Hi, i have been reading ILP for a while now and have always wondered what nietzche was so famous for?
So i went to the philosophy section at the book store and theres like 20 or more books on him… I am not really an active reader but i am wondering whats one of the better books to read about him and his philosophical reasoning.
Thanks!
hey there
Walter Kaufmann is supposed to be the best scholar of Nietzsche. If you’re loking for a fairly in depth, meaty and scholarly exposition of some of his main themes I’d recommend his ‘Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist’.
His appeal I think comes from his bold critical style, fearlessly challenging our typical peachy notions of religion and morality, asolute truth and many other ideals previously worshipped by philosophers. He takes everything with a charming pinch of salt and writes in a profound style which can be read in a variety of ways, thereby reinforcing his whole approach to philosophical inquiry. His relentless introspection is another example of someone who took the philosophical spirit to its furthest.
I really liked “Nietzsche a philosophical biography” can’t remember who its by…
Deleuze’s “Nietzsche” has an absolutely unique take on him which I still have time for - but best thing is just plunge into the man himself - he is infinitely readable and like taking poppers or something - just a pure rush (those heady heights!)
Hey a good free read one of his best and hard to get is philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks - on the excellent Nietzsche Channel.
Thanks!!
Stephen Metcalf’s Hammer of the Gods (Creation Books) is a book of quotes from all of Nietzsche’s published works and also from unpublished notes and letters, all arranged according to topic. Stephen’s introductory chapter is great also.
Peter Berkowitz : “The Ethics of an Immoralist”.
I’ve heard from persons I trust, that Kaufmann happens to be a fine translator but a poor scholar when it comes to Nietzsche. I wonder if anyone else can share their experience.
kaufman’s translations are fine…
notice translations…
if you want to understand nietzsche, read him yourself, not some one’s opinion of nietzsche… and the trick with nietzsche is that one must read all of him to understand him…
-Imp
I’ve written so much on Nietz that I can say, with great confidence, there’s no reason to read anything about Nietz. Just read Nietz’s books for yourself. Of course there are some exceptions… Heidegger’s 2 volumes on Nietz, transcript of Jung’s lectures on Zarathustra ($200 on amazon, ouch). But even so, start with the apophthegms or something and then when you’re used to thinking, read his denser passages. Good luck.
I suggest you read Ecce Homo. It will give you a sense of Nietzsche’s project. Beyond Good and Evil is also good for a beginner. Avoid The Will to Power until you have read and understood most of the other books. Thus Spoke Zarathustra will be difficult to get into first up- leave it 'til later. The Anti Christ and Twilight of the Idols are both good reads and very accessible. Nietzsche admitted later in life that The Birth of Tragedy was quite wrong in parts, so don’t take it to represent his mature opinion.
There’s a certain pompous pretentiousness that accompanies the view that one ought refrain from reading supplemental material - as if the likes of Walter Kaufmann, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Jacques Derrida were undergrad peon-hacks with nothing useful to teach us.
Anyway … among my favorite books on Nietzsche:
Nietzsche: Life as Literature - Alexander Nehamas
Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul - Leslie Paul Thiele
The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche - ed. Bernd Magnus and Kathleen Higgins
Reading Nietzsche - ed. Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins
Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy - Wolfgang Muller-Lauter
Nietzsche - Karl Jaspers
Nietzsche - Richard Schacht
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist - Walter Kaufmann
Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy - R.J. Hollingdale
Nietzsche’s Revaluation of Values: A Study in Strategies - E.E. Sleinis
I would recommend Deleuze’s “Nietzsche and Philosophy” over most of what’s been recommended here. Keeping in mind that it’s not a biographical survey like Hollingdale’s and Kaufmann’s books, which are both very good.
I would steer clear of Thiele though, the book was garbage. Same with Heidegger, unless you prefer a dramatic reworking of Nietzsche to fit H’s agenda.
If you’re new to Nietzsche, I would contradict some of the above posts and advise again either the Kaufmann study (Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist) or the Deleuze (Nietzsche and Philosophy), for differing reasons. The first is extremely dated in its approach, hampered by the fact that no reliable translations of Nietzsche were then in circulation so that all of the citations are to an older edition of his works in German. The Deleuze is a fabulous book, and definitely worth a read, but it is very difficult as an introduction and really assumes that you know Nietzsche well. Please also avoid the Heidegger works until you are comfortable with Nietzsche, as large parts of his analysis is dead wrong.
The best way to get into Nietzsche is with his own work, and as noted above the Kaufmann translation are pretty much the standard English versions. The volumes listed below will give you every major work of Nietzsche’s in a solid translation.
The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann
Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann
The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann
Human, All Too Human, trans. R. J. Hollingdale
Hollingdale is the other great Nietzsche translator, and he covered most of the works Kaufmann left untouched (like Daybreak, which is also excellent.)
Portable gives you copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, and The Antichrist (amongst other tidbits). Basic Writings gives you Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morality, and Ecce Homo (amongst other works).
My recommendation is to start with Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morality, as these are his acknowledged masterworks in straight language. Zarathustra should follow to amplify and beautify the concepts. It has been my experience that the faux-Biblical style of Zarathustra can be very off-putting to the novice, but some love it as an introduction. And, to be fair, it was where I started, too.
The secondary literature is vast and growing every year, with most of the best studies translated into English by now. For a simple starter (and if you only want to read one short book) the Lee Spinks volume, Nietzsche, which is part of the Routledge Critical Thinkers series, is probably a good choice. Hatab’s excellent book Nietzsche’s Life Sentence is the single best explication of Nietzsche’s most obscure concept (eternal recurrence). Lampert’s pair of interpretations, Nietzsche’s Teaching and Nietzsche’s Task, are both worthy of consideration. And Hollingdale’s philosophical biography, Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy is probably still the best in its class.
Now, to back up my recommendations just a little, I’ll point out that I’m an intellectual historian with a dissertation on Nietzsche and 19th century science. Not that you should take my word just for that reason (of course!), but I have read (at last count) 79 secondary works in three languages and all of Nietzsche’s available writings, published or not, in two languages. There are a lot of brilliant books on Nietzsche out there, but plenty of crap, too.