This is an argument that philosophy is born with and dependent on the idea of nature and that this idea was first discovered or manifested in the perception of biological reality in particular the perception of hereditary transmission of physical and behavioral qualities together with the perception that moral and legal codes are relative and contingent It was generally only within the spiritual and intellectual horizon of certain types of aristocracies to have access to such perceptions as well as ability and liberty to openly state or explore them A connection is further observed on these grounds between philosophy and tyranny or rather the philosopher and tyrant as closely related types that emerge during the decline of e g Greek and Renaissance Italian aristocratic communities I make this case through a study of Nietzsche s reading of antiquity in particular his reading of Plato and Pindar or rather a Nietzschean reading of these The first long chapter also covers George Frazer and anthropological and historical literature as well as Homer This is a revised version of my own doctoral dissertation and includes a long new introduction explaining my intentions in this book I make the case in this introduction that this same matter of selective breeding whether sexual selection or various societies management of marriage and reproduction constitutes the most important part of morality legislation or of the lawgiver s art and that a sharp awareness of this reality is what led again to the discovery of the standard of nature and the subsequent birth of philosophy The type of the tyrant is ultimately interpreted as a kind of active philosophy although it must be emphasized that such can only be the case for the ancient Greek or Renaissance Italian type not what is called by the name tyrant indiscriminately today Accordingly the voice of Callicles in Plato s Gorgias is interpreted as the political philosophy or the weaponized posture of the pre Socratic philosophical type

Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy PDF

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