Abstract

In my dissertation, Nietzsche as Critic and Captive of Enlightenment, I explore Nietzsche's often virulent critique of the Enlightenment tradition. In particular I examine his attack on the kind of subjectivity implied by Cartesian rationalism. I also look at his challenges to the politics of Rousseau and the ethics of Kant. I then investigate the ways in which he critiques the nineteenth century inheritors of Enlightened thought. Here I look at his attack on the liberalism of John Stuart Mill, as well as his criticism of the scientific thought of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. My dissertation concludes with an examination of Nietzsche's Overman; I argue that although Nietzsche made vigorous efforts to escape the influence of Enlightenment, the concept of the Overman forced him to retain certain important elements of Enlightened thought. These include a utopian faith in human progress and an idea of human subjectivity which has profound affinities with the Enlightenment's impulse to autonomy