Jacques Derrida is the "other" of reason. Actually, he's an inverted Kantian, nothing more. This is the sort of text his alterity-stricken fan club gets excited about. Its conversational style gives the impression that deep insights are waved at because they just never show up. The reader is made to feel that he missed something. And then the game is lost. Intangibility becomes intrinscially virtuous, and so the reader forgives the great Derrida's omissions, who is relieved of the responsibility of answering his own questions. Don't be fooled. He can't answer those questions because the special discourse he reserves for himself prohibits him from doing so in principle. That's the oldest con in the book. Derrida is the "other" of reason.

It's a collection of transcriptions of conversations/debates on various subjects between Derrida and other scholars. Sometimes I laughed out loud at the ridiculous statements and non-sequiturs.

In the book's central essay, Derrida deftly reads a short piece by Nietzsche on the way to reading the subject in the context of autobiography, of words one says about oneself. Those words, of course, return only by way of the ear so that one can locate oneself as the hearing other--hence his essay's title, "Otobiographies." The essay raises again the questions of speech and the voice and of the individual in language--questions that run through all of Derrida's work--as it paves the way for his later writings on the name. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the question of subjectivity that has so engrossed twentieth century philosophy as Derrida's account of the subject and of the way the subject knows about and can speak about itself is original, insightful, and provocative. The volume also includes the transcripts of two roundtable discussions: one on autobiography and one on translation, where Derrida with unusual clarity articulates an accessible version of his thinking on language. Finally there is an interview entitled "Choreographies" in which the editor forces Derrida to consider again the issue of gender and the status of woman. This volume is an often-overlooked but fascinating part of Derrida's corpus that will intrigue both the specialist and someone coming to Derrida's writings for the first time.

If there is a comprehensive survey of Nietzsche's philosophy, this is not it. It definitely wants to be comprehensive. It covers Nietzsche's views in most of the important areas of philosophy (with the suspicious exception of his politics). But it is not a *survey*, because it fails to offer anything like an integrated perspective on a whole -- just the sort of thing Nietzsche would have asked for, right?

To begin with, the prose is at times utterly inpenetrable. Vague pronoun references abound: he'll begin sentences talking about "these considerations" and "these reasons." My favorite is the beginning of a section on page 224:

"There are several sorts of considerations which are highly relevant to the comprehension of the lines along which Nietzsche seeks to direct our thinking by means of these notions."

Which notions? Which considerations? Oh, you mean the previous 223 pages.

Schacht also revels in his talk of "sorts" and "kinds" of things. He never talks about the things themselves: "And the sort of 'value' of which he speaks when viewing them from this perspective is one which he considers, in contrast to them, to have a kind of validity which they lack" (348). That was picked at random. No doubt this is partially Nietzsche's fault, who loves to talk about his "kind of philosopher." But Schacht takes "sort" and "kind" talk to new heights, perhaps offering some explanation of the unfortunate tendency in everyday parlance to use "kind of" and "sort of" as indications of uncertainty: "Yeah, I kind of want to go to the movies, but Nietzsche says that life is chaotic struggle, so I can't be sure if that's what I'll end up doing."

More important, however, is not the style of the book but the content. Of course, the sometimes unintelligble prose makes the content difficult to grasp at all: "The 'power-relationship' of which he speaks are to be thought of in terms of the establishment and modification of relations among the latter which reflect the specific character of whatever transformations of this sort have occurred among them" (228). Huh?

But then there is the content the book leaves out. The absence of any discussion of Nietzsche's politics is the most telling: much of the book is, after all, a whitewash of Nietzsche's many contradictions and shortcomings: Schacht works his hardest to eliminate all such contradictions by splitting hairs over language in a way that would make even Austin role over in his grave. And since Nietzsche's politics are probably most embarrassing to the left-wing intellectuals who wish to make him their postmodern vanguard, leaving them out is obviously the convenient thing to do. One looks in vain even for one mention of a concrete example of *the kind* (!) of man Nietzsche regarded as like unto the ubermensch (Napoleon, Alexander, Caeser Borgia, et al). Of course, concrete examples of just about *anything* are lacking from the rest of the book too, so maybe this is less an issue of intellectual dishonesty than it is of sloppy thinking.

It's funny that the major criticism Nietzsche scholars may be apt to make of this book is that it's too academic, an attempt to present Nietzsche's philosophy too systematically and too logically. Well, if this is systematic and logical according to those scholars, I'd hate to have to use their kitchen.

Richard Schacht's "Nietzsche" represents the next generation of Nietzsche interpretation after Walter Kaufmann's groundbreaking study, "Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist." Schacht's book is far more philosophically sophisticated than was Kaufmann's. In it, Nietzsche gives surprising answers and new insights into the classical problems of philosophy (the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, value, morality, aesthetics, etc.). The book seems geared for a reader with some background in western philosophy, but not necessarily a background in Nietzsche. I have two criticisms: first, that Schacht's use of Nietzsche unpublished notebooks is unjustifiable and in many cases uncharitable. We should use the words Nietzsche himself decided to publish in determining his final views. The second criticism is that when Nietzsche is interpreted as an academic philosopher--as Schacht interprets him--we "lose the woods for the trees", so to speak, and are inclined to forget the Nietzsche that reminded us of our nihilistic predicament after the death of God, and that its remedy is in action, not words. Overall this book is essential for anyone interested in knowing how Nietzsche's mind came to bear on the classical problems of western philosophy.

There is so much wrong with this book I don't even know where to begin? Do they even have a negative rating on this site? The author starts by giving us information on Nietzsche that is in every single book by, and or, about him (i.e. "About The Author"). Then he drops the proverbial ball when discussing Nietzsche's Superman Theory, completely missing the point (you see Sir, the point is to see these mistakes as mistakes and completely avoiding them the next time, eventually ridding yourself of folly). He continues to say that "Postmodernism" is not really a concreate or definable term, so why the hell is the name of the book "Nietzsche And Postmodernism." And about half way through reading this it dawned on me that I haven't heard the word Nietzsche, or for that matter postmodernism, in a while. Off topic, very poorly put together, and in general just a bad book. I'm normally not one to complain but I just wanted to warn future readers of what this book really is. By the way sir, "Postmodern" is someone who is ahead of their time. I don't know who's stupider, the author for writing such a short sighted book, or me, for not only buying but reading and then reviewing this piece of . .

If each age has its founding prophet, then Nietzsche occupied that role for our postmodern world. No other 19th Century thinker foreshadowed the collapse of the Enlightenment project with such grandeoise eloquence. Nietzsche himself prophesised that he was writing for a future audience since his contemporaries were still looming in notions of Truth, Objectivity, and Universal morality -- "Christian dogmatic entrails", as he once rudely put it. It is no surprise that today Nietzsche enjoys such wide appeal, since we are his anticipated audience.

If you know nothing about Nietzsche and/or postmodernsim, then Robinson's book is a good, concise and simple introduction. Robinson successfully shows how some of the most significant ideas of many major 20th Century philosophers -- ideas that pertain to language, power and politics -- were actually extensions of Nietzsche's own intuitions which he only alluded to but never fully developed in his own works. In this sense Nietzsche was like the seed from which the branches of postmodernity have sprung.

The book is extremely short and can be read in a few hours. It is not highly academic and avoids technical jargon. There is also a useful glossary at the back. The only problem is that sometimes the book becomes a little too simplistic. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it can be counterproductive to explaining philosophy. Barebones sketches of Nietzsche are particularly difficult since his writings evade systematization. But you can use Robinsion's work as a spring board to plunge directly into Niezsche's own writings. If you've already read quite a bit of Nietzshce, then the book can still be useful for understanding his influence on such writers as Foucault, Derrida, Rorty and Lyotard.

How anyone finished this book is beyond me. Stream-of-consciousness modernism became a literary cliche many decades ago, but it still survives to provide swanky intellectual cover for authors like Krell, who are unable to tell a compelling story. The flouting of sexual taboo is another tedious literary cliche, yet Krell attempts to use it as his meal ticket, with ridiculous effect: see his speculations about young Nietzsche sitting on his father's lap during a piano lesson and feeling an erection in Daddy's pants. Is this "novel" vile or simply ludicrous? Don't waste your time or money trying to decide which.

Having immensely enjoyed Krell's "The Good European", my expectations were probably too high for this novel. The basic premise, an imaginative reconstruction of Nietzsche's inner life during his final years, is interesting, but the actual novel is nearly impossible to read. Krell's stream-of-consciousness passages are interminable, awkwardly written and rather tedious, unlike his elegant prose from The Good European, and I found myself skipping through the book just to read the excerpts from Nietzsche's letters and from the medical reports, which were quite astounding but arranged in a sequence that is more frustrating than illuminating. Oh well, you can't always hit the target, and I look forward to reading Krell's "Infectious Nietzsche" to give him another chance.

Krell is a major translator of Heidegger who, in addition, have contributed to fine books of interpretation on Heidegger as well as Nietzsche. Krell's previous Nietzsche-outing, "Infectious Nietzsche," is a bold, inventive and challenging look at Nietzsche and the discourse surrounding body, health, and disease.

In this fictional biography, Krell once again tackles Nietzsche, covering the last years of the philosopher's life as his body and mind became ravaged by syphillis. By combining Joycean literary techniques with snippets of Nietzsche's actual letters, Krell attempts to give voice to the impossible: madness.

At the hands of any other writer, such a project would be an utter disaster (and not in any good sense) but with Krell's depth of philosophical as well as philological understanding of Nietzsche as well as the languages and the cultures that meant so much to him, this book is surprisingly poignant, stirring and haunting.

The letters which range the entirety of Nietzsche's sane life, from adolescence to the very final scribblings before madness overtook him (some such letters have stains of lunacy), reveal a tender and fragile Nietzsche, that his own persistent metaphors of laughter, dance, and war often betray. These letters also reveal the inner core of Nietzsche: his passion for life despite the ailments and personal shortcomings--why he came to write such good books.

In the end, Krell's Nietzsche is not unlike the Nietzsche of 'Ecce Homo,' the half-mad self-invented alter ego of his former self. In dissolving the very boundaries between philosophy and fiction, Krell may have paid the ultimate tribute to the legacy of Nietzsche: for what is a biography about Nietzsche anyway, but perhaps a profound work of art?

This book is not well researched. It is based on a couple dozen short snippets of Nietzsche's work that Conway uses over and over again. The rest of what the other reviewer who gave it only one star said is correct. The whole point of Conway's book is to say that Nietzsche was vain, wanted nothing more than to control his followers, and that his readers are all fools -- which must surely include Conway. Conway is a postmodernist whose prose is mostly unreadable. His political orientation is Hegelian. But Nietzsche was free of the Hegelian nonsense. Conway rejects the individual. But the individual is the central concept of Nietzsche's political thought. Conway believes in totalitarianism, like Marx. He has no faith in people, only in groups and their leaders. Conway wants the PoMo future: utter ignorance and strong arm leaders who are allegedly benevolent because they have been freed of the fetters of law and existing contracts. Conway thinks Nietzsche is an irrationalist, but Nietzsche ridiculed irrationalism throughout his career. Conway and his postmodern moralist cohorts believe 'it is a sin against everything of value to become scientific' to cite just one bit of Nietzsche's mockery that fits the PoMo mind frame (CW Postscript 1). This book is worth almost no one's time, and all students should avoid it.

This book is clever and well-written and thoroughly researched. In this sense it is a solid academic book. But it is superficial and immature, delighting in self-reference and merely reading Nietzsche against Nietzshe ('if everything is untrue is this claim also untrue?') without recognizing Nietzsche's response to this sort of thing. Rather than trying to show that he betters his subject matter, the author would have done well to consider, as any number of Continental philosophers have already done, how Nietzshce and Nietzscheans have responded to this criticism, and thus why Nietzsche is not playing a game at all.

Conway turns symptomology against Nietzsche to show the ways in which his philosophy may be a "personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir." Although Conway's conclusion relies heavily on The Antichrist as an apotheosis of what Nietzsche stands for, this is a highly compelling and careful study of Nietzsche's decadence and his theory of decadence.

Christoph Cox's _Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation_ is an example of the recent effort to reconcile Nietzsche, French post philosophies and analytic epistomological naturalism. There is obviously a good bit of similarity with Nietzsche's thought and contemporary trends in philosophy and Cox does an adequate job of pointing these out; however, there is also a vast and irreducible difference (to use a term Cox likes to invoke) that Cox, although he acknowledges, glosses over. Doubtless Cox is keen to cash in on the current (though certainly fading) popularity of the "radical chic" of postisms and various anti- driven philosophies. But no amount of overlooking on Cox's part can justify the equivocation of the Hegelian and logographic concept of _differance_, as the negative activity of differing and deferring, simultaneously spacializing and temporizing the negative, with Nietzsche's positive materialism. Nor is there any basis for discussing Nietzsche's political philosophy with the "radical democracies" and rejection of "social hegemony" found in the work of Laclau and others postmarxists attempting to hold on to some kind of Marxism. Nietzsche is simply not nearly as "Anti-Platonic" as he is often represented as being by those who, following Heidegger, see some kind of linear progression of Western philosophy that started with Plato and ended with Nietzsche. Having said that, there is an accurate description by Cox of Nietzsche's materialism vis a vis mechanistic materialism, and a fairly good explanation of why Nietzsche is not best seen, as some argue, as a strange kind of skeptical Neo-Kantian, but rather as a monistic and naturalistic materialist. I could not say, however, that I recommend this book, as there are much better and far more accurate treatments of Nietzsche to be found.