Saying What One Means

Abstract

Few would dispute that Nietzsche writes differently than most philosophers, especially when judged by the standards of contemporary philosophical writing. There is plenty of dispute, however, about why Nietzsche has chosen to present his thinking in the ways that he does. When one turns to much recent Nietzsche scholarship, it would appear that the literary quality of his writing is often treated as something that is merely accidental rather than integral to his philosophical project. Here one finds a working assumption that it is possible to paraphrase Nietzsche’s unconventional style of writing into more conventional forms of philosophical prose without losing sight of the philosophical goals that he is trying to achieve. This paper argues that this working assumption underappreciates the fact that Nietzsche’s chosen style of writing is intended to perform a variety of functions within his philosophy. One underappreciated function of Nietzsche’s writing, I will argue, aims to promote a radical disruption and revaluation of his readers’ basic habitual attitudes towards their experience of their own lives. Such therapeutic and transformative experiences, I conclude, are not only basic to Nietzsche’s philosophical project but are also intimately connected to the literary quality of his writing and cannot easily survive philosophical paraphrase.