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    Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
    Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
    Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
    Audiobook8 hours

    Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future

    Written by Friedrich Nietzsche

    Narrated by Geoffrey Giuliano and The Orb

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    • “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
    • “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” ...
    • “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
    • “I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”

    Nietzsche


    By turns illuminating, infuriating, bewildering, and amusing, Nietzsche's masterwork covers a lot of ground. He rejects most strands of Western thought, especially on the subject of morality, and develops his own theme demanding that individuals embrace their own 'will to power' to give life intention and direction. First published in German in 1887, this translation was produced in 1907 by Helen Zimmern, a long-standing acquaintance of Nietzsche.


    Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIcon Audio Arts
    Release dateNov 19, 2022
    ISBN9798887675886
    Author

    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Friedrich Nietzsche wird 1844 in Röcken in Sachsen geboren. Nach dem Studium der Philologie und Theologie in Bonn und Leipzig wird er mit 24 Jahren Professor für Klassische Philologie in Basel. Dort lernt er Richard Wagner kennen, der sein Denken zusammen mit den Schriften Schopenhauers am stärksten beeinflußt. Im Krieg 1870/71 wird Nietzsche freiwillig Krankenpfleger, kehrt aber selbst erkrankt zurück und muß sich 1879 von seinem Lehramt dispensieren lassen.Als Außenseiter unter den deutschen Philosophen des späten 19. Jahrhunderts bleibt der Philologe Nietzsche in der Philosophie Autodidakt. In seinem ersten philosophischen Werk Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1872) entwickelt Nietzsche die These, daß in den Wagnerschen Dramen die Tragödie aus der Musik wiedergeboren wird und formuliert den Antagonismus zwischen Apollinischem und Dionysischem.Schon die Unzeitgemäßen Betrachtungen von 1876 zeigen die Entfremdung von Wagner, die Distanz zur Philosophie Schopenhauers wird mit Menschliches, Allzumenschliches offenbar. Nietzsche wählt die Unabgeschlossenheit der aphoristischen Form, die für ihn zu einem neuen „Denkstil für freie Geister“ paßt. Während des immer stärkeren Rückzugs in die Einsamkeit bereitet Nietzsche die Neuausgaben seiner Werke vor, für die er neue Vorreden schreibt, die als Selbstinterpretationen gelesen werden können. In den Jahren ab 1883 erscheinen die zentralen philosophischen Dichtungen des Spätwerks Also sprach Zarathustra, Jenseits von Gut und Böse oder Ecce homo. 1889 erleidet Nietzsche in Turin den endgültigen geistigen Zusammenbruch und wird in eine Nervenheilanstalt eingeliefert. In zunehmender geistiger Umnachtung verbringt er seine letzten Lebensjahre in der Pflege seiner Mutter und seiner Schwester. Nietzsche stirbt 1900 in Weimar.

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    Reviews for Beyond Good and Evil

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    1,132 ratings24 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of the best audiobooks on Nietzsche I have ever come across. The author captures perfectly the wit, sarcasm and musicality of the writing.
    • 4/5
      The book pretty much does what the title says, it does take you beyond good and evil, it does wash those dirty ideas ingrained in the mind since childhood. I can summarize the core of this work as "there is no good nor evil, only rules".
    • 3/5
      Utterly meaningless star rating alert! BGE is really a great book, the best place to start with Nietzsche, I think, because it states his most important ideas in digestible chunks (unlike Zarathustra, which is so over-wrought and self-regarding that I have trouble even flicking through it), and has no aspirations towards unity (and so is unlike Genealogy of Morality, which achieves that unity at the price of being transparently silly). Friedrich works best in paragraphs, and that's what he gives us here. He's about infinity times more enjoyable to read than any other philosopher, ever; I've never felt that more than this reading of BGE.

      Now, that said, his reasoning is transparently flawed. He fails to treat themes outside of his own the way he treats his pet themes. To wit: why is he so keen to discuss the 'history' of Christianity, but so unwilling to discuss the history of misogyny? He never acknowledges the obvious absurdities of his positions--if all people create their reality by interpretation, why assume that there is any 'natural' given (which he does with, e.g., instinct)? If all people create their reality by interpretation, why should we value Nietzsche's interpretation rather than the (then) reigning liberal Christianism?

      These inconsistencies make it plain that he thinks his thought is different from previous philosophies; "every great philosophy to date has been the personal confession of its author." It's equally obvious that his work, more than any other (possible exception: Rousseau) is driven by his own idiosyncrasies.

      This urge to be a unique snowflake drives BGE. Nietzsche starts by separating himself from other 'free thinkers.' He refuses to martyr himself to the 'truth' of atheism. He's beyond both utilitarianism, and Kantianism; he has overcome all morals; he has shifted the burden of proof to those who say that doing good by others is a good thing. He's beyond the enlightenment, which assumed a *good* world, and beyond Christians, who assume a bad one; he assumes a mutable, already interpreted world.

      But he's very slippery on this--sometimes he wants to get underneath all that interpretation to the text itself; sometimes he values the interpretation rather than the text; sometimes he implies that there is no text. The real 'free spirits' will be experimenters, ultra-individualistic, and ultra-elitist. Whereas the free-thinkers (to borrow from Berlin) aim for negative freedom, Nietzsche and the future philosophers aim for positive freedom.

      Sadly for Nietzsche, who was deeply oppressed by pretty much everything, religion was keeping down the free spirits. On the other hand, it did train the great to be great and fool the weak into submission. I'm curious to know what Nietzsche would have thought of the Ayn Rands and neo-Darwinians who use materialism, atheism and economics to achieve the same ends.

      Thus far, act one. Now for act two.

      In section 5, we get a shorter, less silly version of the Genealogy of Morality, with some of the same problems of reflexivity (we should do a genealogical reading of philosophies of morality... but not Nietzsche's. All young sciences make outrageous, unprovable claims due to a lack of skepticism... except Nietzsche's). Christianity is foolish... but Nietzsche's crazed messianism is legitimate.

      True philosophers, we learn, are just like Nietzsche, whereas scholars are (presumably) the people who didn't like Birth of Tragedy. Philosophers create values, rather than justifying pre-existing values; they are opposed to their own times. The new philosophical virtues will be pluralism, spite, dissection, hierarchy, self-interest, individualism for the elite, absence of pity, laughter, good taste, dutiful immoralism, honest harshness, cruelty, misogyny, and not being English.

      As a friend of mine put it about later philosophers with similar ideas, there will always be an audience for this, because there will always be self-impressed teenagers.

      The final section is probably the best, and reveals Nietzsche at his worst: a small, lonely, intelligent man, so filled with rage at his own failures that he has to invent a mythology that will justify his own sense of superiority. He has a different morality to others, he is a master; we, the peons, have a slave morality. One can only wish that the masters would really retire to write bilious pamphlets instead of taking over the commanding heights of the world economy, where they create values that Nietzsche would have loathed, and which, perhaps, would have led him to think the better of his more adolescent fantasies of self-sufficient genius.

      But despite the inconsistencies and absurdities and misogyny, BGE is filled with legitimately fascinating and important insights. The irony of Nietzsche's career is that he's at his best when undermining others; that is, when he's being a critic, rather than a creator of new values etc... His 'creation' is nothing other than an inversion of whatever other people say (they say be good to others; he says be good to oneself) with some post-positivist blather about nature and evolution. His criticisms, though, are devastating for much of the philosophical tradition. If only he'd stuck to that, and recognized the main meta-philosophical lesson of Hegel: the owl of Minerva flies at dusk.
    • 5/5
      The blockbuster, followup hit (I think it originally sold 300 copies) to Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Same general theme, different method. One macro, one micro; one infinite, one finite; one timeless, one current -- I suppose (those are all methaphorical stretches to awe a Swami for sure, but hell, who reads these reviews anyway).
    • 4/5
      required reading in college. I got ignored by the professor as I ignored N as a blathering anti-semite. Little did I know how to read anti-jewishness as an intellectual category and a tool for analysis of a cultural trend.
    • 3/5
      So I think this books is pretty okay. I first thought it was pretty lousy, but then when he mentioned the part about the funky chicken dance - it all turned around and I began to really love it. He kind of messed up towards the end when he said that all the chicken really does is flap its wings around. Doesn't exactly spell excellence to me. - Santosha
    • 4/5
      Some of my colleagues are infatuated with Nietzsche, and judging by this book it’s easy to understand why. In places it sounds considerably poststructural (I work in a literature department). It’s about complexity (“our body is, after all, only a society constructed out of many souls”, section 19), determinism and power-relations. Nietzsche considers language a constituating force (20), tightly linked to experience (268). He undertakes a typology of value systems (186), meaning to expose and to undermine them. He subordinates truth to interest and he questions the reality of oppositions: “we can doubt whether opposites even exist” (2). This was funny and familiar. But gradually I grew irritated, because of what seemed a continuous promotion of arrogance and rudenes. Please stop bullying supposedly “ill” and “degenerated” people, i thought. To make matters worse, he debunked Madame de Stael (233). I’m a fan of hers. But then my opinion swung again. He deals with the downsides of intellectual distance (chapter 6) in an intriguing way. In chapter 8 he makes broad sweeping statements about european culture, that are, if not really convincing, still interesting. Then, in the concluding chapter, he zooms in on his favorite subject, the “noble” person. Surprisingly this figure now loses its arrogant looks and adopts an almost tragic countenance, prone to self-destruction and loneliness (269-284). The writing here is very serious and passionate, and results in an embrace of Dionysos, “that great ambiguity and tempter god” (295).
    • 2/5
      Not exactly the best introduction to the work of Nietzsche.This text is a set of nine chapters subdivided into 290 sections with various pontifications by the noted German philosopher. I did not detect a lot of coherence throughout. I get that Nietzsche has strong opinions. I get that he is not a fan of the British. I get he would not be a fan of all that feminism has wrought.Apparently, in the midst of all of these declarations and many more, Nietzsche is critiquing the basis of all modern morality and exposing it all as the Will to Power; he takes down the philosophers; he overthrows religion, condemning its love of suffering, considering the OT of greater value than the NT; having little love for the ethos of Jesus. At the very end he confesses his great love for Dionysus and all he represents.He found value in the Jews and condemned antisemitism...all the more ironic since the Nazis found plenty to love in Nietzsche's philosophy in general.If this is representative of Nietzschean thought...man, the guy needed an editor. Unless, of course, clearly set forth and coherently argued premises is also something he's against. Wouldn't surprise me.
    • 1/5
      The passage which really summed up this book for me was "Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood." Yep, right there. It's what annoys me about a lot of philosophy - I just want people to be able to write clearly and honestly about what they actually mean. Nietzsche's language is so dense and impenetrable (and clearly deliberately so) that it is frustrating to read. There's definitely a whiff of the emperor's new clothes about this book.And don't get me started on his views about women: "nothing is more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth - her great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty." Oh dear, too late, I can't stop now: "When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain virility of taste..."."Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the secondary role."I thought Erasmus's views were bad, but he lived four hundred years before Nietzsche. I had hoped that by the late nineteenth century 'deep thinkers' might have become more enlightened. Apparently not.
    • 3/5
      With a philosopher nothing at all is impersonal.
      As an armchair Platonist, I had a personal aversion to Nietzsche, whose whole purpose in life seemed to be to overthrow Platonism. After reading "Beyond Good and Evil", however, my attitude changed from aversion to pity, that is, pity in the Nietzschean sense.

      To illustrate what I think of Nietzsche and his relation to Plato, let me introduce a Chinese fictional/mythical character, Sun Wukong (孙悟空), also known as the Monkey King. The Monkey King challenged the authority of the gods, stormed their dwelling, The Heavenly Palace, and proclaimed himself an equal of the gods. They appealed to the Buddha for help, after repeatedly failing to subdue the Monkey King. The Buddha made a wager with the Monkey King, who could travel 108,000 miles with one somersault, that the latter could not jump out of the former's palm. In order to prove his power, the Monkey King traveled as far as he could, and reached what he thought were the Five Pillars of Heaven. When he returned to confront the Buddha, he learned, to his chagrin, that those pillars were actually the Buddha's fingers. He lost and was imprisoned by the Buddha under a mountain for 500 years.

      An attentive reader would have no difficulty guessing at my meaning: Nietzsche was the Monkey King, Plato the Buddha.

      Firstly, Plato derived the notion of an eternal cyclic nature of the universe long before Nietzsche stumbled upon it and gave it a different name, "eternal recurrence". Apparently, like the Monkey King, Nietzsche was not immune to self-deception and illusions of grandeur, when he claimed that his philosophy was new and free of metaphysical presumptions.

      Secondly, there is nothing new to the idea of "order of rank" either. Plato made a division of classes in his Republic. Nietzsche seems to share Plato's contempt for democracy, which is based on the assumption of equality among man. Both would assert that some men are fit to rule and others to be ruled.

      Thirdly, Christianity has long inculcated the notion that suffering is necessary for the character development of human beings. Nietzsche borrowed the idea again, without acknowledging the source.

      Fourthly, Nietzsche's philosophy is not grounded in biological facts, but rather, it is another subjective interpretation with assumptions and leaps. To use his own simile, the text may have disappeared under the interpretation, but it is still there, and each interpretation shall be evaluated according to its relation to the original. The philosopher can no more place himself above the standard of good and evil, than a translator can place himself above the original.

      Fifthly, the ancient Greek philosophers believed that the ultimate purpose of philosophy is the attainment of the Good and the True. Nietzsche rejected the notion as utilitarian and ignoble. What noble value did he create by will to power that would set him above those philosophers he satirized? None.
    • 3/5
      Though it contains some thought-provoking aphorisms, when it comes to its longer, more substantive passages, Beyond Good and Evil is not what its title proclaims. Nietzsche certainly does not move beyond the realm of value judgments altogether (which is about the best thing I can say for him in this regard). Nor does he even offer a genuine alternative to conventional conceptions of good and evil. Rather, he simply takes the flip-side of that coin and reverses the labels, ascribing (at least by strong implication) moral superiority to what would conventionally be called the "evil" and moral inferiority to what society had generally come to accept as the "good". On this last, much of his criticism of Christianity, which he aptly described as "slave-morality", is quite accurate; but in his own positive views, he unfortunately failed to move beyond the Christian moral framework and offer a genuine alternative. For example, instead of saying that the strong should sacrifice themselves to the weak, he held that the strong should sacrifice the weak to themselves. He completely accepted the view that morality was about masters and slaves, and only argued as to who should be sacrificed to whom.He writes, for instance: "The essential thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should...accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher EXISTENCE..."This illustrates the problem with this sort of Nietzschean pseudo-egoism very well: one cannot accept egoism except on the basis of individualism---the "ego" is, after all, the "I", the individual self as distinct from other selves. Nietzsche senses this and tries to uphold the individual (e.g., "the individual dares to be individual and detach himself")---but one cannot uphold the individual while at the same time speaking of sacrificing legions of individuals. It's simply not consistent...if it is right for some people to exist for their own sake as individuals, then by the same token every other individual has that same right (Nietzsche's separation of them into "noble" and "despicable" classes notwithstanding).The alternative to populism is not elitism, but individualism...and elitism is by definition not individualism. As one dictionary aptly puts it, elitism is "consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group"...it may be a smaller group, but it is still defining oneself primarily in terms of and in relation to the group. Indeed, Nietzche writes: "...egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as 'we,' other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves..." Note the "we" where one would expect an "I", followed by the calls for sacrifice of one group to another...clearly, Nietzsche is not a genuine individualist, but a common elitist merely posing as one.All of this follows from what might be called his metaethical principles, for example that "...life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation..." This is of course true of animals, but not of human beings in the moral sense. You might think that Nietzsche recognizes this as he describes the egoist as a "CREATOR OF VALUES", but he means that only in the sense that he subjectively defines values for himself, not that he actually creates the values his life requires rather than appropriating them from those who do create them. So for Nietzsche, the "egoist" is existentially a parasite on those who are actually creative and productive.Nietzsche does insist that the highest men are not simply those who are physically superior, but spiritually (for lack of a better word---Nietzsche uses the term "psychically" in the translation I'm using) as well---the great individuals who shape a culture rather than merely being shaped by it, the Wagners, the, well...the Nietzsches! But given that these men are simply those who have the greatest concentration of the Will to Power, and not through any morally praiseworthy choices of their own, as Nietzsche denies freedom of the will, it's not clear that their superior status is in any sense "deserved". And whether their domination over others is through sheer force of will, or by actual physical domination, it still basically comes down to "might makes right".The "Will to Power" is itself a sort of half-baked idea. Robert C. Solomon makes a lot out of Nietzsche's rejection of Plato and Schopenhauer, and of metaphysics in general, but interpreting his "Will to Power" as a merely psychological phenomenon (even a universal one) is a bit of a stretch, when he largely took the idea from Schopenhauer's "Will" or "Will to Live" and when its place in Nietzsche's philosophy is similar in form and function (if not in content) to Plato's Form of the Good. But to be fair, interpreting Nietzsche is not exactly a clear-cut undertaking, considering the unsystematic nature of his writings.Even Nietzsche's comments on peripheral subjects don't stand up very well in retrospect. Many of his remarks about women are extremely unfortunate, and his attempt at music criticism is almost laughable as he dismisses Mendelssohn, Schumann, and the Romantics (and even Beethoven as the transition between Mozart and them) as unsubstantial and therefore short-lived and already forgotten---when his own musical compositions (yes, Nietzsche was himself something of an amateur composer!) have actually been forgotten (though they're not too bad) much more so than those.So is there any value in reading Nietzsche today? Certainly, for those interested in the history of philosophy...it is interesting, for example, how Nietzsche's emphasis on feeling or "the passions" over rational thought bridged the gap between Hegel as well as the German Romantic philosophers such as Schelling, and the existentialists, on the one hand; and on the other how his proto-phenomenology bridged the gap between Kant and not only the existentialists but also the pragmatists.And Beyond Good and Evil does contain some beautifully expressed thoughts, including one of my all-time favorite passages: "...it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF." That is a beautiful, and (properly understood) profoundly true, idea. If only Nietzsche could have lived up to it in the rest of the work.
    • 3/5
      I began this book with the hope that Nietsche would better explain some of my own theories on morality and its function in society. I did not quite find what I was looking for. I now realize that my hope was terribly naive.In addition to my dissapointment on that front, I found a few others. Nietsche seems to have used this book to attack some of his rivals with viewpoints opposed to his own. While this is not alway a bad thing, Nietsche does this in what appears to be more of a personal attack than a refutation of a theory.While some of his ideas seem very distant from what we accept today (some of his points about women) I did glean a few things that have helped me to understand my own perspective. I think a class or study group where I could discuss my views and hear those of others would go a long way to helping me to really understand the book.
    • 3/5
      Interesting thoughts. I agree with some and disagree with others. The biggest problem I have is that the writing style is VERY choppy. Since I read the English translation, I can't say for certain whether it is Nietzsche who wrote this way, or the way in which it was translated. In either case, the choppy writing is not conducive to absorption. A handful of sentences on one topic, followed by three sentences on another topic, followed by another few sentences on a third topic, etc. Such writing results in lack of retention. There is no central theme to any of the chapters or sections. For this reason, I was even considering going as low as two and a half stars.
    • 4/5
      I think one of the key barriers to understanding Nietzsche, particularly this book and its immediate predecessor which both deal with the Ubermensch and master morality versus slave morality, is that the uninformed may go into such a book looking for some sort of dogma (as the Nazis did). Though if Nietzsche were to work in such a mode, his form would contradict his content. The most digestible aspect (though not for some, surely) of this writing are its moments of passion and poetic brilliance, alongside characteristic biting wit. Such wit abounds in the early parts of the book, where he deals mostly in polemics against prevalent views, against schools of thought and their propagators. Such style eventually drags, and then starves to death when Nietzsche begins to mock women in a rather juvenile way. It is in the end section entitled "What is Noble?" that Nietzsche's poetics flare up and the text becomes introspective, in the sense that Nietzsche begins to discuss and refer to himself, but also in the sense that in doing he may reveal certain keys to understanding the book itself. Especially, "my written and painted thoughts [...] You have already taken off your novelty, and some of you are ready, I fear, to become truths: they already look so immortal, so pathetically decent, so dull! [...] We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer — only weary and mellow things!"In reading Nietzsche it might serve us to rely on context both historical and biographical, but even this method of interpretation, narrow as it is, may do us more harm than good. We may perhaps do best to acknowledge Nietzsche as Zarathustra made flesh in his own time and place, as an observer of the condition of man. He sees this with a terrified eye, but allows his throat to well up in Dionysian laughter at the possibilities of what the future might hold. As it stands, the outlook is dim. Such a time as now could not foster another Nietzsche, nor a complete realization of his ideal man. We remain in the muck, though some of us stand on the bridge between man and superman, with so many below us, fallen into the black pit of modernity where it is doubtful that no Goethe could stand upright.
    • 4/5
      The other evening, a few pages from the end of this work, I fell asleep listening to Alan Watts lecturing on virtues. I find it difficult to articulate the connection to Nietzsche, but what I comprehended as I awoke, while being in a state not dissimilar to that of Debussy's faun, was this rough recollection: You cannot be virtuous. If you become virtuous and you are aware of being virtuous, then you are prideful and thus no longer virtuous. Virtues are not self-conscious, and you cannot consciously be virtuous. Breathing is a virtue. You don't think about it, you are not responsible for it, it happens 'un-self-consciously'. That is virtue. I understand that Alan Watts was discussing elements of Eastern philosophy, but Nietzsche mentions Eastern philosophy numerous times. Following Mortimer Adler's guidance in How to Read a Book, I now take notes in pencil in the margins of my books. This rather short book is full of notations; Latin, French, Greek, German, and Italian words and phrases; class consciousness, waiting too long to display one's genius, "the herd"; the Will to Power; morality; and so on. Too much to summarise here appropriately. But I read in Nietzsche a critique of mediocrity, and it provides me with an awakening to the class-based cringe that has been highlighted by my reading and study over the years. Alan Watts said something like being self-conscious won't help one to be virtuous. Benjamin Franklin wrote that although he worked to consciously improve himself, using his 13-week virtues checklist, he was aware that he could never be perfect. If I take into account Nietzsche's critique of the herd morality and religion, and the privilege of rank and the position adopted by others in relation to my lowly class-based existence (which doesn't manifest itself in any meaningful way outside my own head), then the idea of "beyond good and evil" makes some intuitive sense. Nonetheless, I am far from articulating Nietzsche's ideas beyond what I can grasp from a handful of his work. I may take some solace in that Franklin couldn't be virtuous, that Adler tells me there is nothing wrong with interpreting my reading without the aid of others, that Nietzsche writes much like La Rochefoucauld, and that he thought the Stoics were wrong. This is interesting because the Stoics advocated "living according to one's nature". As it is so natural, then how can one "will" oneself to live in a way that is predestined? This is one of the most helpful explanations of the deductive method! On flicking back through my notes, two things are noticeable. First, the race elements the Nazis picked up on (thanks to Nietzsche's sister, I believe). This is no worse than Jack London, writing not that long after Nietzsche and I encountered parts that wouldn't fit with Nazism. Second, the attitude towards women. This was written before universal suffrage, but clearly, Nietzsche was no John Stuart Mill. Indeed, Nietzsche was a critic of utilitarianism. I will finish with this quote on scholars and artists (I had heavily underlined it while reading - there is always a pencil on hand these days), one that brings together in Nietzsche's words what I felt in my "faunish" moment while listening to Alan Watts (pp. 142-3):One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness impels them; but this very need of nobleness is radically different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank - to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning - it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. -The noble soul has reverence for itself. It would seem that it is "beyond good and evil".
    • 5/5
      Over the past two days, I read Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. I didn't know what to expect and online reviews of the book were mixed and often lacking content. Hopefully, my amateur reading of this book and accompanying review will do it service.First, I found Nietzsche very appealing–even if his ideas didn't always mesh well with mine. His directly anti-exceptionalist approach agreed with what I believe to be wrong with much of our discourse (in politics, philosophy, etc.). Additionally, his sarcastic, blunt, and provocative style is useful and aids his attempt to discredit existing trends of thought. However, using this tactic also limits his eventual ability to create the "new generation's" philosophy that he describes. When does the sarcasm end and non-cynical pontificating begin?Nonetheless, the book is worthwhile in the same sense that Dylan's music and Kerouac's writing are. Reading Nietzsche for the first time was like reading Kerouac or listening to Dylan for the first time. It added to my understanding about human thought and revealed some of the underlying assumptions that permeate Western existence. Doors have been opened for me by Nietzsche.
    • 4/5
      In this book we have the "non-fiction" counterpart to Zarathustra, in which Nietzsche explains not so much a single, integrated philosophy as his philosophical outlook on almost every aspect of life. It is a profound book and, as is often the case, I can at most note here snippets and anecdotes that especially caught my attention. Nietzsche provides an ongoing "survey of the literature," discussing the development of epistemology and criticizing Kant in particular ("By virtue of a faculty... But such replies belong in a comedy.") Nietzsche bemoaned the reduction to philosophy as being the theory of knowledge - the branch which dominate so much of the field before and during his time. He also saw the rapid expansion of science outpacing the development of philosophy, as philosophers worked too much in specializations and failed to rise high enough to look "down" (a very important metaphor for perspective in much of his writing.)
    • 4/5
      Classic- Must read
    • 3/5
      2/17/22. Beyond Good & Evil Beyond Good and Evil (Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future) by Friedrich Nietzsche.Why I picked this book up: I had it on my shelf in our library. I’ve heard of Nietzsche and had never read anything from him so I decided to check it out. Thoughts: first of all, I found Nietzsche difficult, his writing was deep to me. It was both deep and simple too. He did not like the dichotomy of good and evil. He goes beyond the concepts of good and evil and beyond pairs of opposites. He looks at appearance and reality, will and reason, and beyond true and false. He criticized past philosophers and points out how they were lacking. Like Descartes’ “I Think Therefore I Am” doesn’t go far enough. He asks “why” with many concepts from the past like Descartes, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, the will to power, he thinks philosophers were not really about truth but really about power. He wants power of truth, existence, biology, the material world, organic power, struggle, competing wills, he thinks we really want power, perspective, Christianity, slave morality, religiousness neurosis, powerlessness, the afterlife, military, free spirits, nihilism. Overall it seems there is more needed to finish his workWhy I finished this read: I found this book difficult to understand and wondered if it was the translation or if the concepts were above my thoughts. Why I finished this read: I first put it down, not wanting to finish it and blamed the difficulty I had in the translation then I plowed through it. I wanted t say I finished it which I did but I may have missed important thing in this book. Stars rating: I want to give it 2/5 stars but don’t think I should rate it that low. I will give it 3/5 but think I am likely rating it lower than it deserves but that is where I’m rating it. I might read it and like it more in the future.
    • 4/5
      (Disclaimer: I'm definitely not qualified to write this review.)When I started secondary school, in our first history classes, every so often it would be mentioned that such and such a historical figure was racist, or sexist, or what have you. For a bunch of 12 year old girls, this was pretty shocking, and I remember my teacher having to silence us and remind us: "it's not fair to judge someone by the standards of our time".I think there's a lot of sense in that idea, and this is what I tried to do with 'Beyond Good and Evil', but unfortunately, I found it impossible simply because Nietzsche's philosophy is deeply entrenched in 19th century European society -- remove that context and what he's saying won't make sense. And so, because a lot of his philosophy is deeply rooted in social hierarchy, misogyny and nationalism (even though I wouldn't say Nietzsche is hugely nationalistic himself by 19th century standards), 'Beyond Good and Evil' can be tasteless to someone with more contemporary values.I don't doubt that Nietzsche was a genius, however. His deconstruction of Western philosophy is very impressive and he makes many valid criticisms of the likes of Descartes and Kant. I also can see that his work is incredibly influential, and (though I'm not well versed in philosophy) I gather that it's Nietzsche's influence that led to the more post-moral slant of modern philosophy.Nietzsche brings forward a lot of excellent ideas, and is admirable in not shying away from controversy. He takes a more cynical view of human nature than (probably) was typical until that point, and this is seen in ideas such as the will to power and the notions of master and slave morality. However much or little we agree with these notions, they're daringly subversive, and I think that they've made their mark on contemporary thinking, on an everyday level as much as on a philosophical one.Master and slave morality is itself one of the ideas that seems particularly tasteless to us, in spite of it having penetrated people's thinking -- we (hopefully!) don't see the world in terms of masters and slaves, or leaders and followers, or higher and lower anymore, at least not in the same way that Europe did in the 19th century. It's very unappealing to us to see the world in terms of noble versus downtrodden and victimised. At the same time, though, some of the ideas of master morality -- self-respect, self-righteousness, etc -- are widely accepted these days as positive ways of living.I don't want to go on for too much longer, but I'll finish by saying that Nietzsche was a highly intelligent philosopher, and an astute observer of the world around him. I may be slightly unfair in criticising the tastelessness of his views, but I do think that his philosophy is inextricably linked with the attitudes of 19th century Europe. I did enjoy it on the whole, though, and in spite of the three-and-a-half stars, I think 'Beyond Good and Evil' is definitely a book worth reading and forming an opinion on!And I'm sorry for this mess of a review.
    • 5/5
      Good to know the N-meister is still invigorating after all these years. You will be offended and you will think. What more could one ask for in a philosopher. It should be said too that enjoying Neitzsche is not to be ignorant of his flaws. Remember the myth of Icarus, but be prepared to be accused of possessing a slave morality.
    • 5/5
      Such a wonderful book. Truly one that I find hard to put down. This is my night reader during a History MA, and it certainly keeps my mind busy and not worrying on about the day and its endless problems. The way Penguin have re-published the book is beautiful, and it really adds to the impact of the brain warming words within. A must read for anyone that enjoys philosophy, or just for something to put you to sleep at night.
    • 1/5
      When writing about relation between neurosis and practices of solitude, fasting, sexual abstinence, Nietzsche writes: "This latter doubt is justified by the fact that one of the most regular symptoms among savage as well as among civilized peoples is the most sudden and excessive sensuality, which then with equal suddenness transforms into penitential paroxysms, world-renunciation, and will-renunciation, both symptoms perhaps explainable as disguised epilepsy? But nowhere is it MORE obligatory to put aside explanations around no other type has there grown such a mass of absurdity and superstition, no other type seems to have been more interesting to men and even to philosophers - perhaps it is time to become just a little indifferent here, to learn caution, or, better still, to look AWAY, TO GO AWAY -" (pages 33-34)After reading above words, decided to go away from this book.
    • 5/5
      I think that the entire book is fascinating, but the one part that I read over and over is the aphorisms section.