Metaphors of body: reflexions about language in the phylosopy of young Nietzsche

Author(s)

Andre Luis Muniz Garcia

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2008-04-23

Examining board members

Oswaldo Giacoia Junior; Eduardo Brandão; Henry Burnett

• Advisor: Oswaldo Giacoia Junior

Abstract

The goal of the present dissertation is the analysis of the status of language in three areas of young Nietzsche's philosophy, namely aesthetic philosophy, theory of knowledge and moral philosophy. In order to fulfill this task, I intend to investigate the historical and philosophical sources that Nietzsche has used as preparatory material for his language theory. The composition period I will analyse, corresponds to the time preceding his entrance in the University of Basel ¿ period referred to as Militärzeit by the publishers ¿ until the middle of 1874. This stage, the first chapter of this dissertation, can be seen as a simple introduction to Nietzsche's philosophy of language. In this context, I also work with the concept of influence, largely ignored by scholars. With it I aim at finding a conducting line which would allow a discussion about the meaning of Nietzsche's assent or not concerning philosophical and scientific doctrines of the XVIII and XIX centuries. The second chapter, which properly shows our dealing with his youth texts, discusses the status of language in the aesthetic philosophy of Nietzsche, namely that which is presented in the preparatory and posthumous works and fragments of The Birth of Tragedy. As it should be noted, my analysis, endorsed by importants studies of secondary literature, aimed at a keen, and yet not exhaustive, gradual reconstruction of the tripartite: tonal language (Tonsprache), language-of-gesture (Geberdensprache) and language-of-word (Wortsprache). This, in order to elucidate the origin, development and extinction of the Greek tragedy. The third chapter, which starts off with themes from the previous chapter, bases itself on two importants topics: (i) the new paradigm of theory of language, projected by Nietzsche, especially, in the enigmatic and famous aphorism 12[1], and (ii), from the thesis offered by this new paradigm, which was dispensed with by Nietzsche for the publication of The Birth of the Tragedy, I will present the origin and the target of his critique to the theory of knowledge, that is, to the basic question of this discipline, namely how universal and necessary knowledge of objects is possible. The fourth chapter aims, in general lines, at expliciting the status of language in the nitzschean critique to morals. This inquiry has a presupposition the linguistic and psychological examination, operated by Nietzsche in a series of lectures, written between 1871 and 1878, concerning platonic philosophy. In these lectures, Nietzsche has focused on the main concepts of metaphysics, such as essence, thing in itself and truth. In this last incursion, I will show how the relation between language and morals can offer a conducting line to understanding the future basis of his philosophy (AU)