Book Description
This volume offers, for the first time, accurate translations of a selection of writings from Nietzsche's late notebooks, dating from his last productive years between 1885 and 1889. Many of them have never before been published in English. They are translated by Kate Sturge from reliable texts in the Colli-Montinari edition, and edited by RÜdiger Bittner, whose introduction analyzes them in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. This volume will be widely welcomed by all those working in Nietzsche studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What's not said concerns me
Omissions by editor and translator concern me, and lead to this book's being less useful than it needs be for student use. Perhaps these will be fixed in a 2nd ed.

First, the translator says: "A large part of the present text has been available in English since the 1960's. . . ." Since 1968. That is the so-called "Will to Power" a pastiche of N's notes created by Gast and N's own notorious sister. Kaufmann and Hollingdale translated the WP, going back into N's original notes to clarify where Gast had tidied up too much.

Kaufmann in his notes to the text of WP explicitly indicates where parallel passages in WP have been incorporated into N's published works. In addition, he also identifies those of N's notes which remained unpublished.
Buy instead: The Will to Power

Sturge, the translator of this volume, does neither. Moreover, she nowhere indicates which of her passages do or do not form a part of WP. This makes it very difficult to compare her translation with those in WP. And, we are denied seeing just how many such passages there are. It would have been easy for her to compile such a list.

Second, both translator and editor, Bittner, totally ignore the vast output of work by Walter Kaufmann, both as translator and interpreter of N. Now, this goes beyond oddity. . . and should be corrected at least in the short section on suggested readings. How, for example, can Kaufmann's 4th ed of Nietzsche be passed over in silence.

Kaufmann started the reputable philosophical investigation of N back in the early 1950s at Princeton, where he taught until his death in 1980. A "must read" classic: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

Until matters of intellectual honesty get settled, it's pointless to go on to matters concerning N's philosophy itself. Let it be said, though, that Bittner has no ear for N's boundless irony and good humor.

Note: if you read German or Italian, N's Nachlass (the Notebooks) can be read in their entirety, untampered with. The editors in this case were two Italians, Colli and Montinari.

Leaves out comments about women, Germans
Modern readers are so picky in what they are willing to read that it is amazing so much has been picked from Nietzsche's late notebooks for our consideration. I even found something that I thought was good because it conforms entirely with my own way of thinking, when I am not thinking about women and Germans.

Just checking in WRITINGS FROM THE LATE NOTEBOOKS, which only has 2 pages mentioned in the index for superman, the idea seemed to apply to anyone whom Nietzsche did not consider part of the herd. It came up in his consideration of beauty:

The beautiful exists as little as does the good, the true. Each separate case is again a matter of the conditions of preservation for a particular kind of man: thus the value feeling of the beautiful will be aroused by different things for the man of the herd and for the exceptional and super-man. (p. 202).

Generally Nietzsche associates the superman with the secretion of a luxurious surplus from mankind, rather like Marx's theory of capitalists living off the surplus value of factory labor made possible by whoever owns the factory. For Nietzsche, the superman is only a metaphor for a stronger species, a higher type. To quote:

To show that an ever more economical use of men and mankind, a `machinery' of interests and actions ever more firmly entwined, necessarily implies a counter-movement. I call this the secretion of a luxurious surplus from mankind, which is to bring to light a stronger species, a higher type, the conditions of whose genesis and survival are different from those of the average man. As is well known, my concept, my metaphor for this type is the word `superman'. (p. 177).
That first path, which can now be perfectly surveyed, gives rise to adaptation, flattening-out, higher Chinesehood, modesty in instincts, contentment with the miniaturization of man -- a kind of standstill in man's level. Once we have that imminent, inevitable total economic administration of the earth, mankind will be able to find its best meaning as a piece of machinery in the administration's service: as a tremendous clockwork of ever smaller, ever more finely `adapted' cogs; as an ever-increasing superfluity of all the dominating and commanding elements; as a whole of tremendous force, whose individual factors represent minimal forces, minimal values. Against this miniaturisation and adaptation of men to more specialised usefulness, a reverse movement is required -- the generation of the synthesising, the summating, the justifying man whose existence depends on that mechanisation of mankind, as a substructure upon which he can invent for himself his higher way of being . . . (p. 177).
Just as much, he needs the antagonism of the masses, of the `levelled-out', the feeling of distance in relation to them; he stands upon them, lives off them. The higher form of aristocratism is that of the future. -- In moral terms, this total machinery, the solidarity of all the cogs, represents a maximum point in the exploitation of man: but it presupposes a kind of men for whose sake the exploitation has meaning. Otherwise, indeed, it would be just the overall reduction, value reduction of the human type -- a phenomenon of retrogression in the grandest style. (p. 177).
It can be seen that what I'm fighting is economic optimism: the idea that everyone's profit necessarily increases with the growing costs to everyone. It seems to me that the reverse is the case: the costs to everyone add up to an overall loss: man becomes less -- so that one no longer knows what this tremendous process was for. A `What for?', a new `What for? -- that is what mankind needs. . . (pp. 177-178).

Nietzsche's Immoral Psychology
Translator Kate Sturge gives us the Nietzsche our times deserve in this, a new edition of notes from the 1880s *Nachlass*. Based on the Colli-Montinari critical edition of Nietzsche's works, this book is not quite the "more accurate" portrayal of Nietzsche's late thought it claims to be: while Colli-Montinari vol. VIII offers both "pomes" and sketches for a reconstruction of society, for the most part we have here only Nietzsche's more traditionally "philosophical" thoughts. From the perspective of assessing the "uprightness" of the man, this is slightly unfortunate; although Nietzsche could genuinely claim to have predicted contemporary European economic and social integration, there is still truly much about his views that ought not to have been "rehabilitated" (e.g., defenses of slavery are thick on the ground). Praise of Nietzsche often serves as a sort of shell game, covering up revolting prejudices with more palatable criticisms: familiarizing oneself with Nietzsche's "detritus" is an important way to establish how far one can go with such sentiments. So this book will not serve all needs.

But setting this aside, the thoughts we are given are fine ones; and although Nietzsche's works on morality are usually viewed as examples of a Foucauldian "felicitous positivism", the picture of the mind offered here actually serves in many ways as a foundation for Nietzsche's view of ethics and society. Slogans are expanded upon: the cryptic "Truth is a kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live" gets an extensive gloss in terms of a theory of concepts as necessary simplifications of flux, and there are illuminating sections explaining just how "the prison-house of language" constrains our thought by inventing doers for deeds, and introducing a personalizing causality into natural phenomena. The selections made are full, relevant, and for the most part not available elsewhere: a fine introduction by Rudiger Bittner helps contextualize them. In fact, there is probably more about the will to power here than in *The Will To Power*; and all of what is in it is presented a more attractive and durable format, although it competes with that Vintage paperback in price.

In short: a must for anyone interested in Nietzsche's later thought. ... Read more

Book Description
[A]s long as the past is principally used as a model for imitation, it is always in danger of being a little altered and touched up and brought nearer to fiction. Sometimes there is no possible distinction between a "monumental" past and a mythical romance... -from The Use and Abuse of HistoryHe's one of the most controversial thinkers of the 19th century: Nietzsche and his works have been by turns vilified, lauded, and subjected to numerous contradictory interpretations, and yet he remains a figure of profound important, and his works a necessary component of a well-rounded education.In this 1873 essay, Nietzsche discusses the inevitably subjective lenses through which we see, explore, examine, and lend meaning to the events and characters of the past. As we find ourselves plunged into times that feel of urgent and "historic" significance, Nietzsche's reflections and speculations are newly provocative, whether we agree with them or not.German psychologist and philosopher FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) was appointed special professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at the precocious age of 24, but he found himself dissatisfied with academic life and created an alternative intellectual society among friends including composer Richard Wagner, historian Jakob Burckhardt, and theologian Franz Overbeck. Among his philosophical works are Thus Spoke Zarathustra,Beyond Good and Evil, Ecce Homo, and The Anti-Christ. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Beware!Ancient, poor translation
I purchased this and regret it.The translation is from the early 20th century and this volume is from one of those discount publishers that use writing that has fallen out of copyright.They don't even disclose who the translator is -- but he or she did a poor job.

Much better is to purchase Hollingdale's translation (or probably any modern translation) of the Untimely Mediations.Use and Abuse of History is the second essay in that volume.

The work itself, of course, is incredible.This review is about the translation. ... Read more

Book Description
This volume presents Nietzsche's remarkable collection of almost 1400 aphorisms in R. J. Hollingdale's distinguished translation, together with a new historical introduction by Richard Schacht.Subtitled "A Book for Free Spirits," Human, All Too Human marked for Nietzsche a new "positivism" and skepticism with which he challenged his previous metaphysical and psychological assumptions.Nearly all the themes of his later work are displayed here with characteristic perceptiveness and honesty--not to say suspicion and irony--in language of great brio.It remains one of the fundamental works for an understanding of his thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Nietzsche at his Aphoristic Best
If you like aphorisms and philosophy, this book will become one of your bibles. If nothing else, it's just plain fun to read for his incredible wit. Of course you have to put his ideas in the context of the period in which he wrote and understand that he has his own odd prejudices, but the brilliance of his understanding of the human condition really shines through. The biggest mistake any reader could make is to think Nietzsche was an anti-semite---far from it. He was anti-neanderthal. In this book especially the reader sees his low tolerance for received wisdom. This book is nothing less than part of the origin of Western psychology as practiced today. It also represents the demolition of science and philosophy polluted by the received Western theological framework. Some of the best parts are when he skewers religion. You have to love his style even if you do not agree with his pessimistic disgust for piety. This is the kind of philosophy book you need not fret over, unless you harbor wishful thinking about a supremely benevolent deity. Instead of making an elaborate argument about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, as preceeding systematic philosophers did literally and figuratively, Nietzsche bends the pin and throws it in the trash. I wish I had read this before his Genealogy of Morals, as knowing his thoughts here would have made that book far more interetsing and understandable.I highly recommend philosophy students first approaching Nietzsche pick up Human, All Too Human to start their study. And if you are religious and want to bolster your faith, well, you should stay far away from this book.

Is He Legit?
O.k. So I have a minor in philosophy and Nietzsche was one of my inspirations to pursue this as a degree in college. Nietzsche deals with androgony. In more modern terms, men and women are crossing over the line of androgeny with their jock image. They are getting more and more androgynous you can't distunguish between even basic differences between the sexes anymore. While my philosophy professor and classmates dismissed Nietzsche as "not being a first rate philosopher," he does have his points about god and androgeny. This is part of our changing world and in philosophy class I did make my points.

Breath of fresh air
if you want to have your moral foundations knocked out from under you, read this book - and then build upon the ruins - Nietzsche's, in my opinion, most accessible work, as his aphoristic style floats over many different topics - don't stop here however, i recommend Kauffman's "Nietzsche, Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist" as a starter if you find the complexity and diversity of Nietzsche's thought to be overwhelming or incomprehensible - he's frequently ambiguous and contradictory but it's more a positive trademark of his works and shouldn't dissuade one from further readings.

Correction
I feel obligated to correct a distortion suggested by `unraveler' below. It is popular to suggest Nietzsche was an anti-semite, but this is a rather lazy habit. Nietzsche's remark on `the youthful stock-exchange Jew' was mentioned. Here it is in its proper environment:

. . . the entire problem of the Jews exists only within national states, inasmuch as it is here that their energy and higher intelligence, their capital in will and spirit accumulated from generation to generation in a long school of suffering, must come to preponderate to a degree calculated to arouse envy and and hatred, so that in almost every nation . . . there is gaining ground the literary indecency of leading the Jews to the sacrificial slaughter as scapegoats for every possible public or private misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a question of the conserving of nations but of the production of the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew will be just as usable and desirable as an ingredient of it as any other national residue. Every nation, every man, possesses unpleasant, indeed dangerous qualities: it is cruel to demand that the Jew should constitute an exception. In him these qualities may even be dangerous and repellent to an exceptional degree; and perhaps the youthful stock-exchange Jew is the most repulsive invention of the entire human race. Nonetheless I should like to know how much must, in a total accounting, be forgiven a people who, not without us all being to blame, have had the most grief-laden history of any people and whom we have to thank for the noblest human being (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the mightiest book and the most efficacious moral code in the world. . . .

Is this anti-semitism???

". . . must overcome our humanity"
I am a yogi from an educated family, and my parents gave me this book when I was 12.Nietzsche's presentation is typically unsystematic and he was a pioneer ensuring that we could view philosophical beliefs in a non-linear manner.The dichotomy of his unstructured book organization and his clarity and precision of thought create a tension that can break through many Western Black/White, Right/Wrong thought patterns to see deeper truths.When he says "our humanity is to be overcome" - some have used this to justify eugenics, nationalism, and seeing others as "less than."If you read his entire thoughts (get the book!), it is more about overcoming the fragmented aspects of the self that weaken us, so we can be stronger and more pure.This is a spiritual thought from the man heraldedas atheistic.Dig deep, and you will find that Nietzsche is beautiful.Yoga community friends - Neitzsche did not justify atrocities.He challenged us to grow and become better than our base qualities.He paved the way for Deserida's gloriously independent thoughts, and was an inspiration for the pop philosopher Ayn Rand's radical worship of the individual over "the masses" (which can be viewed as "cultural conditioning" in our times.This text is applicable to our lives today as the Tao Te Ching.For a completely different perspective (for balance of thought) read about Jainism as well.Then find your truth.Deep wisdom is timeless. ... Read more

Book Description
A brilliant new biography of the controversial philosopher who proclaimed in Thus Spake Zarathustra that “God is dead!” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

What Is It You Want From a Biography


This book is criticized because it has too much biography, and not enough of Nietzsche's philosophy. And then...vice versa,too much philosophy. I have always been interested in Nietzsche the man, and this book provides the reader with a good rounded view of him. Fortunately there is an extensive amount of correspondence available to provide the biographer with the essential information necessary to construct an informative picture of both Nietzsche and those who figured prominently in his life.

No, Nietzsche did not live an "exciting" life, but that's never a criterion I use in choosing to read a biography. If it's thrills you want may I suggest reading the memoirs of, perhaps, a Navy Seal. When I finished this biography I felt I knew "Fritz". I became appreciative of the extreme difficulties he faced with perpetual ill health. I found the details of his friendship with the anti-Semitic composer Richard Wagner to be quite fascinating. And yes he did travel about a lot, and maybe, at times, his mobile meanderings aren't much more interesting than reading a railroad timetable. Yet these are facts of his life.

Whenever Nietzsche publishes a book Mr. Cate spends five or more pages discussing the philosophy contained in the book. For a book that is not touted as an "intellectual" biography I found this to be a good balance in acquainting the reader with Nietzsche's thoughts. This smattering of philosophical interpretation helps in understanding how the Nazis distorted his views, and made him a national hero (Hitler visited Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth several times). It also provides some understanding of his falling out with Richard Wagner. I am not an academic, although I have read a trifling amount of philosophy. In my opinion the philosophical sections were presented in a lucid manner, and should pose no challenge to the reader. I am assuming, of course, that anyone picking up a biography of Nietzsche has at least some interest in philosophy. The author does drop some heavy weight words on us occasionally, and these were in the biographical material. I don't think I've ever encountered the word "propadeutic" before, and this word occurs twice in the text.

I enjoyed this book very much, and am grateful for the insight into Nietzsche's life. One reviewer suggests that you read books of his thoughts instead of this biography. Well, I already have those, but they don't tell me much about the man who produced them. While Friedrich Nietzsche didn't live an exciting life he still was an extraordinary man. This biography got that message across to me.

Three stars is generous
This is a truly boring treatment of Nietzsche but I can't really blame the author; Cate has an obvious mastery of the material and writes well. The bottom line is: Nietzsche's life was not very interesting and thus makes for a dull biography. Nietzsche's accomplishments were in his ideas. As a result, the biography resorts to dwelling on minute details of N's travels and correspondence.

There is some value in the book as it helps to make connections between his personal life and the evolution of his ideas but these rewards are just not worth the effort of plowing through the book. Plus, it is not as accessible to the non-academic as the author claims it to be. The Nietzsche-neophyte will quickly become lost in the digressions into various philosophical issues.

Ultimately, the fault with this book lies with its subject matter and not the author. If you're looking for context to understand N's ideas, there are better books out there. If you're interested in his philosophy, then read his actual works. Biographies of boring people seem somewhat pointless...

Not recommended.

When biography just does not work
Nietzsche was perhaps the most important thinker in modern times.He understood that Western Mankind labored under a terrible burden, a burden forged by idealistic philosophy and biblical religion which substituted a world of timeless ideals for the reality in which men and women really exist.This burden had once been a boon of sorts but with the decline of religious faith and the growth of mass society it became heavier and more inhuman.Nietzsche's own experiences, his own difficult life, especically his German ethniciity, all these contributed to his unique sensibility and genius.But Curtis Cate's decision to explain Nietzsche's unsystematic philosophy through his life is a tedious mistake and failure.In almost 600 pages we suffer every physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological onslaught faced by Nietzsche, all in the narrow and narrowminded world of German academia and Wagnerian romanticism, yet this exposure does not really do as much for our understanding as fifty pages of clear exposition of his thought would have done. Granted that Nietzsche's thought is necessarily untidy and contradictory, since it is anti-systematic and untraditional, but to expect the reader to understand it by reliving Nietzsche's life puts far too much of a burden on a writer's life.And Nietzsche's life is not really all that interesting when compared to his thought.Biography has it place -- but perhaps not so well in the discussion of a provincial professor like Nietzsche.His brain was far better than his feeble body, and his thought rose far above the petty events and puny individuals with whom he came into contact.Except for the saintly historian Jakob Burckhardt and the mystigogue of music and culture Richard Wagner, most of the people Nietzsche was condemned to know and deal with were not worth the dust on his sandalstraps.In this biography one necessarily therefore spends a lot of time with people one could well do without, like Lou Salome for example.No, biography is not the road to understanding Nietzsche.

One of the best biographies of Nietzsche in English
Occasionally a book is published that daunts the reviewer's attempts to do justice to its subject--in this case, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)--and to the book's content. Curtis Cate's new biography is such a work.

Cate chronicles Nietzsche's life and works in "quantitative detail," from his birth in Ro(e)cken, Germany, on Oct. 15, 1844, until his mental collapse in Turin, Italy, in Jan. 1889, and his death in Weimar on Aug. 25, 1900. One marvels at how minutely Cate narrates the year-by-year, month-by-month, and week-by-week events in Nietzsche's life.

Cate describes Nietzsche's many friendships, from his early school years at Pforta, Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav Krug, and later with Paul Deussen, Carl von Gersdorff, Erwin Rohde, Franz Overbeck, Dr. Paul Ree, Malwida von Meysenbug, Heinrich Romundt, Albert Brenner, Heinrich Koselitz (Nietzsche's loyal disciple, whose musical pseudonym was "Peter Gast"), and, above all, his relationships with a beautiful and extremely intelligent 21-year-old Russian woman, Lou Salome, and with the Richard Wagner and Wagner's wife, Cosima.

Over a period of three years, Nietzsche made 23 visits to Tribschen, the home of Richard and Cosima Wagner near Lucerne, Switzerland. And over the period of seven years, Nietzsche wrote close to eighty letters to Cosima, the daughter of Franz LIszt.

Cate points out that Nietzsche's books are a sustained attack on metaphysical and religious beliefs. Nietzsche argued, writes Cate, that "the attention focused on otherworld fantasies had kept human beings from dealing in an honest, healthy way with the everyday realities that are of the most immediate concern to their well-being. . . . [His] whole philosophy was aimed at achieving a 'higher and nobler' degree of culture."

In a letter to his busybody sister Elisabeth, who so often, during his life and especially after his death, meddled in his affairs, Nietzsche wrote: "Do we in our research seek repose, peace, happiness? No, solely the Truth, even if it be exceedingly deterring and ugly. . . . Here men's ways diverge. If you wish to aspire to peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be the disciple of the Truth, then search."

Against philosophical and religious "seriousness," Nietzsche wrote, "I would believe only in a god who knew how to dance. Come, [with our laughter] let us kill the spirit of gravity."

Cate shows that Nietzsche's philosophy was profoundly personal, rising as it did out of deep existential struggles: "Of all that is written I like only that which one has written with one's blood. Write in blood and you will find that blood is spirit. A book that has no fire in it deserves to be burned."

Nietzsche argued that, because of the inexorable advances of science, which, he believed, showed the world to be ungottlich, unmoralisch, and unmenschlich ("non-divine," "non-moral," and "non-human"), Europe was now plunged into a grave spiritual crisis, the crisis of nihilism.

In the opening pages of his posthumously published work, The Will to Power, Nietzsche wrote: "Nihilism stands at the door. When comes this uncanniest of all guests? . . . What does nihilism mean? That the highest values devalue themselves. The aim is lacking; 'why?' finds no answer." It is a will to nothingness,in which a hopeless despair adjudicates everything to be valueless and worthless, without goal, meaning, or purpose.

Nietzsche's central philosophical project was to "live through nihilism" to its bitter end and, hopefully, with the creation of new values, emerge on the other side. That he failed in this project seems evident, but never has a philosopher struggled so valiantly and courageously in wrestling with the demon of nihilism, of staring for a long time into the abyss.

Cate writes, "Nietzsche conceived of his mission as a thinker to be that of the herald of a new 'dawn' in philosophical thinking, the prophet of a new, more honest, less visionary morality, purged and purified of a vast accretion of moral, political, social, and metaphysical prejudices and misconceptions, which had reduced the vast majority of his contemporaries to a collective condition of sheep-like stupidity."

Georg Brandes, a Danish professor and one of Nietzsche's early admirers (he delivered a series of lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy at the University of Copenhagen) described the German philosopher's basic stance as being "aristocratic radicalism." Nietzsche responded with appreciation and hearty approval, saying that Brandes' _expression "aristocratic radicalism" was the "cleverest word" he had ever read about himself.

Indeed, Nietzsche's elitism exalted everything that was noble, distinguished, and excelling, and derogated all forms of mediocrity, mendacity, and anti-intellectualism, including anti-Semitism (Nietzsche was an anti-anti-Semite) and the saber-rattling stupidity of a jingoistic German nationalism.

At the very heart of Nietzsche's philosophy, writes Cate, is "resistentialism." This means that "it is not what assists Man that strengthens and ennobles him, but, quite the contrary, what resists his slothful inclinations and prejudices." His philosophy calls us grow up and become men in our thinking, rather than remaining dependent children, to reject the comfort, safety, security, and certainty of the herd and become an "free spirit" who dares to travel our own paths. "This is my way," wrote Nietzsche; "where is yours? The way doesn't exist."

A key motif of Cate's biography is his chronicling of Nietzsche's illnesses. All of his adult life, Nietzsche was plagued by debilitating migraines that often kept him bedridden for days, by acute negative reactions to metereological changes, causing him to wear dark glasses and become a wanderer throughout Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy in search of a climate conducive to his health. He suffered frequently from stomach upsets, nausea, fits of vomiting, and acute nervous seizures.

Cate's numerous accounts of Nietzsche's struggle with ill health, scattered repeatedly across hundreds of pages, are impressive in their details, impressing on the us the long, hard struggle Nietzsche to lead the semblance of a normal life. And, although Cates only hints at the idea, one wonders if Nietzsche's "yea-saying," affirmative philosophy and his embrace of "amor fati" (love of fate) was not a defense mechanism against the perennial threat of a spirit-crushing pessimism into which he could have fallen because of his prolonged suffering.

After five weeks of giving diligent attention to Cate's masterful biography, I conclude that it will take its place alongside Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist as one of the best--indeed, in some respects, the best--biographies of Nietzsche available in the English language. This is a distinguished volume. I recommend it most highly.

Roy E. Perry of Nolensville, Tennessee, may be reached at rperry1778@aol.com

(Note: Curt Paul Janz's excellent three-volume German biography of Nietzsche has not yet been translated into English.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Curtis Cate is the author of acclaimed biographies of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, George Sand, and Andre Malraux as well as several other books of non-fiction. He holds degrees from Harvard (History), Ecole des Langues Orientales (Russian), and Oxford (Politics and Economics). He was the European Editor for The Atlantic Monthly for eight years (1958-1965) and has written articles for the New York Times Book Review, the New York Times Magazine and the New Republic. He resides in France. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Interesting reading
If you want to gain insight into Nietzsche's thinking outside of his usual philosophical writings, or follow his chain of thought throughtout his life, this collection of letters is somewhat helpful, but he does not seem to engage in the manner in which he does in his formal philosophical works. One of the features I found surprising in his letters is the courtesy he showed to his recipients. It is evident that Nietzsche treasured the friendships he had, and this is very apparent in his letters. And interestingly, I did not find any hostility in any of the letters addressed to Richard Wagner, considering the history of their relationship.

The book is well-edited, and there is an index of recipients near the end of the book. The editor also includes a general index with subentries that allow the reader to scan an entire topic. This is a helpful aid for amateur readers of Nietzsche, such as myself, but could also be helpful I think to dedicated scholors of Nietzsche.

I was only disappointed that more letters did not address more of Nietzsche's thinking on Dionysus and Apollo. It would have been interesting to read what he had to say about them via the "freestyle" of letter writing. Nietzsche's philosophical writings are actually the most frank and unrestrained of all in nineteenth-century philosophy. He is very honest with himself, and because of this he might be viewed as somewhat narcisstic by some readers. This may be true to some degree, but Nietzsche is refreshing in his style of writing, and actually it is quite entertaining to randomly move through his books and read his maxims and opinions.

The most interesting letter is the one addressed to Carl von Gersdorff on April 6, 1867. He is writing about what he has called "the scholarly forms of disease", and tells of a story about a talented young man who enters the university to obtain a doctorate. He puts together a thesis he has been working on for years, submits it to the philosophical faculty. One rejects the work on the grounds that it advances views that are not taught there. The other states that the work is contrary to common sense and is paradoxical. His thesis is therefore rejected, and he does not therefore earn his doctorate. Nietzsche describes the "not humble enough to hear the voice of wisdom" in their negative judgment of his results. Further, the young man is "reckless enough", in Nietzsche's view, to believe that the faculty "lacks the faculty for philosophy. Nietzsche uses this story to emphasize the virtue of independence: "one cannot go one's own way independently enough. Truth seldom dwells where people have built temples for it and have ordained priests. We ourselves have to suffer for good or foolish things we do, nor those who give us the good or the foolish advice. Let us at least be allowed the pleasure of committing follies on our own initiative. There is no general recipe for how one man is to be helped. One must be one's own physician but at the same gather the medical experience at one's own cost. We really think too little about our own well-being; our egoism is not clever enough, our intellect not egoistic enough."

He's right.

What a strange but brilliant fellow...
This book is real fun to have, and shows a side of Nietzsche that is hard to come across in his formal works and the countless biographies. You can read first-hand the conflicts with his sister's anti-semitic husband, read his own giddyness about finishing a new book, and follow his decline into a state of insanity (during which he wrote the strangest letters of all). His wierd sense of humor is much more visible in his letters, which helps one to recognize when he is humoring himself at the expense of the suprised reader in his other works.

"Dear Professor: Actually I would much rather be a basel professor than God; but I have not yet ventured to cary my private egoism so far as to omit creating the world on his account. You see, one must make sacrifices, however and wherever one may be living..." (Jan. 6 1889, To Jacob Burkhart, from Turin).

Also, the index in the back of this book is very thorough, making it easy to find any person or concept that he deals with.

Note: If you are looking for other writers that write as intangible and beautiful as Nietzsche's works but less harsh on the world, try reading some Emmanuel Levinas, a briliant French Jewish Philospher who died in 1995, (Good book: Dificult Freedom) ... Read more

Book Description
Nietzsche was a philosopher. He wrote critiques of morality, religion, philosophy, and science. His influence remains substantial within philosophy. He is known for his distinct style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Greatest destructor
What Socrates tried to build troughout his whole life, Nietzsche almost destroyed in couple of books. Said like this, it seems simplistic enough, but it is far from that. To understand Nietzsche, one has to reach much deeper than Nietzsche's words suggest. One has to know Schoppenhauer, has to now french philosophers, contractualist, and most of all one has to know greek philosophy. And greek culture. The place where it all began. At least for the westerners. Nietzsche was also great admirer and critic of Indian, Vedanta tradition, so to understand Nietzsche one will eventualy have to travel even to those horisons, which are in itself something completely different.

Why am I saying all of this?

Because it is often proven that it is too easy to misread Nietzsche, calling him an emerging point from which Nacism rose, and putting him, with Plato in a place where inventors of fascist state sleep their eternal sleep.

One has to be careful when reading Nietzsche. It is too easy to insert meaning which are not present in the text. And in that manner, it is easy to create philosophy totaly alien from its author.

If one wants to travel deep inside the Nietzsches core, one should start his journey with this book. It seems to be the most grateful for begginners. Not to mention that it is excellent for trying different approach to history of morals, approach that is in a way revolutionary if we were not customed to it nowadays. But in time of Nietzsches life, this sounded outrageous.

It may stand as constant reminder, if some of you forgot that,how radical criticism is not looked upon with kindness.

These are just few words which doesen't explain a thing in fact, but if you are at least interested in history (or geneaology) of morals, and conceptual problems which rise from it, you should definitely read this book.

An important work
This particular piece of Nietzsche's writing is a marvelous work - it is interesting and lively, much as Nietzsche's own writing and tendency toward the dramatic was noted by his contemporaries.

Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister, but he died five years after Nietzsche's birth in 1844. Nietzsche was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunts; later in his life, his sister would become executor of his estate (after Nietzsche had become incapable of managing his own affairs) and reshape his philosophy and writings in her own idea - this becomes a running motif in later anthologies of Nietzsche; editors can quote and clip to fit their own agendas. In some ways, that is true of the text here, but in much less inappropriate ways than others, particularly Nietzsche's first editor, his sister.

Nietzsche was a star pupil from his earliest days at university in Bonn and Leipzig. His formal study was in classical philology, but his attentions turned in various directions quickly during his writing and professional life - he had an intense interest in drama and the arts, with Wagner's music and Greek drama in principal interest. His first book was devoted to these topics - 'The Birth of Tragedy'. It was not highly regarded at the time, but has since become much more appreciated as an anticipation of later developments in philosophy and aesthetics.

Nietzsche's life after this period was a very choppy one - he left the university, claiming illness, and while this developed later to be a true situation, at the time is was probably academic politics and difficulties fitting in with the establishment he was trying to break. He had a formal falling-out with Wagner, even writing later a piece entitled ' Nietzsche contra Wagner', finished just a few week prior to his going insane.

In another edition, Walter Kaufmann states that Nietzsche's real career took off after his active life was over; under his sister's direction, many of the writings Nietzsche had managed to do and not get published, or which were published but forgotten, really took off in major directions. While his major works of Zarathustra, Ecce Homo, Will to Power and Genealogy of Morals were in various editions of disrepair (indeed, the Will to Power was never more complete than a series of notes), Nietzsche had a knack for language that made him very quotable, and his influence continued to grow well into the first half of the twentieth century, influencing art, philosophy, history, and politics in dramatic ways, if not always the ways in which Nietzsche envisioned.

For example, Nietzsche was not particularly impressed with the 'typical' German anti-semitism, which later erupted into the Nazi movement. He considered it rather bourgeois, and while he undoubted had his own issues with Jews (Nietzsche had issues with almost everyone, particularly any group, Christians included, who had a religious connection), the Nazi use of Nietzsche's work owes more to Nietzsche's sister's influence than anyone else.

'The Genealogy of Morals' is perhaps the closest in form to English-speaking philosophical discourse. This is a discussion that involves philosophy, psychology and linguistic theory, looking at morality in three different essays. The first essay explores the idea of good and evil as good and bad; Nietzsche develops the idea of master and slave morality - the slave resists the ideas of the master, and thus values things that are less likely to gain power - Nietzsche sees Christianity as an example of slave morality.

The second essay looks at the issues of conscience and guilt, and how these spawned the invention of gods. The third essay concludes the work with a look at ascetic ideas, how these relate to aesthetic ideas, and where in Nietzsche's opinion the great philosophers of the past have gone wrong.

In his book Ecce Homo (first published posthumously), Nietzsche analyses his own work piece by piece, as well as gives an overall assessment of his life. Nietzsche's insights into his own writings in hindsight is fascinating to behold. His own idea of 'The Genealogy of Morals' can be found in this piece as follows:

'Regarding expression, intention, and the art of suprise, the three inquiries which constitute this Genealogy are perhaps uncannier than anything else written so far. Dionysus is, as is known, also the god of darkness.'

Nietzsce is not easy reading, and this work is not the best for casual reading or the first-time reader of Nietzsche. However, for those who have already made some headway into understanding him, this is a good volume.

Not your normal 'God is dead' type of heresy
This is the intelligent man or woman's bible. It shows just how morals came to be. How they have dictated our lives ever since they have been created. How they have changed our society, and especially how they have silenced the common man. Nietzsche is, for lack of a better word, brillant. His writing never ever loses its passion. He believes in what he writes and he supports it even more, with not just what Christians call "athiest dogma" but with theory and evne fact.

He outlines how "Good and Evil" really came to be. How what we define as good is only what the people in power (the rich and people of religion) tell us is good. They only share with us the good that keeps us in line, not what sets us free. This is what Nietzsche outlines so very well. This book is brillant, one of a kind, and possibly one of his most important novels.

No matter your race, religion, or creed, I hope you check this book out. It is worth your time, trust me. What he talks about affects us all and should be shared in the public. It really is a shame that even today, long after his death, his words still have not had the affect they should have had.

THE HIGHLIGHT ABOUT MORALITY
This is a REAL HIGHLIGHT out of the last "creative period" of Nietzsche, dating from about one and a half year before he fell in that cruel mental illness (NOT syphillis, as is told in the streets...), that lead him to his death: HE WROTE THIS BOOK IN ONE BREATHE, WITHOUT INTERRUPTION, IN 3 WEEKS: FROM JULY 10th UNTIL JULY 30th OF 1887 !!! In his "Genealogy" we find back some basic concepts, principles of ethics as there are "GOOD AND EVIL", "GUILT AND CONSCIENCE" and "THE ASCETIC IDEAL". These subjects stay central anywhere in the book. But the author DOES NOT AT ALL "TREAT" these notions conform to their normal usage in the philosophy of morality. He is NOT INTERESTED IN WHAT THEY (the morals) MEAN, or in THEIR VALUE in whatever kind of morality, NOR in their NORMATIVE VALUE OR MERIT. Instead he is in search of their "BIRTH", their "ORIGIN" and in how they "FUNCTION" in an organised society.

Again, it is NOT IMPORTANT to Nietzsche what is the VALUE of this or that action. WHAT IS REALLY OF IMPORTANCE HERE IS THE VALUE/MERIT OF THIS OR THAT VALUE ITSELF. As he wrote (and said so many times): "WE NEED A CRITICISM OF MORAL VALUES: FIRST OF ALL, THE VALUE OF THESE VALUES MUST BE QUESTIONED." As to him there doesn't exist anything like a linear, progressive development of morality: the latter is the RESULT of the eternal combat between "masters and slaves", between "those who govern and those that are being reigned over". Each of these "GROUPS" tries - ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE - to acquire as much power as possible versus the other.
MORALITY ("MORALS") IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INSTRUMENT - IF NOT BY EXCELLENCE - IN THIS FIGHT, THIS COMBAT, WHICH IS THE RESULT OF THE DRIFT, THE PASSION OF EACH MAN OR GROUP: THE WILL FOR POWER.

This MASTERPIECE from the giant German philosopher DOES NOT READ like a novel. BUT THE BOOK IS SO IMPORTANT FOR THE THOUGHTS, THIS HIGHEST-LEVEL THINKING of this genius concerning morals which he describes, even DISSECTS here. "Not an easy read" DOES NOT MEAN that it can't and/or shouldn't be read! ON THE CONTRARY: THANKS TO THE ENORMOUS LITERARY TALENT OF NIETZSCHE, THE THEMES AND THOUGHTS THAT TOUCH, AFFECT ALL OF US EVERY DAY, THIS WORK "NEEDS" OUR ATTENTION (and vice versa).
TO EVERY READER WHO KNOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF INTROSPECTION, AND WHO WANTS TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF "OUR MORALS", I RECOMMEND THIS "GENEALOGY" (OH YES, HE CHOSE THE RIGHT WORDS...) OUT OF MY HEART AND REASON. NONE OF YOU WILL EVER REGRET HAVING READ THIS SO "MATURE" MASTERPIECE, WHICH TOUCHES ALL OF OUR BEINGS AND SOULS.

Life changing
Nietzsche, like no other philosopher that I have read, has changed the way that I see the world. This is a book to read if you want to learn something about yourself. Nietzsche may have gone insane and had delusions that he was God, but he revolutionised modern thought. There is a special place in hell for German philosophers, but it's a place that's worth visiting. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

The Real F.W. Nietzsche would never
The Real F.W. Nietzsche would never argue against dissent of his views. He, unlike Wagner, wanted no disciples. He wanted critical commentary, and above all, he wanted to be challenged. The reality is that he was challenged everyday to write, even in extreme pain and half blind. This translation is an admirable effort, but it does fall short in emphasis on what Nietzsche tried to (really) say. His odd, broken, and subtle humor has been lost in many English translations. In truth nothing other than the original German, read by an accomplished student of the language, can really give insight into his mind. This is the same problem that exists in Carl Jung's writings. In my humble opinion Kaufmann is still one of the best German/English translations available. Kaufmann dispels many previous myths associated with Nietzsche especially when it comes to National Socialism, and Darwinism, both of which Nietzsche himself despised. One last note on Nietzsche: His opinion of Noble Morality vs Slave Morality is true even more today.

An Excellent Translation of a Transitional Work
Sometimes, as I channel surf past some WWF goon belting another with a chair, I can't help but feel that we suffer from the opposite of the problems Nietzsche discussed, and that a little more suffocating bourgeoisie-Christian 'good culture' couldn't hurt. But that's neither here nor there.

I believe this book is considered transitional Nietzsche, having been written after _The Birth of Tragedy_ but before _Beyond Good and Evil_, _The Genealogy of Morals_, et cetera. It consists of four essays: on David Strauss, history, Schopenhauer, and Wagner respectively. In my opinion the 'history' essay is the most interesting; Nietzsche asserts that too much awareness of history enervates the mind, robbing it of the raw vigor he considered so important. Not en entirely original thought, perhaps, but knowledgeably and poetically argued.

This translation seems to be clearly the best of the three I perused in the bookstore: the vocabulary is sharp, forceful, and true to what I know of the German. I don't think this is the place to begin one's study of Nietzsche, but if Walter Kaufmann's collections (The Portable Nietzsche, The Basic Writings of Nietzsche) don't give you your fill, you could certainly pick up this one next.

Timely and Unfashionable: the Truth
I take my title for this review from the final sentence of Nietzsche's essay on "David Strauss the Confessor and the Writer."Nietzsche was finding himself in a troubling position, commenting on a work which wasas subjective as it was without objective proof, while he was just anindividual trying to make himself heard against the entire world, in orderto adorn us with one more feather, "For as long, that is, as what wasalways timely -- and what today more than ever is timely and necessary --is still considered unfashionable: speaking the truth."(p. 81)Thismasterly translation removes an element of contradiction which has trippedup those who used the title, "Untimely Meditations" for thisbook, as if we, of all people, didn't need to read it.Walter Kaufmann didnot translate this early work by Nietzsche into English.While Kaufmann iswidely recognized as having provided translations which were superior towhat was previously available, Nietzsche in the original German ought to beconsidered better than any English version, and the truth with whichNietzsche was concerned in his essay on Strauss might have beenparticularly painful for any scholar who would like to remain at a highlevel in the esteem of his peers, for the insults in this work win everyargument.From the first words of the first section, "Public opinionin Germany," (p. 5) Nietzsche displays a worry about "defeat --indeed, the extirpation -- of the German spirit for the sake of the GermanReich."(p. 5)Perhaps Kaufmann was never comfortable enough withthe English language to make himself credible in a work that ends with asection on style: "perhaps Schopenhauer would give it the generaltitle 'New Evidence for the Shoddy Jargon of Today,' for we might consoleDavid Strauss by saying . . . indeed, that some people write even morewretchedly than he does. . . . We do this because Strauss does not write aspoorly as do the vilest of all the corrupters of German, the Hegelians andtheir crippled progeny."And Strauss of course, in Germany in 1873,was famous for providing the Germans with a guide to their beliefs andculture, much like the works of Walter Kaufmann on Goethe, Hegel,Nietzsche, etc., provide today's Americans with a view of individualself-control which seeks to guide public opinion above all, or over all, orwhatever.Perhaps, given our current status as civilizers of Europe,Nietzsche might even maintain a view of the Americans who study his work inaccord with what he said of Strauss, he "would by no means bedissatisfied if it were a bit more diabolical."(p. 20)This is onlyfrighteningly inappropriate for those who see nothing but manipulation inmatters of public opinion, which remains about as far from the truth as itcan be stretched, and who are afraid of these things snapping back all overthe place.I certainly think they are. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (7)

The Social Darwinist Nietzsche.
_The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche_, first published in 1908, by Baltimore newspaperman H. L. Mencken was the first complete exposition of Nietzsche's thought written in English and presents a version of Nietzsche that may be unfamiliar to his latter-day interpreters.H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) was an iconoclastic newspaperman who made a name for himself through his brash style and opposition to F.D.R.Mencken, whose ancestry was German and thus was heavily influenced by Germanic thinkers, wrote this book when he was twenty-seven years old to present the thinker of Nietzsche to the American people.This book presents Nietzsche as an elitist and atheistic philosopher who foretold the destruction of Christianity (which has yet to occur) and advocated a Social Darwinist philosophy.Mencken's political thinking may be understood as largely libertarian, though it included a racialist element to it, and thus this book contains much of the all-too-typical commentary against altruism common to the Social Darwinists of the time.Latter-day interpreters of Nietzsche have attempted to soften his image; however, as this book effectively shows, Nietzsche was a staunch advocate of eugenic breeding policies and Social Darwinism.I strongly disagree with the contents of this book, but nevertheless I find it a useful exposition of an alternative Nietzsche which our modern day academics seem afraid to face.Politically and philosophically there is much to disagree with about Mencken but he is always fun to read.



The first section of this book is devoted to Nietzsche the man.Mencken begins by tracing Nietzsche's boyhood and youth.Nietzsche was the son of a preacher and from an early age had a strong fear of the Lord.Mencken explains Nietzsche's relationship with his father and sister (who eventually became the executor of his estate) as well as his early interest in literary matters.Mencken goes on to explain Nietzsche's progress in school and his developing cynicism and loss of faith.Following this, Mencken turns to Nietzsche's early development as a philosopher.In particular, Nietzsche's youthful reading of Arthur Schopenhauer framed his experience and led to his pessimistic understanding of the world.Nietzsche decried Christianity as a weakening doctrine and developed his notion of the superman.Mencken explains how Nietzsche's sickly constitution contrasted so starkly with his philosophy.Later in life, Nietzsche was to develop an illness which rendered him helpless and thus was left to his sister's care.The exact nature of this illness (and as to whether or not it was syphilis - it probably was not) has been debated much since.



The second section of this book is devoted to Nietzsche the philosopher.Here, Mencken explains the Nietzschean contrast between Dionysus and Apollo in his early philological work.This contrast was to play a further development throughout Nietzsche's philosophical life.Following this, Mencken turns to the Nietzschean conception of the origin of morality.Nietzsche viewed Christian morality as a means of "slave revolt" and as a weakening doctrine which destroyed the will to live.Nietzsche maintains that morality is man-made and that the masters have a right to create their own morality.Following this, Mencken turns his attention to Nietzsche's comments that it is possible to move beyond good and evil.Here, Mencken maintains that Christianity developed as a conspiracy of the Jews, a slave people against the masters.Mencken further maintains that Nietzsche is fundamentally an immoralist.Following this, Mencken turns his attention to the Nietzschean conception of the superman.Here, Mencken and Nietzsche emphasize individualism and an opposition to charity and altruism as only serving to further weaken the race.Nietzsche also feared the notion of the eternal recurrence, which played some role in his later philosophy.Regarding Christianity, Nietzsche has very harsh words believing it to be an utterly corrupting influence.Mencken also mentions such notable evolutionists and Social Darwinians as Haeckel, Darwin, T. H. Huxley, and Herbert Spencer in this respect.Nietzsche regarded Christianity as essential a Jewish plot against the masters.Regarding truth, Nietzsche opposed the platitudes of the metaphysicians, the theologians, and politicians as Mencken says.Mencken finds the direction in which civilization is moving towards "universal brotherhood" to be rooted in the Christian conspiracy and thus to be anathema as well.Nietzsche firmly believed in the caste system and the aristocracy and thus opposed all forms of democratic leveling and socialism.Regarding women and marriage, Nietzsche's views were somewhat shaped by Schopenhauer's views on women.Nietzsche remained a lifelong bachelor and opponent of marriage.Regarding government, Mencken presents Nietzsche as a libertarian anarchist.Mencken writes, "Like Spencer before him, Nietzsche believed, as we have seen, that the best possible system of government was that which least interfered with the desires and enterprises of the efficient and intelligent individual."Nietzsche condemned both the monarchical ideal and the democratic ideal.Mencken also shows Nietzsche to be an elitist and Social Darwinist who despised altruism as a weakening doctrine.Regarding crime and punishment, Mencken argues that Nietzsche maintains that from torture arose self-torture and from this the idea of Christian sin.Regarding education, Mencken maintains that the ideal of education is to impart culture.Mencken ends with a section of "sundry ideas" of Nietzsche emphasizing his thinking on various topics.Following this, he details the rather complicated relationship between Nietzsche and Richard Wagner.



The third section of this book attempts to examine Nietzsche as prophet.Mencken delves into Nietzsche's origins showing his philosophical development.Mencken also considers Nietzsche and his critics, both pro and con and ends with an outline for how to study Nietzsche mentioning various sources.



Mencken's presentation of Nietzsche is certainly far from the modern day sanitized version we are given from academics.As such, I think this book is a useful account of the philosopher.I certainly do not agree with much of what Nietzsche or Mencken have to say, for example regarding altruism and Christianity, and believe that similar ideas were largely responsible for the rise of the Nazi tyranny.Nevertheless, this book gives a useful accounting of the Social Darwinist Nietzsche.



For an appropriate response to the excesses of Social Darwinism, please consider the book _Darwinian Fairytales_ by the late Australian philosopher David Stove.

Nietzsche and Mencken
"There are some areas where Nietzsche's thoughts went a little fantastic. One theory he propounded was that Christianity was created by the Jews to make the rest of the ancient world a 'slave morality'."

This comment is plainly misguided.Nietzsche was not given to simple constructs such as the one laid out here, in which a previous reviewer suggests that "the Jews" (presumably the entire race) conspired together to create in Christianity a slave morality that would conquer the ancient world.This implies, among other things, that the Jews were solely responsible for Christianity, that they created it intentionally, and that they wanted or necessarily had to build another religion to accomplish the feat of a slave morality.Nietzsche, in fact, emphatically attributes slave morality also to Judaism _in and of itself_.He considers Judaism the origin and execution of slave morality par excellence._On the Genealogy of Morals_ is particularly useful on this subject.

If such an analysis is present in Mencken (I submit that I haven't read the volume under consideration completely through), consider his Nietzsche the more impoverished for it.

Flawed but useful
The first thing that needs to be said about this book is that, as an exposition of Nietzsche's philosophy, it's profoundly flawed.Of course it doesn't claim to be exhaustively comprehensive, and today most of its readers will be drawn as much to the author and his interpretation as to the subject itself.But here the interpretation effectively buries the subject.In his own lifetime Nietzsche observed that in most cases "whoever thought he had understood something of me had made up something out of me after his own image (Ecce Homo III I)," and such is the case of Mencken.

Symptomatic of this is Mencken's tendency to blithely dismiss (as "sheer lunacy", p.85, or "absurd", p.154) whatever in Nietzsche he fails to properly understand or finds to be at odds with his own reading.But the main problem is not so much in this, nor in his omissions, nor in his over-simplifications, nor even in his errors as such; as the introduction quite rightly notes, Mencken is "dead wrong" in equating Nietzsche's will to power with Schopenhauer's will to existence.The real problem is that, in so thoroughly misunderstanding this & other such key aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, Mencken inevitably, and substantially, misunderstands that philosophy as a whole.

In this particular case, whereas a -higher- and -fuller- existence is seen by Nietzsche as the aim of the will to power, and hence the greatest good, Mencken's misinterpretation takes existence in itself to be the goal (eg, pp.81-83) and thereby interprets the overman as the man most fit to survive the Darwinian struggle for existence (pp.67, 79, etc.).In fact, Nietzsche repeatedly insisted that it is the mediocre who are most successful as far as mere survival goes ("the last man lives longest" Zarathustra Prologue 5; "species do -not- grow in perfection; the weak prevail over the strong again & again" Twilight of Idols IX 14), and by contrast frequently laments the fragility of the higher man ("the ruination of the higher man, of souls of a stranger type, is the rule" Beyond Good and Evil 269, see also 276 & 62, inter alia).

Another example, the more lamentable for the sheer intellectual laziness it represents on Mencken's part, is his chapter on "Truth".Now, Nietzsche's critiques of objectivity and of the limits of conscious reason, as notably in BGE & TOI, are among the most brilliant and influential things he ever wrote.Yet Mencken wastes half the chapter in a pedantic general discussion of truth, then finally turns to Nietzsche by announcing his views are too complicated to be summarized in the available space, proceeds to misrepresent them, and concludes with the patently false assertion that Nietzsche was a moral ("atheistic") determinist.

More unfortunate still, and far less forgiveable coming after the century of further Nietzsche scholarship which has been undertaken since Mencken first wrote, is that this book's introduction, which is supposed to be there to catch Mencken's errors, cheers him on in this one, as well as as in others.Let it be noted too, in passing, how absurd it it when the author of this introduction complains about the lack of clarity in Nietzsche's style--nevermind the countless passages (the Gay Science 381 is especially instructive, but see also Zarathustra, BGE, EH...) in which Nietzsche addresses the issue of style, connecting it with his conception of the order of rank.In other words, his style is a reflection of his philosophy and can't be criticized in isolation from it, any more than one can speak of Plato's use of dialectic as a mere question of style.

As a final point, this particular edition of Mencken's work is further unsatisfactory in its sloppy editing and in its lack of corrections for those facts Mencken gives about Nietzsche's life which are objectively wrong (generally he was as accurate as possible for his time, but since them far more material has come to light--about Nietzsche's relationship with Lou Salomé, for example, not to mention that awful sister of his, who in Mencken's time was still posing as the--largely unquestioned--voice of authority in all things concerning her brother).

To be fair one might find this book worthwhile for a number of reasons; as an example of how Nietzsche was often understood when his influence was first making itself felt; as one of the earliest works of an exceptional man in his own right; and there are even parts which do serve their intended purpose quite well (I think Nietzsche would have entirely approved of the chapter on Education).Finally I myself found Mencken useful here as a sort of intellectual sparring partner; having read a good deal of Nietzsche, I wanted to sort out my own thoughts by putting them up against those of another intelligent but non-specialist reader.So the book does have its uses, just not the one it claims to.

Good as an example of early Mencken
As an example of H.L. Mencken's nascency as a serious writer and critic, this biography of the philosopher Nietzsche is invaluable to anyone interested in the writings of either man. The introduction by the editor is insightfully critical but does fail to emphasize the context in which Mencken himself held certain views controversial by today's accepted standards. Mencken's interpretations of Nietzsche's ideas tend toward social Darwinism. Especially where he is writing about the early life of Nietzsche, Mencken's outline is better than any other book in English on the subject. But Mencken mixes and matches concepts arising from Dionysus and Apollo too loosely, sometimes to the point of miscomprehension of Nietzsche's position, and sometimes by using their Roman name equivalents. All in all, Mencken is thorough, conscientious and clear in his expose on the great German philosopher.

Nietzsche andMencken: "Let the Harshness Commence!"
_Friedrich Nietzsche_ by noted early 20th century American journalist H. L. Mencken is a both a brief biography of Nietzsche as well as a basic outline of his philosophy.Nietzshe's biggest influence is easlily recognized as his predescessor in German pessimism, Schopenhauer, along with the ancient Greeks before Socrates.Nietzsche is criticized as being only a destructive force in his philosophy, merely tearing down the decadent Christian morality that reigned in the West during the 1800s.However, Nietzsche's ultimate goal was the "superman," men who were above morality, sentimentality, religion and the "mindless grazing herd of cows" that constituted most of humanity.Much of this book attacks Christianity, which Nietzsche abbhorred above all other things, and considered it a "slave-morality" derived from the Jews as opposed to the "master-morality" of the European aristocrats.The origin of morality, according to Nietzsche and derived from Schopenhauer, comes from a race's will to live, and this manifests itself in a the law codes, usually of divine origin, of any given tribe, ethnicity, social group, civilization, race or nation.Nietzsche differed from Schopenhauer in that he felt that a heroic life was the best life to lead, instead of giving up the will to live as Schopenhauer taught.Both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer rejected trying to live a "happy" life, realizing that true happiness is unnatainable.In some respects, Nietzsche is reminiscent of the religious prophets he hated so much--he does not believe in free will, that people are more or less determined in their ways by forces that are beyond individual control, but he still exhorts them to dust themselves off and better themselves anyway.As far as his views of marraige and women are concerned, they are very pessimistic yet grounded in reality."Love" comes from physical desire, and marriage is the official sanctioning of it.The ultimate purpose of marraige should be to breed a better race of humans to attain the "superman" in the future.There are some areas where Nietzsche's thoughts went a little fantastic.One theory he propounded was that Christianity was created by the Jews to make the rest of the ancient world a "slave morality".This is ridiculous, as Mencken notes, however some Jewish scholars today like to credit their own people with Christianity's rise at the same time voicing their disgust towards Christianity itself.But Nietzsche predicted that in the future Jews would be the ones that would virtually rule the world and have the greatest amount of influence in the intellectual fields.Another of Nietzsche's offbeat ideas is the doctrine of "eternal reccurance," that time repeats itself in cycles from eternity to eternity and gives the heroic "superman" the same struggle (in which the superman glories in) forever.As far as Nietzsche's influece goes today in 21st century America: I would only conclude that it is partial.It is readily apparent from reading Menckens exgesis where Nietzsche influenced Nazism, libertarians, nihilists, right-wing anarchists, "Ayn Rand style" objectivism and Satanism.Nothing exists for racial improvement, eugenics or euthanasia that is propelling humanity upward.The racial policies and ideals in ascendancy today are extremely dysgenic instead.Some of Nietzsche's ideas which are more readily observabable are the rule by an elite that is above the law--an "Illuminati" of sorts--but it is not bringing the human race upward--it is sending it crashing down to hell.I do not personally agree with many of Nietzsche's ideas, especially his attack on Christianity, but this is a thought provoking book of the "mad prophet of Nihilism." ... Read more

Book Description
Daybreak marks the arrival of Nietzsche's "mature" philosophy and is indispensable for an understanding of his critique of morality and "revaluation of all values." This volume presents the distinguished translation by R. J. Hollingdale, with a new introduction that argues for a dramatic change in Nietzsche's views from Human, All too Human to Daybreak, and shows how this change, in turn, presages the main themes of Nietzsche's later and better-known works such as On the Genealogy of Morality. The edition is completed by a chronology, notes and a guide to further reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

At the moment, my favorite Nietzsche
Well, Nietzsche is one of those dudes you don't just read and then put away--no, you have a relationship with Fred your whole life.You go through ups where you think he's a brilliant... sage, you go through downs where you think he's a brilliant... child.Etcetera--thinking that he's brilliant is about the only constancy in the experience of returning to his writings again and again.You think you understand him, you think a bit more, you think you don't understand him... you think a bit more, then you think you understand him again.So it goes.

Right now, I know for sure that I do not understand: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, Ecce Homo, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Birth of Tragedy.And I find The Gay Science too frivolous for me.Again, at the moment... not for all time.

Nietzsche overwhelms me in any large quantity.But these little aphorisms and prose poems in Daybreak are just perfect.They concern the relationships between morality, art, religion, tradition, custom, nationality, society, the individual, history, politics, lies, truth, human motives, and a bunch of other stuff too.Nietzsche knows what he's about: he'll never give you compartmentalized insight.Nietzsche never would have, and never did, write a book just about Aesthetics, or a book just about Morality, or a book just about Sociology.No, he was always aware of the holistic connection between these scholastically divided FACETS of the human condition.Maybe that's my hint to you for enjoying him more.

Daybreak reads like one of those old-style table of contents where they would put little chapter summaries underneath each line... but Daybreak reads like a table of contents for pretty much the entire corpus of 20th century "humanities" literature, plus much stuff that no one's attempted to write yet.

Is it all good?No, but about 95% of it is.So get yourself a cheap copy, head on over to the coffee-house, and dive on in.I'll see you there one of these days.

Brilliant work, lame academic introduction
If you're going to really understand Nietzsche it is of prime importance to understand the development of his ideas as they were written, chronilogicaly. To skip a work or omit one is to alter the perspective he is giving us. This is his first work to undermine the truth of morality, for morality's sake. His tone varies, but to miss out on "the first Christian" is a mistake. Thoroughly entertaining. I would skip the lame intro. Nietzsche would have burned it along with the rest of the systematic analysis of his work. 5 stars for our brilliant anti-nihilist, minus one for the lame academics they picked for the intro. Why not Solomon? Or Schacht or any other articulate academics. In general this series is great. These books are built for abuse. Why can't they make all paperbacks like these.

Nietzsche's Early Thoughts on Morality
In Nietzsche's Daybreak we see the beginnings of Nietzsche's complete and exhaustive interrogation of morality with its link to suffering.As with all of N's books, there are real gems here.His tone is calm and sedate, not shrill and inflated as in later works, such as the Anti-Christ or Twilight of the Idols.And it begins with a commencement to undermine our faith in morality.This is a recurrent them of Nietzsche's, who critics have said, gave the criminal back his conscience.

Some important points contained in the book include his linking of animal behavior and human morality and comments about the suffering and its consequent blame that become keys to his later works. Also worth mentioning are his comments in 205, Of the people of Israel.Read this section.It is prophetic.Nietzsche saw the Jewish problem in Germany as critical to the coming century.That he became associated with anti-Semitism has been unfair and a travesty.

Daybreak is a great primer for Nietzsche's later, more systemic, works such as Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil.Many of his later ideas are interrogated here, in some intances, the arguments are even better articulated.

Essential Nietzsche
Daybreak is for readers that want to experience the tremendous efforts that Nietzsche undertook to overcome his training and experiences as an educator and to discover and create his own voice. As with the extraordinary previous work -- Human, All Too Human -- Nietzsche writes in a manner that strongly suggests a very rich series of debate openings. He aims to stimulate, provoke, and establish a literary forum to air his overflowing wealth of ideas, questions, doubts, intuitions. Daybreak, like other works by this incredible writer, is meant for slow readers. You don't just simply sit down and read it from cover to cover like an entertaining best seller. Every other page will contain a notion that will either delight, mystify, irritate, or -- best of all -- provide one of those wonderful ah-hah experiences that only happen when you are immersed in serious thought. It's best to take your time with one section after another and seriously ponder what he is saying, because Nietzsche builds a very startling view of human existence that cannot be appreciated by a quick reading.

As emphasized in the extremely well-written introduction by the editors (who do a great job in setting Daybreak in its context among other works by Nietzsche), the main subject of the book is a critique of morality -- what does it really mean to humans when we try to strip it down to its essentials and challenge the many conventions of custom. Nietzsche does not simply treat morality as an interesting subject for a pleasant intellectual dialogue, but rather makes it clear that he is in deadly earnest about how fundamentally important it is, and how our attitudes about it create ourselves and our world. You cannot read this book passively, because Nietzsche writes about difficult concepts that are very much alive today, such as this excerpt from section 149 about the common compulsion to conform to social custom, "The need for little deviant acts":

"Sometimes to act against one's better judgment when it comes to questions of custom... many toerably free-minded people regard this, not merely as unobjectionable, but as 'honest', 'humane', 'tolerant', 'not being pedantic', and whatever else those pretty words may be with which the intellectual conscience is lulled to sleep: and thus this person takes his child for Christian baptism though he is an atheist; and that person serves in the army as all the world does, however much he may execrate hatred between nations; and a third marries his wife in church because her relatives are pious and is not ashamed to repeat vows before a priest. ... The thoughtless error! ... it thereby acquires in the eyes of all who come to hear of it the sanction of rationality itself!"

There's much more of course, and one of the constantly exciting aspects of reading Nietzsche is to experience the way he interweaves discussions of art with larger philosophical concerns. His insights into literature and music are never trivial, and he provides a series of very startling perspectives. Daybreak is not the best known of Nietzsche's works, but it is essential to anyone who wants to engage seriously with his thought.

One Size Does Not Fit All
Daybreak:Thoughts On Moral Prejudices (1881) goes further than Human All Too Human in elaborating Nietzsche's critique of Christian morality.It is perhaps also more masterful than the earlier work in its artful use of aphoristic juxtaposition to engage the reader in his or her own reflections.Indeed, Nietzsche seems bent on conveying a particular type of experience in thinking to his readers, much more than he is concerned in persuading his readers to adopt any particular point of view.

Nietzsche criticized the Christian moral world view on a number of grounds that he was to develop further in his later works.His basic case rests on psychological analyses of the motivations and effects that stem from the adoption of the Christian moral perspective.In this respect, Daybreak typifies Nietzsche's ad hominem approach to morality.Nietzsche asks primarily, "What kind of person would be inclined to adopt this perspective?" and "What imp