Heidegger’s Nietzsche

This dissertation has the character of an untimely meditation on two key figures in the history of political philosophy. The thought of Martin Heidegger and of Friedrich Nietzsche pose, independently of one another and in theoretical proximity, some of the most pressing challenges to modern thought. Granted the provocative, quite often 'liminal' mode of reason and style of these two radical thinkers, it is in the spirit of intellectual open-mindedness - to dialogically persist in the pursuit of the examined life at the core of our tradition - that I propose this essay at what we might call the interstice between hermeneutics and political philosophy. Heidegger and Nietzsche bring to our attention a 'spiritual crisis' of epic proportions that in their account originates in European culture and that has become increasingly global in the contemporary world. It is my intent in this project to shed light on the ontological sources of this potentially transformative event, to understand and test the soundness of its claims, while pursuing a dialogue and apprenticeship with the towering figures at the forefront of the on-going history of political philosophy.