Zachary Schroeder

Despite several decades of attempts to interpret and articulate Nietzsche’s political thought, especially its relationship with democracy, there seems to be no convergence in sight. While this might be easily written off as a consequence of that thinker’s tendency for ambiguity and contradiction, I contend that there is in fact a central pillar of Nietzsche’s political philosophy, authenticity. I extract this central emphasis on authenticity by offering a fresh methodological approach. This approach draws our focus to Nietzsche’s technique of inversion as it applies to his critiques of democracy. Nietzsche’s criticism draws us to the core of the tension between his own philosophical project and the reality of democracy in his time. This subsequently reveals what would make for an authentic democracy faithful to Nietzsche’s core philosophical commitments. The gist of Nietzsche’s criticism of democracy is that it is not, in fact, democracy. Yet, as I show, this is not simply critical, as Nietzsche offers an alternative in the wake of this characteristic inversion. This inversion complicates our understanding of the democratic citizen, their needs, and capabilities. As such, I venture to trace the roots of his criticism, how the problem he raises affects contemporary politics, and what his proposed solution in the form of a commitment to authenticity would look like. In the end, I argue that this focus on authenticity as a central pillar of Nietzsche’s political thought will not only clarify his use for political philosophy but serve as a powerful resource for political theorists looking to use his work to think about democracy.

Reiner Schürmann’s The Philosophy of Nietzsche, edited by Francesco Guercio, provides a comprehensive detailing of the philosopher’s corpus while interpreting it largely through the lens of Kantian Transcendentalism. Schürmann claims that Kant’s transcendental philosophy is the horizon of Nietzsche’s transvaluation of all values and roots each element of Nietzsche’s thought in the Kantian concept from which he believes it actually derives. Schürmann claims this is necessary “to understand the horizon within which Nietzsche’s transvaluation of all values, and primarily his transvaluation of reason and truth, actually applies (17).” By interpreting Nietzsche in this way Schürmann is eventually able to derive a moral imperative from Nietzsche’s transvaluation of the will through the concept of eternal recurrence. Schürmann’s coverage of Nietzsche is comprehensive and detailed. It succeeds in its task of establishing him within the broader philosophical discourse. While some of the conclusions Schürmann draws are thought in a manner compatible with his own, particularly in relation to the tragic double bind, I see no reason to think of them as uncharitable or unreasonable. Any reader would walk away from this book with a firm grasp of core Nietzschean concepts, but that is not all. In this work one finds the beginning of an altogether different Nietzsche, a positive Nietzsche. While we have been thoroughly treated to Nietzsche’s negative concepts through his reclamation in the 20th century, Schürmann successfully pulls back the veil on a vast reservoir of thought that is, as of yet, largely untouched. For anyone looking to do serious work on Nietzsche in the future, it is my firm opinion that this will be a fundamental and necessary text.