Abstract

This book is a revised version of the author’s doctoral dissertation, and for better or worse bears the stamp of its provenance. Ahern explores the “dynamics” of the “physiology” imbedded in Nietzsche’s thinking as the interpretive key to the whole of Nietzsche’s philosophy—to its dominant themes, its underlying philosophical motive, and even its view of interpretation. The main focus is “Nietzsche’s conception of sickness and health” as “the standard permeating [his] philosophy”. Ahern attempts to show how this conception constitutes a physiologically based “clinical standpoint” from which Nietzsche operates as a “physician of culture”. His contention is that to become a cultural physician capable of diagnosing and prescribing the cure for the modern sickness of nihilism is Nietzsche’s principal philosophical task.