Nietzsche's philosophic politics and the crisis of the West

My dissertation tries to answer a practical question: what is the intention of Nietzsche's teaching? What is the goal he pursues? I argue that this goal cannot be understood except against the backdrop of his diagnosis of the crisis of the West, and what he takes to be the ultimate origin of that crisis in Platonism. His positive project is addressed to this diagnosis, and I argue that Nietzsche attempts to provide a new philosophic teaching with a political goal: a transvaluation of values and therewith a transformation of a declining civilization. Nietzsche hopes this transformation will be revivifying.;The first three chapters deal with Nietzsche's diagnosis, focusing on his early confrontation with historicism (chapter 1), his critique of Christianity and Platonism (chapter 2), and his discussion of herd morality and the last man (chapter 3). These chapters deal with Nietzsche's untimely critique of his own age.;The next three chapters are concerned with Nietzsche's positive project, beginning with an account of his own understanding of philosophy as commanding and legislating (chapter 4). The discussion of the relationship between will to power and values (chapter 5) serves to ground the discussion of the means that Nietzsche will employ in his own project of philosophical legislation. He intends to accomplish this through a new metaphysical-religious teaching, the eternal recurrence, which is a doctrine meant to accomplish the revaluation of values (chapter 6). Finally, the dissertation concludes (chapter 7) by asking whether Nietzsche's diagnosis is, in fact, correct: insofar as his positive project is based upon his diagnosis of the Western crisis, if that diagnosis is incorrect, his philosophic legislation may be found wanting. I highlight some weaknesses in his critique of metaphysics and Christianity, and in particular I focus on his critique of the state, arguing that it is not as broad as he seems to think, and that in particular the early American natural-rights republic is less vulnerable to his critique.