What a philosopher is: becoming Nietzsche

Description

The trajectory of Friedrich Nietzsche's thought has long presented a difficulty for the study of his philosophy. How did the young Nietzsche - classicist and ardent advocate of Wagner's cultural renewal - become the philosopher of Will to Power and the Eternal Return? With this work, Laurence Lampert answers that question. He does so through his trademark technique of close readings of key works in Nietzsche's journey to philosophy: 'The Birth of Tragedy, ' 'Schopenhauer as Educator, ' 'Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, ' 'Human All Too Human, ' and 'Sanctus Januarius, ' the final book of the 1882 'Gay Science.' Relying partly on how Nietzsche himself characterized his books in his many autobiographical guides to the trajectory of his thought, Lampert sets each in the context of Nietzsche's writings as a whole, and looks at how they individually treat the question of what a philosopher is.