“Presupposing that truth is a female” A Comparison between Nietzsche’s Preface to the Beyond Good and Evil and Kant’s Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason

Abstract

Despite many differences between Kant’s work and Nietzsche’s, there are some very interesting similarities between their prefaces to their two main books: Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and Kant’s Critique of Pure reason.In these prefaces, they both present critiques of dogmatism and metaphysics and hope for a philosophy of future which is far away from dogmatism. For Kant, it is still a critical metaphysics which he himself has built its foundation in Critique of Pure Reason, while for Nietzsche it still needs much work to emerge. In the current study, it is tried to explain these themes in three parts. My introduction paves the way for showing the similarities. The second part indicates what Kant and Nietzsche exactly mean by dogmatism and why they both believe in its demise. Finally, I will end the study by expressing Kant’s and Nietzsche’s hope for a philosophy of future to which they regarded their books as a prelude.

Keywords

• dogmatism
• metaphysics
• critical philosophy
• empiricism
• philosophy of future