3 - Artistic Metaphysics: On Nietzsche’s Early Program for an Aesthetic Justification of the World

Summary

Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical debut begins with the proclamation of an “aesthetic metaphysics” whose accomplishment consists in an “aesthetic justification of the world” (BT 5). The artistic attitude of this program is obvious, and thus one would be inclined from a philosophical perspective to leave this “artist metaphysics” – thus Nietzsche and later Georg Simmel as well – to those by whom and for whom it was apparently created. For what, in conceptual terms, can we take seriously in a formula that contradicts itself? If a justification is desired, then it should be based on a generally recognized principle, that is, on concepts and not on some aesthetic experience, however it is conceived. However, if one is serious about the aesthetic approach, then the search for justifying grounds is superfluous, for in the moment of aesthetic perception they are no longer required.