Nietzsche and the Promise of Philosophy

Book excerpt: This book questions the consensus about the meaning and importance of Nietzsche's philosophy that has developed in the United States and Britain during the last thirty years and reestablishes close reading as the ground of interpretation. Arguing that there is greater continuity in Nietzsche's thought than is usually recognized, Klein focuses particularly on the genesis and nature of Nietzsche's theory of language and rhetoric, exploring the relationship between his early theory of language, expressed in The Birth of Tragedy, and the canonical writings of the late 1880s. This book is united by the conviction that Nietzsche's understanding of language is an essential part of his thought, and that whatever their explicit themes, Nietzsche's texts constitute a sustained reflection on the nature of reading and writing, which forces the reader to put into question conventional views about how philosophical texts should be interpreted.