Abstract
Based on a review of the literature and historical evidence, I argue that the use of the methodological principle known as the priority principle in Anglo-American Nietzsche scholarship is inconsistent and irreconcilable with historical evidence. It attempts to demarcate between the published works and the Nachlass. However, there are no agreed upon necessary and sufficient conditions of a particular textual object being considered “Nachlass.” This absence leads to implicit and often tacit value demarcation criteria that can be broadly grouped into four types of consideration: publication, authorization, publicness, and audience. Each of these criteria pick out a different set of texts as “Nachlass.” Thus, despite the veneer of agreement, the most broadly accepted methodological approach in the Anglo-American tradition of Nietzsche scholarship is applied inconsistently. I argue that we must either offer necessary and sufficient conditions for a piece of text being Nachlass, or we ought to abandon such abstract criteria altogether and embrace a contextual and historical approach. I then argue that the first option is impossible given historical evidence. I conclude this article by explicating several recent German approaches to the Nachlass which I think can offer a new possible approach.
Acknowledgment
I am grateful to Joshua Rayman and Erli Mertika for reading drafts of this article.
Bibliography
Abel, Günter: Nietzsche: Die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr, Berlin 199810.1515/9783110827873Search in Google Scholar
Agell, Fredrik: Die Frage nach dem Sinn des Lebens: Über Erkenntnis und Kunst im Denken Nietzsches, Munich 200610.30965/9783846741740Search in Google Scholar
Alderman, Harold: “Nietzsche’s Nachlass: A Reply to Henry Walter Brann”, International Philosophical Quarterly 13.4 (1973), 551–55210.5840/ipq197313462Search in Google Scholar
Ansell-Pearson, Keith: An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist, Cambridge 199910.1017/CBO9780511606144Search in Google Scholar
Ansell-Pearson, Keith: “Guide to Further Reading”, in On the Genealogy of Morality and Other Writings, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, Cambridge 199710.1017/CBO9780511606144.017Search in Google Scholar
Assoun, Paul-Laurent: Freud and Nietzsche, New York 2000Search in Google Scholar
Baeumler, Alfred: “Nachwort”, in Der Wille Zur Macht: Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte, Leipzig 1930Search in Google Scholar
Baeumler, Alfred: Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker, Leipzig 1931Search in Google Scholar
Bataille, Georges: On Nietzsche, trans. Stuart Kendal, New York 2015Search in Google Scholar
Bellioti, Raymond Angelo: Jesus or Nietzsche: How Should we Live our Lives, New York 201310.1163/9789401209250Search in Google Scholar
Bellioti, Raymond Angelo: Stalking Nietzsche, Westport, CT 1998Search in Google Scholar
Bishop, Paul: Analytical Psychology and German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller, and Jung, vol. II: Constellations of the Self, New York 200910.4324/9780203960868Search in Google Scholar
Bishop, Paul: “Kommentar zu Nietzsches ‘Die Geburt der Tragödie’ by Jochen Schmidt, and: Kommentar zu Nietzsches ‘Der Fall Wagner’, ‘Götzen-Dämmerung’ by Andreas Urs Sommer, and: Kommentar zu Nietzsches ‘Der Antichrist’, ‘Ecce homo’, ‘Dionysos-Dithyramben’, ‘Nietzsche contra Wagner’ by Andreas Urs Sommer (Review)”, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 46.1 (2015): 132–13710.5325/jnietstud.46.1.0132Search in Google Scholar
Bishop, Paul: “Link to the Nachlass”, in Paul Bishop (ed.), A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche: Life and Works, New York 2012, 399–404Search in Google Scholar
Bittner, Rüdiger: “Editor’s Introduction”, in Writings from the Late Notebooks, trans. Kate Sturge, Cambridge 2003Search in Google Scholar
Blanchot, Maurice: The Step Not Beyond, trans. Lynette Nelson, Albany, NY 1992Search in Google Scholar
Born, Marcus Andreas: “Nietzsches rhetorische Inszenierung der Psychologie”, in Jutta Georg / Claus Zittel (eds.), Nietzsches Philosophie des Unbewussten, Berlin 201210.1515/9783110282061.197Search in Google Scholar
Born, Marcus Andreas / Pichler, Axel: “Text, Autor, Perspektive: Zur philosophischen Bedeutung von Textualität und literarischen Inszenierungen in Jenseits von Gut und Böse”, in Marcus Andreas Born / Axel Pichler (eds.), Texturen des Denkens: Nietzsches Inszenierung der Philosophie in “Jenseits von Gut und Böse”, Berlin 2013, 15–4610.1515/9783110298901.15Search in Google Scholar
Breazeale, Daniel: “Introduction”, in Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, New York 1979Search in Google Scholar
Breazeale, Daniel: “Untimely Meditations”, in Robert Pippin (ed.), Introduction to Nietzsche, New York 2012, 67–9010.1017/CBO9781139051736.006Search in Google Scholar
Brobjer, Thomas: “Nietzsche’s Early Writings”, in Paul Bishop (ed.), A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche: Life and Works, New York 2012, 24–48Search in Google Scholar
Brobjer, Thomas: “Nietzsche’s Forgotten Book: The Index to the Rheinisches Museum für Philologie”, New Nietzsche Studies 4.1/2 (2000): 157–16110.5840/newnietzsche200041/25Search in Google Scholar
Campioni, Giuliano / D’Iorio, Paolo / Fornari, Maria Cristina / Fronterotta, Francesco / Orsucci, Andrea (eds.): Nietzsches persönliche Bibliothek, Berlin 200310.1515/9783110896138Search in Google Scholar
Church, Jeffrey: Nietzsche’s Culture of Humanity: Beyond Aristocracy and Democracy in the Early Period, Cambridge 201510.1017/CBO9781316341322Search in Google Scholar
Clark, Maudemarie: Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, Cambridge 199010.1017/CBO9780511624728Search in Google Scholar
Clark, Maudemarie / Dudrick, David: The Soul of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Cambridge 201210.1017/CBO9781139032865.010Search in Google Scholar
Cox, Christopher: Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation, Berkeley, CA 199910.1525/9780520921603Search in Google Scholar
Crescenzi, Luca: “Verzeichnis der von Nietzsche aus der Universitätsbibliothek in Basel entliehenen Bücher (1869–1879)”, Nietzsche-Studien 23 (1994), 388–44210.1515/9783112421543-019Search in Google Scholar
Daniels, Paul Raimond: Nietzsche and the Birth of Tragedy, New York 201310.4324/9781315730165Search in Google Scholar
Danto, Arthur C.: Nietzsche as Philosopher, exp. edn., New York 2005Search in Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques: Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles, trans. Barbara Harlow, Chicago 1979Search in Google Scholar
Diethe, Carol: Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Urbana, IL 2003Search in Google Scholar
Endres, Martin / Pichler, Axel: “‘warum ich diesen mißrathenen Satz schuf ’: Ways of Reading Nietzsche in the Light of KGW IX”, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 44.1 (2013), 90–10910.5325/jnietstud.44.1.0090Search in Google Scholar
Evangelou, Angelos: Philosophizing Madness From Nietzsche to Derrida, Canterbury 201710.1007/978-3-319-57093-8Search in Google Scholar
Evans Jr., Daw-Nay N. R.: Nietzsche and Classical Greek Philosophy: The Beautiful and Diseased, New York 2017Search in Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel: The Archeology of Knowledge, trans. a. M. Sheridan Smith, New York 2010Search in Google Scholar
Gerhardt, Volker: Pathos und Distanz: Studien zur Philosophie Friedrich Nietzsches, Stuttgart 1988Search in Google Scholar
Gilman, Sander L. / Blair, Carol / Parent, David J.: “Introduction”, in Sander L. Gilman / Carol Blair / David J. Parent (eds.) Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, New York 1989Search in Google Scholar
Giuriato, Davide / Zanetti, Sandro: “Von der Löwenklaue zu den Gänsefüßchen: Zur neuen Edition von Nietzsches handschriftlichem Nachlaß ab Frühjahr 1885,” Text: Kritische Beiträge 8 (2003): 89–105Search in Google Scholar
Golomb, Jacob: “How to De-Nazify Nietzsche’s Philosophical Anthropology?”, in Jacob Golomb / Robert Wistrich (eds.), Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy, Princeton, NJ 2002, 19–4610.1515/9781400825332.19Search in Google Scholar
Golomb, Jacob: “Will to Power: Does it Lead to the ‘Coldest of all Cold Monsters’?”, in Ken Gemes / John Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, Oxford 2013, 525–550Search in Google Scholar
Groddeck, Wolfram: Friedrich Nietzsche: “Dionysos-Dithyramben”, Berlin 1991Search in Google Scholar
Groddeck, Wolfram: “‘Vorstufe’ und ‘Fragment’: Zur Problematik einer traditionellen textkritischen Unterscheidung in der Nietzsche-Philologie”, in V. M. Stern (ed.), Textkonstitution bei mündlicher und bei schriftlicher Überlieferung, Tübingen 1991, 165–17510.1515/9783110946956.165Search in Google Scholar
Groddeck, Wolfram / Kohlenbach, Michael: “Zwischenüberlegungen zur Edition von Nietzsches Nachlaß”, Text. Kritische Beiträge 1 (1995): 21–39Search in Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin: Nietzsche, vol. II: Eternal Recurrence of the Same, New York 1991Search in Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin: Nietzsche, vol. III: The Will to Power as Knowledge, New York 1991Search in Google Scholar
Hinz-Bode, Kristina: “Susan Glaspell and the Epistemological Crisis of Modernity: Truth, Knowledge, and Arit in Selected Novels”, in Martha Carpentier (ed.), Susan Glaspell: New Directions in Critical Inquiry, Newcastle 2006, 89–108Search in Google Scholar
Hollingdale, R. J.: Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy, Cambridge 199910.1017/9781108667562Search in Google Scholar
Hollingdale, R. J.: “Translator’s Preface”, in Untimely Meditations, ed. Daniel Breazeale, Cambridge 2003Search in Google Scholar
Hollinrake, Roger: Nietzsche, Wagner, and the Philosophy of Pessimism, vol. III, New York 201010.4324/9780203092705Search in Google Scholar
Holub, Robert: Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism, Princeton, NJ 201610.1515/9781400873906Search in Google Scholar
Hyden, Deborah: Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis, New York 2004Search in Google Scholar
Jaspers, Karl: Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of his Philosophical Activity, trans. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J. Schmitz, Baltimore, MD 1997Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Dirk R.: Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism, Cambridge 201010.1017/CBO9780511762215Search in Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Walter: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Buber, New Brunswick, NJ 200910.4324/9781315125312Search in Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Walter: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, New York 2003Search in Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Walter: “Translator’s Preface”, in Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York 198910.1515/9780857454775-003Search in Google Scholar
Kirkland, Paul: Nietzsche’s Noble Aim: Affirming Life, Contesting Modernity, New York 2009Search in Google Scholar
Klossowski, Pierre: Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, trans. Daniel W. Smith, London 1997Search in Google Scholar
Krummel, Richard Frank: “Josef Paneth über seine Begegnung mit Nietzsche in der Zarathustra-Zeit”, Nietzsche-Studien 17 (1988): 478–49510.1515/9783112418581-025Search in Google Scholar
Larmore, Charles: Morals of Modernity, New York 199710.1017/CBO9780511625091Search in Google Scholar
Macintyre, Ben: Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth Nietzsche, New York 2013Search in Google Scholar
Magnus, Bernd: “How the True Text Finally Became a Fable”, Nietzscheana 6 (1997), 1–27Search in Google Scholar
Magnus, Bernd / Stewart, Stanley / Mileur, Jean-Pierre: Nietzsche’s Case: Philosophy as/and Literature, New York 199310.4324/9781315866536Search in Google Scholar
Magnus, Bernd: “Nietzsche’s Philosophy in 1888: The Will to Power and the Übermensch”, Journal for the History of Philosophy 24.1 (1986), 79–9810.1353/hph.1986.0017Search in Google Scholar
Magnus, Bernd: “The Use and Abuse of The Will to Power”, in Robert Solomon / Kathleen Higgins (eds.), Reading Nietzsche, Cambridge 1990, 218–237Search in Google Scholar
Martin, Nicholas: Nietzsche and Schiller: Untimely Aesthetics, Oxford 199610.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159131.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
McCuaig, William: “Translator’s Note”, in Gianni Vattimo, Dialogue with Nietzsche, trans. William McCuaig, New York 2000Search in Google Scholar
Meyer, Matthew: Reading Nietzsche through the Ancients: An Analysis of Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Principle of Non-contradiction, Berlin 201410.1515/9781934078433Search in Google Scholar
Montinari, Mazzino: Reading Nietzsche, trans. Greg Whitlock, New York 2003Search in Google Scholar
Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang: Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of his Philosophy, trans. David J. Parent, Urbana, IL 1999Search in Google Scholar
Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang: Über Werden und Wille zur Macht: Nietzsche-Interpretationen, Berlin 199910.1515/9783110802788Search in Google Scholar
Nehamas, Alexander: Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Cambridge, MA 2012Search in Google Scholar
Neymeyr, Barbara / Schmidt, Jochen / Sommer, Andreas Urs / Anderson, Lisa Marie: “The Nietzsche Commentary of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities”, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 42 (2011), 100–10410.5325/jnietstud.42.1.0100Search in Google Scholar
Oehler, Max: Nietzsches Bibliothek, Weimar 1942Search in Google Scholar
Poellner, Peter: Nietzsche and Metaphysics, Oxford 200010.1093/0198250630.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Pothen, Philip: Nietzsche and the Fate of Art, New York 200210.4324/9781315100081Search in Google Scholar
Reginster, Bernard: The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, Cambridge, MA 200810.4159/9780674042643Search in Google Scholar
Reich, Hauke: Rezensionen und Reaktionen zu Nietzsches Werken: 1872–1889, Berlin 201310.1515/9783110297270Search in Google Scholar
Remhof, Justin: Nietzsche’s Constructivism: A Metaphysics of Material Objects, New York 201810.4324/9781315410050Search in Google Scholar
Reuß, Roland: “Text, Entwurf, Werk”, Text: Kritische Beiträge 10 (2005), 1–12Search in Google Scholar
Richardson, John: Nietzsche’s System, New York 200210.1093/0195098463.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Röllin, Beat / Stockmar, René: “‘Aber ich notire mich, für mich’: Die IX. Abteilung der Kritischen Gesamtausgabe von Nietzsches Werken”, Nietzsche-Studien 36 (2007), 22–4010.1515/9783110192827.0.35Search in Google Scholar
Röllin, Beat / Haase, Marie-Luise / Stockmar, René / Trenkle, Franziska: “‘Der späte Nietzsche’: Schreibprozeß und Heftedition”, in Thomas Fries / Peter Hughes (eds.), Schreibprozesse, Munich 2007, 103–11510.30965/9783846744703_007Search in Google Scholar
Röllin, Beat / Stockmar, René: “Nietzsche lesen mit KGW IX: Zum Beispiel Arbeitsheft W II 1”, in Martin Endres / Axel Pichler / Claus Zittel (eds.), Text/Kritik: Nietzsche und Adorno, Berlin 2017, 1–3810.1515/9783110304053-001Search in Google Scholar
Rosen, Stanley: The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, New Haven, CT 2004Search in Google Scholar
Rottmann, Mike: “Nietzsche erhaschen oder der verbotene Blick in die Werkstatt: Der Nachlass als historische und hermeneutische Herausforderung”, Nietzscheforschung 22 (2015), 127–13710.1515/nifo-2015-0111Search in Google Scholar
Safranski, Rüdiger: Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, trans. Shelley Frisch, New York 2003Search in Google Scholar
Sax, Leonard: “What Are the Causes of Nietzsche’s Dementia?”, Journal of Medical Biography 11 (2003), 47–5410.1177/096777200301100113Search in Google Scholar
Schaberg, William H.: The Nietzsche Canon: A Publication History and Bibliography, Chicago 1995Search in Google Scholar
Schacht, Richard: Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely, Urbana, IL 1995Search in Google Scholar
Schlechta, Karl: Der Fall Nietzsche: Aufsätze und Vorträge, Munich 1959Search in Google Scholar
Schrift, Alan: Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation: Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction, New York 1990Search in Google Scholar
Schrift, Alan: “Nietzsche’s Nachlass”, in Paul Bishop (ed.), A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche: Life and Works, New York 2015, 405–428Search in Google Scholar
Shapiro, Gary: Alcyone: Nietzsche on Gifts, Noise, and Women, Albany, NY 1991Search in Google Scholar
Shilingsburg, Peter L.: Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice, 3rd ed., Ann Arbor, MI 199810.3998/mpub.10431Search in Google Scholar
Slack, George J.: Nietzsche’s Anthropic Circle: Man, Science, Myth, New York 2005Search in Google Scholar
Small, Robin: “What Nietzsche did During the Science Wars”, in Gregory Moore / Thomas Brobjer (eds.), Nietzsche and Science, Burlington, VT 2004, 155–17010.4324/9781315247960-8Search in Google Scholar
Smith, Gregory B.: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Transition to Postmodernity, Chicago 1996Search in Google Scholar
Solms-Laubach, Franz zu: Nietzsche and Early German and Austrian Sociology, Berlin 200710.1515/9783110911480Search in Google Scholar
Solomon, Robert: What Nietzsche Really Said, New York 2000Search in Google Scholar
Sommer, Andreas Urs: “Nietzsche: An Immanentist?”, Performance Philosophy Journal 3.3 (2017), 563–57510.21476/PP.2017.33185Search in Google Scholar
Sommer, Andreas Urs: “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil kritischer Quellenforschung”, Nietzsche-Studien 29 (2000): 302–31610.1515/9783110244472.302Search in Google Scholar
Sommer, Andreas Urs: “What Nietzsche did and did not Read”, in Tom Stern (ed.), The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, Cambridge 2019, 25–4810.1017/9781316676264.002Search in Google Scholar
Sorgner, Stefan Lorenz: Metaphysics without Truth: On the Importance of Consistency within Nietzsche’s Philosophy, Munich 1999Search in Google Scholar
Stegmaier, Werner: “After Montinari: On Nietzsche Philology”, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 38 (2009), 5–1910.2307/jnietstud.38.2009.0005Search in Google Scholar
Stegmaier, Werner: Friedrich Nietzsche zur Einführung, Hamburg 2011Search in Google Scholar
Stegmaier, Werner: Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie: Kontextuelle Interpretation des V. Buchs der Fröhlichen Wissenschaft, Berlin 201210.1515/9783110269765Search in Google Scholar
Stewart, James: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Political Thought, New York 2002Search in Google Scholar
Tambling, Jeremy: Reading the Will: Law and Desire in Literature and Music, Portland, OR 2012Search in Google Scholar
Victor, Eugene Wolfenstein: Inside/outside Nietzsche: Psychoanalytic Explorations, London 200010.7591/9781501719578Search in Google Scholar
Whitlock, Greg: “Translator’s Introduction”, in Mazzino Montinari, Reading Nietzsche, trans. Greg Whitlock, New York 2003Search in Google Scholar
Whitlock, Greg: “Translator’s Preface”, in The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, Chicago 2006Search in Google Scholar
Williams, Linda: Nietzsche’s Mirror: The World as Will to Power, New York 2001Search in Google Scholar
Williams, Linda: “Will to Power in Nietzsche’s Published Works and the Nachlass”, Journal of the History of Ideas 57.3 (1996), 447–46310.1353/jhi.1996.0027Search in Google Scholar
Winchester, James J.: Nietzsche’s Aesthetic Turn: Reading Nietzsche after Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida, Albany, NY 1994Search in Google Scholar
Woodward, Ashley: “Klossowski’s Nietzsche”, in Ashley Woodward (ed.), Interpreting Nietzsche: Reception and Influence, New York 2011Search in Google Scholar
Young, Julian: Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, Cambridge 201010.1017/CBO9781139107013Search in Google Scholar
Young, Julian: The Death of God and the Meaning of Life, Cambridge 200310.4324/9780203480861Search in Google Scholar
Zittel, Claus: Das ästhetische Kalkül von Friedrich Nietzsches “Also sprach Zarathustra”, Würzburg 2000Search in Google Scholar
Zittel, Claus: “Nachlaß 1880–1885”, in Henning Ottmann (ed.), Nietzsche-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Weimar 2000, 138–142Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston