Gustav Gerber's Influence on the Young Nietzsche's Philosophy of Language
Keywords:
Nietzsche, Gerber, language, metaphorical, tropes, artAbstract
This paper examines the early Nietzsche's conception of language, as expounded mainly in Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne [1873] (On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense) and Darstellung der antiken Rhetorik [1874] (Presentation of Ancient Rhetoric). We aim to show that the early Nietzsche's conception of language was highly influenced by the thought of Gustav Gerber, as expounded mainly in Sprache als Kunst [1871] (Language as Art) (text that Nietzsche read directly as a professor in Basel), a monumental and deeply original book from the second half of the 19th century in Germany, which has unfortunately fallen into oblivion today. To achieve this goal, we will first analyze Nietzsche's conception of language in his two works mentioned above. Secondly, we will focus on the notion of language proposed by Gerber in Sprache als Kunst. It is essential for us to highlight the clear coincidences between the proposal of the young Nietzsche and Gerber, emphasizing the idea that language has a metaphorical and tropic character. This analysis of historical-philosophical sources shows that the first steps of Nietzsche's philosophy of language are clearly based on the thought of Gustav Gerber.
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