The Surface and the Abyss

Peter Bornedal provides an interpretation of Nietzsches philosophy as a whole in the context of 19th century philosophy of mind and cognition. The study explains Nietzsches notion of truth; his epistemology; his notions of the split and fragmented subject, of master, slave, and priest; furthermore, it offers a new interpretation of the enigmatic eternal recurrence. It also suggests how important aspects of Nietzsches thinking can be read as a sophisticated critique of ideology. From studies in Nietzsches work as a whole, not least in his so-called Nachgelassene Fragmente, the book reconstructs aspects of Nietzsches thinking that have largely been under-described in especially the Anglo-Saxon Nietzsche-reception. The study makes the case that Nietzsche in his epistemology, his psychology, and his cognitive theory is responding to several scientific discoveries occuring during the 19th century. Read within the context of contemporary cognitive-psychological-evolutionary debates, Nietzsches philosophy is seen as far more scientistic, and far less poetical-metaphysical, than it has in recent reception-history been received.