ABSTRACT
Nietzsche began his career as a philologist; but his investigations in this field, and his subsequent independently undertaken efforts in social and cultural criticism and psychological analysis, came to converge upon philosophy, leading him to it and requiring it of him. At least for the last decade of his productive life he thought of himself primarily (if not exclusively) as a philosopher, devoting himself chiefly to philosophical endeavor. Yet his relation to philosophy even in this later period of his intellectual maturity is not easily or simply characterized. He tended to be as harshly critical of much of what philosophy traditionally had been and had become in his time as he was persuaded of the great importance of philosophy as he practiced it and would have it be; and he was frequently as severe with most of his generally esteemed philosophical predecessors as he was extravagent in his estimation of what he often called ‘my type of philosopher,’ and in his expectations of such ‘new philosophers.’ In this chapter I shall attempt to sort out his views on these matters. They warrant attention in their own right; and they also require to be borne in mind when considering his specific philosophical efforts.
