Nietzsche’s Legacy and Its Impact on Postmodern Philosophy: Derrida and Lyotard as Case Studies

Abstract

Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy represents a pivotal rupture in the trajectory of Western thought, exerting a profound and lasting influence on key figures of postmodern philosophy, particularly Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Derrida. Both philosopers drew extensively on Nietzsche’s radical critique of metaphysics and his rejection of foundationalist concepts such as absolute truth, moral universals, and fixed meaning.

For Derrida, Nietzsche’s legacy was instrumental in the formulation of deconstruction—a philosophical method aimed at exposing the internal instabilities and aporias inherent within philosophical and textual structures. Nietzsche’s perspectivism and his notion of the deferral of meaning deeply informed Derrida’s development of the concept of différance, through which he articulated the perpetual postponement and displacement of meaning within linguistic and textual systems. In Derrida’s reading, meaning is never fully present, but is instead constituted through traces and absences—a theme resonant with Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysical presence.