La Nietzsche's Early Critique of Transcendental Idealism and Its Possible Programmatic and Methodological Consequences

Abstract

Although in the recent interpretation of Nietzsche's work there is a discussion about his relationship with Kant's transcendental idealism, it is not possible to deny today that this relationship existed and that much of this influence is a product of his particular reading of Schopenhauer. Despite the distance he would soon take from this theory of knowledge, it is possible to suggest that several features of his philosophy are closely related to the criticism he made of it between 1872 and 1873, specifically in On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense and the "Notes on Rhetoric". This article defends the idea that both Nietzsche's agreements and disagreements with transcendental idealism shaped a series of his own approaches to the theory of knowledge that could explain his interest in the origin of values and search in physiology and history. The text is divided into three parts. The first part briefly presents the theory of knowledge proposed by Schopenhauer. In the second part, Nietzsche's critical reception of this theory is presented and his original approaches to the theory of knowledge are clarified. The third part proposes the hypothesis that this series of approaches can explain Nietzsche's interest in the origin of values and the search for this origin in history and physiology.