Many of the writings of Leo Strauss were dedicated to combating the "crisis of modernity". This crisis was for him the advent and acceptance of nihilism--a state of being wherein any principle one dare dream is allowed and judgment must be withheld. He claimed that the promotion of nihilism at the hands of modern social scientists would lead to the downfall of civilization. Yet, this work seeks to show that all of these claims are made by Strauss in an attempt to hide the "truth" of nihilism from the masses and that Strauss, in fact, is a nihilist thinker. The introductory chapter of this work introduces the problem of nihilism as outlined by Strauss. It also briefly explains the positions of two other nihilist thinkers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, in order to establish the thought which Strauss seems to be arguing against in his works. It then explains the writing style of Strauss as being esoteric. The following chapter will deal with the Strauss' argument for the causes of nihilism. Chapter three will be dedicated to the two solutions that Strauss presents for combating nihilism. The exoteric solution calls for a return to the teachings of the classics, specifically the three types of teaching that he recognizes--Socratic-Platonic, Aristotelian, and Thomistic. The esoteric solution, however, is to use the Platonic conception of the "noble lie" in order to hide the "truth" of nihilism. Chapters four and five will compare Strauss' nihilism to that of Nietzsche and Foucault, respectively. Each chapter will expand on the discussion already presented in the first chapter to further elucidate each thinker's version of nihilism. Finally, I will outline the conception of these three thinkers as a continuum for nihilist thought. I will also discuss how the only definitive difference between the three thinkers is their outlook on the human condition. For example, Strauss and his hidden nihilism is a direct result of his pessimistic view of the masses; whereas Nietzsche's Übermensch nihilism is brought about by his outlook on the prospect for development beyond humanity and Foucault's pure nihilism is drawn out from his notion of power/knowledge. In this way, this work will not only show Strauss as a closet nihilist but also show his integral role in understanding the full range of nihilist thought.

The German expressionist poet Gottfried Benn (1886-1956), a great admirer of the philosopher, psychologist, poet, anti-Christ and art theoretician Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), quoted and commented on the works of the latter from 1926 until his death. Benn’s references to Nietzsche range from the mere mention of the name in some works to entire poems (c.f. “Sils Maria”), essays, and lectures on Nietzsche (c.f. “Nietzsche – nach fünfzig Jahren”). Benn made no secret of his hero-worship for Nietzsche and considered himself the latter’s heir as far as his theory of art was concerned. Three key ideas on art, which Benn took over from Nietzsche and quoted, elaborated, and commented upon are: the idea that the world and existence are justifiable only as esthetic phenomena, the idea of art as the “Olymp des Scheins”, and the idea of art as the actual task of man, as his metaphysical activity. In my thesis I have attempted to show that in spite of Benn’s great admiration of Nietzsche as art theoretician, in spite of the fact that Benn used Nietzsche’s art vocabulary and took over quotations from his works almost verbatim, in spite of the fact that both Benn and Nietzsche saw in art the salvation for man in the midst of the European nihilism, Benn misunderstood Nietzsche’s basic message. I have explained that Benn and Nietzsche looked upon nihilism from two divergent points of view. Nietzsche concerned himself with giving the old “absolute” values, which were in their death-throes, the coup de grace and tried to establish in his Übermensch” ideal, an ideal which man is not meant to ever attain, but must continuously strive for, a new set of values, a new “metaphysics”, one not of the supernatural world, but of the natural world, different from the metaphysics of the Christian-Platonic tradition in that it looked upon man as a unity, a polarity of the material and the non-material and sought to bring them in harmony not through the violence of the extermination of the passions and the drives, but rather through their sublimation. For Nietzsche, nihilism was a brief temporary stage in the history of ideas, the natural and necessary conclusion of the old absolute values, an end the seed of which the old values had borne in themselves from their very inception, since they were based upon a denial of and violence against nature. Nietzsche’s attitude was a dynamic, revolutionary and creative one, and he saw at the center of his new valuation, as an enticement to life, as that which leads man to an affirmation of the totality of life – its pain and sorrow as well as its joys. For Benn, on the other hand, who saw in Nietzsche not a positor of new values, but a destroyer of the old ones, a materialist and a disciple of Darwin, nihilism was insurmountable and here to stay. His attitude was a heroic nihilism – one of resignation, a static, quietistic attitude. As a result of man’s progressive cerebration and his subsequent loss of a genuine relationship to nature, the material and the non-material aspects of man, life and intellect were considered by Benn to constitute an irreconcilable antimony. As a result he also considered art and life as two separate spheres and saw art as an escape, as the artist’s search for his identity. From this point of view Benn developed his theory of absolute art, of art for the sake of art, of art as form. I have attempted to show that Benn’s misunderstanding of Nietzsche on the subject of art – not notwithstanding the similarity or the vocabulary employed by the two authors – stems from his misunderstanding of Nietzsche as a philosopher, from the fact that Benn overlooked certain aspects of the writings of Nietzsche in favor of other aspects. By Benn’s own admission, his favorite book on Nietzsche was Ernst Bertram’s “Nietzsche: Attempt at a Mythology” (1918). I have examined this book, under whose spell Benn had fallen, and have found that Bertram, a member of the George-Kreis, the members of which used the Nietzsche of the Nietzsche “Legend” to their own ends, made no claim to either historical or philosophical accuracy, indeed that he overlooked Nietzsche’s philosophy completely, that his goal was to perpetuate the Nietzsche “cult” of the Kreis. For Bertram Nietzsche was not a philosopher, but a mystic and a saint. It is well-known that Nietzsche’s vocabulary lends itself especially well to misinterpretations of all sorts, intentional as well as unintentional. One need only think of what the Nazis were able to do with the“blond beast”and the “superman”, words taken out of context and used as slogans to fit a given ideology. The first scientific work which dealt seriously with Nietzsche as a philosopher was that by Jaspers in 1936, in which a brief half-page is devoted to art. The other scientific works on Nietzsche as a philosopher have appeared only much more recently.

Esta dissertação de mestrado visa a investigar o estatuto que O nascimento da tragédia assume na obra de Nietzsche a partir das análises que o próprio filósofo faz do livro no período tardio de seu pensamento. Examinando a maneira pela qual suas teses sobre o surgimento da tragédia na antiguidade grega se filiam à metafísica da vontade de Schopenhauer, procuramos compreender as interpretações posteriores de Nietzsche, quando ele já havia rompido com seu mestre de outrora e já o tomara como alvo de suas críticas. Nesse contexto, Nietzsche pretende retornar às suas teses sobre a tragédia grega a fim de imiscuí-las na face afirmativa de seu último e mais ambicioso projeto: a transvaloração de todos os valores. Avaliando esse procedimento nietzschiano de retomar seu primeiro livro a partir de várias leituras, investigamos as razões pelas quais essas interpretações revelam ambigüidades. Num primeiro momento, procuramos demonstrar que, tendo entrelaçado suas intuições próprias à filosofia pessimista de Schopenhauer, as avaliações de O Nascimento da tragédia devem passar pelo crivo da autocrítica. Dado esse passo, pesquisamos como Nietzsche doravante trata do livro, fazendo emergir dele a face positiva, ou seja, transpondo o dionisíaco em pathos filosófico, de modo a justificar a sua afirmação de que O nascimento da tragédia foi a sua primeira transvaloração de todos os valores. / This dissertation for the Masters Degree intents to investigate the statute that the book The Birth of Tragedy assumes in the work of Nietzsche, from the analysis that the philosopher himself made on this book in the late period of his thinking. Trough an investigation of the way his ideas about the beginning of the tragedy in the Greek Antiquity connects with the Metaphysics of Will of Schopenhauer, we intent to understand Nietszche´s late interpretations, made when he had already severed his connections with his former master, making him the target oh his criticism. In this context, Nietzsche wanted to renew his ideas about the Greek tragedy, hoping to insert them in the affirmative face of his last and most ambitious project: the transvaluation of all values. We avaliated this nietzschean proceeding, i.e., to retake his first work from differents readings, and investigate the reasons these interpretations reveals ambiguities. In a first instance, we try to demonstrate that, after mingling his owns intuitions with the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, the avaliations of The Birth of Tragedy must pass by the grind of the auto-criticism. After that, we research how Nietzsche, from this moment on, justify his book, make appear its positive face, ie, translate the dionisiac in a philosophical pathos, in a way that it makes possible to him to justify his affirmation that The Birth of Tragedy was his first transvaluation of all values.

Esta dissertação de mestrado visa a investigar o estatuto que O nascimento da tragédia assume na obra de Nietzsche a partir das análises que o próprio filósofo faz do livro no período tardio de seu pensamento. Examinando a maneira pela qual suas teses sobre o surgimento da tragédia na antiguidade grega se filiam à metafísica da vontade de Schopenhauer, procuramos compreender as interpretações posteriores de Nietzsche, quando ele já havia rompido com seu mestre de outrora e já o tomara como alvo de suas críticas. Nesse contexto, Nietzsche pretende retornar às suas teses sobre a tragédia grega a fim de imiscuí-las na face afirmativa de seu último e mais ambicioso projeto: a transvaloração de todos os valores. Avaliando esse procedimento nietzschiano de retomar seu primeiro livro a partir de várias leituras, investigamos as razões pelas quais essas interpretações revelam ambigüidades. Num primeiro momento, procuramos demonstrar que, tendo entrelaçado suas intuições próprias à filosofia pessimista de Schopenhauer, as avaliações de O Nascimento da tragédia devem passar pelo crivo da autocrítica. Dado esse passo, pesquisamos como Nietzsche doravante trata do livro, fazendo emergir dele a face positiva, ou seja, transpondo o dionisíaco em pathos filosófico, de modo a justificar a sua afirmação de que O nascimento da tragédia foi a sua primeira transvaloração de todos os valores. / This dissertation for the Masters Degree intents to investigate the statute that the book The Birth of Tragedy assumes in the work of Nietzsche, from the analysis that the philosopher himself made on this book in the late period of his thinking. Trough an investigation of the way his ideas about the beginning of the tragedy in the Greek Antiquity connects with the Metaphysics of Will of Schopenhauer, we intent to understand Nietszche´s late interpretations, made when he had already severed his connections with his former master, making him the target oh his criticism. In this context, Nietzsche wanted to renew his ideas about the Greek tragedy, hoping to insert them in the affirmative face of his last and most ambitious project: the transvaluation of all values. We avaliated this nietzschean proceeding, i.e., to retake his first work from differents readings, and investigate the reasons these interpretations reveals ambiguities. In a first instance, we try to demonstrate that, after mingling his owns intuitions with the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, the avaliations of The Birth of Tragedy must pass by the grind of the auto-criticism. After that, we research how Nietzsche, from this moment on, justify his book, make appear its positive face, ie, translate the dionisiac in a philosophical pathos, in a way that it makes possible to him to justify his affirmation that The Birth of Tragedy was his first transvaluation of all values.

This thesis reconsiders the generally held view that Friedrich Nietzsche's works are misogynist. In doing so it provides an interpretation of Nietzsche's texts with respect to the metaphor "woman," sets this interpretation into an historical context of Nietzsche reception and follows the extension of Nietzsche's metaphor "woman" into French feminist theory. It provides an interpretation that shows that a misogynist reading of Nietzsche is in error because such a reading fails to consider the multiple perspectives that operate in Nietzsche's texts.

A rich relationship unites the composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and the history of psychology, especially if one considers his attempt to make music speak with the clarity of verbal language. Wagner's musical discourse participated in the development of psychology in the nineteenth century in three distinct areas. First, Wagner shared in the non-reductive materialist discourse on mind that characterized many of the thinkers who made psychology into an autonomous intellectual pursuit. Second, Wagner's theories and theatrical productions directly influenced two important psychologists - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932). Finally, the experiences of music achieved by Wagner at his Bayreuth festivals created greater sensitivity toward psychology, especially among the more sympathetic participants. In tracing a narrative from Wagner's first conception of a festival in 1849 to the premiere of Parsifal in 1882, one can also see several arcs in the evolution of Wagner's musical discourse. These include the shift from mnemonic to hypnotic techniques for giving music a voice, as well as the transition from a socially critical festival to one of personal affirmation. Connected to both of these augmentations of musical discourse was the volatile relationship between music and text in Wagner's compositions. Important in facilitating these transformations was not only Wagner's discovery of Schopenhauer's philosophy, but also the larger contingencies of instituting a festival in the Griinderzeit. In looking at the reception side of theatrical productions, in addition to their staging, this thesis has been able to identify psychologically-related links important to the history of music, science, and culture.

The question of this thesis is whether the individual can resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case. Culture crisis is a historical moment in which our culture leads us to expect a world drastically different from the one in which we find ourselves. This thesis will focus on the experience of Generation Y in the fall-out of the 2008 Recession. It will be argued that we need a Wittgensteinian view of language in order to account for the phenomenon of culture crisis. It will be suggested that our individual has to be a Nietzschean individual in order to resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case. Potential incompatibilities between a Wittgensteinian view of language and the Nietzschean individual will be considered and rejected. It will be concluded that in order to resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case the individual must change the way she lives.

In the following study I reappraise the nineteenth century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897). Burckhardt is traditionally known for having served as the elder colleague and one-time muse of Friedrich Nietzsche at the University of Basel and so his ideas are often considered, by comparison, outmoded or inapposite to contemporary currents of thought. My research explodes this conception by abandoning the presumption that Burckhardt was in some sense "out of touch" with modernity. By following and significantly expanding upon the ideas of historians such as Allan Megill, Lionel Gossman, Hayden White, Joseph Mali, John Hinde and Richard Sigurdson, among others, I am able to portray Burckhardt as conversely inaugurating a historiography laden with elements of insightful social criticism. Such criticisms are in fact bolstered by virtue of their counter-modern characteristic. Burckhardt reveals in this way a perspicacity that both anticipates Nietzsche's own critique of modernity and in large part moves well beyond him. Much of this analysis is devised through a genealogical approach to Burckhardt which places him squarely within a cohesive branch of post-Kantian thought that I have called heterodox post-Kantianism. My study revaluates Burckhardt through the alembic of a "discursive" post-Kantian turn which reinvests many of his outré ideas, including his radical appropriation of historical representation, his non-teleological historiography, his various pessimistic inclinations, and additionally, his non-empirical, "aesthetic" study of history, or "mythistory," with a newfound philosophical germaneness. While I survey the majority of Burckhardt's output in the course of my work, I invest a specific focus in his largely unappreciated Greek lectures (given in 1869 but only published in English in full at the end of the twentieth century). Burckhardt's "dark" portrayal of the Greeks serves to not only upset traditional conceptions of antiquity but also the manner in which self-conception is informed through historical inquiry. Burckhardt returns us then to an altogether repressed antiquity: to a hidden, yet internal "dream of a shadow." My analysis culminates with an attempt to reassess the place of Burckhardt's ideas for modernity and to correspondingly reexamine Nietzsche. In particular, I highlight the disparity between Nietzsche's and Burckhardt's reception of the "problem of power," including the latter's reluctance - which was attended by ominous and highly prescient predictions of future large-scale wars and the steady "massification" of western society - to accept Nietzsche's acclamation of a final "will to power." Burckhardt teaches us the value of history as an active counterforce to dominant modern reality-formations and in doing so, his work rehabilitates the relevance of history for a world which, as Burckhardt once noted, suffers today from a superfluity of present-mindedness.