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It is often difficult in reading a text of Heidegger's on another thinker to distinguish between Heidegger's thought and that of the person he is interpreting. Despite Heidegger's insistence that we need only Nietzsche's texts and should put to the side secondary sources in reading Nietzsche, we often find in reading Heidegger's Nietzsche that it is as important to understand Heidegger's own thought as it is to meditate on Nietzsche's thought. Perhaps this is because Heidegger's ">Nietzsche is not a secondary source but a primary philosophical text requiring that we confront it on its own terms as a matter for thought. Does a confrontation between two thinkers, such as is going on in this work, move in its own orbit and open up something essential that moves between them and belongs to neither of them? If so, then Heidegger's Nietzsche cannot be read and critically evaluated according to the standards established for faithful commentaries. What then are the methodological requirements that govern a confrontation of this sort and prevent the conversation from becoming either a one-sided taking over of another's thought or a one-sided repetition of what was said? If we assume that Heidegger's Nietzsche is such a dialogue, what are some of the conditions Heidegger says are necessary for such an event to take place?

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-2805-3_7

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