Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche

Contents

Preface ix List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1 Three Concepts of Individuality 8 1.1 The Natural Individual 10 1.2 The Formal Individual 17 1.3 Rousseau and the Historical Individual 22 2 Hegel’s Defense of Individuality 25 2.1 The Distinctively Human Subject and the Good Life 28 2.2 The Autonomy of the Laboring Subject 32 2.3 The “Infinite Worth” of Individual Character 44 3 Hegel on the Ethical Individual 56 3.1 The Origin of Community 57 3.2 The Nature of Community 63 3.3 Politics as the Highest Ethical Community 78 4 Hegel on the Modern Political Individual 84 4.1 The Ancient Versus the Modern State 85 4.2 Expansion of Desire in Modern Commercial Society 87 4.3 Estates and Corporations as Ethical-Political Communities 96 5 Nietzsche’s Defense of Individuality 111 5.1 The Problem of Individuation in Nietzsche 113 5.2 The Will to Power and the Development of the Distinctively Human 117 5.3 Individuality as a Narrative Unity 129 Contents viii Contents 6 Nietzsche on the Redemptive Individual 140 6.1 The Tension in the Bow and Human Community 141 6.2 Silenus’ Truth 146 6.3 The Aesthetic Justification of Existence 149 6.4 The Individual’s Redemption 154 6.5 Eros and Eris of Community 162 7 Nietzsche on the Antipolitical Individual 170 7.1 Historical Development of State and Culture in Modernity 171 7.2 On the Nature and Function of the Modern State 179 7.3 The Possibilities of Modern Culture 190 Conclusion 199 Notes 211 References 249 Index 259 ...