Critical Theory Since Plato – Hazard Adams

Thus Jacques Derrida (below, page 1203) saw him as a thinker whose critique of Western metaphysics his own work extends. In Truth and Falsity in an Ultramoral Sense,’ Nietzsche questions the relation of language to truth. What comes under his gaze is the tendency of language always toward abstraction and away from the individual and real, and finally into the threat of rational fixity. The ghost of Kant (above, page 416) is often present here: Things in themselves cannot be known as such.

Space and time are the spectacles we cannot remove. But in Nietzsche the theme is not perception as such but the interven­ tion of language, which produces abstract illusions (Platonic ideas, generalizations) that hide the truth of things. From this questioning of language come Nietzsche’s question­ ing of reason and his distinction between what he called the Dionysiac and the Apollon­ ian, set forth in The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.

Appearing one year be­ fore Truth and Falsity, it was inspired partly by Richard Wagner, although Nietzsche later denounced him. The two terms distinguish the primitive from the rational and, in Nietzsche’s view, the potentially unhealthy. As Greek tragedy developed, one impulse came to balance the other, Dionysiac ecstasy being ordered by Apollonian form and re­ pose. Music, an attempt to give form to the world of spirit, strives toward symbolic ex­ pression of that Dionysiac wisdom characteristic of tragedy, but in modem life the tragic view has been suppressed in scientific optimism.

It may be that it will not reappear until “science [has] at last been pushed to its limits.” Every culture that has lost the Dionysiac mythmaking spirit “has lost, by the same token, its natural, healthy creativity.” Niet­ zsche sees Dionysiac art and mythmaking as performing the disruption of the fixity to­ ward which language in its Apollonian phase tends. Nietzsche’s view of art can be profitably contrasted to Zola’s scientistic plan for the novel (below, page 699), and an interesting comparison can be made to Cassirer’s some­ what more optimistic theory of symbolic forms (below, page 1018).

Nietzsche’s complete works in translation are available in the eighteen-volume edi­ tion of 1909-1914 edited by Oscar Levy. An edition of Nietzsche in English is partly published. See Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind (1952); Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher (1965); Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche (1965); Joan Stambaugh, Nietzsche’s Thought of the Eternal Return (1972); Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (1973, tr. 1983); D. B. Allen, ed., The New Nietzsche (1977); D. F. Kull and D.

Wood, eds., Ex­ ceedingly Nietzsche (1988); Ronald Hayman, Nietzsche: A Critical Life (1980); Ernst Behler, Derrida-Nietzsche, Nietzsche-Derrida (1988); Erich Heller, The Importance of Nietzsche (1988); Henry Staten, Nietzsche ‘s Voice (1990); A.

from, Republic ……….. ……………………. 16 from, Phaedrus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Ê6 from, Sophist . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Ê8 from, Philebus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 40 from, Cratylus . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 41 ARISTOTLE …. . …….. . ……… … . .. … .. 48 from, Physics . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 49 from, Metaphysics ……………………………. 51 Poetics ………………………………….. 52 from, Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 69 MARCUS TULUUS CICERO ……….. . . . .. … . 74 from, Brutus ……………………………….. 75 QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS (HORACE) . . …. 78 Art of Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . … . . .

. . . . . . 79 STRABO . . . . . . . . …… . . . . … .. … … . . . ….. . 86 from, Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .. 87 PUBUUS CORNEUUS TACITUS .. . . …. . . .. … . . 90 from, Dialogue on Oratory …………………….. 91 vi <> CONTENTS PSEUDO-LONGINUS’ ..

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 004e87d5983b1a16
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 60,052,912 bytes (57.271 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 1560
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 6693.69 minutes
• Total Words: 1,338,737
• Total Characters: 7,973,677
• Average Words per Page: 858.16
• Average Characters per Page: 5111.33

Most Frequent Words

one (4787), art (2087), language (2030), man (2006), poetry (1979), first (1878), itself (1840), nature (1799), even (1709), sense (1625), things (1584), like (1564), work (1529), between (1492), also (1467), time (1465), new (1463), words (1431), say (1410), form (1395), way (1359), see (1359), two (1310), without (1308), upon (1297), now (1276), world (1220), life (1197), great (1197), literary (1191), poet (1179), page (1179), meaning (1148), true (1141), mind (1118), much (1116), thus (1115), thought (1099), truth (1097), many (1090), part (1085), make (1085), theory (1061), every (1056), men (1053), yet (1047), history (1042), criticism (1038), ing (1023), word (1013), tion (1002), made (999), general (997), fact (989), well (979), idea (970), since (964), object (963), whole (957), use (953), cannot (953), literature (941), therefore (941), thing (939), said (938), though (920), different (920), another (916), always (905), subject (896), human (895), point (874), means (874), himself (862), kind (862), rather (845), power (844), certain (831), good (827), ideas (821), within (821), order (814), never (801), con (792), poem (789), something (782), still (781), question (775), social (774), however (770), knowledge (767), nothing (763), reason (757), works (755), far (755), less (751), know (747), philosophy (731), place (725), particular (705).

PDF Download