Kantianism of Hegel and Nietzsche

“Though the form and content of human consciousness often appear to exhibit great variability, Diderot nevertheless remarks that the final conscious thought, whatever it might be, cannot help but retain some affinity with the first human idea. Diderot thereby shares the insight at the heart of the present study, namely, that human thinking, especially philosophical thinking, expresses a continuity even in those passages when it seems most intent on opposing preceding thought ... As is appropriate for a work concerned with the continuities of philosophical renovation, so too is this work, properly considered, itself a work of renovation. The present study renovates the standard narrative of how German philosophy progressed from Kant to Hegel to Nietzsche. It rejects the long-held assumption that Hegel and Nietzsche overturn Kantian metaphysics and aesthetics. It instead demonstrates, through clear and insightful discussions, the very particular manners in which Hegel and Nietzsche, in regard to questions of truth, value, and beauty, renovate and bring to fruition these three key aspects of Kant’s Critical Philosophy.” – Professor Tom Huhn, School of Visual Arts, New York

“Most philosophers search for roots of their thinking. The search yields a few of their ancestors with whom they are comfortable. Given a certain level of comfort, they renovate the ancestral home and rearrange their furniture. The ancestors may not recognize their own renovated homes, but this is as it should be – they would have to sit on their successors’ shoulders for seeing what in their own time they couldn’t even glimmer. This book does better ... it renovates and rearranges the ancestral homes of Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. The result is a fine book that philosophers may ignore only at their own peril.” – Professor Laurent Stern, Rutgers University

“This book is a carefully crafted scholarly work. It canvasses central themes in post-Kantian German philosophy with subtlety and wit and with an eye toward retrieving key historical and philosophical continuities among its main figures ... The main argument of the book is very clearly delineated and followed. In fact, the book has the quality of an extended monographic argument about the centrality of the renovation of the given in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German philosophy ...” – Professor Gregg M. Horowitz, Vanderbilt University

Acknowledgements
Foreword by Professor Tom Huhn
Introduction
1. On Truth
2. On Intrinsic Value
3. On Beauty
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index