Nietzsche on Language, Consciousness, and the Body

From the early 1870s through the 1880s, language, consciousness, and the body stood as cornerstones of the philosophical project that culminated in Nietzsche's "anthropology of knowledge". Asserting both the timeliness and lasting value of Nietzsche's writings during this period, Emden argues that they were not based on a specific understanding of the philosophy of language or a specific conception of truth but were instead shaped by his interest in the theory of knowledge, philological scholarship, and contemporary life sciences. Leveraging a truly astounding command of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific and philological texts, Emden is able to situate Nietzsche's writings on language and rhetoric within their wider historical context, allowing him to distill the content of Nietzsche's writing from the form of his radical presentation. In the process, Emden reveals Nietzsche as more timely and less outrageous than he is widely thought to be, appearing instead as a powerful thinker interested in understanding the philosophical import of the heady scientific developments of his day. Finally, drawing on much previously unpublished and undiscussed Nietzsche material, Emden examines the role of metaphor and interpretation, reasserting the relevance of rhetoric to philosophy, in consonance with Nietzsche's own statements and practices. Christian J. Emden is an assistant professor of German studies at Rice University. This is a volume in the "International Nietzsche Studies" series, edited by Richard Schacht.