Nietzsche's Daybreak consists of five-hundred and seventy five numbered aphorisms spread unevenly throughout five books. None of the five books are titled, although each aphorism is titled with a word or phrase that has some correlation to its meaning. Nietzsche does not indicate whether or how the individual aphorisms relate to one another, nor does he give any reason for dividing and ordering the five books in the manner that he has. On its surface Daybreak appears to have no coherent structure; and indeed, some commentators contend that the book has no real order to speak of. i
But Nietzsche does not leave readers of this bright book in complete darkness with respect to its literary character. In his 1886 preface to Daybreak , which was added five years after the book's original publication date, he remarks that "a book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; we both, I just as much as my book, are friends of lento. " With a style whose trademark is its searing audacity, Nietzsche reminds his readers that:
"it is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, a teacher of slow reading:--in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste--a malicious taste perhaps?--no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every son of man who is 'in a hurry'. [...] My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!-" ii
Since I am still far from being a perfect reader of Nietzsche, and even farther from being a perfect philologist, what I offer in this essay is an introduction to the reading of Daybreak from the perspective of a reader who takes the book as seriously as Nietzsche himself did. What follows is an interpretation of the first fifteen aphorisms of book one conducted in the manner that Nietzsche prescribes in his late preface. I believe that such a reading shows that Daybreak is not the hodgepodge of random aphorisms that it appears to be on its surface, but rather that it is a deliberately composed philosophical exposition whose organizational principle manifests itself when given adequate attention.
In the first section of the paper I discuss aphorisms one through eight in chronological order, paying particular attention to Nietzsche's thematic juxtaposition of morality and science. I try to articulate the nature of the challenge that he thinks science poses to morality, and I consider what he means when he implies that he wants to do ''justice" to all things by doing away with "ethical significance." This task requires a redefinition of the term 'justice" in non-ethical, value free, and purely scientific terms.
In the second section I continue my chronological interpretation with an examination of aphorisms nine through thirteen. I establish a metaphysical basis for Nietzsche's critique of the concept of morality by considering his lengthy remarks on what he calls "the concept of the morality of custom". My intention in this section is to provide a clear picture of Nietzsche's account of moral history and moral metaphysics as he understood them in his Daybreak , not as he may have come to understand them in the more popular works of the mid and late 1880's. "With this book," Nietzsche says of Daybreak in his late autobiographical text Ecce Homo , "my campaign against morality begins." iii
In the third and final section of the paper I complete my chronological interpretation with a consideration of aphorisms fourteen and fifteen. I then provide the reader with a summary of what lies ahead in aphorisms sixteen through ninety-six. In the first half of the section I give an account of the motive behind Nietzsche's call for a "reeducation of mankind," and I show why this reeducation cannot take its bearings from previous attempts at moral and religious reeducation. In the second half of the section, I give an overview of book one as a whole by linking the earlier critique of the morality of custom with the scathing critique of Christianity that Nietzsche begins in aphorism fifty-seven. This critique continues until the ninety-sixth and final aphorism of book one.
In order to lend support to my effort to unite the first half of book one with the second half, I conclude the paper with a chronological interpretation of aphorisms fifty-two through fifty-six. These five aphorisms mark the transition point between the broader theme of the first half of book one (the critique of the whole concept of morality) and the more particular theme of the second half (the critique of Christian morality specifically).
"In this book," Nietzsche says in his late preface to Daybreak , "faith in morality is withdrawn--but why? Out of morality! " iv The paper as a whole can be most succinctly understood as my attempt to make sense of this paradoxical assertion.
i See: Arthur Danto, Nietzsche's Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality , "Nietzsche as Philosopher: Expanded Edition" (New York Columbia University Press, 2005). ii Daybreak , Preface 5. iii Ecce Homo , Why I Write Such Good Books, Daybreak Section 1. iv Daybreak , Preface 4.
