Abstract

Three themes central to understanding Friedrich Nietzsche's Die Frohliche Wissenschaft, relativism, naturalism, and "the age of laughter," are carefully defined and traced through the work. The influence of these ideas on other themes, the nature of art, the role of women, and anti-nationalism, also present in Die Frohliche Wissenschaft comes under examination as well. Lastly, the traditional Nietzschean themes of the eternal recurrence, the revaluation of all values, the Ubermensch, and the will to power are examined for the presence of influence by relativism, naturalism, and "the age of laughter." Finally, Nietzsche's thought is examined under the one paradigm he would recognize as appropriate, contemporary science