Understanding Nietzsche

Abstract

The controversies surrounding Nietzsche's philosophy, especially in Germany, continue to be determined by a fruitless position. On the one hand, there is a “hermeneutics of innocence”, including post-modern signs, which wants to understand even the philosopher’s most brutal positions – such as support for slavery and the elimination of the weak – as being just a profound metaphor . This is what the Italian postmodernist Gianni Vattimo does, for example, who presents his celebration of war as being the “denial of the unity of being”. On the other hand, the paradigm demarcated by Georg Lukács continues to predominate among many on the left, which places Nietzsche alongside “irrationalism”, treating him as a direct spiritual precursor of the Nazi State. Domenico Losurdo’s comprehensive “intellectual biography” overcomes this blockage.