Matthew Tones examines the early ontological development of the tragic disposition in Nietzsche's analysis of the pre-Platonic Greeks and its influence on Nietzsche's quest to discover a future nobility. This book fuses the popular reading of Nietzsche as a naturalist with noble creative impulses to reveal further complexities in his mature work.

Nietzsche, Tension, and the Tragic Disposition exposes the role of tension in Nietzsche’s recovery, in his mature thought, of the Greek tragic disposition. Matthew Tones examines the ontological structure of the tragic disposition presented in Nietzsche's earliest work on the Greeks and then explores its presence in points of tension in the more mature concerns with nobility. In pursuing this ontological foundation, Tones builds upon the centrality of a naturalist argument derived from the influence of the pre-Platonic Greeks. He examines the ontological aspect of the tragic disposition, identified in Nietzsche’s earliest interpretations of Greek phusis and in the inherent tensions of the chthonic present in this hylemorphic foundation, to demonstrate the importance of tension to Nietzsche’s recovery of a new nobility. By bringing to light the functional importance of tension in the ontological for the Greeks, the book identifies varying points of tension present in different aspects of Nietzsche’s later work. Once these aspects are elaborated, the evolving influence of tension is shown to play a central role in the re-emergence of the noble who possesses the tragic disposition.

With solid argumentation linking Nietzsche with the pre-Platonic Greek tradition, Nietzsche, Tension, and the Tragic Disposition brings new insights to studies of metaphysics, ontology, naturalism, and German, continental, and Greek philosophies.