Kaufmann's account of the relationship between Greek tragedy and philosophy — arguing against Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy while drawing on it, and presenting an original theory of tragedy.
A critique of Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy: Nietzsche was wrong about Euripides (who was not Socratic) and about the Apollonian/Dionysian distinction. Kaufmann's own theory: tragedy's essence is its confrontation with the inhumanity of fate — characters destroyed by forces they cannot control, which illuminates human limitation. Hegel's account of tragedy recovered and defended.
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