Abstract

Four different interpreters of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy each find that a different logic pervades that philosophy. According to Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche's thought is riddled with self-contradictions. Martin Heidegger argues that Nietzsche's philosophy moves through the logic of reversal, the most important example of which being the reversal of Western metaphysics. Jacques Derrida reveals the differing and deferring logic of what he calls difference at play throughout Nietzsche's writing. For Gilles Deleuze Nietzsche's thought interprets and evaluates through a logic of multiple affirmation. ;The argument seeks to interpret each of these four interpretations of Nietzsche, always with an emphasis on the particular logic that each finds in Nietzsche's philosophy. As this logic in each case coheres with the kinds of evidence, the forms of argument, and, most importantly, the very logic that each of the interpreters uses in his interpretation of Nietzsche, an exploration of the role of logic in their works is in fact an exploration of the way in which each stakes out and manages a certain domain of thought, in other words an exploration of what Maurice Merleau-Ponty would call the entire "style" of their works. ;Not only does the interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy produced by each of the four interpreters in question find that one logic pervades Nietzsche's thought, but moreover in each case that very logic in fact pervades both the interpreter's interpretations of other philosophers and the interpreter's own philosophy as a whole. An analysis of each of the four different "monological" styles of interpretation, , seeks to understand the role of style, and especially of the particular logic that in each case orients that style, in the work of these four historians of philosophy. The ability of the "monological" approach to impart a strong sense for the variety of philosophies in the history of philosophy is implicitly questioned by the use of a different logic, , to interpret each interpretation of Nietzsche