Abstract
This paper explores the methodological expedient applied by Merleau-Ponty on the work and the life of Cézanne: the life as demand of a work. We discuss how this expedient offers a key to the controversial relations between Nietzsche’s life and Nietzsche’s work, both in terms of how Nietzsche presents himself internally in his work, and in analyzing how the circumstances of his life (illness, loneliness, friendship, nomadism, geography, climate, and bodily distractions) can be interpreted as demands of the kind of work he has set out to formulate. This brings us to a new strategy to interpret the genealogy of Nietzsche’s work and, with it, of the whole history of philosophy.
Keywords
Life; Work; Nietzsche; Merleau-Ponty; Cézanne