ABSTRACT
The relation between Nietzsche’s thought and the philosophy of Gustav Teichmüller (1832-1888) was noted quite early in the history of Nietzsche scholarship, in a 1913 article on ‘perspectivism’ by Hermann Nohl.1 Yet this important link has since been generally overlooked. The reason may be simply that Teichmüller has not been remembered for most of the twentieth century. He was first and foremost a historian of ancient Greek philosophy, a student under Adolf Trendelenburg who specialized in Aristotelian scholarship. At a later stage, Teichmüller developed his own metaphysical system, presented at length in his major treatise, Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt.2 His approach to philosophy combined an austere and uncompromising metaphysical doctrine with a sweeping dismissal of the philosophies of his time - none of which, he asserted, had advanced as far as Plato in his Parmenides? These features no doubt ensured him a marginal position in philosophy, but they were not necessarily an objection for Nietzsche. On the contrary, it was just such writers who often appealed to him, and either stimulated or provoked the more original aspects of his own thinking - a policy in accordance with a favourite remark of Goethe: ‘Anyway, I hate everything that merely instructs me, without increasing or immediately enlivening my activity.’4
