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In 'Hiking With Nietzsche,' Challenges Are Seen Through The Philosopher's Teachings

John Kaag extracts ideas from Nietzsche and his followers — but also from his own experience — in this stimulating book about combating despair and complacency with searching reflection.
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Philosophy professor John Kaag's 2016 book, American Philosophy, was a heady mix of memoir and intellectual history wrapped up in a romantic story of a lost library and new love. In Hiking with Nietzsche, he tries to repeat this feat by chronicling his return — with his second wife and their toddler daughter — to the scene of his near-fatal teenage attempt to follow Nietzsche's trail and thought processes through the Swiss Alps.

His alpine scrambles, which are both physical and mental, are fascinating,

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