La réception nietzschéenne des sophistes grecs

Abstract

This article is part of the discussion aimed at establishing the relationship that Nietzsche had with the Greek sophists. A three-step periodization allows us to show that he has indeed valued the Greek sophists since the time of his rhetoric courses in 1870 (section I), par­ticularly through considerations on language and agôn. The sophists, who have spread a higher education, are associated with the free spirit. Between 1876 and 1886, Nietzsche again qualifies them as free spirits and unites them under the figure of Thucydide (section II). At the very end of his life, he took a keen interest in their realism and immoralism (section III), which foreshad­owed his own critique of morality. Section IV analyzes Nietzsche’s interpretation of the Protag­orean thesis of man-measure.