Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the terms and constitutive concepts of that phase of Nietzschean thought which precedes the publication of the 1872 work The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. In particular, the concept of “tragic thoughtµ will be analysed (tragisches Gedanken), which refers to the creative character of the thought in question, which directs its shaping energies mainly towards man. The central point of our path is Nietzsche’s writing of the summer of 1870, The Dionysian vision of the world (Die dionysische Weltanschauung).