The Joyous Science, first published in 1882 and expanded in 1887, brings together thoughts on a wide variety of topics written by the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche in almost 400 aphorisms. It is considered the final work of his “free-spirited” period.

The stylistic form of the aphorism—which describes a single thought, an insight, or opinion in just one sentence or a few sentences—is Nietzsche’s way of addressing the relationship between art and science beyond the usual discursiveness of scholarly texts. In five chapters (books), he critiques the positive nineteenth-century concept of science and articulates the insight that science, as a “joyous science,” must necessarily be aesthetic and life-affirming. Art and science are above all human activities and therefore interpretations, not definitive truths, according to a positive concept of science.

Nietzsche argues that science must be seen from the perspective of art and thus in terms of its creative potential as an open, productive process.