Abstract

In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche deploys two mythological figures, the Greek gods Dionysus and Apollo, to serve as the foundation of his account of art. The use of mythology in philosophical contexts is not unprecedented; but it is rare in modern philosophy. It raises several interpretive questions: Should myths be taken as true? Should the symbolic meaning of myths be granted the same status in our reasoning as the knowledge we gain from direct and confirmable experience? If myths are taken as true, what are the epistemological and metaphysical contexts within which their truth finds its home? These questions lurk in the background of The Birth of Tragedy . ;In this dissertation I attempt to answer them. I argue that for Nietzsche there is an important sense in which myths are true. Reaching outside the text of The Birth of Tragedy to some of his other writings, I attempt to articulate the artists' metaphysics which Nietzsche himself later said was operative in The Birth of Tragedy. This metaphysics is founded on the experience of the tragic artist, an experience typified by the Dionysian breakdown of personal identity and the subsequent raising of an Apollinian artistic vision, the fractured vision of tragedy. I connect this account of tragedy with some elements of the metaphysical views Nietzsche inherited from Schopenhauer. I argue that embracing Nietzsche's artists' metaphysics requires a resort to mythic imagery as a means of expression. ;I also argue here for the development within philosophy of a kind of thinking I call discernment. Discernment involves the understanding of symbolic or figurative, as opposed to literal, representations of truth. I draw upon the work of Carl Jung to provide a framework within which to discuss discernment; and I show the ways in which assuming the exercise of discernment is necessary for understanding some of Nietzsche's other texts, both thematically and stylistically