The Disenchantment of Reason: The Problem of Socrates in Modernity

This book is an examination of nineteenth-century interpretations of Socrates by Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche in the light of the contemporary debates over rationality in the modern world. These interpretations of Socrates have fundamentally influenced modern and postmodern thought, and their complexity reflects both an attraction to, and a fear of, the peculiarly modern concept of reason that Socrates is read as embodying.

Socrates is seen in this book as an emblematic figure through w...