Abstract

ABSTRACT This article speculatively reconstructs what I call Howard Caygill’s “unwritten book” on Nietzsche, based on the collection of Caygill’s philosophical essays, Force and Understanding (2021). I propose that an engagement with Nietzsche’s thought runs throughout Caygill’s work, although it would be a mistake to label Caygill a “Nietzschean.” One particularly relevant aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy is his conception of philological reading. After outlining this, I examine the Nietzsche who emerges from Caygill’s essays and thus the central themes of the “unwritten book.” I close by considering the implications of my account for the distinction between two philosophical forms: the treatise and the essay.