This thesis is an investigation into the ontological basis of pessimism. I develop a Nietzschean interpretive framework of pessimism, based on a distinction Nietzsche makes between two types of...Show moreThis thesis is an investigation into the ontological basis of pessimism. I develop a Nietzschean interpretive framework of pessimism, based on a distinction Nietzsche makes between two types of pessimism in The Gay Science 370: romantic and Dionysian pessimism. According to Nietzsche, this distinction is based on a dynamic articulated using the language of physiology. This dynamic is either expanding or degenerating. The thesis relates this distinction to Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's notions of a 'world of appearance' to test if their ontology testifies to a romantic or Dionysian pessimism. Their ontologies are interpreted as either a transfiguration of romantic or Dionysian pessimism. I then develop a reading of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy. I argue that Schopenhauer’s notion of representation or appearance is central to his metaphysics. I then interpret his punctum pruriens of philosophy as a priori pessimism permeating the whole of Schopenhauer’s philosophy resulting in an ethics of renunciation. I then lay out Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer in the Genealogy, based on the aforementioned physiological dynamic. In the last chapter, I investigate Nietzsche’s world of appearance, characterized as semblance or ‘Schein’. I relate this to Nietzsche’s aesthetics and art as a transfiguration of Dionysian pessimism. However, the question is whether Nietzsche’s philosophy itself is the transfiguration of Dionysian pessimism. I then explain how Nietzsche does this by means of a project of life affirmation through the notions of perspectivism and the will to power.Show less
The striking similarities between Adorno’s ideal of philosophical writing — the so-called constellation — and his ideal of musical structure makes Adorno prone to the allegation that his...Show moreThe striking similarities between Adorno’s ideal of philosophical writing — the so-called constellation — and his ideal of musical structure makes Adorno prone to the allegation that his philosophical writing is an illegal trespassing from the domain of philosophy to that of art. This thesis researches whether this allegation is founded or not. It therefore presents Adorno’s philosophy of negative dialectics and his theory of constellation in order to look at their interconnection and refutes the arguments for the beforementioned allegation. The thesis claims that Adorno’s constellation is not aesthetically, but philosophically motivated, more specifically ethically, because Adorno’s philosophy in its entirety is an ethically motivated theory of concepts. It further claims, that his constellation is grounded in the old philosophical tradition of performativity and the young tradition of performative writing; and that his philosophy as a whole, as a ethically motivated theory of concepts, as well the ethical motivation of the performativity of his writing, is grounded in what Brandom calls Kant’s ‘normative turn’.Show less
