How did the will come to dominate the self-understanding of the modern subject? What lies at
the root of the megalomania of desire that defines human experience in the age of global
technology? In Modern Philosophies of the Will Reiner Schürmann traces a philosophical
archeology of the willing subject from Ancient Greece into the 20th century. Through a series
of original readings of Kant Schelling Nietzsche and Heidegger Schürmann uncovers the
strategic interplay of submission and command that sets the stage for the will's epochal
triumph while hinting at possibilities of subverting its mastery over both the self and the
world. With an appendix offering a polemical critique of Hannah Arendt's The Life of the Mind
as well as an editorial afterword contextualizing these lectures in Schürmann's broader work
this volume will be of value to specialist and student alike.
