ABSTRACT

Metaphysics aims to establish what there is to know about the world that goes beyond what can be discovered by science. In this sense, Friedrich Nietzsche himself put forward metaphysical views in his final works. Nietzsche’s main concern in his early work was the condition of contemporary European culture, which he judged to be inferior to that of the pre-Socratic Greeks. He criticizes modern culture in effect for having become anti-metaphysical, for having accepted that the empirical world is the only one. In the works of his middle period, Nietzsche turns his back on the attempt to imbue culture with “metaphysical significance.” The works of Nietzsche’s third and final period show significant changes in his analysis of two-world metaphysics. Nietzsche thus seems to recognize that there is more to reality than what science can tells us, and this opens the possibility of recognizing metaphysics as a legitimate discipline.