Benedetta Zavatta

The paper shows that Nietzsche’s theory of tropes as patterns of association of mental representations, which permeate everyday thinking and speaking, is deeply rooted in the tradition of German semasiology (semantics). Nietzsche was able to recast in a coherent paradigm the various suggestions to be found in the work of linguists and philologists of his time. Furthermore, thanks to his wide-ranging and idiosyncratic readings, his work benefited from the most striking research results in the fields of experimental psychology, biology and physiology, the result being a most original and modern theory. That is why it may be interesting and fruitful to compare his philosophy of language and, specifically, his theory of tropes, with the recent results of Cognitive Linguistics.

Metaphorical meaning can be analyzed as triggered by an apparent communicative breach, an incongruity that leads to a default of the presumptive interpretation of a vehicle. This breach can be solved through contextual renegotiations of meaning guided by the communicative intention, or rather the presumed purpose of the metaphorical utterance. This paper addresses the problem of analyzing the complex process of reasoning underlying the reconstruction of metaphorical meaning. This process will be described as a type of abductive argument, aimed at explaining how the vehicle can best contribute to the purpose of the utterance. This type of reasoning involves the analysis of the possible predicates that can be and usually are attributed to the vehicle, and the selection of the one that can support the implicit conclusion constituting the communicative goal of the metaphorical utterance. Metaphorical meaning, in this perspective, becomes the outcome of a complex process of meaning reconstruction aimed at providing the best explanation of the function of the vehicle within a discourse move

Für Emerson ist die self-reliance die Haupteigenschaft des großen Menschen, sie ist das Ergebnis von Selbsterkenntnis und Selbsbeherrschung. In moralischer Hinicht ist die self-reliance der Ursprung für den Heroismus, auf intellektuellem Gebiet ist sie die Quelle des Genies. Das Thema der self-reliance ist der Hauptgrund für die Atraktivität, die die Werke des Amerikaners auf Nietzsche ausüben. Wie ein roter Faden zieht sich dieses Thema durch den sich über einen Zeitraum von fünfundzwanzig Jahren ersteckenden Dialog mid Emersons Texten. Es stellt in Nietzsches Werk einen Zusammenhang zwischen Schopenhauer als Erzicher und Zarathustra her, die beide Nietzsches Ideal des Ausnahmeindividuums verköpern, das über und gegen seine Zeit lebt.For Emerson self-reliance is the fundamental characteristic of a great man, being the product of self-acquaintance and self-possession. From a moral point of view, self-reliance is the origin of heroism, in the intellectual field it is the source of genius. The theme of self-reliance is the primary reason for the attraction that the American author's works exercised on Nietzsche. Like a fil rouge this theme runs through the virtual dialogue that he held with Emerson's writings over a period of more than twenty-five years. It generates in Nietzsche's work a continuity between Schopenhauer the educator and Zarathustra, who both incarnate the Nietzschean ideal of an exceptional individual who lives above and against his own time

ABSTRACT Nietzsche was an avid reader of Emerson's essays, and their influence is discernible from his earliest philosophical writings through to his final philosophical works. Nietzsche's copies of Emerson's books are covered with traces of his reading, from underlinings, exclamation marks, question marks, and dog-eared pages to numerous annotations and philosophical comments written in the margins. I use some of these to analyze the influence Emerson exerted on Nietzsche's conception of history and historiography. The two authors can be considered “twin souls” in that they both praised the strengthening effects of past greatness and, at the same time, opposed psychological subjugation or fanaticism. Nevertheless, they were not twin minds: Nietzsche rejected Emerson's metaphysical concept of an Oversoul and turned it into the ideal of a Dionysian soul, which aims at reliving the history of humanity in order to increase its power.

In den Jahren 1872-1874, 1876-1878 und schließlich erneut in der zweiten Hälfte det achtziger Jahre benutzte Nietzsche die Sprachanalyse als Waffe gegen die Mataphysik. Indem er verdeulichte, dass die Sprache als historisches Apriori des Denkens eine grundlegende Rolle innerhalb der Erkenntnissynthese spielt, kritisierte er die vermeintlich 'Reinheit' der Vernunft und folglich die Idee, dass diese zu allgemeingültigen, notwendigen Wahrheiten gelangen könne. Bei der Darlegung seiner Position knüpfte Nietzshe an einige Sprachphilosophen der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts an, die im Rahmen ihrer Erörterung der eziehung zwischen Denken und Sprach im Lichte der Lehre Kants und Humboldts die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Tatsach gelenkt hatten, dass sich in der Sprach eine wahre Mythologie verbigt. In beträchtlichem Maße beeinflusse diese unbewusst nicht allein unsere Wirklichkeitsauffassung, sondern auch die Instrumente, die einer kritischen Wirklichkeisreflexion dienen müssten - wie Missenschaft und Philosophie.In 1872-74, in 1876-78, and once again in the second half of the eighteen-eighties, Nietzsche used linguistic analysis as a weapon against metaphysics. Emphasising the fact that language, as a historical apriori structure of thinking, plays a fundamental role in cognitive synthesis, he criticised the expected 'purity' of reason and, consequently, the idea that this may result in universal and necessary truths. In sustaining his position Nietzsche referred to certain linguistic philosophers of the second half of the nineteenth century who, when discussing the thought-language relationship in view of teh lessons from Kant and Humboldt, called attention to the fact that language hides, if unconsciously, unadulterated mythology which powerfully conditions not only our vision of reality, but also the tools - such as science and philosophy - on which is thought critically ponder