Nietzsche's Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of His Thought - Hardcover

Although some commentators consider Nietzsche sufficiently influenced by Kant to count him a neo-Kantian, the English literature on Nietzsche contains little information about what Nietzsche actually read of Kant's, much less a detailed study of Nietzsche's debt to Kant. Kevin Hill's book is a noteworthy attempt to fill in this gap in Nietzsche scholarship. Hill effectively counters the common view that Nietzsche neither read much Kant nor understood him very well, and that he arrived at his view of Kant largely through the distorting lens of Schopenhauer's philosophy. . . . Hill's book is to be recommended . . . for its provocative interpretation of Nietzsche's debt to Kant. (Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews)

Kevin Hill's highly original new interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy is the first to examine in detail his debt to Kant, in particular the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgement. Nietzsche, Hill argues, knew Kant far better than is commonly thought, and can only be thoroughly understood in relation to Kant.
Nietzsche's Critiques maintains that beneath the surface of his texts there is a systematic commitment to a form of early Neo-Kantianism in metaphysics and epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics, grounded in his reading of the three Critiques, Kuno Fischer's commentary on the first Critique, and Friedrich Lange's discussion of Kant in The History of Materialism. The book also documents the decisive influence Nietzsche's close reading of the Critique of Judgement had on the writing of the Birth of Tragedy, and offers a remarkably accessible interpretation of Kant's system, while clarifying such difficult issues as the interpretation of Kant's 'Transcendental Deduction' and his notion of reflective judgement.
Lucid and thorough, Hill's work will be of great value to scholars and students with interests in either of these philosophical giants, or in the history of ideas generally.