American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas

by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Throughout his study, Kaufmann sought to make clear his agenda to reverse all trends in Nietzsche interpretation on both sides of the Atlantic, which cast him as either a Darwinist, a romantic, or a “wayward disciple” of Schopenhauer. Most of all, he wanted to establish Nietzsche as a serious philosopher. Kaufmann insisted that it was high time that Nietzsche be afforded his rightful “place in the grand tradition of Western thought.” In order to demonstrate that Nietzsche was “a major historical event” in the Western tradition, Kaufmann argued that it was necessary to put him in dialogue with the appropriate interlocutors: Socrates, Plato, Luther, Kant, Hegel, and Goethe. In fact, Kaufmann maintained that Nietzsche was best understood as an Enlightenment figure. Similar to Kant’s “motto” for the Enlightenment, “Have the courage to avail yourself of your own understanding” (Sapere aude!), Nietzsche defined his philosophical quest as the pursuit of intellectual self-sovereignty. “‘One thing is needed ’—namely,‘that a human being attain satisfaction with himself,’ recreate himself, and become a ‘single one’ by giving style to his character.”