Richard Anton St. Onge

The Untimely Educator: an Interpretation of Nietzsche's Philosophy of Education Richard Anton St. Onge

Nietzsche?s philosophy affirms a political teaching regarding the future of humanity in direct relation to nature and life on Earth. With an aim to enhance humankind and raise the level of culture, this teaching is phrased in positive, distinctly counter-nihilistic and ecological terms of health and redemption. Such an interpretation of Nietzsche?s thought on the vital relationship of the human and culture to nature has hitherto gone unrecognized within the Anglo-American philosophy of education ? an oversight due in no small part to the fact that Nietzsche?s ideas challenge conventional, widely accepted democratic-egalitarian assumptions and expectations about both politics and education. Nevertheless, Nietzsche makes an edifying appeal to certain types of human beings who might undertake the project of self-cultivation and cultural transformation ? which he formulates in terms of ?renaturalized? value ? within the context of myriad crises of late-modernity. The educational possibility of becoming healthy and whole is essential to understanding the positive and otherwise relevant ?earth-redeeming? implications of Nietzsche?s inherently normative project.