Pour une généalogie du relativisme nietzschéen: Schopenhauer

The aim of the paper is to try to understand whether and to what extent a form of "relativism" occurs in Nietzsche, moving from the Schopenhauerian roots of Nietzschean thought. The radical critique and the subsequent detachment from Schopenhauer undoubtedly represent a crucial moment in the theoretical evolution of Nietzsche's thought. Nevertheless, the importance of this fact is likely to hide from the keener eye how certain crucial aspects of Schopenhauer’s thought continue to be present in Nietzschean theoretical articulation. Beyond the differences that separate them in fact, many and decisive are the contact points between the two; among others: both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche argue a radical atheism and determinism; a strong theoretical and ethical aristocratism, and both are interested in bringing the ethical investigation on empirical grounds. Above all, both support a common critical and skeptical stance towards Kantian moral absolutism. Such attitude can be thought of as the root of both Schopenhauerian and Nietzschean relativism, a relativism to be understood originally and very generally as opposed to an "absolute" that, declined in terms of "absolute duty" or "absolute knowledge", can be defined by both philosophers as “contradictio in adjecto”. In the light of the contact points between the two philosophers, finally and in spite of Nietzsche’s implicit claim of originality, Nietzsche’s relativism would seem to be a restatement of Schopenhauer’s.