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

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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. Preface and Acknowledgements Abbreviations Contents Introduction Reading Nietzsche’s Philosophy Reading Nietzsche’s Published and Unpublished Writings Reading Nietzsche’s Project through the Ancient Greeks Chapter One. Becoming, Being, and the Problem of Opposites in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Tragic Philosophy in The Birth of Tragedy 1.3 A Turn to Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 1.4 Nietzsche’s Doctrine of Heraclitean Becoming in the Secondary Literature 1.4.1 Christoph Cox on Heraclitean Becoming 1.4.2 John Richardson on Heraclitean Becoming 1.5 Heraclitean Becoming in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks 1.6 The Response of Nietzsche’s Parmenides to Nietzsche’s Heraclitus 1.7 A Rebirth of Antiquity? Chapter Two. Aristotle’s Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in Metaphysics IV 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Nietzsche’s Critique of Logic 2.3 An Overview of Aristotle’s Defense of the Principle of Non-Contradiction 2.4 Three Formulations of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in Metaphysics IV 2.5 Aristotle’s Elenctic Defense 2.6 The Devastating Consequences of Denying PNC-Ontological 2.7 Empiricism, Naturalism, and the Denial of PNC-Ontological 2.8 Aristotle’s Critique of the Heraclitean-Cratylean Theory of Change 2.9 Aristotle’s Critique of Protagoras on Perception 2.10 Some Concluding Remarks Chapter Three. Naturalism, Becoming, and the Unity of Opposites in Human, All Too Human 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Maudemarie Clark on the Falsification Thesis 3.3 Natural Science, Heraclitean Ontology, and the Falsification Thesis 3.4 Natural Science and Heraclitean Ontology in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers 3.5 A Turn to Human, All Too Human 3.6 Natural Science and Heraclitean Ontology in Human, All Too Human 1–2 3.7 Heraclitean Ontology and the Falsification Thesis in Human, All Too Human 3.8 The Tragic Philosophy of Human, All Too Human 3.9 Human, All Too Human and the Development of the Free Spirit Chapter Four. Heraclitean Becoming and Protagorean Perspectivism in Plato’s Theaetetus 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Justifying the Turn to Plato’s Theaetetus 4.3 Knowledge is Perception and the Four Theses 4.4 Knowledge is Perception 4.5 From Knowledge is Perception to Protagoras’ Homo Mensura 4.6 From Homo Mensura to the Secret Doctrines of Heraclitus 4.7 A Preliminary Account of Perception and a Puzzle 4.8 Heraclitean Ontology and a Secret Theory of Perception 4.9 The Final Stage of the Secret Doctrine 4.10 Some Preliminary Objections to Protagoras’ Homo Mensura 4.11 Protagoras’ Homo Mensura and the Problem of Self-Refutation 4.12 The Incompatibility of Heraclitean Ontology and Knowledge is Perception 4.13 The Refutation of Knowledge is Perception 4.14 Some Concluding Remarks Chapter Five. Heraclitean Becoming, Protagorean Perspectivism, and the Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Nietzsche’s Perspectivism in the Secondary Literature 5.3 Perspectivism in Gustav Teichmüller’s Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt 5.4 Nietzsche’s Perspectivism in The Gay Science and On the Genealogy of Morals 5.5 Some Preliminary Remarks on Beyond Good and Evil 5.6 Heraclitean Ontology and the Falsification Thesis in Beyond Good and Evil 5.7 Heraclitean Ontology and Protagorean Perspectivism in Beyond Good and Evil 5.8 Heraclitean Ontology and the Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil 5.9 Reading the Will to Power through the Ancient Greeks Epilogue. Five Prefaces to Five Unwritten Books on Nietzsche’s Published Works Introduction Preface I: Thus Spoke Zarathustra as the Rebirth of Tragedy Preface II: The Birth of Tragedy and Its Shadow Preface III: The Works of the Free Spirit and the Music-Playing Socrates Preface IV: The Dionysian Comedy of Nietzsche’s 1888 Works Preface V: The Revaluation of Values and Dionysus versus the Crucified Concluding Remarks Appendix. The Periodization of Nietzsche’s Works Bibliography Index