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In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche observes that Greek tragedy gathered people together as a community in the sight of their gods, and argues that modernity can be rescued from 'nihilism' only through the revival of such a festival. This is commonly thought to be a view which did not survive the termination of Nietzsche's early Wagnerianism, but Julian Young argues, on the basis of an examination of all of Nietzsche's published works, that his religious communitarianism in fact persists through all his writings. What follows, it is argued, is that the mature Nietzsche is neither an 'atheist', an 'individualist', nor an 'immoralist': he is a German philosopher belonging to a German tradition of conservative communitarianism - though to claim him as a proto-Nazi is radically mistaken. This important reassessment will be of interest to all Nietzsche scholars and to a wide range of readers in German philosophy. ... Read more

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Ecce Homo is an autobiography like no other. Deliberately provocative, Nietzsche subverts the conventions of the genre and pushes his philosophical positions to combative extremes, constructing a genius-hero whose life is a chronicle of incessant self-overcoming. Written in 1888, a few weeks before his descent into madness, the book passes under review all of Nietzsche's previous works so that we, his "posthumous"readers, can finally understand him, on his own terms. He reaches final reckonings with his many enemies, including Richard Wagner, German nationalism, "modern men" in general, and above all Christianity, proclaiming himself the Antichrist. Ecce Homo is the summation of an extraordinary philosophical career, a last great testament to Nietzsche's will. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Dionysus versus the Crucified
This book is some sort of an autobiography of F. Nietzsche with his own short comments on his books, his literary and musical preferences, Christianity and the future of mankind. He also explains why he is a true immoralist.

Nietzsche stresses the all important influence of Schopenhauer in his life: `I very earnestly denied my `will to life' at the time when I first read Schopenhauer.'
His preferred authors are H. Heine, Byron, Stendhal, P. Loti, P. Mérimée, A. France and G. de Maupassant. In music, he likes Rossini, Chopin, Schütz, Haendel, Liszt, Bizet and Bach.

A true immoralist
A true immoralist confirms a double negation; first, of the so-called supreme, good, benevolent and beneficent man, and secondly, of the altruistic Christian morality.
He calls for `a revaluation of all values'. Concepts like God, soul, virtue, sin and eternal life are mere imaginings and lies prompted by the bad instincts of sick natures. All the problems of politics, social organization and education have been falsified because one mistook the most harmful men for great men.

Christianity
Blindness to Christianity is the crime par excellence, the crime against life. Its morality is vampirism. It is the most malignant form of the will to lie. It is a gruesome fact that anti-nature received the highest honors and was fixed over humanity as law and categorical imperative. It invented a `soul' to ruin the body. The Bible is a product of the will to suppress the truth. Its saints are slanderers of the world and violators of man.

Optimism
But, F. Nietzsche remains a fundamental optimist, because men strive for the forbidden. Therefore, his philosophy will triumph one day, because that what was forbidden has always been the truth. Dionysus will be stronger than the doctrine of the Crucified.

This book is a good introduction to the raging style, the reasoning with a hammer, the main themes, the Homeric battles and the `immoral' obsessions of a fascinating, integer, but in some aspects, controversial philosopher with a too egoistic agenda for mankind.
A must read for all Friedrich Nietzsche fans and lovers of Western philosophy.

quite frankly
The painting on the cover is very good. I have often looked at the picture as if the Christ in the painting is ashamed of each and every one of the people tormenting him. The painting ECCE HOMO by Quentin Massys from 1515 is in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The book itself is, as Nietzsche says about his Twilight of the Idols: "A great wind blows through the trees, and all around fruits drop down--truths." It takes a society that is seriously going wrong to get a thinker going in the "And in all seriousness, no one before me knew the right way" direction. Nietzsche had several cultures to learn from, and sharing an interest in Schopenhauer with Richard Wagner was merely a bit of good luck compared to the depth of insight that Nietzsche was able to gain on human culture as a need to make new discoveries. Each time I read this book, I am astounded at how profound the point of view that gave Nietzsche his own distinctions ended up being his literary autobiography instead of The Will To Power. ... Read more

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The Birth of Tragedy is one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period. The theories developed in this relatively short text have had a profound influence on the philosophy, literature, music and politics of the twentieth century. This edition presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context.The volume also includes two essays on related topics that Nietzsche wrote during the same period. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Competent translation --incompetent editor (1/2)

This volume includes

The Birth of Tragedy
The Dionysian World View
On Truth and Lying in the Supra-Moral Sense

Ronald Speirs' translation is very good and about everything one expects from an institution such as Cambridge.Raymond Geuss' introduction is: unsympathetic, condescending, spurious and trite with biographical snippets excepting. Skip the introduction to this text.

For Nietzsche, art is nothing less then a "life affirming force"
I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art.Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" and "On The Genealogy of Morality" begin to shape or force the latter character of his thought, which is an affirmation of life.An affirmation of life, even with its tragic character rather than an affirmation of life without tragedy.Nietzsche agrees with Schopenhauer about the nature of reality being dark.He accepts Plato's characterization about tragedy, but affirms tragedy instead of wanting to ban it like Plato argued for in his "Republic."He rejects Aristotle' formalism, Nietzsche rejects Kant's notion of disinterest, and its life denying implications, the whole idea that you have to be disinterested in art is a complete contradiction of the vitality of art.It betrays a kind of life denying implication, if the point of art is to find a zone to turn off ones interests, then why would you think that, that is valuable.Why would someone think that that is a good thing?Nietzsche accepts the idea of genius and like Hegel, although not in the same way as Hegel, Nietzsche elevates art to a high level, by saying that art and reality mirror each other, in that art is a kind of forming formlessness and that is the way reality is.Nietzsche had a big influence on 20th century art.

Nietzsche unlike Aristotle insists on a religious component in tragedy, the two main Greek myth currents is Apollo and Dionysus.By associating these two religious sects with tragedy, it is more historically true for Nietzsche.He observes Greek tragedy and Dionysian religion and its character.The image of Greek culture was one of being measured and civilized, however Nietzsche sees the Dionysian religion was dark and violent and irrational as well.Tragedies were performed at Dionysian festivals it is a "nature" based religion, celebrating the cycle of life, both birth and death.The world is like a restaurant, all living things live off other living things.Dionysian rites probably included animal sacrifices, maybe human as well.Dionysus was an unusual deity in Greece; he was the only one to suffer death and to be brought back to life, unlike other Olympian deities.Dionysian religion was very popular in Greece; Apollonian religion was very popular as well.Nietzsche says tragedy has something to do with Dionysius religions dark side.

One of the best sources of the Dionysian religion is Euripides in the "Bacchae."There is some question about his intent in writing the "Bacchae."Euripides turns against his Greek tragic tradition by showing the Greeks the absurdities and ironies in their tragic tradition with his plays, which also essentially recommend that Greeks turn away from their form of tragedy.Euripidean heroes are usually rebelling against the state rather than accommodating it.However, the "Bacchae" is an unusual play because it seems to be just the kind of portrayal of the Dionysian religion.It is a tragic satire of Dionysian religion by presenting its absurdities.

Nietzsche's point is that there is something very different about tragedies, they have measured constructions of beauty and form, and Aristotle is very good at pointing that out.Greek tragedys are not chaotic not just wild abandonment, they are beautifully constructed artistic works with plots and characters and story lines.This is often misunderstood, for Nietzsche Greek tragedy is not a purely Dionysian phenomenon.Apollo, the Apollonian religion is equally important to understand tragedy, and in fact, it is the Apollonian part that makes tragedy for Nietzsche not a life of pessimism art form.You could say the Dionysian and Apollonian religions were two powerful forces that are very different from each other.Nietzsche said they had different manifestations and often looked on each other with antagonism.Dionysian religion and Christianity has similarities, the dying God, sacrament of eating and drinking of the body.Nietzsche's tragic hero is done in by faith, for both.Big difference for Christianity is the resurrection.Nietzsche believes that what makes Greek tragedy special is that it is a joining of these two forces, the Apollonian form in representing measured power and the darker undoing power of the Dionysian religion.

Apollo represents form and Dionysus formlessness.Apollonian form is an artistic phenomenon it is not a rational form.Sometimes people read the Apollonian as a rational principle, but they do this because Socrates comes on the scene who represents what Plato wanted.The overcoming of the tragic by way of the conscious reflection and rational principles and so on.The Apollonian is always an artistic sensuous produced form.The Dionysian is the impulse to self-transcendence and by self-transcendence Nietzsche means the Greek word ecstasy, which literally means to stand outside oneself.It would be proper therefore to say that the Dionysian experiences were ecstatic in the literal sense because there was a loss of individualization a loss of self-consciousness and an emersion in these powerful natural forces.Therefore, the whole point of the Dionysian religion was to overcome the self.You can see that eroticism and killing are two forms of dismemberment.Killing is obviously the termination of life,but as every human culturalknows, the power of the erotic has its own kind of dismembering force in that it is a natural force that can easily undue the culture.Sex is always an enemy in some respects, and yet, no sex, no culture.The erotic is a natural force and all cultures have recognized the power of the erotic as a powerfully disintegrating force.It can lead people to abandon all decorum and measure and responsibility.Therefore, sex, birth, and death are the Dionysian religion in a nutshell.Dionysian's would argue no sex no culture, so why not give cultural expression to power of sex.This releases pent up depression.Nietzsche wants to understand tragedy as interdependent, yet the form of the one religion is dependent of the other religion.Dionysian part and Apollonian part are together in tragedy, but with dark theme but no wholly chaotic art form.Tragedy represents reconciling of the two religions.Nietzsche's point is we truly don't understand what tragedy meant to the Greeks.It wasn't simply a dark story of destruction.It had religious connotations.

From this religious cultural analysis, Nietzsche wants to form an art theory.In Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" he sees things in the Greek world having a stimulus of thought starting philosophy.Regeneration of art world, was he thought, found in Richard Wagner's music.Nietzsche is a life philosopher.Nietzsche believes there is some life force tapped into by the creative person.Artists are "touched" by a force.Dionysian religion is a bit of this you lose yourself and are given over to something more powerful like Nietzsche's life force.Creativity has to be a little abnormal or as Nietzsche says dissatisfaction with the normal.Nietzsche argued that philosophy should contain artistic elements.One of the messages of Nietzsche's philosophy is that the problem arose when philosophy came on the scene and tried to organize and govern everything by rational concepts and methods and reflection and categorization and demonstration and logical arguments.That is the reason why Socrates and Plato found tragedy so offensive, so unwieldy and such a stimulation.But then again Nietzsche asks the question, before I get on board with this plan to overcome these terrible forces, I want to know why its so terrible, this is his constant method, which is to ask, prove to me why tragedy has to give way to philosophy.Part of Nietzsche's approach to philosophy itself is that philosophy should contain artistic elements.This is the reason for his writing style, which are elusive and not straightforward argumentations.

Remember, Schopenhauer who influenced Nietzsche's thinking said the ultimate nature of will is this formless chaotic energy, that we strive for meaning that we have here and there but in the end it is all taken away from us and that is the end of it and that is why life is meaningless.However, Nietzsche says the fact that the Greeks had this very same insight but did not turn away from life should not have been a puzzle to Schopenhauer it should have made Schopenhauer question his own argument.Instead, Schopenhauer argued that the Greeks didn't realize the full impact of tragic insight, they were naive.Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer was wrong about tragedy.Schopenhauer thought tragedy was a necessary insight into meaninglessness, which would lead to resignation.That is why the Apollonian is so important for Nietzsche; the Apollonian is what saves the human spirit from disintegration.Therefore, art has this saving power.However, the fact that the Greeks had in one form in tragedy, the two forces of Apollo and Dionysus interests Nietzsche.On the one hand, they recognize the limits of things, in the other hand they delighted in the artistic orientation of this dark story.How can there be pleasure from dark themes in art, in a way Nietzsche is giving his own version of it, for him it is inherently life affirming to actually render the dark in artistic form.There is a difference between coming to the insight that life is meaningless, and then saying that now guides all my thinking and all my dispositions.The very fact of tragedy as an artistic form is life saving element for the Greeks.The curious thing is that the Greeks could enjoy these tragic performances and yet the message was dark.

Therefore, it is important to note that Nietzsche insists that the Apollonian and Dionysian dyad are a characteristic of reality.One by themselves is not real.Form is by itself just an allusion of formal structure; an allusion of formal structure is what so many philosophers wanted, eternal being eternal structures, timeless truths that would be form.Formlessness by itself is too chaotic, no culture, no art, no creativity.Nietzsche was always a philosopher of culture, always pointing to his German culture that he thought needed to be renewed and revived.Nietzsche recognizes the force and reality of wildness, but it is the two together that make human life, the wild, and the cultured, both are unavoidable dualities the Apollonian and Dionysian.Greek tragedy brought them into focus; his philosophy tries to work from that and he says, yes that is how we should see existence.

So poetry and tragedy are both pre-conceptual artforms that start culture, no culture starts with philosophy, conceptual formations and definitions and axioms and truths.Culture begin with religion and art forms and habit and things that are not clarifying with conceptual structure.They have life to them and a culture lives them out.Although he values philosophy as higher form of thinking, he always insists that philosophy can't alienate itself from pre-conceptual world of art, (poetry), which he certainly thought Plato was saying when he wanted to ban poetry.Nietzsche would say there is an infinite relationship between poetry and philosophy and that means that those who might want to distinguish philosophy with having a higher value than just poetry are wrong.He thinks it is wrong that you can have a pure conceptual procedure on the one hand and have anything of deep value or that you can simply have a poetic genre on one hand all by itself.Thinking is important, not just poeticizing.However, Nietzsche argues we must have thinking with poeticizing.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in Nietzschean philosophy, philosophy of art, Greek tragedy, culture, and history.

Mind-blowing and life-changing: why nighttime is the right time.
After Plato/Aristotle, the most influential (and read) Western philosopher is Nietzsche, and few of his writings continue to resonate in the mind as forcefully as "The Birth of Tragedy."It's at once a coherent and fairly accessible text with implications far in excess of its stated, explicit meanings.Although Nietzsche's focus is, as the title indicates, on Greek drama prior to the 5th century B.C. and to the written records of Aeschylus, his setting is as much the realm of the sub-conscious, whether viewed as Jung's collective unconscious or Freud's id.

"The Birth of Tragedy" could as accurately be titled "An Anatomy of Desire and Investigation of the Role of the Erotic."Anyone who has read with understanding this account of the primary agency of the Chorus in early tragedy as well as the privileging of darkness over light, of the ear over the eye, of incantation over narration, is likely to find all "texts" thereafter colored by Nietzsche's views.It's no longer a mystery why "Moon" songs outnumber "Sun" songs by a vast margin in music literature, or why writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare toWagner and Cole Porter extoll the realm of the dark and atemporal while sparing no venomous rhetoric in relentless denunciations of a rational, brightly lit temporal order.

Even a poet as calm and commonsensical as Wordsworth could write, "We murder to dissect."That which is illuminated, and hence visible and measurable, is necessarily individualized, quantified, and objectified, removing it from the vital stream that at some level we recognize as leading us to our most authentic selves.Whenever we "stop" the life-flow to examine a part--whether as an analytic scientist, a rational psychologist, or a pathological individual who finds love surrogates in the form of some fetish--we in effect "kill" the thing that had formerly embodied the living and the whole.Only by careful reconstruction can we begin to understand how the object of analysis, when experienced as part of the current, is not merely an object but a microcosm.

"The Birth of Tragedy" is Nietzsche's metaphorical journey into the archetypal "heart of darkness" that has been the destination for storytellers from Homer to Francis Ford Coppola.But it also represents the challenge confronting any true mathematician or scientist engaged in the quest of exploring and representing "the real."Perhaps it goes without saying that for any lover who is capable of addressing with honesty the experience of being "in love" Nietzsche's essay is practically required reading: it may probe sores and open wounds, but it's doubtful any other text does a better job of explaining why we as humans love to love, desire to desire, and are drawn--repeatedly and against our wills--to the entrancing song from the darkness.

Greeks, those who made life seem most seductive...
Although I'd spent some time reading Nietzsche somewhat intensively, I'm far from being a "student of Nietzsche," let alone a "Nietzsche scholar." My reading of him was more as a disturbed soul than as a student/scholar, and I didn't get much in the way of philosophical achievement of his. One of my plans for the summer is to read him more carefully and more with an eye to his intellectual development, and I began with The Birth of Tragedy.

So, BT is his first book, published when he was only 27. As he himself famously noted, 14 years after the first publication of BT, it is "a first book in every bad sense of the word." Apart from his own criticism (in "Attempt at a Self-Criticism"), any new reader just entering Nietzsche's corpus and Nietzsche scholorship is bound to hear of critical belittlements toward BT. So we hear that Nietzsche of BT is far from the mature philosopher we admire in Beyond Good and Evil and other later works, that he was under a strong sway of his youthful influences (Wagner, Schopenhauer) and was helplessly romantic. That he was a mere "philologist and cultural critic," whose philosophical maturing is years to come. That, taken with Nietzsche's later intellectual developments in mind, it is a "scandalous" (albeit in a different sense from what his detractors used it on its publication) book. Etc. Etc.

I'm now into Human, All Too Human, and I cannot but think that what Richard Schacht says in "Introduction" as to this another llargely ignored book of Nietzsche's early period equally applies to BT: "Even today, few recognize it as the gold mine it is, not only as an excellent way of becoming acquainted with his thinking, but also for its wealth of ideas worth thinking about." Coarsely put, isn't it often true that the worst work by the greatest mind often is far superior to the best by the mediocre?

My reading of BT this time concludes: his most pressing concern in BT is *not* to pay homage to Wagner or Schopenhauer, rather it is to seek ways to learn from Greeks, for as he notes, "the ability to learn from this people is in itself a matter of lofty fame and distinguishing rarity." By tracing the birth and death of tragedy in ancient Greece, Nietzsche is showing us how a culture could "justify" (affirm and embrace) even the "worst of all worlds," and how it perished. His diagnosis of modern ills toward the end of BT is indeed a goldmine, a wealth of ideas worth exploring, and is so pertinent to our time.

Perhaps Nietzsche's insights and ideas in BT have been fully explored and exhausted, and thus we may benefit more from elsewhere in this regard. Yet, as a beautifully written "youthful" book, belonging to the precious group of books we may call "books for the eternal youth (in us)," it has the power to make our heart beat faster, awakening the spirit in us we thought we have long lost.

It got me through a long plane ride
My mom gave me this book to read on a plane flight to Prague. I loved it and it kept me glued to the pages for the whole time. "The age of the Socratic man is over...only dare to be tragic men" - I love this stuff!
Sincerely,
David ... Read more

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Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872) is one of the most important philosophical texts of the modern period. Nietzsche describes how Greek tragedy was born out of the encounter between the Dionysian and the Apollonian and represents a culture in which a balance between the two was achieved. The Dionysian plunged Greek culture into chaos and despair but also paved the way for the regenerative power of Apollonian clarity and rationality. It is this model that Nietzsche employs to understand both the decline of modern culture and the possible rebirth of this culture. In genuine tragic art, the Dionysian and Apollonian elements are completely entwined. In the music of Richard Wagner, to whom the work is dedicated, Nietzsche sees a redemptive power that can overcome the intellectual dichtonomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian that characterises modern society. ... Read more

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Why must we believe that God is dead? Can we accept that traditional morality is just a 'useful mistake'? Did the principle of 'the will to power' lead to the Holocaust? What are the limitations of scientific knowledge? Is human evolution complete or only beginning? It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Friedrich Nietzsche for our present epoch. His extraordinary insights into human psychology, morality, religion and power seem quite clairvoyant today: existentialism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and postmodernism are plainly anticipated in his writings - which are famously enigmatic and often contradictory."Introducing Nietzsche" is the perfect guide to this exhilarating and oft-misunderstood philosopher. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

This book was written for me.
I have no college degree and grew up in the south. I had heard of Nietzsche but only in misconstrued concept. This book provided a great starting point and clarified much of the hyperbole surrounding his work (no, he was not pro-holocaust). The format was easily readable and flowed very nicely with some great artwork that added some comic relief. And as any good intro will do it has inspired me to read more on or by Nietzsche. I would highly recommend this book as a springboard!

Quick intro to unfamiliar topic
This is the second Introducing Graphic Guide I have read (Introducing Sartre was the first). These guides are a great way to quickly learn about subjects you have heard about all your life but actually know nothing about. (I learned enough about both of these philosophers to know not to bother reading any of their works. I also developed a deep sympathy for poor Nietzsche, who probably had Asperger's Syndrome or something similar. For a great philosopher, he lived a truly miserable life.)

The only negative thing I can say about the guides is that I didn't like the illustrations in the Nietzsche Guide, which I found wierd, sometimes confusing, and often depressing. But then, that was what Nietsche was like!

Amazing
I started thumbing through this book in Chicago and could not put it down.I had to buy a second copy because my friend in Chicago I showed it to after reading could also not put it down.This is an excellent overview of Nietzsche and his philosophy and thoughts on various subjects.Since reading the overview I have worked my way through the Antichrist, the Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo, and have starting working on Zarathustra.While Nietzsche is certainly subject to multiple interpretations, this book seems to hit the nail on the head and I frequently return to it after reading the original works to see if I have the same interpretation of various subjects as the author.A fun and informative read.

I give you .. the superman!
This book is a perfect introduction/overview of Nietzcshe's work, well paced, covering all the bases simply and succinctly, with suitable illustrations. Best of all, Nietzsche himself gives intellectual justification for such a brief overview of complicated ideas - he is perhaps the greatest critic of all, of academic overwrite and turgid over-complicated arguments. As a great proponent and utiliser of the aphorism, you can feel quite comfortable in reading this edition, that you are in fact doing the great man's work justice.

We see in Gane's book what a profound thinker Nietzsche is, and what a thoroughly modern figure he is. We see how Freud, Postmodernism and the current critique of science as God all developed from his work.What a man, what a thinker, what a book this is! Junk the original works and just read this - now that's a post-modern approach.

In my opinion, the "Introducing" series are well worth the money
I can only give this one 3 of 5 stars.Maybe it's just me, but I thought this book was about as entertaining as one of Nietzsche's books.Long, dry, boring. ... Read more

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This book explores Friedrich Nietzsche's understanding of modern political culture and his position in the history of modern political thought. Surveying Nietzsche's entire intellectual career from his years as a student in Bonn and Leipzig during the 1860s to his genealogical project of the 1880s, Christian Emden contributes to a historically informed discussion of Nietzsche's response to the political predicaments of modernity, and sheds new light on the intellectual and political culture in Germany as the ideals of the Enlightenment gave way to the demands of the modern nation state. This is a distinguished addition to the series of Ideas in Context, and a major reassessment of a philosopher and aphorist whose stature among post-enlightenment European thinkers is now almost unrivalled. ... Read more

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"Philosophy and Truth" offers the first English translation of six unpublished theoretical studies (sometimes referred to as Nietzsche's "Philosopher's Book") written just after the publication of "The Birth of Tragedy" and simultaneously with "Untimely Meditations". In addition to the texts themselves, which probe epistemological problems on philosophy's relation to art and culture, this book contains a lengthy introduction that provides the biographical and philological information necessary for understanding these often fragmentary texts. The introduction also includes a helpful discussion of Nietzsche's early views concerning culture, knowledge, philosophy, and the Greeks. ... Read more

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A landmark discussion between two great thinkers--the second (combining volumes III and IV) of two volumes inquiring into the central issues of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Invaluable
This text is a continuation of Heidegger's lecture series on Nietzsche. It includes Volume III: The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics, and Volume IV: Nihilism. There is also further commentary on the much misunderstood doctrines of 'eternal return,' and the 'overman.' Heidegger argues against the fascistic Nietzsche interpretations by Baeumler and the like. Heidegger's Nietzsche is a metaphysical thinker, he shakes him off all attempts to situate him as a thinker of biologism or crude nihilism. Rather, Nietzsche is a thinker of affirmation and enhancement. Although many are hesitant to fully accept Heidegger's preoccupation with Being in this work, there are few who reject the significance of this insightful exegesis. David Krell's analysis is also helpful and thoroughly researched.

A deep meditation
One of the greatest works on Nietzsche and about the end of Metaphysics. Heidegger re-discovers Nietzsche as a thinker, and not merely as a "critic of culture".

The Heideggerian view of Nietzsche in its entirety
Due to the political affiliation of Martin Heidegger and his place in history, it is perhaps difficult to analyze his works objectively. The temptation might be then to lift him from history, with the imagined goal of perhaps cleansing him from the troubling influences he chose to be in. But however Heidegger is read, whether in historical context, or from a "modern standpoint", he does have some interesting and original things to say about Friedrich Nietzsche. His politics was destructive, as history has shown, and that is a fact that can be discussed completely outside the context of this book.

This is a lengthy book, and concentrates on Nietzsche's work "The Will to Power". Space therefore prohibits a detailed review, but some of the more interesting discussions by the author include:

1. The classifying of Nietzsche as being the "last metaphysician" of the West. The author believes that his thought was a consummation of Western philosophy, and that the will to power is an appreciation of the decision that must be made as to whether the this final age is the conclusion of Western history or a prelude to another beginning. Nietzsche wanted philosophy to not shy away from the predicament it found itself in. Therefore the author encourages philosophers to not merely "toy" with philosophical thoughts, as this will place them merely at the boundary of the set of important philosophical issues. The will to power is a sign of courage that consists of shedding one's reservations, and in recognizing the stakes in the issues at hand.

2. The reading of Nietzsche as someone who believed that the essence of life is in "self-transcending enhancement", and not in Darwinian struggle. Value is to be equated with the enhancement of life.

3. The author's overview and explanation, and deduction of what "truth" meant for Nietzsche. Truth can become a "de-realization" and a hindrance to life, and therefore not be condition of life, and thus not a value. But for the author, Nietzsche wants to overcome nihilism, and this implies therefore that there must be a value greater than truth. And what is this value? It is art, says Nietzsche, which is "worth more than truth".

4. The author's discussion of the alleged biologism of Nietzsche. A reading of Nietzsche might tempt one to conclude that he was, but the author cautions that such a characterization of his writings would be unfounded. One must not base an understanding on mere impressions, and "unlearn" the abuse that has been leveled against the "catchword" called "biologism". The author therefore suggests that we must learn to "read".

5. The description of Nietzsche's epistemology as "schematizing a chaos". For Nietzsche, this schematizing is an act of imposing upon chaos as much regularity and as many forms as our practical needs require. This is an interesting move, for is the characterization of something as chaotic itself subject to the imposition of this regularity? But the author is certainly aware of this problem, for he discusses in detail the Nietzschean concept of chaos. His reading of Nietzsche in this regard is that chaos does not mean confusion or the removal of all order. It rather means that order is concealed, and is not understood immediately. Most eloquently, the author describes the Nietzschean epistemology as a "stream that in its flow first creates the banks and turns them toward each other in a more original way than a bridge ever would." Such a concept of knowledge may seem poetic and too ephemeral to support what is needed for activities such as science and technology, and this is correct.

6. The discussion of Nietzsche's stand on the law of contradiction. Heidegger reads Nietzsche as holding to (without an explicit admission on Nietzsche's part) an Aristotelian notion of this law, saying in effect that taking the position that the law of contradiction is the highest of all principles demands an answer to the question of what sorts of assertions it already fundamentally presupposes. Again following Aristotle, Heidegger uses 'Being" in his most powerful sense here, as it is 'Being' that has its presence and in permanence. This means that beings represented as such will take into account these two requirements via being "at the same time" and "in the same respect". But this permanence is disregarded when an individual makes a contradiction. It is a loss of memory about what is to be grasped in a "yes" and "no". Such an activity will not be harmless, says Heidegger, as one day its catastrophic consequences will be manifested. Heidegger sums up the law of noncontraction as that the "essence of beings consists in the constant absence of contradiction". Further, Heidegger says, Nietzsche's interpretation of the law of contraction is one of an "imperative". This means that its use is a declaration of "what is to count" and follows Nietzsche's conception of truth as a "holding-to-be-true". Nietzsche therefore says that "not being able to contradict is proof of an incapacity, not of a 'truth.'"

Heidegger in Secret Sacred Cowsville
This is heavy reading, as only philosophy would dare to be.It involves internal hysteria about matters which ordinary people are supposed to avoid in a way which Heidegger called the "often practiced procedure" of taking Nietzsche's revelations "as the harbinger of eruptingmadness."(p. 3)What Heidegger contributes to the psychoticmultiplicity is the recognition that Nietzsche's thought illustrates aparticular philosophy.As the first paragraph of this book puts it,"Nietzsche is that thinker who trod the path of thought to 'the willto power.'"By the next page, Heidegger turns away from individualmatters to what he feels, in the agony of our times, to be reallyphilosophical issues."Neither the person of Nietzsche nor even hiswork concern us when we make both in their connection the object of ahistoriological and psychological report."(p. 4)This is not simplereporting: people tend to think most deeply about whatever they find mosttroubling.Nietzsche could relate this kind of thing to the bite of a dogon a stone.Nothing is yielding here.Objections which suggest themselvesto anyone who tries to observe this effort might best be directedelsewhere, but in the realm of philosophy, this is the best example of thenotion that science is a sacred cow.A full understanding of the mentaleffort involved in this exercise might be closer to stripping away anyindividual's defenses than to the kind of herd instinct of those partieswhose imperviousness to thought is typical of what a political philosophywould normally represent.This is not an effort to produce a sacred cow. This is an attempt to penetrate the heart of secret sacred cowsville. ... Read more

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Walter Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche (1960 -- 7th printing), Viking Press. ... Read more

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This title in Spanish only ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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The words 'grounding', 'rhetoric', and 'earth' represent the book's tripartite structure. Using a philological method Del Caro reveals the 'ecological' Nietzsche whose doctrines are strategies forresponsible and creative partnership between humans and earth. The major doctrines are shown to be related to early writings linked to paganism, the quotidian, and the closest things of Human, All Too Human.Perspective is shifted from time to place in the eternal recurrence of the same, and from power to empowerment in the will to power. This book is the first to comprehensively address the issue of where Nietzsche stands in relation to environment, and it will contribute to the 'greening' of Nietzsche. ... Read more

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Nietzsche has long been recognized and acclaimed as a thinker who transcends disciplinary categories.Although much has been written of him as a forerunner of existentialism, Freudian psychology, and modern linguistics, no modern study had been devoted to one of his lifelong preoccupations: his poetry.This book--the first to bring together the poems in English--restores them to their proper central position in the Nietzsche canon.Begun in early youth and composed and revised until the onset of his insanity in 1899, the poems reflect his own imperative that "the philosopher should recognize that which is necessary and the artist should create it."

In The Poetry of Friedrich Nietzsche Grundlehner examines 30 major poems and in so doing draws allusions and references to 220 juvenilia, songs, epigrams, dithyrambs, and verse fragments found throughout Nietzsche's writing.Arranged chronologically according to the various stages of Nietzsche's life and philosophical development, these not only bear testimony to the many changes in his environment and thinking, but from a rich background to his prose writings.

Excerpt:

"Toward New Seas" (1882)

Toward that place--is my will.And I trust

Henceforth myself and my grip.

Open lies the sea, my

Genose ship heads into the blue.

Everything is shining new and newer for me.

Noon sleeps upon space and time--:

Only your eye--monstrously,

Stare at me, Infinity! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Facts on poems and philosophy to match
If you would like to read a book about Nietzsche and Columbus, POX / GENIUS, MADNESS AND THE MYSTERIES OF SYPHILIS by Deborah Hayden is more exciting than this one.The first chapter of that book is about Christopher Columbus, chapter 8 on Beethoven, chapter 12 on Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln, chapter 15 on Vincent van Gogh, chapter 16 on Friedrich Nietzsche, and chapter 20 on Adolf Hitler.Anyone who reads it is sure to be astounded at how close Columbus, Nietzsche, and Hitler could be considered as possessing symptoms of the same disease.

THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE by Philip Grundlehner has a chapter on "New Lands," in which a poem about Columbus is a major topic.Nietzsche vaguely associated Columbus with sickness "In late November of 1881, for example, he wrote:`Here in Genoa I am proud and happy--quite a "Doria magnate"--Or a Columbus? . . .I need space--a great wide, unknown, unexplored world; otherwise I shall get sick of it all.' " (p. 120).Back in Germany on September 9, 1882, he wrote to Franz Overbeck, "Everything that lies before me is new, and it will not be long before I catch sight also of the terrifying face of my more distant life task."(p. 129).Two versions of the poem, "The New Columbus" from 1882 are translated on page 137, and the final three-stanza version of 1884 on page 138.Columbus sometimes had trouble walking, but it is not clear how much Nietzsche actually knew about how disabled he was when Nietzsche wrote:

Let us stand firm on our feet!
Never can we go back!
Look forward:from far away
One death, one fame, one happiness greet us!(p. 138).

One of the early versions of "The New Columbus" was sent to Lou "as part of a dedication of a copy of THE GAY SCIENCE `to my dear Lou.' "(p. 136).Each version starts with a warning."Since the adventurer's fidelity must be to his spirit rather than to another person, a selfishness results that forbids any sharing relationship.Nietzsche identifies this characteristic as a part of the Genoese heritage when he states in THE GAY SCIENCE that the people of this area are `overgrown with magnificent, insatiable lust for possessions and spoils.' "(p. 139).Grundlehner thinks that the use of the plural "we" and "us" in the last stanza is meant to include Lou."A probable explanation for this paradox lies in the confidence that Nietzsche gained in Lou Salome as an intimate who could accept the insecurities and dangers of the unknown and therefore participate in his vision."(p. 139).That interpretation is more gentle than the idea that Nietzsche would be bound in chains and brought back to Spain, as Columbus was in 1499, for exceeding his authority by executing Spaniards "for insurrection against Columbus's rule," as in the book, POX.The officially available information about the health of Columbus was not available "until de Ybarra compiled it in 1894, [which] allowed later syphilologists to see a pattern of syphilis in Columbus's history."(POX, p. 11).Whatever Nietzsche knew would have been by rumor, but the history of the Pox that was widely known included an epidemic in Naples, particularly among a French army which conquered it for a week in 1495, when the Pox became known as "Morbus Gallicus."(POX, p. 18).

Chapter 8 of THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE is called "Poetry as Pretension."(pp. 147-165).The last line of the first stanza of "To Goethe" in the Appendix to THE GAY SCIENCE, as translated by Walter Kaufmann in 1974, was:

poetic pretension.

So it is not surprising to find the poem "To Goethe" discussed on pages 150-157.The surprise is that the translation is so literal that it does not retain the poetic quality of Nietzsche's German or Kaufmann's English.Instead,

is a poetic trick . . .

Walter Kaufmann might be assuming that anyone who had proceeded that far in THE GAY SCIENCE was familiar with all the terms that philosophers, poets, and great minds on the order of Goethe and Nietzsche could use without being misunderstood.My confusion was greatest on Kaufmann's use of the word, "ineluctable," where THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE uses "deceitful" and, in its translation of the concluding "Chorus Mysticus" of Goethe's "Faust," "inaccessible."(p. 151).The best rhyme in the final stanza, of "the ruling force" with "the eternally fooling force" in Kaufmann, lacks "force" in THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, and the other rhyme in that stanza disappears completely with the use of a literal "being and appearance" instead of "false and true."You might learn a lot from this book, but people who are more interested in poetry than philosophy might be able to maintain the common prejudice that philosophers do not make very good poets.But if you don't like to read much German, consider how likely it is that some of the German poetry in this book is top-notch, and can be compared to Goethe, as on pages 150-151.

First bookever on Nietzsche's poetry. A brilliant first!
His is an extradinary book, especially for an American writingabout German poetry.Mr. Grundlehner should write it (poetry andliterature)--not write about it. He writes with style and grace, and his potential is there for the reader to behold.A must read.Even Nietzsche would be proud. ... Read more

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Kevin Hill presents a highly original study of Nietzsche's thought, the first book to examine in detail his debt to the work of Kant. Hill argues that Nietzsche is a systematic philosopher who knew Kant far better than is commonly thought, and that he can only be properly understood in relation to him. Nietzsche's Critiques will be of great value to scholars and students with interests in either of these philosophical giants, or in the history of ideas generally. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

I like its generalities better than some specific ideas here
I'm glad I have this book. I read it once, but going back to it again, I find that my comprehension was not good. As far as Kant is concerned, this book was like a change of topics for me. I could picture Kant last year following Hume, thinking that all concepts of cause would have to be conclusions made from experience relating to properties of things-in-themselves that our perceptions have no access to. Causality is mentioned in this book, but the mix of abstractions is so much more complicated than I remember, it seems possible that Nietzsche was inspired to refute the basic unity of the self from reading Kant.

The index of NIETZSCHE'S CRITIQUES THE KANTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF HIS THOUGHT by R. Kevin Hill on pages 239-242 has nothing for `unity' but the six entries for `apperception' include pages covering the topics: "a new account of Kant's notion of the transcendental unity of apperception," (p. 36), "the original, synthetic unity of apperception;" (p. 157), "What happened to the unity of the self, the mysteriously named `transcendental unity of apperception'?" (p. 158), and quotes Kant:

since we have to deal only with the manifold of our representations, and since that x (the object) which corresponds to them is nothing to us--being, as it is, something that has to be distinct from all our representations--the unity which the object makes necessary can be nothing else than the formal unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold of representations. (CPR A 135) (Hill, pp. 159-160).

According to Hill, "the unity of the self (in a cognitive act) is the unity of an act of judging. Thus the notion of the unified self cannot be literally understood as a model for the notion of an object. If we are to think in terms of a `projection hypothesis', the best we can do is think of a fact being a projection of an act of judgement." (p. 160). "It is more helpful to think of the upsurge of cognitive unity, factual unity, the forms of judgement, and the categories as coeval; this was Kant's considered view of the matter as well." (pp. 160-161). The Paralogisms in CPR concerning the nature of the self illustrate the mind's ability to jump to conclusions about itself. "The necessary unification of contents leads to a transcendental illusion of a substantial self." (p. 162). "Yet this further judgement, `and it is I who am thinking this thought!' . . . is utterly empty of all but formal content." (p. 162). "The very unity of awareness that constitutes our introspective selves is itself imposed on the conceptual field: the self is also a product of synthesis. This paradox provided Kant with a tool for attacking inflated notions of selfhood prevalent in the rationalist tradition. Nietzsche's encounter with Kant's thought decisively shaped his own account of self as synthesis and his critique of metaphysics. But thinking that the synthesis falsifies, that facts are the product of synthesis, and truth a mapping from thoughts to facts, he concluded that the truth is not truth. He inspired a vertigo which today lures us to an abyss into which deconstruction has already fallen." (p. 163).

Nietzsche's reaction to Descartes and Kant in section 54 of BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL is quoted on pages 180-181, including, "Basically, Kant wanted to prove that the subject could not be proved by means of the subject, nor could the object be proved either." Hill concluded: "Nietzsche is signalling his difference with Kant: whereas Kant believes that behind the merely synthetic unity of the apperceiving self, there is a noumenal self, Nietzsche claims that there is no such thing. There is only the body." (p. 181).

The vocabulary used by the author and the form of citation are certainly very scholarly throughout the book. Of the seven chapters in the book, I found the first most helpful in setting up the amount of attention Nietzsche devoted to Kant compared to other philosophers mentioned in Nietzsche's writings. The final pages of the first chapter explain the rest of the book. Chapter 7, considering the three essays of Nietzsche's GENEALOGY OF MORALS on equality, autonomy, and otherworldliness respectively, as reactions to different aspects of Kant's moral philosophy, is supposed to teach me something about Nietzsche's "rejection of the agent-neutral dimension of rule-governed action." (p. 36). I'm interested in rules and even found something in Kant about good judgement being necessary to apply rules in a way that produces appropriate results, but much of what I found in Kant while I was reading this book, and after my basic curiosity about Kant's CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT had been aroused, failed to provide a unifying system for me.

As I approach the age of sixty, I am aware of a number of scientific thinkers whose writings became more religious as their ages advanced. Having a religious upbringing might be a big factor in wanting to do some heavy thinking, but only for a while. Nietzsche had a great year when he was 44, summing up much that he had done in ECCE HOMO and NIETZSCHE CONTRA WAGNER, but stopped before he returned to the religious teachings he had been exposed to when he was young. Kant was about 57 when CPR was published and 66 when CJ completed his string of CRITIQUES. Much of what I read in Kant was far more religious in nature than the scholarly level of the philosophy in Hill's book, as is to be expected in this day and age. I don't think religious instincts have disappeared. Many people would like to disguise them as something else, or think that the judgements which Kant applies to fine arts applies much more aptly, now, to the modern immersion in entertainment values, and few people are concerned about the current status of cognition on space, time, antimonies, or even moral intuitions.

The index only mentions pages 53-57 for `sublime,' but the section "Aesthetic judgement" on pages 49-58 and "The unity of the concept of reflective judgement on pages 58-67 leads into a comparison of the underlying forms:

[I] {[can't help but][feel that]([this][is designed to be synthesized as a unity])}

[I]{[can't help but][feel that]([I][am designed to be synthesized as a unity])}

". . . with the beautiful, it is the object about which we have intimations of designedness. With the sublime, it is the subject about which we have these intimations." (p. 65).

The New 'New Nietzsche'
Now, it certainly isn't everyday that one runs across a new interpretation of Nietzsche! Well, this book (among others) has in fact achieved that. This book on the Kantian roots of Nietzsche's thought is one among several, including:

Michael Steven Green: Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition
Robin Small: Nietzsche in Context
George J. Stack: Nietzsche's Anthropic Circle : Man, Science, and Myth

Most students of my generation, here in America, began our exploration of Nietzsche with the sober Walter Kaufmann and analytically-minded Arthur Danto.. Later, in the mid-sixties and seventies, we became acquainted with the "New Nietzsche', that is the so-called Continental (e.g., Heidegger, Jaspers, and Karl Löwith) and Postmodern (Deleuze, Derrida, and Foucault) interpretations. Later still, we became aware of the 'esoteric' Nietzsche of both Pierre Klossowski and Leo Strauss and his school (Laurence Lampert, Stanley Rosen). Well, now the latest Nietzsche is the Kantian Nietzsche. Nietzschean interpretation now has Radical Kantianism to range alongside the Continental, Postmodern, Straussian and Analytic interpretations. Bravo!

A good 'rallying cry' for this new interpretation was provided by Green in his 'Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition' where he says of Nietzsche that:

"His exposure to philosophy primarily came from two sources. He knew a great deal about ancient philosophy, especially Plato and the pre-Socratics by virtue of his philological training. And he had read a number of philosophers in the nineteenth-century Neo-Kantian tradition, such as Schopenhauer, Friedrich Albert Lange, Gustav Teichmuller and Afrikan Spir. It is to these writer we should primarily look to understand what Nietzsche was talking about, not Derrida or Foucault and not Tarski or Quine." (Green, Introduction, p. 3.)

Our author, R. Kevin Hill, will argue for the centrality of Schopenhauer, Friedrich Albert Lange and Kuno Fischer in Nietzsche's understanding of Kant and Kantianism. I will be stepping on no ones toes if I say that a generation ago almost no readers of Nietzsche were studying the neo-Kantian canon - with the single exception of Schopenhauer, of course. Some of the most important of these relatively unknown neo-Kantian works are:

F. A. Lange: The History of Materialism and Criticism of its Present Importance
Kuno Fischer: A Commentary on Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"
Afrikan Spir: Right and Wrong
Jules de Gaultier: From Kant to Nietzsche
Hans Vaihinger: The Philosophy of As If

We absolutely will NEVER see Nietzsche until we see him in the sea in which he swam. This means becoming acquainted with not only Kant and Schopenhauer but also the works mentioned above. Note that both de Gaultier and Vaihinger are after Nietzsche's intervention but they help show us the trajectory of neo-Kantianism.

I want to add, regarding the 'Kantian Nietzsche', that even though it perhaps shows that I am far too easily excited I am delighted by this emergent trend in Nietzsche interpretation. Also I should point out that Nietzsche is at his most 'Kantian' in the notes he never saw fit to publish (i.e., Will to Power). Now, all these works mentioned above should be in any college library but I doubt that most public libraries would have them all. These books on Nietzsche, btw, understand themselves to be, for the most part, disputing and disproving the postmodern understanding of Nietzsche. They can however, or so I would argue, be understood to be exposing the radical Kantian roots of this very Nietzschean postmodernism.

How? Well, in 'Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume II' there is an essay almost entirely ghost-written, and thus approved, by Foucault. The essay 'Foucault' (p. 459) begins thusly "To the extent that Foucault fits into the philosophical tradition, it is the critical tradition of Kant, and his project could be called a Critical History of Thought." So there is a way that Foucault (and postmodernism in general) can be understood by those steeped in Anglo-Saxon academic philosophical analysis - go back to their mutual neo/Kantian roots. That is, in my opinion, the great work of reconstruction that this newly emergent school is embarked on. The history of radical Kantianism (Kant, Neo-Kantians, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Postmodernism) has yet to be written! Hopefully, some young scholar is assembling even now the materials necessary for the writing of this history.

Now, our expositors of the Kantian Nietzsche do not generally understand themselves to be engaging in a sort of unification of the various Nietzsche interpretations. - In fact, anything but! The spirit of this remark by Hill can, in this regard, be taken to be typical:

"If we are to read Nietzsche, not as the legislator of a new post-theistic religion or as the bellelettrist of acute psychological and cultural observation, that is, if we are to read him as a philosopher, we will be led inexorably to the context of Neo-Kantianism, and to the highly peculiar things Nietzsche did with Kant." (Hill, Conclusion, p. 232.)

Thus Hill repudiates the 'constructivism' we find in some Straussian interpretations (e.g., Lampert) of Nietzsche and also the aesthetics of (so much of) postmodernism. But I do not believe this will be the last word!

I agree that the only two philosophical `traditions' that Nietzsche knew, in a manner that would be recognized as rigorous by academics, were the Kantian and the ancient Greeks. I would argue that it may well one day be said that the Platonic 'world-making' of Nietzsche was in fact a consequence of his Radical Kantianism. If the `Real' world is unreachable (the infamous things-in-themselves) then the True, Good and Beautiful are forever unreachable too. And so they (the true, good and beautiful) will eventually be denied - or created. Thus the `Platonic' world-making of Nietzsche is an attempt to prevent the inevitable fall into nihilism (denial of values) which eventually follows as a consequence of Radical Kantianism...

In fact I have long thought that the only way to (intelligently) argue against Nietzsche as (political) esotericist (as Laurence Lampert presents him, e.g.) is to present Nietzsche as a Kantian who radicalizes the political consequences of living in a world in which the 'things themselves' (i.e. the Truth) are forever a black box to us. But these two interpretations, thanks to the danger of nihilism, then slide into each other.

But how would one go about making this argument? I would make it by arguing the centrality (for Nietzsche) of Kant's third critique. I think that Hill has nicely shown that not only had Nietzsche read the 'Critique of Judgment' first but Hill has also shown that it remained a central concern to Nietzsche throughout his thinking career. And I should add that Hill has given us, in these pages, an intelligent discussion of the 3rd Critique too.

Thus the key to all this will turn out to be, in my perhaps worthless opinion at any rate, Kant's (3rd) Critique of Judgment - which has, in fact, always seemed a duality to me. On the one hand you have the section on aesthetics while on the other hand you have the section on teleology. How do they hang together? Is the section on teleology really the `4th' critique? ...But what if this last, the search for intelligibility, meaning, purpose, was to be taken seriously? Wouldn't it threaten to swallow all the other Critiques? The search for intelligibility and purpose becomes, inevitably becomes, the Creation of intelligibility and purpose. If you read the 3rd Critique first you might conclude that the other critiques (Pure Reason, Practical Reason) follow from it! Nietzsche read the 3rd Critique first! Our ability to form judgments, purposeful (Teleological) Judgments, is how Kant hoped to seal his system...

But enough of that! So, in closing, I want to say that this is a great addition (and introduction) to the new 'Kantian' school of Nietzsche interpretation. But this school is still in its infancy and no one yet knows what it will become once the other interpretive schools actively engage it... ... Read more

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Ruth Abbey presents a close study of Nietzsche's works, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, and The Gay Science. Although these middle period works tend to be neglected in commentaries on Nietzsche, they repay careful attention. Abbey's commentary brings to light important differences across Nietzsche's oeuvre that have gone unnoticed, filling a serious gap in the literature. ... Read more

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As a young man growing up near Basel, Jung was fascinated and disturbed by tales of Nietzsche's brilliance, eccentricity, and eventual decline into permanent psychosis. These volumes, the transcript of a previously unpublished private seminar, reveal the fruits of his initial curiosity: Nietzsche's works, which he read as a student at the University of Basel, had moved him profoundly and had a lifelong influence on his thought. During the sessions the mature Jung spoke informally to members of his inner circle about a thinker whose works had not only overwhelmed him with the depth of their understanding of human nature but also provided the philosophical sources of many of his own psychological and metapsychological ideas. Above all, he demonstrated how the remarkable book Thus Spake Zarathustra illustrates both Nietzsche's genius and his neurotic and prepsychotic tendencies.

Since there was at that time no thought of the seminar notes being published, Jung felt free to joke, to lash out at people and events that irritated or angered him, and to comment unreservedly on political, economic, and other public concerns of the time. This seminar and others, including the one recorded in Dream Analysis, were given in English in Zurich during the 1920s and 1930s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

recomended to everyone, buy it from amazon!
i ordered this item last week and it came to me in cyprus only within 3working days by amazon, in an excellent condition. i'm sure it would be useful , i'm glad i found that. i have never thought that i would get it so easy. thank you amazon. you are the best! from what i saw this book is perfect, it deserves all the money! i can't wait to start read!

I am with a problem: I want the first volume of the Nietzsch's Zarathustra: Notes of the seminar given in 1934-1939
I want the firt volume of the Nietzsch's Zaratustra: Notes of the seminar given in 1934- 1939. I received only the volume 2.
Whata happen?
Djalma Argollo

Jung expounds Nietzsche
Here we have acase of the meeting of 2 profound intellects. Jung first read Nietzsche's Zarathustra when he was 25, not grasping all the inner meanings but sensing some dark mysteries were locked away in Nietzsche's greatest work. Now 35 years later Jung brings to us his careful study of the pinnacle of Nietzsche's thinking, Zarathustra.
Nietzsche was prophetic about the future breakdown in the germanic consciousness, but his narrative set in poetical, aphoric language goes further to shed light on modern man's predictiment in the 20/21st century. Truths, insightsthat Neitzsche paid for dearly later in his life as the collective unconscious devastated his mental stability.
The destructive side to thecollective unconscious effects on Nietzscheare brought to light by Jung's profound exposition. These same affects from the unknown regions of the psyche are also taking its toll on modern man. All too frequently, pills are readily proscribed for all sorts of mental imbalances, uneasiness created by man's lack of recognition and flat out denial of the psyche.
If you have difficulity in understanding the analogies and metaphors in Nietzsche's Zarathustra, this 2 vol seminar will allow you to probe the mysterious language of Thus Spake Zarathustra.

The recent Notes to the seminar are only highlights and thus not recommended to those wishing to penetrate Nietzsche.
Thisthe 2 vol set which took place in aprivate seminar over acourse of 6 years.

One of the most insightful guides to Nietzsche's symbolism
This is one of the most valuble guides to the study of Nietzsche's philosophy.Symbolism wasat the heart of Nietzsche's project, and Jung is the master of symbolic interpretation.Anyone who is attempting to fully grasp Nietzsche's Zarathustra must consult this text.This edition includes an exceptional index, useful in a work of this size and scope. ... Read more

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In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The courage to attain "will to power"
I read On the Genealogy of Morals for a graduate seminar on ethics, and in particular his writings regarding the virtue of courage.I found Walter Kaufmann's translation the best of several I looked at.Often regarded in philosophical circles as the first "postmodern" philosopher, Nietzsche is very critical to all of modernity's philosophical attempts to create a scientific or rationally based approach to ethics.Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals is in part a refutation of Kant's ethical theory, arguing that Kantian ethics as well as other modern ethical theories were more interested in defining ethical values and not concerned with questioning their usefulness or whether they were derived from what Nietzsche believed were irrational psychological forces feeding people's illusions.Another purpose of the Genealogy is to examine the history of how morals were created in Western culture.Nietzsche's extensive philological studies of ancient Greek literature led him to argue that there needed to be a historical and psychological approach to understanding how ethical values came into existence.Thus, one of Nietzsche's goals in his Genealogy is to provide a critique of ethical values, such as courage, and to examine, "...the conditions and circumstances in which they grew, under which they evolved and changed."(456, GM I, 6).Another important aspect of Nietzsche's Genealogy is found in Nietzsche's ethical notions finding common ground with Aristotelian virtue ethics.Only Aristotelian virtue ethics can fit well with Nietzsche's moral ethics.Thus, I find that an interesting outcome of Nietzsche's examination of Greek culture leads him down a path back to the first evolutionary stage of the virtue of courage in particular, and to the classical Greek inception of virtue ethics in general.Nietzsche enthusiastically followed this path and reintroduced the world to the critical need for the classical Greek interpretation of the virtue of courage to help shape the "postmodern" world.

Nietzsche recognized in ancient Greek poetry that heroes are not content with just living, but are compelled to perform courageous acts even at the peril of their own lives.In fact, for Greek heroes, gaining fame and glory at the expense of often suffering a courageous death seemed to be their raison d'être.Nietzsche recognizes this phenomenon in Greek poetry, which alerts him to the notion that the ancient and classical Greek citizens accepted the idea that part of the nature of life was that it could be tragic, dark, and foreboding; however, the Greeks who were noble of character did not despair.This notion was readily accepted by Aristotle but not by Plato, who thought that Greek tragedy taught the citizenry the wrong lessons about life.They knew that to be virtuous was to engage in a constant agon or [contest] to overcome the pitfalls of life.This literary fact causes Nietzsche to understand that like the ancient Greeks, the best of contemporary society, such as philosophers and artists whom he calls the "masters," have to rely on their virtues, such as courage, to constantly struggle to overcome life's limits.Nietzsche's observation of Greek culture leads him to define a theory of master and slave morality, which lays the foundation for his notion of returning to the classical Greek virtue of courage.

Nietzsche understands master morality as the ideals of virtuous characteristics epitomized by the best of Greek aristocracy.On the other hand, slave morality according to Nietzsche, grew out of the Judeo-Christian ethic supporting love and justice over power.Master morality acknowledges "good" and "bad" in the world; while slave morality acknowledges "good" and "evil."Nietzsche recognized the masters as "active" people, and whatever helps them achieve greatness is good.Thus, Nietzsche defines the good and bad characteristics in master morality in the following way.Character traits such as courage, conquest, aggression, and command that engender the feelings of power in people are deemed `good,' while traits of weaker people such as cowardice, passivity, humility, and dependence are deemed `bad.'Furthermore, Nietzsche argues that within the master and slave morality what is good can only be good for the master, because the slave morality is essentially based on a number of opposing ideals from the master morality.Therefore, an important argument for Nietzsche is, that according to slave morality, anything that opposes, destroys, or conquers is evil and should be eliminated from human relations.Nietzsche argues that slave morality espouses humility, selflessness, and kindness as ruling traits for all people as a condition of self-perseverance against master morality.These are all character traits central to Judeo-Christian morality, and are diametrically opposed to the aggressive character traits of the master morality, which were central to the power of the Roman Empire when Christianity was conceived. Against the backdrop of master and slave morality, Nietzsche examines the classical Greek cardinal virtues, and he specifically looks into the virtue of courage, which is so central to master morality.

When Nietzsche contemplates the future of virtues, he laments the lack of courage displayed by people in modern society.Nietzsche sounds a clarion call for artists to once again courageously take their place as masters of society.Nietzsche sees courage as something which is good for the people who have it, in that it enables them to win contests which they would lose without it.In addition, Nietzsche recognizes that in order for people to act courageously, they also need to overcome their emotions of fear."But there is something in me that I call courage; that has so far slain my every discouragement."Once again, Nietzsche is using Aristotle's virtue ethic model of practical reasoning to show that a person with noble intentions, or in Nietzsche's parlance, a master can will themselves to overcome their fears.After examining Nietzsche's extensive writings on the history of ethics, I find that his description of courage fits well within the classical Greek model of the virtue of courage.

Nietzsche's philosophical project pertaining to the virtue of courage is centered on the idea that those who were the masters in Greek society actually desired to face and conquer dangerous situations.In essence, Nietzsche demilitarized the Greek emphasis on battlefield courage and applied it to the people he thought could be the masters of society of his time and into the future--artists and philosophers.The power Nietzsche yearns for is the power of creative activity.Creativity is the "will to power" that this much maligned philosopher was truly advocating. ... Read more