Beyond Good and Evil from the start is a book concerning moral philosophy. The title leads the prospective reader to believe that Nietzsche is dealing essentially with ethical issues, but the scope of the text is much broader, encompassing reflections on religion, and current affairs.

Beyond Good and Evil opens with a section on the 'Prejudices of Philosophers', in this he under takes a critique of the philosophical traditions. Unlike previous philosophers, Nietzsche does not select an issue or notion and analyze it, in the process distinguishing his views from those of the previous writers and erecting a body of concepts that form a system of thought. Instead he calls into question the very basis of philosophizing. His targets are philosophers themselves. He claims that philosophers merely pose as persons seeking the truth.

Nietzsche considers religion as 'neurosis', it involves an unnatural self-denial and sacrifice. He is not unaware of the advantages that religion brought to human society, even as it has debases human nature. He believes it has helped create a variable social order. By demanding we love each other. However his attitude towards religion is that it represents a stage in human development that must be over come.

Beyond Good and Evil is not an easy task to read. I admit that there are parts of this I I had trouble understanding and often it was a frustrating read.

While Beyond Good and Evil is probably the quintessial Nitzschean piece, I would have to say Zimmern's translation lags behind Kaufmann's. Although her use of quaint Elizabethan English is charming, and her edition has a beautifully personal touch to it (Zimmern was Nietzsche's dinner companion and erstwhile friend), the mistakes in her translation, while subtle, detract from it, especially when precision of language is so important for reading this book. Go with Kaufmann.

Nietzsche never advocated any sort of morality as "good morality", nor did he encourage the creation of a "best possible society" by use of a certain morality. Nor is that what this book is about. (Nor did he propose the creation of a new moral standard: his good/evil versus good/bad antithesis is an analysis; Nietzsche was a philosopher, not an ideologue, moralist, or politician). Moreover, he did not find moral complacency to be the greatest fault of his time: rather, the mental complacency and lack of intellectual integrity displayed by many academics and "philosophers." Nietzsche here tries to analyze a range of issues and exposes in the most surprising ways numerous relationships, psychological insights, and types of morality, personality, and so forth. The aphoristic style is not a reflection of discontinuity: it is an embodiment of Nietzsche's ideal of constant questioning. These are thought experiments which develop ideas in unexpected ways, ideas which are retraced through the entire work. It has structure and continuity for those who know how to find it. The book has some faults and a few remarks which strike the reader as unnecessary drivel: but what great work doesn't? Whether we agree with it or not, like it or dislike it, until we are great critics or philosophers, we have no excuse for giving less than 5 stars to one of the greatest books of all time.

"ecce homo" is certainly the most, eh...'unusual' autobiography i've ever encountered, and has a fascination all its own, but i would take nietzsche to task for his constant criticism of scholars and those prefer to live in the imagination and language rather than in what he preferred to think of as 'reality. this kind of positivistic nonsense is what makes me prefer schopenhauer's philosophy to nietzsche's, in the end. its odd that a man with the sensitivity, perceptiveness and intelligence of nietzsche never seemed to realize that after awhile, the external world of people, things, egoism and power seeking simply becomes a tiresome bore. still, though, the concept of the dionysian is intriguing and the fiery, poetic quality of nietzsche's prose keeps the reader riveted to his unbelievably original thoughts and indispensable critique of christian beliefs and ascetic ideals.

the titles of the chapters are slightly amusing--"why i am so clever", "why i write such good books", "why i am a beginning". this isn't a question of not worrying about modesty, but one of impending insanity. its almost as though on some level nietzsche was aware that the end was near and that he needed to write something that expressed his heart and soul before he fell apart completely. one of the most stunning parts in the book are nietzsche's wholly accurate predictions for the twentieth century:"there will be wars such as mankind has never seen before." he said it with a certain delight, no doubt, but nonetheless, this man possessed the intuition and foresight of an almost mystical kind, although he would punch me in the mouth for saying that. he also admits some curious things about himself that contradict his professed philosophy more than slightly:"i know nothing of the 'heroic', i know nothing of 'will'. my being would rather say 'no' than 'yes'; in fact, it would rather say nothing at all." this, from the eternal yea sayer? "ecce homo" offers some curious insights into the actual psyche of the man who preached life affirmation with his more formal works.

I first read Nietzsche's Ecce Homo in August 1988. I bought another copy in October 1989 to read again to decipher more of Nietzsche's wit. On the inside cover of the first reading I wrote, "The style and the language of the writings of Nietzsche are ingenius! He stands alone with honor and respect. Psychologically dangerous to one's health for its extravagant and eloquence of expressed ideas, it is nevertheless psychologically beneficial as an eye-opener to affirm SELF and celebrate LIFE!"

"I possess a perfectly uncanny sensitivity of the instinct for cleanliness, so that I perceive physiologically, smell the proximity, or - what am I saying? - the innermost parts, the 'entrails', of every soul... I have in this sensitivity psychological antennae with which I touch and take hold of every secret: all the concealed dirt at the bottom of many a nature, perhaps conditioned by bad blood but whitewashed by education, is made known to me almost on first contact."

-- Friederich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Ecce Homo is not a book of philosophy. It is not, for that matter, a book that conforms to any conventional genre of literature to which one can relate from ordinary reading. Rather, it is an elaborate anamnesis, a haunting excursion into the strange world of a moral hygienist, written by one of the most peculiar, though no less intriguing, minds of modern European history.

Very much out of line with the spirit of autobiography, Nietzsche ridicules with remorseless cynicism the very idea of writing a book about oneself. He begins his chapters with such titles as, "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Write Such Good Books", and "Why I Am A Destiny". Such titles, so egregious and perverse, deride the sheer arrogance presupposed by the writing of autobiography. For, if we are to be honest with ourselves, autobiographies are little more than shameless excercises in self-indulgent egotism, written exclusively for the scandalous purpose of public consumption. At no point does Nietzsche exhibit the sort of false modesty with which autobiographers make a mockery of their readers. What is presented in this book is something quite different. The readership here is never assumed to be a general audience. Marketing played was given no consideration in the writing of this book. Nietzsche takes little care (none, in fact) not to offend the reader. He writes absolutely whatever springs to mind, laying bare in defiantly candid terms his essential line of thinking, more rightly described as his 'essential attitudes', esteeming everything pleasing to his instincts and lashing out with utmost violence against every conceivable source of putrefaction and disease - German culture, Christianity, modern industrialism, the obsessive 'scholar' and bibliophilic pedant, dispiriting weather, and even English cookery. Herein lies Nietzsche's famous declaration: "I am the anti-ass par excellence and therewith a world-historical monster - I am, in Greek and not only in Greek, the Anti-Christ..."

Ecce Homo follows no chronological order. It reads quite erratically, touching upon the most random points of concern (one might say fetishes) in Nietzsche's brief, but profound life. He elaborates with great passion upon his love of Wagnerian music, his intimate hatred for false 'idealism', and the destructive consequences of excessive rationalism. " 'Rationality against instinct. 'Rationality' at any price as dangerous, as a force undermining life!" He emphasizes endlessly the importance of intellectually and spiritually conducive surroundings, of "[s]electivity in nutriment; selectivity in climate and place", making it painfully clear that Germany was thoroughly godforsaken in this respect. The reader is given a refreshing sense of what is means to be cultured and civilized in Nietzsche's view. He reveals his love of Italian life, French cuisine, and Moorish architecture. He also has been described as having an extraordinary perception for diagnosing symptoms of social rot. Nearly all of Europe, with its embrace of industry and technology, was condemned by Nietzsche as being sick to the bone. Christianity is used as an unfailing example of what it means to be truly dirty in both body and mind. Surprisingly thrown into this wild mix of bitter damnation is alcohol, entirely shunned by Nietzsche for being an influence as criminal and destructive in its effects as Christianity itself: "Alcoholic drinks are no good for me; a glass of wine or beer a day is quite enough to make life for me a 'Vale of Tears'...To believe that wine 'makes cheerful' I would have to be a Christian, that is to say believe what for me is precisely an absurdity".

Of practical value and written in the most coherent fashion are the individual chapters devoted to each of Nietzsche's books. These chapters present a 'lightning tour' of his philosophy, giving concrete definition to his most celebrated ideas. The reader is given a taste of the elevated euphoria that went into the writing of the Gay Science. Nietzsche generously quotes from Thus Spake Zarathustra, highlighting its most graceful passages in which his lyrical talents shine forth in resplendent brilliance. In the chapter titled, "The Untimely Essays", Nietzsche offers his views of scientific management and modern industrialism, unveiling "what gnaws at and poisons life, in our way of carrying on science: life sick with this inhuman clockwork and mechanism, with the 'impersonality' of the worker, with the false economy of 'divison of labor' ". Such openly Marxist overtones belie all attempts to characterize Nietzsche as the unsuspecting prophet of fascism.

Nietzsche possessed, among other things, an exceptional gift for conveying seemingly simple ideas with a profound, hammering intensity. In these pages, one will encounter a uniquely superior command of language, in lines of unrivaled grace, eloquence, and passion, and laced with the sort of formidable literary power that will violently shake the ground beneath one. It is said that Ecce Homo is "one of the supreme masterpieces of German prose". I would go so far as to suggest that R.J. Hollingdale's translation of this magnanimous work is one of the supreme masterpieces of *English* prose.

"I can write in letters that make even the blind see." -- Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ

The value of this book depends entirely on the ability of the reader to think about it. I happened to enjoy it as confirmation of many efforts I have previously made to understand Nietzsche and the world at large, and this review pays far too much attention to the world, which is as at large as ever.

Long ago, I had the opportunity to consider what Nietzsche thought about a normal appreciation for the truth, compared to the opposite which he discovered in what was most forceful. "When the Christian crusaders in the Orient encountered the invincible order of Assassins, . . . whose lowest ranks followed a rule of obedience the like of which no order of monks ever attained, they obtained in some way or other a hint concerning that symbol and watchword reserved for the highest ranks alone as their secretum: `Nothing is true, everything is permitted.' " (ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS, translated by Walter Kaufmann, p. 150). This collection of notebooks of private thoughts, which Nietzsche did not publish, reflect the process in which he prepared his work. Trying to find some secret doctrine, which the public could never understand, seems to be like trying to understand everything, as dangerous as any other aspect of his thought.

In 1872 or early 1873, he had written, "Conversely, we are returning to culture in a sectarian manner, we are trying once again to suppress the philosopher's immeasurable knowledge and convince him of the anthropomorphic character of all knowledge." (p. 57). This is so true, I need only mention GENIUS by Harold Bloom, in which "A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds" are explained by classifications which seek to glorify how individuals think. Otherwise, in our culture, "Groupthink is the blight of our Age of Information, and is most pernicious in our obsolete academic institutions, whose long suicide since 1967 continues. The study of mediocrity, whatever its origins, breeds mediocrity." (Bloom, p. ix).

When Nietzsche was becoming an expert in Greek civilization, learning about the Pre-Platonic philosophers, a battle was fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, early in July, 1863. The Confederacy lost that battle, but in 1870-1871, the newly united states of Germany, under Prussia, having organized its troops for rapid deployment, had triumphed in a war with France. Long years of division and deprivation had prepared Germany to become the economic powerhouse which it is today, third in the world, following the United States and Japan. In the monetary system of the world, the dollar, the yen, and now the euro are the leading currencies. The state of financial collapse which is now a threat to the dominance of globalization is best imagined by considering Iraq like Gettysburg, a battle dragged out for years instead of days, in which the United States, the chief invader (England was the foreign power which offered the most support for the Confederacy during the American Civil War), has managed to remain in the area, which it considers a battlefield on which it may yet triumph. In his notebook, Nietzsche sought the "Value of truthfulness. --It does indeed improve things! Its aim is decline. It sacrifices. Our art is the likeness of desperate knowledge." (p. 57)

Though Nietzsche has been dead for over a hundred years, the range of his thought is accessible to people who are willing to search within themselves for whatever is the matter with their situations. Trouble? I could show you trouble. Compared to the twentieth century, thinking about America in Iraq seems to be the most hopeful way to go for anyone who has hoped for money, or oil, or power, or the opportunity to be right in a way that the world can't deny. But Nietzsche went looking into the big question, and found:

"When among the tumult at the outbreak of the last great war an embittered French scholar called the Germans barbarians and accused them of lacking culture, people in Germany still listened closely enough to take deep offense at this; and it gave many journalists the opportunity to polish brightly the armor of their culture, . . . and venerable Carlyle publicly praised precisely those qualities in the Germans and, for the sake of these qualities, gave their victory his blessing, then everyone was clear about German culture; and after the experience of success, it was certainly quite innocuous to speak of the victory of German culture. Today, when the Germans have enough time to examine in retrospect many of the words flung at us then, there are probably a few who recognize that the Frenchman was right: the Germans are barbarians, despite all those human qualities." (p. 93). The distinction Nietzsche would like to draw is regarding the future: "the hope for an emerging culture vindicates the Germans: whereas one gives no deference to a degenerate and exhausted culture." (p. 93). It is necessary to look in another book to find the phrase of Goethe which Nietzsche was to include in his published work. "But another couple of centuries may have to pass before our countrymen will have absorbed sufficient spirit and higher culture for one to be able to say of them: it has been a long time since they were barbarians." (UNFASHIONABLE OBSERVATIONS, p. 10). Since the United States bombed bridges and buildings in Europe in 1999 to react to a civil war in which a ruling party there seemed uncivilized to us, perhaps the stance of the German and French people today tries to seem more cultured than the Americans as their last, best hope to avoid the terrorists that can do far more to hasten the decline of civilization than America would acting alone.

I don't like the idea that people have to study books like this. I think they should just be left lying around in the living room, next to the most comfortable chair, and anybody who is curious can just pick it up and open it to see what it says. This book has a great page 6. It helps if you can be listening to music that says the same thing, like Jewel's "Spirit," which has a song called "What's Simple is True." At the top of page 6, Nietzsche is trying to write about a philosopher who "does not stand so completely apart from the people." Nietzsche wants a philosophy that is like "art--its own transfiguration and redemption. The will strives for purity and ennoblement." People who read this without listening to Jewel might not know what Nietzsche is trying to say, but Jewel actually sings it.

There is a section on "the thirst to know it all," which doesn't seem all that great to anybody anymore, but then the last sentence on page 6 says, "The philosopher is a means for coming to rest in the rushing current, for becoming conscious of the enduring types by disdaining infinite multiplicity." If anything, Jewel ends up being too right for this book, she's so much better than the number of ways that Nietzsche might still get it wrong by his own standards. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Nietzsche has gained much fame and notoriety over the 100 years since his death. This has, unfortunately, led many people to believe that they have some idea what he wrote, why and when. The other "reviews" here are a case in point.

The writings here are from the period just after The Birth of Tragedy. Specifically, these are notes and fragments from the period of the Untimely Meditations, here called Unfashionable Observations, basically 1872-74.

I was struck by the richness of these jottings, and by the breadth of topic and subject. You can find insights concerning semiology and linguistics, politics and sociology, etc., written with refreshing originality and boldness. What surprised me most of all is how readable this volume is. In some ways, it is more engaging than the published texts of the same period.

One more thing, Nietzsche's cerebral breakdown occurred many years after this period, and even so, it is quite dubious to call his writings into question even from that later period. His problem was organic, not psychological. And secondly, anyone who thinks that the value of reading Nietzsche is for "a couple of clever quotes to throw around at dinner-parties", has really missed something.

Anyone who has studied Nietzsche's philosophy will be thrilled by this collection of notes. Not only do they throw light on the Unfashionable Observations; they show how wide reaching Nietzsche's interests were at such an early period.

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.

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.

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 impact does this perspective have on the way in which its adherent develops and lives?"

Nietzsche argues that the concepts that Christianity uses to analyze moral experience--especially sin and the afterlife--are entirely imaginary and psychologically pernicious. These categories deprecate human experience, making its significance appear more vile than it actually is. Painting reality in a morbid light, Christian moral concepts motivate Christians to adopt somewhat paranoid and hostile attitudes toward their own behavior and that of others. Convinced of their own sinfulness and worthiness of eternal damnation, Christians are driven to seek spiritual reassurance at tremendous costs in terms of their own mental health and their relationships to others.

For instance, Christians feel that they need to escape their embodied selves because they are convinced of their own sinfulness. They are convinced of their own failure insofar as they believe themselves sinners and believe themselves to be bound by an unfulfillable law of perfect love. In order to ameliorate their sense of guilt and failure, Nietzsche contends, they look to others in the hope of finding them even more sinful than themselves. Because the Christian moral worldview has convinced its advocates that their own position is perilous, Christians are driven to judge others to be sinners in order to gain a sense of power over them. The Christian moral worldview thus paradoxically encourages uncharitable judgments of others, despite its praise of neighbor love.

The fundamental misrepresentation of reality offered by the Christian moral worldview provokes dishonesty in its adherents, particularly in appraisals of themselves and others. It also encourages them to despise earthly life in favor of another reality (one that Nietzsche claims does not exist). Still further psychological damage to the believer results from the Christian moral worldview's insistence on absolute conformity to a single standard of human behavior. Nietzsche contends that one size does not fit all where morality is concerned, and that most of the best and strongest individuals are least capable of living according to the mold. Nevertheless, Christians are urged to abolish their individual characters, and to the extent that they fail to do so they reinforce their own feelings of inadequacy.

Nietzsche's picture of Christian morality seems dismal. He regards it as the motivation for attitudes that are self-denigrating, vindictive towards others, escapist, and anti-life. Nietzsche never alters this basic assessment of the moral framework of his own tradition; instead, he continues to develop these themes in all his later discussions of morality and ethics.

My approach to the fame which Derrida enjoys is his daring in playing with the danger of disrupting what people think that they know. In his discussion of the final topic in this book, a note which Nietzsche wrote that said, "I have forgotten my umbrella," he openly expresses his philosophical doubt about its significance with what must be considered his standard stance, "The meaning and the signature that appropriates it remain in principle inaccessible." (p. 125) Offering an interpretation is like guessing what Nietzsche's umbrella might have been metaphorically, as one might consider the significance of religion, social thought, conscience, or morality as it relates to a person's place in the world. The interest in Derrida's examination of Nietzsche's style, "Hence the heterogeneity of the text," (p. 95) seems to be greatest in the consideration of alternative positions which Nietzsche offers regarding women, truth, etc. "It is not that it is necessary to choose sides with the heterogeneous or the parody (which would only reduce them once again). Nor, given that the master sense, the sole inviolate sense, is irretrievable, does it necessarily follow that Nietzsche's mastery is infinite, his power impregnable, or his manipulation of the snare impeccable." (p. 99) This stuff is only obvious to those whose ludicrous embrace of comic material does not exceed their grasp of what a comic society consists of, the fools that mortals be. Don't get back to me on this: ask anybody.

In having forgotten what I've read and read what I've forgotten, I am pleasantly bemused. Where to begin where this is no beginning but <> and no end but <> (and as I write these words of Derrida the endless possibilties of ideas spur forth, from nothing, from being, from woman essence, the essence of woman - and in these phrases the kernel of a metaphysical enquiry). Perhaps at a distance from the text, can any thoughts be produced. this was some of the most pleasant reading I've done in a while. I don't know how much I <> and <>, but it was fun. I think, though, reading Derrida is like reading poetry. So much is packed into a dense space and such play of words, philosophies and language are at work that at point I can only enjoy the literary quality of his writing.

What is 'Truth' anyhow? In Spurs, this question is rigorously explored using Nietzsche's aphoristic writing style as an example of honesty in literature/philosophy. The reader weaves through the maze that is Spurs, searching for answers ('Truth') but only finding style and utterly visual metaphors created by Nietzsche and polished by Derrida. Is 'Truth' a "veiled woman" or is it "Nietzsche's umbrella"? Bring your interpretive seeds and sow them in the weave of Spurs--perhaps you'll find an answer that will suit your, well....ahh....nevermind...

The main trouble I have with Nietzsche is that he is so blasted illogical! Most of his errors are what logician call "informal fallacies," or error with the type of inferences he makes with his data.

To his credit, Nietzsche is a very bouncy, scintillating an energetic writer. I think that many people can learn from his literary style. I certainly have. But a well-perfumed lie is like a well-perfumed skunk: eventually both will stink, since you cannot change their nature no matter how pretty you make them up to be!

Here are some samples of hi errors:

P. 56. "Let us consider finally what naivety it is to say 'man ought to be thus and thus.'" In other words, we ought not say ought. See the internal incoherency?

Ibid. "We others, we immoralists, have on the contrary open wide our hearts to every kind of understanding, comprehension, approval." Has he opened his heart wide to accept religion or God? This, by the way, is called "dicto simplicter," or a sweeping generalization; and it is also an "iron man" argument, where you overstate your own position.

P. 64. "The error of free will. --We no longer have any sympathy today with the concept of 'free will." One you remove freedom, you remove meaning. If Hitler, Dahmer, or whom ever wasn't free to choose not to become incarnate devils, then we cannot hold them accountable. We do not blame blind people for being born blind because they simply have no control over that condition. But we do have an ability to control our own souls, to make gods and angels of ourselves, or to make demons and devils of ourselves. If we have no freedom, then we have no penal system, simply the criminal could not control his or herself. And that would be hell on earth.

Ibid. "Men were thought of as 'free' so that they could become guilt." This is probably a Freudian Slip on Nietzsche's part. Religion has a cutting edge to it--always repent and do not make excuses for your meanness. We get so concerned about the evil in the world around us; we forget the evil deep within us.

P. 66. "One knows my demand of philosophers that they place themselves beyond good and evil--that they have the illusion of moral judgments beneath them." It is good to be beyond good. It is moral to be beyond morality. In other words, Nietzsche assumes what he tries to disprove.

The only reason why I think Nietzsche's philosophy caught on is that first, he was a bouncy and vibrant voice. I enjoy reading his works because they are rather witty and quick and slicing. Secondly, his philosophy is very flattering one. God is dead; you become the Superman and replace God (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ch. 24). This unctuous punch has made many people punch drunk with lust. A very appealing idea that you can become a new god by yourself, which is the oldest lie in the Book!

The Anti-Christ:

Being a Christian does not dampen or deny my ideas, being biased against the conclusion, any more than an atheist is tainted, being biased in favor of the conclusion. Bias cuts both ways.

It is true, and no one doubts this, many abuses have been in the name of religion. But is it fair to judge a thing by its abuse? Shall we judge all Austrians by the abuses of Hitler? Do we throw out Mozart with the bathwater? No. Nietzsche makes yet another "dicto simplicter" in accusing Christians of being unworthy.

As I read his treatment of Christianity, I kept asking myself, "What religion is he talking about?" It seems that Nietzsche is describing Christianity in the worst possible of terms, as if he intentionally wants to misunderstand what the religions is about. It is like the genies or fairy that play syntax-games with the wishes they grant human beings--"Make me a sandwich!" *Poof!*

In conclusion, I find Nietzsche an engaging, fun and passionate writer. We have so man wet noodles out there; it is great to read some one with a backbone. However, Nietzsche falls apart miserably with his non-existent logic. And that is a deathblow.

The Book:

This is a great "two-fer," since both books are rather slender and trim books. Penguin Classics always does a superb job with these books-the introductory essays are helpful and the notes are useful. They type is excellent and there are no typos. I found the glossary of names in the back an added plus, since I am not up to speed on may of the German philosophers and Nietzsche's time period. The binding is strong, and the cover art is very eye catching-the man with his hefty mustache in profile.

Nietzsche’s statements are often bold, startling and thought provoking to the reader. Against ‘moralists’ and ‘religions’ (esp. Christianity) such statements might invoke hostility on Nietzsche himself by the reader. Who does understand Nietzsche, except Nietzsche himself? The reader must go beyond this degradation – for to see the world of Nietzsche one must see Nietzsche from within. Nietzsche’s philosophy of a “philosophy of life” (Paul Tillich) is the only one that is. Much can be learned from reading Nietzsche. Nietzsche valued life and perhaps understood it more so than the ‘moralists’ of yesterday and today. - First purchase and reading

Nietzsche’s philosophy, I believe, rests on his assertion: “Whether we have grown more moral” (TI, 37). Nietzsche was a man who had no need of pity or ‘convictions’ of any certainty, that be called ‘truth’ (the former, i.e., certainty, which only limits perspective). Nietzsche, firstly, was a philologist (the study of ancient literature), followed by that of a psychologist (how certain ‘concepts’ in literature ‘seduce’ man), and lastly, that of a physician (how these ‘seductions’ harm man’s health to the point of man becoming ‘morbid’). Asserting himself to be all three, Nietzsche’s philosophy and Nietzsche as philosopher sprang forth with the statement: “Revaluation of All Values” (AC, 62). Going back to the assertion above, “whether we have grown more moral,” Nietzsche is concerned with the ‘first order of rank,’ and that first order is the creation of a ‘higher type’ of ‘morality,’ that which man has been depraved of and denied, especially from ‘Christian morals.’ He is concerned with freeing man from this ‘enslaved morbid morality’ and placing him on a ladder that ascends to a ‘higher type’ of man: the Overman or Superman. It is the ‘Will to Power’ for More Life that says “Yes” to Life. But then again, this is Nietzsche’s interpretation of the history of morals… But what better interpretation is there than ‘experience.’- Second purchase and reading

This two works by one of the more influential philosophers of the end of the 19th century, must be read with a proviso. They were published posthumously by Elisabeth, his sister, in a sequence conforming to her own authoritarian views.
This said, the Antichrist is a must read for those philosophers concerned with the nihilistic (nihilismus) and transmutation of all occidental values (Umwertung aller Werte) central aspects of Nietzche's philosophy. If you read them at face value, confusion migth ensue and the intrinsic power of an effort to demonstrate the futility and perversion of certain occidental values is lost. Then the road opens for misrepresentations and the exploitation for propaganda and other purposes. To put things in perspective, one must not forget that "God's death", according to N. is a metaphysical event consisting in the slaughter of God by the human being, for the sake of truth and religion itself. According to the author, God's death appurtains to the essence of cristianism because, by way of the interpretation of Plato's philosophy, this religion considers truth and God as exogenous or outherworld elements. As a consequence of this platonic view, the world itself and its Gods appear void of basis and truth, and therefore the nihilism of the modern man ensues. That God is dead is evident, but no man lives this event as a passage and liberation from metaphysical duality ( world and outher world), in order to reconcile with the earth and real life. So, steer clear of this book, if you are faint minded, unless you are looking for material to misuse or abuse. For the theologian and philosopher, on the other hand , this is required reading.

Heidegger is a man who knows how to fill up a full class period with lots of talk. It would be possible to condense this book, the transcripts of two lecture courses given in 1936 and 1938, into a book 1/4 the length of the current tome. First of all, the time spent on Nietzsche's Nachlass is not particularly fruitful. What Nietzsche has to say regarding the eternal recurrence and the will-to-power can be found, and in the mature form, in BGE and Zarathustra. The lectures are interesting in some respects, for instance the chapter on Nietzsche and positivism is interesting and worth consulting in connection with "Plato's Doctrine of Truth." The reading of Kant's Third Critique is unique as a demonstration of Heidegger's approval of Kant, specifically the treatment of the beautiful.

Prior to reading this book, Kaufmann was my favorite interpreter of Nietzsche's writings; but now, Heidegger has the prize. No other book that I have read on Nietzsche has come close to the depth and detail of this work. Heidegger masterfully exposits the concepts of will to power and eternal return to illumine Nietzsche's whole philosophical project in a way that I just haven't encountered previously.

A fair criticism of this book might note that Heidegger draws parallels between Nietzsche and himself (Being and Time: being = will to power; time = eternal return), and that this suggests he may be reading more than is really there. But considering how cryptic some of the original writings are, he'd almost have to. In his own defense, Heidegger does all his thinking right before our eyes, so to speak, and I'm satisfied that any possible invention on his part is true to the original concepts.

Where this book really shines is in its handling of the eternal return. This is Nietzsche's most troubling idea, and many commentators treat it as mere novelty and move on. I must confess that I used to think it was Nietzsche's Achilles' heel; a sort of personal fancy that he worked into the background for giggles. But Heidegger proves the opposite to be true. It is really the mature fruit of Nietzsche's whole project; and along with the will to power, a truly exciting and profound view of the phenomena of life.

I read the volumes on The Will To Power as Art and as Knowledge whilst at university studying philosophy and it illuminated Nietzsche's thought for me. Heidegger's is the only worthy exposition of his philosophy because not only does he seem to be the only one capable of comprehending it but he doesn't seek to distort it in any way or use it for his own ends. There are no ulterior motives here : Heidegger lets Nietzsche's philosophy speak for itself - and what a magnificent and awe-inspiring philosophy it is ! If you have ever wondered, as I certainly had prior to finding these works, about the precise meaning of Nietzsche's thought of the 'Eternal Recurrence of The Same', or how it relates to the 'Will to Power', then these are the book you want to read. I had become thoroughly frustrated at the cursory treatment which this part of N.'s philosophy receives elsewhere, but Heidegger shows that the thought of 'Eternal Recurrence' is in truth one of the two indispensable fundamental elements of N.'s philosophy - along with 'Will To Power', without which the thought of Eternal Recurrence cannot truly be thought. The lecture course 'Nietzsche' (reproduced in these books) is a comprehensive and faithful account of Nietzsche's thought (and life) - perhaps the only genuine one. It will also help those who know about Nietzsche's ideas but haven't encountered Heidegger's or can't see the relation between these two giants of Western thinking.

I should begin by saying this is a very good book and I would have liked to have given it three and a half stars; but Rosen's willful omissions prevent me from rounding up. Cutting to the quick we can say that Rosen's interpretation of Nietzsche as here presented comes to this: Nietzsche's teaching is twofold and follows roughly esoteric and exoteric doctrines that are incompatible. The esoteric doctrine is that all truth and reality is Chaos and ultimately unknowable. There is no ontology or epistemology found in Nietzsche. The exoteric doctrine is of will to power and eternal return and attempts to create a quasi Platonic distinction between noble and base values by jettisoning the Christian morality that has overtaken Plato's exoteric teaching and championing a more aristocratic system of valuation. Rosen tells us these two aspects of Nietzsche's thought are contradictory and therefore leave us unable to follow Nietzsche one way or the other.

This is Rosen's attempt to cover his own Nietzscheanism (his own esoteric teaching) by shrouding the thought of Nietzsche in a self contradicting duality. We have reason to reach this conclusion because Rosen tells us that he accepts Nietzsche's critique of Western kultur but does not believe Nietzsche's rhetoric is appropiate for his task. In this Rosen is more or less (and a I am not sure which) in line with his mentor Leo Strauss. However, Rosen never attempts to explain to us why Nietzsche is at great pains to tell us he is not a skeptic or why the Ubermensch is talked about in book one of Zarathustra but not the rest of Zarathustra and does not return ever again in the rest of Nietzsche's work. Rather, the writings that follow Zarathustra refer to eternal recurrence and the most important lesson of Nietzsche's teaching, not the Ubermensch. I submit that Rosen--who is quite exceptional, as Nietzsche would say--does not simply fail to examine these aspects of Nietzsche thought because he does not recognize them. The truth of the matter is that Nietzsche's thought is one of naturalistic materialism (which Rosen tells us) that affirms that being is both chaos and order. (This, incidentally, prefigures contemporary scientific cosmological theories.) The doctrines of will to power and eternal return are "ontological" and put forward by Nietzsche as explanations of order that results from Chaos. Nietzsche's political philosophy is based on his naturalistic ontology, which does indeed correspond to Plato's political philosophy, with a great deal more "brutal frankness," as Rosen says. Is is Nietzsche's brutal frankness about dangerous truth that makes Rosen wary. Again, Rosen accepts the truth as Nietzsche tells it, but does not agree (like Plato) that it should be revealed. "With all its compelling beauty and profundity, Nietzsche's portrait is a distortion of the Platonic conception he attempted to assimilate" (249).

"Nietzsche, as the pale criminal, has nothing to lose: Either he will succeed in clearing the way for an epoch amenable to the happy few, or he will fail, and the inevitable epoch of the last men will institute itself, as would have been the case had he not launched his revolutionary campaign" (92). As Rosen knows, this is not exactly the order of events as Nietzsche described them. The epoch of the last men has arrived and will pre-date the philosophers of the future. In the preface to _The Mask of Enlightenment_ Rosen suggests that we read Laurence Lampert's book on Zarathustra, _Nietzsche's Teaching_, as a supplement to his. This is good advice. For Lampert explains the "way out of the labyrinth" that Rosen is content to leave un in.

This is the most intelligent commentary on Zarathustra yet written. Stanley Rosen's book is heedful of Nietzsche's warning that Zarathustra is a book for "every man and for no man." This work reveals the genuinely conservative nature of Nietzsche's thought.

Nietzsche is a man who was centuries ahead of his time. Buy this book

While Nietzsche is certainly more known as a moral philosopher, or as some are certain to remark, an immoral philosopher, one finds a certain necessary connection between his moral philosophy and his epistemology (and naturally aesthetic, scientific, political thought too, its all very much connected). Thus it was with open eyes that I began this work, as I knew Clark to be so very critical of much that Kaufmann, Wilcox, Derrida, Nehamas, and Schacht had written on Nietzsche. The majority of the work was overtly analytic, which I shall neither condemn nor praise at the moment. Clark did her best to demonstrate the faults of the aforementioned Nietzsche scholars insofar as Nietzsche himself would allow.

Although there is much I could say regarding the opening chapters of the book, I shall refrain from such things, as I found them generally to be on target, insofar as Clark's exegetical work found what was necessary to support her claims. Whether or not I agree with them all is still under debate, for I question how much Nietzsche felt consistency was absolutely necessary for his early writings and ideas (look at The Birth of Tragedy or a later work like The Antichrist for examples of this, while each is brilliant in its own way they still lack scholarship all too often in exchange for Nietzsche's polemics). As Danto (I believe it was him) commented somewhere in his work though, one thing is certain with Nietzsche, you have truly not read him until you have found a contradiction to every statement he made. While this is not true in every case, there is a sense in which Nietzsche's maturing philosophy demonstrates this claim, which Clark seems to have dismissed at times. Granted, Clark does demonstrate that Nietzsche underwent such changes in his thought, as would be expected of a philosopher set on such an experimental way.

In taking Nietzsche to completely dismiss metaphysics Clark does herself a great injustice, for it forces her to radically reinterpret the will to power and the eternal recurrence. And in doing so she becomes guilty of a certain intellectual uncleanliness (as someone or another once called it). I wholeheartedly agree that the eternal recurrence is best understood not as a cosmological doctrine, but rather as something of an existential imperative (if such a thing exists). Nonetheless, as Nietzsche's Nachlass testifies, he may still have believed it to be demonstrable as a cosmological claim though he had yet to demonstrate it as such. But the will to power as anything but a metaphysical claim? As a theology professor of mine often said to me, thats just not happening. And it is within these two chapters, the last two of the book, that Clark gets sloppy in her work. At one point she simply dismisses the text of Zarathustra as too metaphorical (the second to last chapter) to cite in evidence, yet, come the last chapter of the work, lo and behold, the metaphorical problems Zarathustra posed in the previous chapter disappear - citations abound. Naturally one asks, why should she do this? To help reinforce her point perhaps? Or to help her point by not introducing certain textual problems with her reading?

As it is, do read the last two chapters, on the will to power and the eternal recurrence respectively, with a careful eye and such inconsistent readings will become apparent. It was here then that I found fault with the book, which makes me want to reread it and see how often this problem occurs. But that will have to wait until the semester ends. So, overall, a mostly consistent reading, with obvious faults, which, as Nietzsche himself would have said, reflects Clark's desires to make Nietzsche consistent. Is such consistency in Nietzsche possible though? Probably not, as his writings seem to attest, if not his experimental nature of going about his work. But then again, how much do I really know? To best understand Nietzsche, sit down with The Birth of Tragedy and read chronologically until you get to Ecce Homo, and then start all over again.

I began this book with no small trepidation. I am not generally fond of Nietzsche, but have recently felt that he at least deserved to be engaged with systematically. I have been reading his works and I picked up this book on an off chance, knowing little about it except that Clark sought to systematically present Nietzsche as an anti-metaphysical author. And in doing this, she highlights his strengths and weaknesses.

I appreciate her sophisticated rebuttal of much current and past Nietzsche scholarship, especially the mis-reading of him by the so-called 'post-structuralists'/'deconstructionists'. Her critique of their absolute relativism, and Nietzsche's eventual rejection of that in favor of a radical perspectivism, which at bottom is founded on a kind of neo-Kantianism, won me over to the value of the book. And that kind of thing is necessary when you slog through the first two chapters, which may be necessary, but which are also ponderous.

The failure I find most interesting, however, ultimately undermines her own argument and releases Nietzsche from any kind of coherence in relation to truth. She basically premises her reading of Nietzsche at a key point contra Magnus on the question of whether Nietzsche is arguing against 'truth as the whole'. She argues that he is not and that Nietzsche was familiar with no philosopher who would have argued as such. It is here that I must reject her argument, for Hegel very much championed this notion of 'truth is the whole' and Nietzsche seems, contrary to Clark's otherwise well-thought out scholarship, not only familiar with Hegel, but also in debate with Hegel throughout much of his work. Hegel is the hidden text to Nietzsche as Aristotle is the hidden text to Hegel's Philosophy of Right.

In recognizing this, not only does Clark's reading of Nietzsche unravel, but, IMO since Clark is largely right in her reading of Nietzsche as a neo-Kantian, Nietzsche unravels.

Now, Nietzsche was infamously hostile to 'the craving for consistency' as a mark of the weak person, so the Nietzscheans out there will have a back door through which to escape. But that is their problem.

Secondarily, I think that this unraveling causes problems for Clark's argument that Will to Power and Eternal Recurrence are non-metaphysical, or at least consistently so. However, I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the argument, even when she is obliged to engage in gymanastics to sustain it.

Finally, this work really convinced me that the appropriation of Nietzsche by Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, etc. is not based upon Nietzsche's philosophical heritage, since they stop at his earliest work and effectively gloss over the rest of what Nietzsche writes. Rather, Nietzsche provides a radical re-affirmation of the role of intellectuals as privileged specialists. But Guy Debord knew the value of such people better than most, and the obnoxious politics which follow from such self-glamorization of the would-be revaluers of values.

This is possibly the best overall book ever written about Nietzsche. Several others have brilliant insights such as Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche which gives a powerful interpretation of art as the only purpose and meaning of life, and debunks the pseudo-concept of the 'superman' as the modern CEO of world technology, but completely misses Nietzsche's joke, which Clark does not, about the 'will to power' especially as a cosmological doctrine (something he toyed with seriously ONLY in the notebooks for years). Maudemarie Clark shows he made it into a trick upon the reader (amongst many!) in BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL (pp.218-227, esp.221-2, of her book). She starts her book by destroying the French deconstructionist 'irrationalist' version of Nietzsche by demonstrating that he dropped this irrationalism early starting with HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN (originally dedicated to Voltaire), and coming to a completely rational stance in THE GENEOLOGY OF MORALS. She makes the brilliantly obvious point (so obvious it makes you feel stupid, but definitely goes against the major trend of Nietzsche interpretation)that THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA was a novel, not a philosophical treatise or religious tract. Walter Kaufman implicitely made this same point by comparing it to ULYSSES and FINNEGAN'S WAKE. This essentially puts a logical question mark on 'eternal recurrence', 'will to power', and the 'superman' as distinct philosophical ideas and actually makes them literary concepts, a distinction postmodernists may entirely miss. She also, after having undermined most American commentators -- NOT Walter Kaufman --on Nietzsche by destroying the basic tenant of the French through applying the unimpeacheable arguments against scepticism and cynicism (essentially, as the Cretan philosopher said, "All Cretans are liars", one must step somehow into a higher order of reality for that to be judged true or false)against Nehamas'perspectivism and Danto's, Schacht's, and Rorty's ultimately meaningless relativism. Nietzsche was in no way a relativist. But one must apprize from that something very different Hegel's systematic absolutism. He knew the validity of reason and reality as an absolutely alone individual (singulare tantum)very much like Heidegger. Maudemarie Clark has essentially brought Nietzsche back into the question mark he deliberately placed himself. But it is a meaningful question that is rational. Maudemarie Clark makes part of this point explicitely clear when she states that on the one hand Neitszche says he is an immoralist and 'means' it, but on the other hand quotes him as saying, "Honesty is the only virtue". Honesty presupposes consistency. Consistency presupposes rationality. To end on an interesting sidenote Ayn Rand also went through a similar evolution to Nietzsche's. In her first edition of WE THE LIVING she preaches a populist version of Nietzsche's 'immoralism', then renounces him later on as an irrationalist when she takes up the primacy of reason herself. She never realized she still followed his path to some extent even in ATLAS SHRUGGED.

I consider Thus Spake Zarathustra one of the greatest works in history. It is so such a pleasure to read; deep, clear, confusing, subtle as a hammer here and as a tuneing fork there. It is still capable of creating shouts of delight by revealing new insight after a dozen readings. As such it is always a pleausre to examine the things that others have gotten out of it. Expecially if that other is the careful reader and critic that Lampert is. As an amuture scholar of this work, it is almost impossible to find anyone worth ( in terms of providing new insight) discussing it with, so unless you are on campus, in some sort of philosophy club, etc, Lampert could become your best enemy to challenge your current ideas and lead you to new ones. Just remember not to take everything he says as an absolute answer. After all, at the end of the first part of TSZ, Zarathustra tells his students to go away and not come back until they have rejected him. Only when the sudent thinks for himself will Zarathustra love him.

This study of Neitzsche's masterpiece is (as can be gleaned by its sheer size) one of the most detailed secondary works on TSZ out there. The book is extremely well written, and the author clearly takes his subject seriously--but that is not to say that I recommend it. In fact, I suggest you don't read it because it is so detailed and well written. TSZ is definitely a book that people will walk away from with a different understanding, just like the Bible, and that is precisely one of TSZ's (and all of Nietzsche's philosophy)strengths--each person has their own idea. Even though the subtitle of this work says it is a subjective interpretation, it is not presented as such. After reading it, and going back to Zarathustra, what you read can't help but be affected by Lampert's objective ideas. The book though has some great points: it uncovers the well subsumed storyline, offers interesting insight to its relation with some of Nietzsche's other books, and points out some flaws in existing translation. BUT, do not open this book until you have read Thus Spoke Zarathustra about a dozen times and formed your own opinion about it; TSZ's strength lies in its subjectivity, and should not be viewed objectively.

this book is the best among the ones in its catagory; those are in my opinion jack london's martin eden, and hermann hesse's siddhartha.i have read thus told zharadustra more than ten times and i am still reading it because of the 1)perfection in the usage of nietzsche's language 2)the overhuman philosophy's uncertainity 3)effect of nietzsche on the 20th century's all philosophers and worldviews.each time , i get closer to the idea of value of man personally and value of life. the book is not anyone, one who will start reading nietzsche shall not begin with this book because it can change the mind at one glance. i still could not decide on if nietzsche is the craziest man of all times or the most intelligent ever. i recommend to be careful about this book.