Christo/Rapp

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND PRE-PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY

During his career as a professor of Greek in Basel, Friedrich Nietzsche lectured,

among other subjects, on The Pre-Platonic Philosophers; and he prepared an
essay on Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, which remained, however,
uninished. Both he notes on which he based his lectures and the uninished essay
show that Nietzsche's main conribution to Presocratic studies is his contention
that Presocratic philosophers should not be seen as immature orerunners ofPlato
and Aristotle but rather as contemporaries of Greek tragedy and as great indi�
vidual thinkers, the greatness of whom consists precisely in their uncompromising
onesidedness. However, the way in which Nietzsche tries to make this contention
plausible leaves something to be desied. Whereas, in the lecures at least, problems
f chronology are treated in some detail, the declared method of the essay is to
pick up,for each philosopher, one characeristic anecdote from Diogenes Laertius
and to pass by the est of the evidence. his method,or what it is worth, clearly
works better in some cases han in others. Apart from that, it is oten dicult to
tell to which extent Nietzsche's mature philosophy is based on his earlier reading
f the Pesocratics, and to which extent this earlier reading is already shaped by
his own philosophical stance.

When it comes to the philosophical significance of Pre-Socratic thinkers, it is almost

a cliche to say that we owe a lot to Friedrich Nietzsche either or the understanding
or for the appreciation of this philosophical epoch. And indeed, in the early stages
of Nietzsche's philosophical development as well as at the beginning of his proes­
sional creer as a classical scholar, the Pre-Socratics played an indispensable role. As
a student, he read Friedrich Albert Lange's Die Geschichte des Materialismus and
became particularly enthusiastic about the materialism of Democritus. Nietzsche's
early work on Diogenes Laertius, De Laertii Diogenis ontibus, was received as a
valuable contribution to the 'Quellenorschung' of Pre-Socratic philosophy; 1 and it
was because of his studies in Diogenes that Nietzsche was given the proessorship in
Basel at an unusually early stage in his career. In the years between 1869 and 1871,
Usener and Wachsmuth obviously wanted to involve Nietzsche in their project of
editing the main sources of Pre-Socratic philosophy, Diogenes, and the Placita. In
these years, Friedrich Nietzsche and Hermann Diels were expected to inherit the
Usener-Wachsmuth project together, so that Nietzsche would have been entrusted

I would like to thank Giuliano Campioni, olker Gerhardt, Andre Laks, Jaap Manseld, Glenn
W. Most, Oliver Primavesi and Wolfgang ROsler for their helpful suggesions.
1 Cf. Bnes 1986.