Nietzsche’s Plato, between symbol and caricature.

Nietzsche repeatedly deals with Plato’s manifold and ambiguous personality, his writings, the history of the impact of his thought. Since the Basel lectures, Plato the symbol is used according to a threefold register: monumental, antiquarian, critical. The controversy with Platonism is constant; however, the challenged image of moralist Plato is defined as a “caricature” which is similar to Augustine’s and Schopenhauer’s readings, defined as belittling and redundant in some passages. Interpretations not influenced by metaphysical-moral dualism are considered, with the emergence, beyond the uninterrupted fight “with” Plato, of a more sporadic but intriguing fight “on” Plato.