The Republic of Genius: A Reconstruction of Nietzsche’s Early Thought

While his influence remains controversial, there is little dispute regarding the enormous influence and continuing relevance of Frederich Nietzsche. To the popular mind, Nietzsche is best-known as the iconoclastic philosopher of ‘nihilism’ who proclaimed God is dead , and erected the Superman as the meaning and goal of life. Nietzsche is also commonly identified as the thinker who went beyond good and evil in the name of a transvaluation of all values , culminating in an affirmation of the will to power and eternal recurrence . Such associations are predictable insofar as the vast majority of what has been written about Nietzsche revolves around these doctrines, which are generally taken to constitute the essence of his thought. Yet two-thirds of Nietzsche’s finished works contain no direct references to these doctrines. Rejecting the prevalent view that Nietzsche’s early writings are significant only in relation to his ‘mature’ philosophy, Quentin Taylor has written the first full-length study of Nietzsche’s early philosophy. Drawing on a diffuse body of writings, Dr Taylor adeptly reconstructs the principal tenets of Nietzsche’s early thought with an emphasis on its positive and constructive dimensions. As such, this study fills a sizeable gap in the literature on Nietzsche and represents a seminal contribution to a more balanced and accurate understanding of his philosophy. DR QUENTIN P. TAYLOR is an independent scholar who received his Ph.D in political science from the University of Missouri. He has also written extensively on Plato, Machiavelli, and The Federalist Papers.