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The Centrality and Development of Anschauung in Nietzsche's Epistemology
- The Journal of Nietzsche Studies
- Penn State University Press
- Volume 43, Number 2, Autumn 2012
- pp. 326-341
- Article
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This article traces the evolution of a single concept—Anschauung— in Nietzsche's thinking. It shows that Nietzsche relies to a great extent in his early epistemology on Schopenhauer's romantic notion of Anschauung as a way of apprehending timeless and universal ideas. After The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche begins to use the term to designate the mental process of transference by which stimulation becomes a choate representation. In a third phase of development, Nietzsche abandons any positive use of the term and employs Anschauung instead as a sarcastic watchword for essentialist epistemologies generally. Although it has been nearly ignored in anglophone literature, the changing context of its employment is an essential aspect of Nietzsche's development as a thinker.