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Nietzsche and Autobiographical Philosophy

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Philosophizing Madness from Nietzsche to Derrida

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Abstract

Evangelou offers a close analysis of Nietzsche’s last work: Ecce Homo. He explains why he treats this text as Nietzsche’s paradigmatic work of autobiographical philosophy by pointing to the convergence of bios (life) and logos (work; philosophy) that the text embodies and reveals. Departing from this analysis, and drawing from the basic principles of autobiographical writing, Evangelou defines the genre of autobiographical philosophy. The latter is demarcated in comparison to related yet different genres or approaches such as ‘philosophical autobiography’, ‘philosophy of life’ and Stanley Cavell’s understanding of the relation between the philosophical and the autobiographical. Evangelou turns once more to Ecce Homo in order to illustrate the dynamic relation between Nietzsche’s life and work in conjunction with the gradual deterioration of his mental state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Comparative Literature, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Angelos Evangelou

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  1. Angelos Evangelou
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Evangelou, A. (2017). Nietzsche and Autobiographical Philosophy . In: Philosophizing Madness from Nietzsche to Derrida. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57093-8_2

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