Chapter 2 - The Dialectics of Nietzsche’s Metaphilosophies

Summary

Nietzsche presents a number of different conceptions of philosophy in his oeuvre. Thus, we cannot simply speak of Nietzsche’s metaphilosophy. Instead, we must speak of his metaphilosophies. This paper canvases the different conceptions of philosophy that appear in Nietzsche’s works and tries to make sense of the shifts that take place therein. Specifically, it tries to explain why Nietzsche rejects a traditional conception of philosophy as truth-seeking in both his earlier and later works and yet adopts this very conception of philosophy in Human, All Too Human, a work typically placed in his so-called middle period. To answer this question, it is argued that Nietzsche consciously adopts a traditional conception of philosophy in Human in order to show, in subsequent works of the free spirit, how that conception of philosophy undergoes a Selbstaufhebung or self-overcoming that makes possible a new conception of philosophy, one which is a form of Dionysian art, in his post-Zarathustra writings. In this way, we can speak of the dialectics of Nietzsche’s metaphilosophies.