Graduation Year

2008

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Government

Reader 1

Charles R. Kesler

Reader 2

Gregory D. Hess

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2008 Paul A. Snell, Jr.

Abstract

Richard Rorty found Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of epistemology (perspectivism) to be a helpful tool in getting us to stop thinking of knowledge as something we find, and instead as something that we create. He also found perspectivism to be a helpful tool in that of the private sphere, of private self-creation. The Nietzsche that provides perspectivism is “The Good Nietzsche”. Rorty, however, conceived of Nietzsche’s ideas as being absolutely useless when it comes to politics, along with his ideas regarding morality, the Will to Power, and the Übermensch. These are the ideas of “The Bad Nietzsche”. Rorty’s actual usage of Nietzsche’s ideas, however, defies such easy, self-defined categorization, because these ideas extend outside of their spheres into the realm of politics in Rorty’s own writings. Most traditional analyses of the relationship between Nietzsche and Rorty as it regards politics tend to focus on Nietzsche. By focusing on Rorty’s appropriation of Nietzsche, through looking at his extensive writings and interviews, a more subtle, and complex relationship between Nietzsche’s various ideas and Rorty’s politics is seen to exist.

Comments

Previously linked to as: http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/u?/stc,38

OCLC number: 549439180

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