Nietzsche’s Search for Philosophy: On the Middle Writings Keith Ansell-Pearson

Abstract

In Nietzsche’s Search for Philosophy – On the Middle Writings, Keith Ansell Pearson directs his interpretive gaze to the middle writings of Nietzsche’s oeuvre, namely Human, All Too Human (HAH), Dawn and The Gay Science (GS). While at least in German Nietzsche scholarship, it is rather debatable whether or not the middle writings should have been considered “neglected”– with perhaps Dawn being a reasonable exception – it is important to read them as more than merely a detour from the “real Nietzsche” found in the Birth of Tragedy and then the late works. While Ansell-Pearson does not presume a homogeneous philosophical approach in the middle works, he characterizes the period as a whole and each work in itself as containing important aspects of Nietzsche’s “search for philosophy”, especially in consideration of Nietzsche’s attempts to “unify thought and life” (4) in what is labelled a “‘philosophical life’” (4).