Idealism: A brief history, taxonomy, and Nietzschean evaluation (Friedrich Nietzsche)

The overall goal in this project is to unpack and clarify Nietzsche's position regarding idealism. Although few Nietzsche scholars and commentators discuss Nietzsche's arguments regarding idealism in much detail, many of those who do fail to give a consistent and tenable interpretation of Nietzsche's position. I will not pretend that I do that much better when it comes to presenting a coherent position on behalf of Nietzsche, but at minimum I think I succeed in isolating the problems with the previous interpretations.; The groundwork that must be established to address these issues is at least as important and philosophically interesting as that which it tries to ground. In the first two chapters, I catalog and disambiguate the various kinds of idealism; I supply the reader with a taxonomy of sorts for the concept "idealism." Though the analysis is reasonably broad and thorough, it is not exhaustive, for only those kinds of idealism explicitly or implicitly mentioned by Nietzsche are addressed. In Chapter One I address general forms of idealism, and in Chapter Two I populate those general forms with specific and historical philosophical positions. In Chapters Three and Four a commentary upon, and analysis of, Nietzsche's key arguments and statements regarding idealism is undertaken, concentrating mainly on Nietzsche's written work from 1877 through 1888 (the bulk of his mature period). Chapter Three contains a discussion of Nietzsche on idealism and idealistic tenets generally; in Chapter Four, Nietzsche's statements and arguments about specific idealist philosophers are addressed. Finally, in Chapter 5, in light of my research, I examine a few of the major competing theories regarding Nietzsche's reaction to idealism as put forth by various philosophers (principally those put forth by Peter Poellner, George Stack, and Maudemarie Clark), and propose that Nietzsche philosophy may best be seen as a blend of realism and idealism.