Signature and Authorship in the Phaedrus
Signature and Authorship in the Phaedrus
This chapter analytically counterpoises the oral and graphic signatures more Aristotelico as also in a general ethical meditation, before reviving the question of agency as it reflects dialectic's uncertain status as a discourse stranded between its own determinations of science and muthos. The dynamic of play and seriousness, of game and gravity, which the Phaedrus weaves around the question of writing, is motivated by a desire to guard against the game becoming dangerous, the discursive mask masquerading as the man, the ludic being taken for the grave, the playful careening into the heinous, and the fatal. The closing phase of the chapter reviews the authorship as the unnameable concept on which the argument of the Phaedrus turns. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's unique status, his absolutely singular signature, makes him the archetypal figure of the ethics of writing as developed in the Phaedrus.
Keywords: Phaedrus, signature, authorship, writing, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ethics
Edinburgh Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.