Nietzsche’s Metaphysics and Epistemology

Abstract

It is necessary for us here to remind ourselves of the direction in which we wish to proceed. The thesis which we wish to demonstrate is that there is a fundamental dualism at the heart of Nietzsche’s philosophy. We have already discussed how Jaspers and Heidegger arrive at radically different interpretations. Thus, we are here going to undertake a detailed examination of these two interpretations regarding the central ideas in Nietzsche’s philosophy in order to show that this dualism of which we have spoken is the ground for the possibility of two such radically different interpretations. How is it to be characterized? Here we can give only a brief indication. We have already suggested that there is an opposition between an aesthetic perspective and a positivistic perspective. However, this dualism is more fundamentally stated in terms of an opposition between Nietzsche’s metaphysics and epistemology, on the one hand, and his philosophical anthropology on the other. What makes this problem all the more fascinating is that Nietzsche himself was aware of this opposition. We must be very careful here as to how we understand this notion of a dualism. First of all, it in no way denies the fact that there are extremely important and even consistent relationships between Nietzsche’s metaphysics and epistemology and his philosophical anthropology.