Abstract

A fundamental problem in philosophy involves the question of how to apply the insights of philosophy to culture at large. This dissertation focuses on a pivotal episode in German intellectual and philosophical history, namely the period of transition from a classicist vision to a modernist vision of the aims and needs of culture, which culminated in Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Nietzsche problematizes this period of transition in his early work, where he seeks to reconcile philosophy and culture mainly through a philosophy of education. ;Writing during the time when German culture was departing from the classicist ideals of Goethe, Schiller, and Humboldt, and moving toward a nationalist, industrial, and statist vision of cultural interests, Nietzsche sensed a profound cultural crisis. In his view, the clash between the classicist and modernist visions of culture was being falsely resolved by a misplaced sense of complacency and cultural self-satisfaction. Nietzsche criticized the educational and cultural institutions of his time for abandoning their perennial responsibilities in order to tailor these institutions to the interests of the political state. ;In contrast to this complacent surrendering of cultural values and vision, Nietzsche argued that an "effective culture" is one that engages in a continuous process of "self-overcoming." Nietzsche calls this process "untimeliness." This dissertation clarifies and expands upon Nietzsche's conception of untimeliness vis a vis the roles in culture of philosophy, the educator, and educational institutions, and finally as the source of a unique conception of virtue ethics which emerges from the perspective of untimeliness