The first part of this paper discusses the relationship between mistrust and philosophy in Nietzsche’s thinking, taking mainly into consideration some motives of The Gay Science. All radical attitudes reveal according to Nietzsche a moral and metaphysical background: they bear within themselves the claim of the human being to take hold of the world or at least of one’s experience. Instead, the combination of wisdom and insanity that characterizes the “gay science” fosters an openness to the world and an openness to experience. This openness requires a transformation of philosophy and of truth themselves in which the meditation on art plays a decisive role. The second part of the paper focuses on the notion of slow reading, discussed by Nietzsche in the “Preface” to Daybreak. There is nothing more difficult, according to Nietzsche (and Goethe), than learning to read slowly; as in the experience of philology, reading is not an activity characterized by a one-way direction, but a back-and-forth, a two-way proceeding which also allows to discover the double meanings of the text. Nevertheless, in order not to get lost, philology teaches us also to deliver ourselves to the rhythm of a text, as in a dance move, as in a Lento. Against a mere rhetoric of reading, philology is needed as the poetics of the philosophical text.

Mistrust, Gay Science, Skepticism, Slow Reading, Philology, Poetics.

The article aims at establishing a line of continuity between Pascal and Nietzsche in the context of a philosophy of orientation. A philosophical comparison highlights indeed elements of affinity: the aggressively critical spirit and the forms of philosophical writing. Nevertheless, the same comparison highlights their distance as well. Nietzsche considers Pascal a victim of Christianity; his Christian faith is a form of self-deception and suicide of reason. Both, however, construct a philosophy of orientation whose main focus is the self. For Pascal, this leads to egoism, whereas for Nietzsche, it is only egocentrism. Nietzsche’s nihilism can be seen as a transvaluation of religious feeling in Pascal.

Pascal, Orientation, Christianity, Nihilism, Esprit.

What is the relationship between Nietzsche’s and Montaigne’s skepticism? Both Nietzsche and Montaigne stress the importance of a skeptical mode of inquiry and of a non-assertoric language as a specific response to the “men of conviction” and to those who claim to possess the truth. Montaigne commits himself to doubt and question marks to avoid and combat fanaticism. His skepticism is vividly described as a “tolérance dangereuse” by Paul Henri Foucher, a French author whom Nietzsche closely read. This description may be a source of inspiration for Nietzsche’s conception in Beyond Good and Evil of a “bold skepticism” as an antidote to the weakness of the will. Here, Nietzsche praises a skepticism of “audacious manliness” as a kind of skepsis that combines a resolute attitude with an openness to experience and with the enjoyment of trying new experiments. Montaigne’s experimental skepsis, shared by Nietzsche, was considered “the opening gambit in the chess game of Modern Philosophy” (Toulmin).

Nietzsche, Montaigne, Fanaticism, Skepticism, Experiment.

This article aims at scrutinizing the influence of the French moralists on Nietzsche’s philosophy. To this end, the paper will be divided into three parts. In the first part, I will reconstruct the exact chronology of Nietzsche’s discovery and reading of these authors. As will be shown, although the influence of the moralists is only evident from Human, All Too Human, in reality, Nietzsche was familiar with their writings well before 1878. In the second part, I will focus on the influence played by the reading of the French moralists on Nietzsche. Particular attention will be paid to two fundamental aspects: psychological observation and aphoristic style. Finally, I will show the relationship existing between Nietzsche’s reading of these authors during the second half of the 1870s and the development of a moral perspectivism that would only find full formulation in later years.

French Moralists, Psychology, Aphoristic Style, Moral Perspectivism.

Most of the literature on Nietzsche and Descartes considers their relationship as one of utter opposition, and restricts its contents to the criticism of the cogito. However, the most important issues at stake are thus overlooked. It is the purpose of this paper to reassess the meaning of Nietzsche’s interest in Descartes, and in particular to highlight his admiration for the intellectual integrity of the French philosopher: unlike most other philosophers, Descartes perfectly understood the radicality of the philosophical requirement. But he could not bring it to its full completion because he did not manage to think in terms of values, and was not aware that truth is not an objective standard, but a value, and therefore involves some kind of preference. In this respect, couldn’t Nietzsche be considered a more cartesian Descartes?

Descartes, Illusion, Truth, Interpretation, Value.

In the Antichrist, Nietzsche qualifies the problem of Italian Renaissance – its meaning and its place in universal history – as his own. Such late positive and enthusiastic attitude, however, results from the previous fight between two towering personalities in his biography: Richard Wagner and Jacob Burckhardt. The latter is responsible for shaping (rather than simply influencing) not only Nietzsche’s appreciation of the Renaissance, but also the reflection on Cultur in the last phase of his production. However, Burckhardt’s reading of the Renaissance was already widely criticized in his time and later. In this paper, his reading of the Renaissance as the overturning of the Middle Ages will be discussed in the light of later criticisms based on cultural and historical evidence (Gebhart, Burdach, Warburg and his school), as well as the potentially contradictory consequences it entails for Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Renaissance, Middle Ages, Paganism, Burckhardt, Machiavelli.

The essay aims to investigate the influence of Lichtenberg’s thinking within Nietzsche’s thought. The first part of the essay analyses the eighteenth-century debate around physiognomy between Lichtenberg and Lavater, with the aim of showing how Lichtenberg anticipates in many respects a dynamic and plural conception of subjectivity. The second part of the essay analyses Nietzsche’s direct references to Lichtenberg between 1867 and 1873. In particular, I emphasise the importance of Lichtenberg’s writing style for Nietzsche and the influence it also had on Schopenhauer. The third part of the essay analyses Nietzsche’s use of Lichtenberg’s thought in the first Untimely Meditation. What emerges is a contrast between Lichtenberg as a sceptical, anti-religious Enlightenment scholar and David Strauss as a cultural philistine. The final part of the essay dwells on the philosophical significance of aphoristic writing, placing it in close relation to Lichtenberg and Nietzsche’s critique of the Cartesian method.

Aphorism, Style, Character, Physiognomy, Subjectivity.

The paper dwells on «Oh Mensch! Gieb Acht!» and is divided into two parts. In the first the author summarizes the main interpretations of this Lied of Zarathustra, trying to understand how scholars have answered the question: Nietzsche reader of whom? In the second part, she fits into this conflict of interpretations, not with the claim to dissolve it, but rather by reversing the question, and then using this Song to put the question of the meaning of interpreting in Nietzsche back at the center.

Zarathustra, Mitternachts-Lied, Interpretations, Dichtung, Music.

Friedrich Lange’s History of Materialism is one of the most important sources of inspiration for Nietzsche’s thought. In this paper, I would like to argue that this importance is not limited to the significant amount of information on the epistemological debate of their time that Lange provides, but can also be assessed on a historical-philosophical level. That is, I will show that Lange makes it possible for Nietzsche to participate in a movement that takes care of the anti-realist consequences of Kantian phenomenalism and reflects on the actual limits of both common and scientific knowledge. That movement started in the early post-Kantian era and is still ongoing, counting prominent figures of the current debate in the philosophy of science among its representatives.

Anti-Realism, Scepticism, Fictionalism, Perspectivism.

The mythical personage of Ariadne is very present in Nietzsche’s work and much has been written about it, interpreting it in various ways. In this article, an attempt is made to trace its traits in the figure of Lou von Salomé, the young Russian woman who gave Nietzsche a brief period of intense emotion and whom he had prefigured as the possible heir to his philosophical orthodoxies. The pain caused by the failure of their relationship, both personal and intellectual, is sublimated – by Nietzsche’s own admission – in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where Ariadne makes an implicit appearance in several places. Where she does explicitly appear, Ariadne seems to have failed to live up to the divine bridegroom, Dionysus; similarly, Lou Salome had failed to live up to the philosopher Nietzsche and his doctrine of eternal return.

Nietzsche, Lou von Salomé, Ariadne, Dionysus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

This essay addresses the problem of Nietzsche’s debt to the pathological interpretation of tragic catharsis developed by philologist Jacob Bernays, with particular attention to the aesthetic question of the autonomy-heteronomy of art. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche criticises Bernays’ interpretation by defending the principles of art’s autonomy, i.e. by stating that it is not possible to understand Greek tragedy if one studies it only in relation to its extra-aesthetic (in Bernays’ case pathological) effects. But is it really possible to conceive of art only as autonomous? The essay shows that even Nietzsche himself identifies tragedy as a healing power, an effective balm for the health of the Greek people. Thus, on the basis of a critical consideration of Nietzsche’s tragic theory, an attempt is made to relativise Nietzsche’s explicit criticism of Bernays’ interpretation and thus reconsider the relationship between the two theories.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacob Bernays, Aesthetics, Tragedy, Catharsis.

“After Hegel” and “after Nietzsche” are typical expressions of philosophical periodizations since the 20th century. But what does it mean that Nietzsche came ‘after’ Hegel? The thesis that will be argued in this article (a mere sketch of a work in progress) is that a ‘trivial’ philological problem – what did Nietzsche know about Hegel? – calls into question deeper problems of the philosophy of history and the very possibility of a philosophical historiography.

Nietzsche, Hegel, Canon, History of philosophy, Philosophy of history.

This paper shows the relevance of the extracts that, in 1863, a very young Nietzsche derives from Emerson’s essays Beauty and Power. The concept contained therein of the beautiful as a natural organism caught in the effort to increase its power and to achieve what it was “created” for is translated into the ideal of perfectionism, which characterizes Nietzsche’s mature philosophy. In Nietzsche’s late philosophy the moral categories of good and bad give way to those of beautiful and ugly, since these denote precisely the degree of coordination of the instincts of which an individual is capable. The grand style is then defined as the maximum outward manifestation of beauty and power, which comes from a perfect coordination and mastery of all one’s instincts.

Beauty, Beautiful, Sublime, Great Stile, Overman.

The aim of this article is to show the relevance of Nietzsche´s new critical philosophy from mistrust in times of artificial intelligence and public opinion as powerful instrument of mind domination. A new enlightment philosophy of modern culture in all its manifestations, including science and technology, a new hermeneutic Enleightment from a genealogy of bodily reason, taking advantage of the contributions of Jürgen Habermas about “critique of ideology” and specially of Carlo Gentili about the critical sense of Nietzsche´s philosophy of reason, life, power and false progress, in order to overcome the new tyranny of public opinion and Nietzsche´s “last human being”.

Criticism, Hermeneutics, Nietzsche, Intelligence, Reason.

This contribution aims to offer a brief reconstruction and interpretation of the reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy in the context of neopragmatism, with a specific focus on one of the leading figures of contemporary pragmatist thinking: Richard Rorty. In the first part of my contribution I outline a sketch, in general, of the great importance of the legacy of Nietzsche’s thought in twentieth-century philosophy. Then, in the second part of my contribution, I particularly focus my attention on Rorty’s original (but, to some extent, also problematic) interpretation of Nietzsche, explaining how the latter has been especially characterized by a great emphasis on the role played by language and interpretation in our comprehension of the real and in our interaction with the world.

Richard Rorty, Friedrich Nietzsche, Interpretation, Language, Pragmatism.

Nietzsche constantly dealt with Stoic thought from his early years until 1888, oscillating between criticism and appreciation. Necessity and transience are essential themes of the Stoic tradition that Nietzsche uses and thematises in his thought. Before being philosophical concepts, necessity and transience are experiences of existence that need to be prepared for and coped with: hence asceticism as a philosophical practice, ‘technology of the self’ – as Foucault says – oriented in this sense. Through precise references to the texts and the reading of some images (skin, stone, statue ecc.) that Nietzsche uses to characterise the Stoic form of life, this contribution aims to highlight how Nietzsche uses the cues taken from Stoicism to reshape the subjectivity and as a lever to free it for the affirmation of amor fati and the absolute value of immanence.

Nietzsche, Stoics, Necessity, Transience, Amor fati.

This paper deals with Nietzsche’s conception of sickness and health, and with how such a conception is reflected in his interpretation of Socrates. According to Nietzsche, Socrates’ personality is characterized by a split between an unconscious, distinctive self and a conscious, rational self. Such personality has pathological features that closely resemble what in psychodynamic theories is commonly defined as a schizoparanoid splitting, i.e. as a position of the ego capable of integrating in the same personality the affirmative dimension of libido and the negative dimension of aggression. I claim that Socrates’ paradigmatic sickness outlined by Nietzsche depends on the fact that his nature is split and dysfunctional. His unconscious instinct is reversed into a critical spirit, while his rational consciousness enhances his logical and intellectualistic activity.

Nietzsche, Socrates, Sickness, Health, Schizoparanoid Splitting.

The paper tries to bring out the real complexity of Nietzsche’s relationship with Socrates; a relationship that certainly cannot be reduced to what the philosopher of the eternal return writes in The birth of tragedy. Socrates is for Nietzsche a real mask of what he himself is for himself; a mask in which he can mirror himself, seeing himself reversed. On the other hand, for Nietzsche the truth is shown only with the face of a lie. Just as in the eyes of Socrates, what appeared to be a simple plexus of instincts was reason; Socrates could therefore also laugh at his own selfdeception; and even smile at life, even if he ends up saying that life is a real disease.

Truth, Mask, Socrates, Illness, Instincts.

This paper analyses a possible Nietzschean identification of philosophy and mistrust. It thus discusses the sceptical component of Nietzsche’s thought and its relationship to the theme of nihilism. Objections to a sceptical definition of Nietzsche’s thought are countered by the claim that Nietzsche’s is a radical scepsis, the example of which is shown in aphorism 213 of The Wanderer and His Shadow. Nietzsche averts the aphasic outcome of radical scepsis by resorting to laughter. The latter is one of the fundamental tools of what Nietzsche calls “gaya scienza”, i.e. a science of laughter that mocks any claim to knowledge of the absolute. The paper then concludes by establishing a relationship between scepticism and perspectivism.

Mistrust, Scepsis, Nihilism, Laughter, Perspectivism.