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Victor Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning in a couple days by dictating it to a friend.
So, I don't doubt it. If you've been brewing an idea for years already (which Nietzsche certainly was) it doesn't take long to get it down on paper. I think in the case of Zarathustra he was recently introduced to opium when he wrote it. So it was a novel and therefore inspired state of mind.
Twilight of Idols is states to be a synopsis/compilation of his thoughts, so again the primary time commitment was putting pen to paper. The guy was of course well read and an elegant writer, so that certainly helped speed the process.
I believe his writing process primarily involved compiling little notes he had written already, hence his "sectional" discursive style. Writing clarifies your thinking so odds are those notes he wrote for himself also produced his best ideas.
He absolutely didn't come up with all the material in a few days. He's just a man, like you.
>The problem with this particular book is first the style of prose it is originally written in, and the old English language used, it’s like reading English from Shakespeare’s time.
Nietzsche's Zarathustra is, amongst other things, a parody of the New Testament. In the original German text, there are many references and nods to Luther's Bible. When rendered into English, translators sometimes use words and inflections from the King James Bible. That is why the style sounds "Shakespearean" to you.
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If you are struggling with the archaic language, I would suggest getting Adrian del Caro's translation, published by Cambridge University Press. It is a clear and reliable translation without the "thou's", the "thee's" and the "shalt's".
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>So right now I am trying to read Thus spoke Zarathustra and I am having trouble making sense of the parables and meaning. Is there a book that has a commentary on each sentence explaining what Nietzsche means?
The best "commentaries" to Zarathustra are the writings of Nietzsche himself. If you are not familiar with them, you will not be able to understand it.
Which books have you read?
People have a greatly exaggerated idea of what Elisabeth Foster-Nietzsche did to her brother's work. This paper addresses some of the misconceptions: https://sci-hub.do/10.1515/nietzstu-2014-0114 . There are no forgeries in the Will to Power. No one disputes that Nietzsche wrote all those passages in his notebooks. The problem with The Will to Power is that it is an assemblage of Nietzsche's notebook writings given a structure that is not Nietzsche's and which was falsely presented as an incomplete draft of what would be Nietzsche's magnum opus.
Nietzsche discussed the topic of free will and psychological drives quite often. Nonetheless, he did not write a book dealing with these topics exclusively.
Human, All Too Human and Daybreak are, in my opinion, the two books with the richest psychological insights. Here is a fine example of this: <em>Daybreak</em> §109.
What you describe as "subpersonalities" reminds me of C.G. Jung "complexes". Volume 8 of his Collected Works deals with topic.
I would also recommend Freud's Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901).
Sorry, I don't have a PDF or a digital copy. I got my copy on Amazon. It's worth the buy in my opinion.
This one form the teaching company: Will to power
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/will-to-power-the-philosophy-of-friedrich-nietzsche.html
Image: From <em>Déjenme inventar</em> by Quino
Just read Duane Armitage's book "Philosophy's Violent Sacred" and can recommend it. He interweaves the philosophy of René Girard, Nietzsche and Heidegger. The author contrasts the metaphysics and ontology of all 3 and I learned more about N (and H for sure). And it's new and he's underrated.
https://www.amazon.ca/Philosophys-Violent-Sacred-Heidegger-Nietzsche/dp/1611863872
Reading Nietzsche does demand an ample background in philosophy. Walter Kaufmann's <em>Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist</em> might be a helpful companion if you feel that you are not quite understanding what you read.
I started with Zarathustra, and it took me a while and a lot of research to understand. Maybe I’m dense.
I’d recommend starting with a Nietzsche reader. Something with passages that will introduce you to broad themes. For example: The Nietzsche Reader https://www.amazon.com/dp/0631226540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_oJ96FbPNXJM7C.
Then go to The Birth of Tragedy and on. Personally, I appreciated taking a step back and appreciating Nietzsche’s development. If I remember correctly, he was quite embarrassed by The Birth of Tragedy later in his life.
All of his books translated by Kaufmann, except for one:
The Gay Science (Vintage)
https://www.amazon.com/Gay-Science-Prelude-Rhymes-Appendix/dp/0394719859
The most notable 'contradiction' stems from probably his central idea: perspectivism.
Roughly, the argument goes something like this. Nietzsche's perspectivism with regards to truth is more or less a variation of relativism, and thus it is open to what's been called "the recoil argument". What does this mean?
Perspectivism with regards to truth means that there is no absolute truth, or no absolute perspective (no "God's Eye" perspective) that one can occupy to give oneself the entire truth of the matter regarding various issues. The best you can have is a partial perspective. But, the crux of the matter is that this tenet is asserted with absolute certainty. And thus the thrust of the philosophical position recoils on itself. It's more or less a grandiose version of the Liar Paradox.
So, Nietzsche has been taken to contradict himself by asserting things like "there are no facts, only interpretations" as this is just another variation of the same. At least that's a charge some critics have leveled at him.
There is a good book on the topic of 'contradictions' in Nietzsche's philosophy by Wolfgang Mueller-Lauter. There are also some papers dealing with this topic, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
TSZ is HIGHLY symbolic and poetical, it might as well be an attempt to add another book to the Bible. It's beautiful and inspiring once you understand Nietzsche's frame of mind. The books people are pointing you towards (Genealogy, BGE, Gay Science) are good. Human all too Human too. I'd also say that if you haven't read much of the Greeks I'd probably point you to the Symposium, the Apology, Nicomachean Ethics, Diogenes the Cynic, Heraclitus, and Epictetus as good reference points. Nietzsche was a professor of philology, so the Greeks are VERY important to his philosophy and outlook.
I would maybe recommend Kaufmanns book as it's a great overview with some breakdown of what Nietzsche was trying to say, etc...
You can also just read a bunch of the aphorisms that are posted online and see which ones appeal to you and then go read the book they are from...
I would not start with that book. I would start with The Use and Abuse of History, translated by by Adriane Collins. I don't think this one is available free. There is the Oscar Levy translation available.
Nietzsche on the Pre-Platonic Philosophers, his lecture notes, and a lengthy commentary on how they were organized into a book (which Nietzsche planned but never released) https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Platonic-Philosophers-International-Nietzsche-Studies/dp/0252074033
You can also read Nietzsche's dissertation on Theognis of Megara and a later essay he wrote about him:
https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Theognis-Megara-Political-Philosophy/dp/1783168005/
With some light googling you can probably find his essays Homer's Contest and The Greek State, which are philological works by Nietzsche during his "pre-philosophical period". There are philosophical ideas there, but they're implicit and not the focus of the work. Even Birth of Tragedy is still a work of philology as well as philosophy, albeit a heavily-criticized work of philology.
I've been trying to reconstruct how I think of free will lately, especially after reading the four great errors. "Free Will" is just misattributing a post-hoc explanation for an action with an actual reason for taking the action in the first place; they're out of order. And the "Free Will" we experience is really just our consciousness, which is the collective moral voice of our culture. This makes sense as to why it's explaining your actions; in reality you will take an action, then need to have an explanation to justify it to the group.
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I would agree that some actions can come from your consciousness, but that's not free will, it's just a different desire. The real challenge is to hijack our consciousness, which is evolved to make us act in accord with our social group norms, and utilize it to re-value morals and decisions. But at the end of the day we're a congress of desires, and consciousness (what we misinterpret as "free will") is just the only desire that can talk.
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Also, I'm interested in Jonathan Haidt's work on morality where he shows how slowly our conscience and consciousness actually works. It's worth a read, IMO, and give credibility to N's idea that your "gut" reactions come first, then consciousness comes in to play Public Relations.
https://www.amazon.com/Seventh-Solitude-Metaphysical-Homelessness-Kierkegaard/dp/0801802571
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Is this the Seventh Solitude you referred to?
I would add Ralph Waldo Emerson to your list. He was an early influence on Nietzsche and a thinker of the highest caliber. While undisputedly relevant to Nietzsche, I think you’ll come to appreciate Emerson in his own right. I go through phases where I can’t put him down. An absolute wealth of ideas. I recommend this volume.
this was an easy read too. Good luck on your journey no need to give up, take it slow Introducing Nietzsche: A Graphic Guide (Introducing... Book 0) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFEJP1G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_9PPMR8QPNNJW6QDAKV4D
Yeah, his takes on women are awful (complaining about women who write books and such), and are definitely my least favorite thing about Nietzsche and his work.
On a side note: Scarlett Marton, who is one of the greatest Nietzsche scholars here in Brazil has recently released a book dedicated to Nietzsche's views on women and the feminine through all of his work.
If anyone is interested and understands Portuguese, you can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com.br/Nietzsche-mulheres-Figuras-imagens-femininos-ebook/dp/B09T3RDYWM
Psychedelics were central to Nietzsche's thought. It's just been ignored by the establishment, like psychedelics in general have. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychedelic-Nietzsche-Twain-Traherne-ebook/dp/B0815XJKX7
I took a class with Shalini Satkunanandan on Philosophy and Politics at UC Davis. Nietzsche's approach to values (along with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Weber) was a core part of the course. Her book Extraordinary Responsibility: Politics Beyond the Moral Calculus is really good, if you're interested in the intersection of politics and morality.
>>what are your favorite arguments from Žižek?
>"I am gay, I am a guy who wants to screw guys". This point in Zizek is crucial to understanding his oeuvre. Contrary to the popular misinterpretation of Zizek as contra foundationalism, the notion in the prior is precisely what Zizek ties his whole philosophy back to--axiomatically, of course.
/r/zizek/comments/uck59p/what_are_your_favorite_arguments_from_žižek/i6bultm/
https://www.amazon.com/Sublime-Object-Ideology-Essential-Zizek/dp/1844673006
I checked the reviews, looks like they were all bought. Not a single insightful review. He's just marginalized. No one even bothered to buy his book and give it a critical review.
Can we be honest for a second?
You're Zizek himself, aren't you?
Dude I like you, I do. We all need to make a living. But I'm not going to buy your books.
No, there are letters written by others to or about Nietzsche, journal entries of friends and relatives, documents and records from universities, hospitals, etc.
And see this collection of writings from people who knew or encountered Nietzsche.
I like Mencken, but his Nietzsche interpretation is oversimplified and very dated (American/English of the early 1900’s take on Nietzsche). I recommend The Nietzsche Reader instead if you’re a beginner and feel like you need commentary and a good overview first.
There's this, but it's a selection. It's expensive, but you should be able to get it from a good university or municipal library:
https://www.amazon.de/Writings-Notebooks-Cambridge-History-Philosophy/dp/0521008875
Well, I'm of the opinion that his translations aren't very good. However, Gutenberg should have free copies for anybody to download, if you like. I'm not sure about specific translations though.
So would there be a crossover between Editions of Nietzsche’s notebooks such as these Nietzsche: Writings from the Early Notebooks Nietzsche’s early Notebooks Cambridge edition and the Will To Power?
So would there be a crossover with editions of Nietzsche’s notebooks such as these Nietzsche’s early notebooks
>In Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Kaufman only includes a selection of 75 aphorisms. I know there's a full translation online by Paul Cohn and Alexander Harvey of Human, All-Too-Human, Parts 1 & 2, but is there a full one done by Kaufman?
Unfortunately, Kaufmann did not translate neither Human, All-Too-Human nor Daybreak. The selected aphorisms in Basic Writings of Nietzsche are merely a drop from a very vast ocean. I would recommend Hollingdale's translations, published by Cambridge University Press.
> I do personally read him as anti-political and anti-government in some sense,
Wasn't it in a work of Nietzsche's that I first encountered the word "misarchist?"
There you are. Mohler is, as you mention, not an entirely uncontroversial figure. His political affiliations are by his own words towards the far right (or new right if you prefer). I don't think this affects the neutrality of his work however. I think he has good grounds for separating the thinkers he treats in his work as a separate category from the strictly nationalsocialist, he never really denies an affiliation between the two however. A somewhat reasonable parallell is how we can make the distinction between the soviet thinking of the time and the trotskytes, while still acknowledging their shared roots.
I would recommend this one for the authority of the scholars involved, but since it's such a long book, you could be justified getting the first part on your Kindle phone app for a dollar. The translator is not listed, which I assume means it is Helen Zimmern. Of course she's out of date, but it's nice to have a copy on your phone.
And this is the definitive English-language biography of N's youth.
Only his father died when N was young. Maybe read a biography
Not much, but something. Twilight of the idols seems to be working, the Antichrist seems to have broken links.
I haven't been criticising translations per se, but since you mention it here's one I've been pondering: https://i.imgur.com/ubvGI7A.jpg. That is the epigraph front page for the 1939 poetic collection "In praise of German Tapferkeit".
Was ist gut? fragt ihr. Tapfer sein ist gut
Tapfer can be translated dozens of ways (https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/tapfer.html).
Did N really just mean 'bravery'?
No. I don't think that w2p is necessarily brutal.
I do think that N left behind 'mercy and compassion' as cardinal virtues when he moved on from Schopenhauer and Wagner who preserve this is.
The Cross. Man is destined to the intersection between Eternity, (by virtue of our contemplative faculty), and the moment, (by way of our animal impulses), like Christ nailed to the cross. It is the friction between these opposites that makes life so intoxicatingly joyous. That is his madness, that is his glory. Psychiatry, along with all other reductionist behaviourist approaches to the human animal, see him only in terms of the latter dimension --- i.e. as an animal driven by crude impulses of the moment to find shelter, rub up against his fellow herd animals for warmth, or be strung along as puppets to artificial chemical interferences--- and thus inevitably begin to actively reduce him to that diminished and undignified state.
He is talking about male and female nature on a very high level. One that the vast majority of people do not have the intellectual ability to perceive and process without having their emotions get in the way, causing them to have a "mUh MiSoGyNy” meltdown.
I mean, how many people truly have the intellectual ability to understand the following book?
Thank you for your post, the 7 perspectives link is great. I recently picked up Jesus from Outer Space by Dr. Richard Carrier and watching his various vids all over the YT and it seems to me that the evidence that he didn't exist seems to be more plausible that otherwise. Of course, many Christians would take grave offense to even the suggestion, despite the earliest Christians never claiming he was ever a physical being on Earth.
I really need to read The Antichrist (well, all of his works) as I'm mostly familiar with TSZ, BG&E, Twilight of the Idols.
The Crowd is very well done and highly informative to the man who seeks to understand why the herd is the herd.
As a corollary, I would look into another similar book, that breaks down the subconscious social mechanisms and the conscious social dance of the herd.
Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis
Image: the cover of the Oxford World's Classics edition.
From The Gay Science §53:
>Where the good begins.— Where the poor power of the eye can no longer see the evil impulse as such because it has become too subtle, man posits the realm of goodness; and the feeling that we have now entered the realm of goodness excites all those impulses which had been threatened and limited by the evil impulses, like the feeling of security, of comfort, of benevolence. Hence, the duller the eye, the more extensive the good. Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the common people and of children. Hence the gloominess and grief — akin to a bad conscience — of the great thinkers.
See chapter two in particular of this book
Happy to send you a pdf of the chapter.
And for the most authoritative, though still not complete, see the first volume of a three-part series here
The book helped me understand his style the most is his lecture notes for his class on teaching Ancient Greek and Latin rhetoric. A lot of his works are rhetoric in this style, especially TSZ.
There are several viable paths to cross Nietzsche, eastern philosophy and Buddhism.
For one, you could check out this scholarly work which interprets Nietzsche's Zarathustra through the lense of Zen: Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Secondly, you could identify chief tenets within Nietzsche's philosophy, and compare it to different strands of Buddhism. A chief tenet within Nietzsche's philosophy is Dionysian life-affirmation. Well, it just so happens to be the case that one strand of Buddhism has this same view. Tibetan Buddhism or Vajrayana. In my opinion, one of your best bets of crossing Nietzsche and Buddhism is through secular Vajrayana, and in particular Chogyam Trungpa's Shambhala teachings.
If you want the condensed version of this, I can recommend this article by John Welwood on befriending emotion: BEFRIENDING EMOTION: SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND TRANSFORMATION
>"The Lion's Roar is the fearless proclamation that any state of mind, including the emotions, is a workable situation .... Then the most powerful energies become absolutely workable rather than taking you over, because there is nothing to take over if you are not putting up any resistance .... Indian Ashokan art depicts the lion's roar with four lions looking in four directions, which symbolizes the idea of having no back."
You called?
But seriously I would like to add Kaufman’s review as a supplemental guide while reading N, especially for newcomers. Really helps contextualize his texts in the Western tradition. https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Philosopher-Psychologist-Walter-Kaufmann/dp/0691019835
I think you would be interested in Jessica Berry's ancient skeptic reading of Nietzsche. There are some strong alignments between his philosophy and Pyrrhonism.
Laurence Lampert's "Basic Writings : An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is a good book to help you out with TSZ. I too am using it.
https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsches-Teaching-Interpretation-Spoke-Zarathustra/dp/0300044305
You can also find a pdf on the internet.
Are you referring to about Basic Writings of Nietzsche and The Portable Nietzsche?
I recommend starting with The Gay Science (Vintage Books), which is not included in the above volumes. Inexpensive new and used copies are available at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Gay-Science-Prelude-Rhymes-Appendix/dp/0394719859
Other than that, just dive right in. Nietzsche writes in ordinary language, mostly eschews "philosophical" jargon, and is very readable. Just be mindful that what he means by will, power, morality, strength, health, truth, interpretation, decadence, asceticism, etc., might not be what you think he means.
Thanks. Yeah, I think that being self-sufficient seems like somewhat of a myth if you consider ideas in the book The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Illusion-Never-Think-Alone/dp/039918435X (I'm skeptical about a lot of psychology research, but they still make some interesting points, I think). I mean, I think that maybe valuing solitude, taking time to yourself and also being with other people at times (finding a balance) is a good idea. Solitude seems to help with creativity at times (some amount of it) and not falling into a herd mentality. But hey, I do think Nietzsche is worth reading.
The only information that I can find is that it appears to come from a complete collection of his works - it is cited as such by Alan Schrift . Likely unpublished during his life, found in a notebook or something.
>I know that Nietzsche isn't a fascist and even classified himself as an "anti-anti-semite." It just seems odd that his praise of the strength of antique values doesn't manage to line up with the fascist's valorization of strongman politics.
I highly recommend that you try to get your hands on this book right here
Lots of great cases made within that work arguing for and against how, and to what extent, Nietzsche's philosophy gets tangled up with fascism. Nietzsche was absolutely concerned with his work getting twisted and misinterpreted, but Nietzsche was also a fierce advocate of looking at things from many different corners, with many different eyes. I'm not trying to say that they're right or wrong, but don't let only Kaufmann and/or Hollingdale be the ones to tell you what Nietzsche was trying to say when things seem confusing.
A caveat: The Will to Power is derived from Nietzsche's late notebooks. That's a nice collection of his late journals put together by Cambridge. This is what's referred to below: >The Cambridge Hist. of Phil edition of his 'later notes' is superior imho.
Reading the following books will give you a clear picture of what Nietzsche's philosophical project was all about and thinking though the ideas in these books will help you sort out the Nazi BS and the BS appropriations from people like Jordan Peterson:
- Untimely Meditations (1874)
- Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
- The Gay Science (1882)
- On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Read Genealogy or The Gay Science if you're only going to read one book.
This book is not really all that recent, and it's been a while since I have read it, but it was certainly interesting: Nietzsche and the Political. It's from 1996.
There's a lovely, short biography of Nietzsche in James Miller's Examined Lives. I bought the book just for that chapter. Highly recommended.
http://www.amazon.com/Examined-Lives-From-Socrates-Nietzsche/dp/125000232X