The philosopher’s physiognomy: laughter and anecdote in Nietzsche

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to elucidate the way in which the Nietzschean “project” gives laughter and anecdote a preeminent place in its thinking, thus acting against a philosophical tradition that has tended to locate them outside its own exercise. Laughter and anecdote converge, in Nietzsche, as dislocating powers of the ascetic filiation and the temperament of seriousness that have so far defined the grave philosopher’s physiognomy. By means of a transfiguration of this pathos, the philosophy is called, through this thinker, to gain the levity of the gay science.