Nietzche´s Philosophy of Religion

In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche observes that Greek tragedy gathered people together as a community in the sight of their gods, and argues that modernity can be rescued from ´nihilism´ only through the revival of such a festival. This is commonly thought to be a view which did not survive the termination of Nietzsche´s early Wagnerianism, but Julian Young argues, on the basis of an examination of all of Nietzsche´s published works, that his religious communitarianism in fact persists through all his writings. What follows, it is argued, is that the mature Nietzsche is neither an ´atheist´, an ´individualist´, nor an ´immoralist´: he is a German philosopher belonging to a German tradition of conservative communitarianism - though to claim him as a proto-Nazi is radically mistaken. This important reassessment will be of interest to all Nietzsche scholars and to a wide range of readers in German philosophy.
Contents Introduction; 1. Schopenhauer: on man´s need for metaphysics; 2. The birth of tragedy; 3. Untimely meditations; 4. Human, all too human; 5. The gay science; 6. Zarathustra; 7. Beyond good and evil; 8. The genealogy of morals; 9. The Wagner case; 10. Twilight of the idols; 11. The antichrist; 12. Ecce homo; Epilogue: Nietzsche in history.