“What Young Nietzsche Thinks About the State”: The Contributions of Hobbes and Thucydides

Abstract

This text seeks to understand the influences that young Nietzsche received for his conceptions of the State. Although it may appear that his primary influence was Thomas Hobbes, especially due to the definition of the state of nature as a war of all against all, our interpretative hypothesis places greater emphasis on Thucydides, who influenced both thinkers. This article is divided into two parts: in the first, we analyze the similarities between Nietzsche and Hobbes; in the second, we explore the influence of Thucydides, discussing a posthumous fragment in which Nietzsche comments on a paradigmatic episode from the History of the Peloponnesian War.