Nietzsche on Reason

Nietzsche is thought of as someone who destroys reason. As such he has been attacked by authors ranging from Lukács through to Habermas.(1) In the following I would like to introduce his attempt at a restoration of reason. To be sure, Nietzsche declared that "human reason" is "not all that reasonable"(2) and that "not only the reason of millennia", but "their madness too" breaks out in us (Zarathustra, 189).(3) But Nietzsche also suggested a novel view of reason, which he called his "restored reason" ("The Four Great Errors", § 2, Twilight, 58).(4) In the following I would like to set out this perspective on reason. To me it seems worth thinking about (even though, of course, it is only one possible perspective on reason and, in the first place, that of Nietzsche). In three prepatory steps I will provide a short reconstruction of Nietzsche's theses on reason. First of all I will set out Nietzsches pragmatic reinterpretation of reason, secondly the relationship of reason to different types of life and then, thirdly, the relation between reason and passion. Following this, in a fourth step, I will move on to Nietzsche's "restored reason"