond Good and Evil 220

5.6 Heraclitean Ontology and the Falsification Thesis in Beyond Good and Evil 222

5.7 Heraclitean Ontology and Protagorean Perspectivism in Beyond Good and Evil 232

5.8 Heraclitean Ontology and the Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil 244

5.9 Reading the Will to Power through the Ancient Greeks 260

Epilogue: Five Prefaces to Five Unwritten Books on Nietzsche's Published Works 265

Introduction 265

Preface I Thus Spoke Zarathustra as the Rebirth of Tragedy 266

Preface II The Birth of Tragedy and Its Shadow 268

Preface III The Works of the Free Spirit and the Music-Playing Socrates 269

Preface IV The Dionysian Comedy of Nietzsche's 1888 Works 271

Preface V The Revaluation of Values and Dionysus versus the Crucified 273

Concluding Remarks 276

Appendix The Periodization of Nietzsche's Works 277

Bibliography 279

Index 297