Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition

243 Pages·2010·3.343 MB·English

by  Jessica N. Berry

Nietzsche and the Ancient
Skeptical Tradition

Nietzscahnedt heA ncient
SkeptiTcraald ition
Jessica N. Berry
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people whose generous comments and helpful ques­
tions have been invaluable to me in the development of the present
book. I am sincerely grateful to Brian Leiter, who supervised my
doctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin, for his friend­
ship, encouragement, and unflagging support through every stage
of this project. And I am deeply indebted to Kathleen M. Higgins,
Richard Bett, and R. ]. Hankinson, and to the late Robert C.
Solomon for their many challenging and constructive suggestions. I
thank them all for their contributions to this work.
Over the last several years, I have benefited from discussions at
a variety of meetings at which parts of this book have been pre­
sented, including especially group meetings of the North American
Nietzsche Society and the Friedrich Nietzsche Society of Great
Britain and Ireland, and I would like to extend thanks to those
organizations and the members who have offered their generous
suggestions. Thanks in particular to Richard Schacht, Alan Schrift,
Lawrence Hatab, and all those who attended the North American
Nietzsche Society Meeting at the Central APA in Chicago in April
2004 for their questions and comments; and to James I. Porter and
Tony Jensen, who attended the Friedrich Nietzsche Society meet­
ing "Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition" (September 2002) and
commented on earlier drafts of some of this material. Special thanks
to Christopher Janaway and Simon Robertson, organizers of a July
2009 workshop at the University of Southampton, "Nietzsche's
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Approach to Ethics," at which I presented many of the ideas in the
final chapter to an especially keen and receptive audience; and to
Christa Acampora, Rebecca Bamford, and all the organizational
forces behind the 2009 "Nietzsche in New York" meeting, where
I met a number of excellent interlocutors who have prompted me
to clarify my views and sharpen my arguments. And thanks to
Mathias Risse, who organized a Radcliffe Institute workshop on
Nietzsche and naturalism (November 2004), and to the many people
at that workshop who helped me clarify my view of the relationship
between naturalism and skepticism. I would like to recognize all the
participants of the conference "Nietzsche: Philosophical Influences
and Philosophical Legacies" at The University of Texas at Austin
(March 2001), especially Maudemarie Clark, Nadeem Hussain,
Christopher Janaway, John Richardson, and my commentator, Paul
Woodruff, for their helpful advice and feedback that prompted
numerous early improvements. And finally, thanks to an anonymous
reviewer for Oxford University Press for several excellent sugges­
tions on the manuscript for this book.
Many of the final revisions for this project were completed dur­
ing a research leave funded by generous support from the National
Endowment for the Humanities. I am grateful for permission
from the editors of Philosophical Topics to reprint "Perspectivism as
Ephexis in Interpretation" (33, 2 [2005]: 19-44) and from International
Studies in Philosophy to use "Skepticism in Nietzsche's Earliest Work:
Another Look at Nietzsche's 'On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral
Sense'" (38, 3 [2006]: 33-48). Selections from "The Pyrrhonian
Revival in Montaigne and Nietzsche" are reprinted by permission
of the University of Pennsylvania Press; that essay appeared origi­
nally in the Journal of the History of Ideas (65, 3 [2004]: 497-514).
CONTENTS
Abbreviations ix
Introduction: Reading Nietzsche Skeptically 3
l Nietzsche and the Pyrrhonian Tradition 20
2 Skepticism in Nietzsche's Early Work:
The Case of "On Truth and Lie" 49
3 The Question of Nietzsche's "Naturalism" 68
4 Perspectivism and Ephexis in Interpretation 104
5 Skepticism and Health 133
6 Skepticism as Immoralism 174
Conclusion 209
Bibliography 215
Index 223

ABBREVIATIONS
Works by Nietzsche
A The Anti-Christ, translated by Judith Norman, in Aaron
Ridley and Judith Norman (eds.), The Anti-Christ, Ecce
Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005).
BGE Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future,
translated by Judith Norman, in Rolf-Peter Horstmann and
Judith Norman (eds.), Beyond Good and Evil (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002).
D Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, translated by
R. ]. Hollingdale, in Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter
(eds.), Daybreak (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997).
EH Ecce Homo, translated by Judith Norman, in Aaron
Ridley and Judith Norman (eds.), The Anti-Christ, Ecce
Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005).
FS Fruhe Schriften Bds. 1-4, edited by Hans Joachim Mette and
Karl Schlechta, and Bd. 5, edited by Carl Koch and Karl
Schlechta (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1994).
GM On the Genealogy of Morality, translated by Maudemarie Clark
and Alan]. Swensen (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998).
ix