Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fall 2013 In the Shadow of Anaximander: Philosophical Temperaments and Schopenhauerian Pessimism in Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks Christopher Robin Mountenay Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Mountenay, C. (2013). In the Shadow of Anaximander: Philosophical Temperaments and Schopenhauerian Pessimism in Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/ 955 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IN THE SHADOW OF ANXIMANDER: PHILOSOPHICAL TEMPERAMENTS AND SCHOPENHAUERIAN PESSIMISM IN NIETZSCHE‘S PHILOSOPHY IN THE TRAGIC AGE OF THE GREEKS A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Christopher R. Mountenay December 2013 Copyright by Christopher R. Mountenay 2013 IN THE SHADOW OF ANXIMANDER: PHILOSOPHICAL TEMPERAMENTS AND SCHOPENHAUERIAN PESSIMISM IN NIETZSCHE‘S PHILOSOPHY IN THE TRAGIC AGE OF THE GREEKS By Christopher R. Mountenay Approved October 4, 2013 ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Patrick Lee Miller Dr. Ronald Polansky Associate Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Fred Evans Dr. Larry Michael Harrington Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. James Swindal Dr. Ronald Polansky Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, Department of Philosophy School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT IN THE SHADOW OF ANXIMANDER: PHILOSOPHICAL TEMPERAMENTS AND SCHOPENHAUERIAN PESSIMISM IN NIETZSCHE‘S PHILOSOPHY IN THE TRAGIC AGE OF THE GREEKS By Christopher R Mountenay December 2013 Dissertation supervised by Dr. Patrick Lee Miller. Friedrich Nietzsche‘s unfinished 1873 manuscript, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, has been long overlooked by scholars. The piece is ostensibly a philological work, detailing the lives of Pre-Platonic philosophers. What I show in my work, however, is that Nietzsche is actually using the figures of the early Greeks to deal with philosophical problems that remain germane throughout his entire corpus, notably the relation of temperament to one‘s philosophical outlook and the attempt to deal with the pessimism of Schopenhauer. The former problem is examined by viewing the Pre-Platonic philosophers as ―philosophical archetypes‖ whose ―unmixed‖ outlooks are the result of their monolithic characters. These primordial philosophical types have recurred throughout the history of philosophy, albeit in diluted forms. The first of these archetypes to be examined is Anaximander, whom Nietzsche sees as the original pessimist: a proto-Schopenhauer. Nietzsche‘s Anaximander poses the question of why iv things pass away and then insists that it is because they deserve to be annihilated. Those who do not wish to be gloomy pessimists in the Schopenhauerian vein henceforth must find a way to justify the seeming injustices of the world of becoming. Nietzsche provides two contrary characters to show how philosophers have dealt with the Anaximandrian problem. The first is Heraclitus, for whom Nietzsche is unambiguous in his admiration. Heraclitus celebrates the vicissitudes of becoming, seeing the conflict and impermanence as being justice itself. This leads to the Heraclitean metaphors of justice as competition, fire, and a child at play. Nietzsche‘s writing on Heraclitus is particularly interesting since it shows Nietzsche‘s own attempts to escape from the Schopenhauerian worldview that he had long held, but ultimately would reject. The other figure who attempts to deal with the problem of Anaximander is Parmenides. While Heraclitus dealt with becoming by celebrating it, Parmenides denies it, reducing the world of perception to a mere illusion and inventing a second world of being where the horrors of becoming are absent. According to Nietzsche, this misstep has informed most subsequent philosophers, causing them to prefer eternal being over temporal becoming. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………...…iv Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..x 1. Anaximander…………………………………………………………………………………...1 1.1. The First Philosophical Author…………………………………………………….....1 1.1.1. What Does Nietzsche Say and Not Say About Anaximander………...…....2 1.1.2. The Bearing of Anaximander…………………………………………….…7 1.1.3. The Fragment……………………………………………………………….9 1.2 Eternal Justice and Apeiron……………………………………………………….....10 1.2.1. The Only Serious Moralist………………………………………………...10 1.2.2. A Mephistophelean Doctrine……………………………………………...12 1.2.3. Justice as Destruction……………………………………………………...13 1.2.4. Apeiron as Will...………………………………………………………….16 1.2.5. The Debt of the World…………………………………………………….18 1.2.6. Zarathustra Contra Anaximander………………………………………….20 1.2.7. Anaximander‘s Shadow…………………………………………………...21 2. Heraclitus……………………………………………………………………………………...23 2.1. A Divine Stroke of Lightning……………………………………………………….23 2.1.1. Early Interpretations of Heraclitus………………………………………...23 2.1.2. Schopenhauer on Heraclitus………………………………………………26 2.2. Becoming……………………………………………………………………………30 2.2.1. The First Negation………………………………………………………...30 vi 2.2.2. Heraclitean Intuition………………………………………………………32 2.2.3. Schopenhauerian Intuition………………………………………………...33 2.2.4. Heraclitus and Schopenhauer on Time and Becoming……………………40 2.2.5. The Second Negation……………………………………………………...44 2.2.6. Heraclitus on Perception…………………………………………………..47 2.2.7. The One, Qualities, and Strife……………………………………………..51 2.3. Justice………………………………………………………………………………..56 2.3.1. The Earthquake and Pessimism…………………………………………...56 2.3.2. Agon: Justice as Competition……………………………………………..62 2.3.3. Fire as Justice and First Substance………………………………………...65 2.3.4. Fire as the Cosmic Cycle of Conflagration………………………………..70 2.3.5. Fire as Want and Satiety…………………………………………………..78 2.3.6. Fire as Punishment for Hubris…………………………………………….80 2.3.7. Hubris and Justice ................................................................................…...81 2.3.8. Justice as a Child………………………………………………………….84 2.3.9. Justice as Play……………………………………………………………..88 2.4. The Philosopher‘s Bearing…………………………………………………………..92 2.4.1. Heraclitus‘s Obscurity…………………………………………………….93 2.4.2. Adapting a Preface………………………………………………………...98 2.4.3. Heraclitus‘s Solitude………………………………………………………99 2.4.4. Heraclitus‘s Pride………………………………………………………...103 2.5.5. Heraclitus‘s Coldness…………………………………………………….104 2.5.6. Thus Spoke Heraclitus?.............................................................................105 vii 3. Parmenides……………...........................................................................................................111 3.1. The Icy Truth-Teller……………………………………………………………….111 3.1.1. The Two Eras of Parmenides…………………………………………….112 3.1.2. The Influence of Anaximander…………………………………………..115 3.2. Parmenides‘ Strategy Against Pessimism…………………………………………117 3.2.1. Negation………………………………………………………………….117 3.2.2. Aphrodite………………………………………………………………...118 3.2.3. Rejecting What is Not……………………………………………………121 3.3. The Character of Parmenides………………………………………………………123 3.3.1. Against Heraclitus………………………………………………………..123 3.3.2. Against the Masses and Senses………………………………………….124 3.4. Parmenides the Spider……………………………………………………………..127 3.4.1. Nietzsche‘s Other Spiders……………………………………………….131 3.4.2. God the Spider…………………………………………………………...133 3.5. Parmenides and the Ascetic Ideal...………………………………………………..135 3.5.1. The Philosopher as Ascetic Ideal...………………………………………135 3.5.2. The Secular Parmenides………………………………………………….137 3.5.3. Motion, Deceit, and Failure……………………………………………...139 4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...143 4.1. Untimely Meditations……………………………………………………………...147 4.1.1. Three Dangers……………………………………………………………147 4.1.2. The First Danger…………………………………………………………149 4.1.3. The Second Danger……………………………………………………....153 viii 4.1.4. The Third Danger…………………………………...................................155 4.1.5. Empedocles………………………………………………………………158 4.2. The Problem of Anaximander……………………………………………………...161 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………164 ix Introduction Friedrich Nietzsche‘s unfinished 1873 manuscript, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks(PTAG), has had the misfortune of being largely overlooked. Despite the abundance of translations of Nietzsche‘s major works, PTAG has not received a new English translation in over fifty years.1 The book was meant to be released shortly after The Birth of Tragedy, but was instead abruptly abandoned as Nietzsche refocused his attention on The Untimely Meditations.2 Nietzsche never wrote a proper conclusion, nor did he write planned chapters on Empedocles, Democritus, the Pythagoreans, and Socrates.3 He did manage, however, to include a meditation on lost books in the early chapters of PTAG. Read with hindsight, this meditation seems prophetic: It is a veritable misfortune that