This work presents a portrait of Nietzsche as the skeptic par excellence in the modern period, by demonstrating how a careful and informed understanding of ancient Pyrrhonism illuminates his reflections on truth, knowledge and morality, as well as the very nature and value of philosophic inquiry.

Roughly formulating many of the themes he later developed at length, Nietzsche sketches concepts such as the will to power, eternal recurrence, and self-overcoming and links them to specific pre-Platonics." "This translation, complete with Nietzsche's own extensive sidenotes and philological citations, is accompanied by a prologue, introductory essay, and extensive translator's commentary.".

Nietzsche's philosophy - at once revolutionary, erudite and deep - reaches into all spheres of the arts. Well into a second century of influence, the profundity of his ideas and the complexity of his writings still determine Nietzsche's power to engage his readers. His first book, "The Birth of Tragedy", presents us with a lively inquiry into the existential meaning of Greek tragedy. We are confronted with the idea that the awful truth of our existence can be revealed through tragic art, whereby our relationship to the world transfigures from pessimistic despair into sublime elation and affirmation. It is a landmark text in his oeuvre and remains an important book both for newcomers to Nietzsche and those wishing to enrich their appreciation of his mature writings. "Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy" provides a clear account of the text and explores the philosophical, literary and historical influences bearing upon it. Each chapter examines part of the text, explaining the ideas presented and assessing relevant scholarly points of interpretation. The book will be an invaluable guide to readers in Philosophy, Literary Studies and Classics coming to "The Birth of Tragedy" for the first time.

Nietzsche and Classical Greek Philosophy: Beautiful and Diseased explains Friedrich Nietzsche’s ambivalence toward Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Daw-Nay N. R. Evans Jr. argues that Nietzsche’s relationship to his classical Greek predecessors is more subtle and systematic than previously believed. He contends that Nietzsche’s seemingly personal attacks on his philosophical rivals hide philosophically sophisticated disputes that deserve greater attention. Evans demonstrates how Nietzsche’s encounters with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle reveal the philosophical influence they exercised on Nietzsche’s thought and the philosophical problems that he sought to address through those encounters. Having illustrated Nietzsche’s ambivalence regarding Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Evans draws on Nietzsche’s admiration for Heraclitus as a counterpoint to Plato to suggest that the classical Greek philosophers are just as important to Nietzsche’s thought as their pre-Socratic precursors. This book will appeal to those interested in continental philosophy, ancient philosophy, and German studies.

Dale Wilkerson's book shows how, like many of his contemporaries, Nietzsche looked to the Greeks in an attempt to alleviate Europe's woes. His work in this area resembles that of the cultural anthropologist who uncovers formal differences in social manners that might explain the development of humankind's most important instincts-those for carving out personal identity and for forging social unity. Nietzsche and the Greeks is a much needed guide to this fascinating subject matter.

For Nietzsche the Age of Greek Tragedy was indeed a tragic age. He saw in it the rise and climax of values so dear to him that their subsequent drop into catastrophe (in the person of Socrates - Plato) was clearly foreshadowed as though these were events taking place in the theater. And so in this work, unpublished in his own day but written at the same time that his The Birth of Tragedy had so outraged the German professorate as to imperil his own academic career, his most deeply felt task was one of education. He wanted to present the culture of the Greeks as a paradigm to his young German contemporaries who might thus be persuaded to work toward a state of culture of their own; a state where Nietzsche found sorely missing.

Typically, the first decade of Friedrich Nietzsche's career is considered a sort of précis to his mature thinking. Yet his philological articles, lectures, and notebooks on Ancient Greek culture and thought - much of which has received insufficient scholarly attention - were never intended to serve as a preparatory ground to future thought. Nietzsche's early scholarship was intended to express his insights into the character of antiquity. Many of those insights are not only important for better understanding Nietzsche; they remain vital for understanding antiquity today. Interdisciplinary in scope and international in perspective, this volume investigates Nietzsche as a scholar of antiquity, offering the first thorough examination of his articles, lectures, notebooks on Ancient Greek culture and thought in English. With eleven original chapters by some of the leading Nietzsche scholars and classicists from around the world and with reproductions of two definitive essays, this book analyzes Nietzsche's scholarly methods and aims, his understanding of antiquity, and his influence on the history of classical studies.

In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche observes that Greek tragedy gathered people together as a community in the sight of their gods, and argues that modernity can be rescued from 'nihilism' only through the revival of such a festival. This is commonly thought to be a view which did not survive the termination of Nietzsche's early Wagnerianism, but Julian Young argues, on the basis of an examination of all of Nietzsche's published works, that his religious communitarianism in fact persists through all his writings. What follows, it is argued, is that the mature Nietzsche is neither an 'atheist', an 'individualist', nor an 'immoralist': he is a German philosopher belonging to a German tradition of conservative communitarianism - though to claim him as a proto-Nazi is radically mistaken. This important reassessment will be of interest to all Nietzsche scholars and to a wide range of readers in German philosophy.