Converting philology to philosophy A Platonic model and its inversion in Homer and Classical Philology

Abstract

This article intends to demonstrate that Plato is present in the young Nietzsche’s thinking, particularly in the definition of philology that is proposed in Homer and Classical Philology. Indeed, Plato’s Sophist makes it possible to comprehend a core aspect of Nietzsche’s thinking on philology, that which is the starting point for all his thinking as it gets developed in the inaugural lecture: the contradiction between the two fundamental trends of philology (aesthetic classicism and historical criticism) and the paralyzing consequences for the practising of it if this contradiction is taken seriously. Furthermore, the Sophist makes it possible to point out an aspect relating to how Nietzsche, in his lecture, tries to overcome the paralyzing effect of the contradiction found in philology, namely through an inversion of Socratic-Platonic logic, according to which a contradiction cannot arise in a concept and has to be purged so as to clear the pathway towards obtaining true knowledge. Instead of adhering to this purging approach, he accepts the contradiction that, at the time, characterized philology. The result of his position is a completely different way of understanding the nature of concepts and truth.