Abstract

In 1886, as Nietzsche's thought becomes more explicitly oriented toward the project of a revaluation of all values, he reframes BT and three middle period books with prefaces. Four out of the five prefaces show Nietzsche noticeably occupied with the theme of health, which serves in each of those four as a lens orienting the reader toward his earlier work. In his "Attempt at Self-Criticism," for instance, Nietzsche suggests that the principal contribution of BT lies in the idea of the Dionysian, which carries the promise that there might exist "neuroses of health".1 The preface to GS finds Nietzsche looking for a "philosophical physician" who might "pursue the problem of the total...