German philosophy#
Summary#
Nietzsche critiques German philosophy as having been built on Kant’s pride in discovering “new faculties,” particularly synthetic judgment a priori. This led to a youthful exuberance of philosophical discovery during German Romanticism, which Nietzsche dismisses as essentially a “virtus dormitiva”—a sleeping potion that gratified mystics, theologians, and political obscurantists across Europe while providing an antidote to Enlightenment sensualism.