A Remark on "the Particular Peace" in Philosophy in Wittgenstein and Nietzsche

This article outlines a Nietzschean interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s late remarks on ‘the peace of philosophy’ in The Big Typescript (Ts213), the Pre-War Investigations (Ts220) and Philosophical Investigations. With reference to the new prefaces that Nietzsche wrote for the republished editions of The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too Human I and II, Daybreak, and The Gay Science, it is suggested that “the particular peace of mind” at which philosophy aims involves a renewed ability “to go down deep” in “your most immediate” and “familiar surroundings” (Ms131, 182). It is claimed that both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein call attention to “the golden watchword”: “Peace all around me and goodwill to all things closest to me” (WS 350). The outlined Nietzschean interpretation of Wittgenstein’s grammar of “the peace of philosophy” touches on Nietzsche’s ideas about “second innocence” and “active forgetting”, and on Wittgenstein’s restless fly in the fly bottle.