Nietzsche's Rhetoric

This book excavates the rhetorical devices that Nietzsche habitually uses anddemonstrates how they circumscribe rather than expand the reader's interpretivehorizon. Through a sustained analysis of Nietzsche's rhetorical style, stratagems,and didactic aims in two of his early works ('On Truth and Lies in a Non-MoralSense' and Daybreak) and two of his later works (Beyond Good and Evil and Twilightof the Idols), the book assesses the extent to which Nietzsche's substantialrhetorical arsenal undermines the philosophical claims he is seeking to advance.The four case studies also bring to the fore some of the less palatable aspects ofNietzsche's thought such as racial stereotyping, the essentialising of a so-calledslave mentality, and the ranking of human beings based on a highly idiosyncraticand prejudiced view of what qualifies as noble and ignoble.