Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm - The Philosophy of Nietzsche

The Philosophy of Nietzsche

Continental European Philosophy

This series provides accessible and stimulating introductions to the ideas of continental thinkers who have shaped the fundamentals of European philosophical thought. Powerful and radical, the ideas of these philosophers have often been contested, but they remain key to understanding current philosophical thinking as well as the current direction of disciplines such as political science, literary theory, comparative literature, art history, and cultural studies. Each book seeks to combine clarity with depth, introducing fresh insights and wider perspectives while also providing a comprehensive survey of each thinkers philosophical ideas.

Published titles

The Philosophy of Gadamer

Jean Grondin

The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty

Eric Matthews

The Philosophy of Nietzsche

Rex Welshon

Forthcoming titles include

The Philosophy of Deleuze

Peter Sedgwick

The Philosophy of Derrida

Mark Dooley

The Philosophy of Habermas

Andrew Edgar

The Philosophy of Hegel

Allen Speight

The Philosophy of Heidegger

Jeff Malpas

The Philosophy of Husserl

Burt Hopkins

The Philosophy of Kant

Jim OShea

The Philosophy of Kierkegaard

George Pattison

The Philosophy of Marx

Mark Neocleous

The Philosophy of Rousseau

Patrick Riley, Sr and Patrick Riley, Jr

The Philosophy of Sartre

Anthony Hatzimoysis

The Philosophy of Schopenhauer

Dale Jacquette

The Philosophy of Nietzsche

Rex Welshon

First Published 2004 by Acumen

Published 2014 by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business

Rex Welshon, 2004

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ISBN 13 : 978-1-902683-89-7 (hbk)

ISBN 13 : 978-1-902683-90-0 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Designed and typeset in Classical Garamond

by Kate Williams, Swansea.

For my parents, Donald and Eleanor,
and my brothers, Douglas and Lawrence

Contents

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for direct and indirect help in this project: Frederic Bender, Perrin Cunningham, Steve Hales, Bernard Reginster, Richard Schacht and Christopher Shields. I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the Office of the Dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Linda Nolan, Dean, for their support. I would also like to thank series editor John Shand, and Steven Gerrard at Acumen, for their patience, and Kate Williams for her judicious copy-editing.

Abbreviations

I use the following abbreviations for in-text citations to Nietzsches works. Full bibliographical information for Nietzsches works, including those not cited in the text, is supplied in the Guide to Further Reading.

References to specific passages follow International Studies in Philosophy style. For example, BGE 230 refers to Beyond Good and Evil, section 230 and TI III 1 refers to Twilight of the Idols, , section 1. All emphasis in extracts is Nietzsches, unless otherwise indicated.

The Will to Power is a degenerate book. Edited by Nietzsches sister, Elisabeth, from unpublished notes she found in Nietzsches possession, The Will to Power is less a book by Nietzsche than a collection of Elisabeths favourite passages from his notebooks. The notebooks Nietzsches Nachlass are arranged chronologically. In this book I sometimes use the Nachlass notes that appear in The Will to Power. They are identified as Nachlass notes with references to The Will to Power.

Introduction

Reading and writing about Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900) is the worlds most controversial philosopher. He is also the worlds most relentlessly interesting philosopher. There is no other philosopher who writes as beautifully about as many topics as does Nietzsche, and no other philosopher whose ideas are more notorious. For all his notoriety, however, Nietzsche is increasingly remembered for his trenchant criticisms of the Western philosophical and theological traditions, for his celebration of creativity and flourishing, and for his tireless campaign to replace woolly-minded metaphysics with a philosophical view that is naturalistic and closely aligned with science. This change is welcome. For a century, Nietzsche has reigned as the one philosopher whose work should perhaps be banned, the one philosopher the mere mention of whose name is likely to raise the hackles on most of those within earshot. We shall, in due course, uncover the reasons why Nietzsche has this effect on otherwise reasonable people. In the vast majority of cases his villainous reputation is not deserved, and in the one case where it is deserved his scathing criticism of Christianity his reputation misleads by focusing attention away from the substance of his concerns, which have, in some cases, been raised by Christians themselves.