Abstract This article takes seriously Nietzsche’s claim in the second edition preface to Daybreak that we will “discover a ‘subterranean man’ at work.” This article argues that Nietzsche’s nuanced connection to rationalism is manifest in this subterranean self-image. After presenting an interpretation of Nietzsche’s extended metaphor linking his metaphorical underground thinker to a method of going underneath epistemological grounds, the article compares Nietzsche’s subterranean image with two underground tropes from antiquity: katabasis (a mythical journey to the underworld) and Plato’s allegory of the cave from Republic. In one sense Nietzsche’s subterranean philosopher undermines traditional notions about philosophy embodied by Plato and Socrates. But in another sense, Nietzsche carries forward some of the aims and innovations he connects to Plato and Socrates. Both Nietzsche’s engagement and his disengagement with rationalism are manifest in his subterranean thinker.
Laurence Wildman (Thu,) studied this question.