Abstract

Nietzsche is well known for his critiques of what he describes as the 'highest values', including, epistemic and moral values. Yet despite the fame of his critique not all of his writings are sceptical and few indeed have an unambiguously pessimistic character. In this dissertation I address the status of Nietzsche's critique in terms of his notion of the revaluation of all values. I argue that this revaluation has two clearly recognisable phases. A first phase which is characterised by critical scepticism, which climaxes in pessimism, and a second phase which is characterised by axiological transformation and affirmation. ;Thus I argue that revaluation refers both to critiques which uncover the hidden valuelessness of our highest values and to a subsequent transformation of the subjective character of some of those values, which restores their axiological significance. I also maintain that these two phases are not distinct, but, rather, that the attribution or affirmation, of value which is characteristic of the second phase of the revaluation of values, both emerges from and is made possible by the pessimism of the first phase. ;I proceed by following the course of the revaluation of epistemic values from scepticism to pessimism regarding the value of human existence. I maintain that it is the very pessimistic character of the question of the value of human existence, which contains the path by which values return and are affirmed. I argue that pessimism reveals the affective character of our axiological investment in the world: that we experience fear and despair at the possibility of the meaninglessness of our values the depth and nature of our investment in them. ;Thus a revaluation of our values involves a disclosure of those axiological conditions required to support an intelligible phenomenal horizon. I argue that in Nietzsche's thought, it is the necessity of supporting an intelligible experience of the world, which determines which values can be affirmed and how they are transformed by their affirmation. I conclude that this process of revaluation can be fruitfully understood in terms of Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal return