Abstract

Following a line of interpretation first adumbrated by Nietzsche, my thesis looks to an implied ontology and epistemology in classical tragedy as a basis for analyzing Plato's objections to tragedy. Nietzsche had contrasted the poetic pessimism of tragedy with the theoretical optimism of Socrates and Plato. I offer an interpretation of Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy in which I suggest that the perspectivism that Nietzsche saw in tragedy was the foundation of this contrast. Then, following my interpretation of Nietzsche, and borrowing from Hegel's idealistic account of tragedy , I argue a perspectivist epistemology and a coherentist ontology in classical tragedy. I show how the Hegelian/Bradleyan ontology that is implied in tragedy is analogous to non-realist or coherentist ontologies in early pre-Socratic thought. Finally, after contrasting these early metaphysical systems with the thought of Parmenides, I show that Parmenidean ontology conditions Plato's rhetorical practice against tragedy. ;The first chapter presents and overview of Nietzsche's perspectivism and discusses perspectivism in The Birth of Tragedy. ;Chapter two is a discussion of the dramatization of clashing perspectives in the Greek tragedies themselves. I draw an analogy between the clashing perspectives in tragedy and the rival opposites in Anaximander and Heraclitus. I then show how the Greek notion of "kosmos" is a unifying principle not only for pre-Socratic cosmologies but also for classical tragedy. Such a unifying principle together with the notion of polarized forces suggests a coherentist metaphysics, a system of interrelated and interdependent parts. ;In the final chapter I follow a non-realist interpretation of Heraclitus to argue a non-realist model for Anaximander as well. I then set up a parallel between the world view of Parmenides as set against Heraclitus and Anaximander on the one hand, and that of Plato as set against tragedy on the other. I show that several aspects of the Parmenidean critique condition Plato's quarrel with tragedy