A Beginner's Guide to Nietzsche's Beyond Good and EvilISBN: 978-1-4051-6004-9
Hardcover
232 pages
January 2009, Wiley-Blackwell
Other Available Formats: Paperback
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List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction x
Chapter 1: Background 1
Life of Nietzsche 1
Nineteenth-century Europe 8
Romanticism and German Idealism 9
Pessimism 9
German Politics 11
The Text 12
Chapter 2: Explanation and Summary of the Main Arguments 14
Introduction 14
Preface 14
Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers 16
Part Two: The Free Spirit 34
Part Three: The Religious Nature 44
Part Four: Maxims and Interludes 52
Part Five: On the Natural History of Morals 55
Part Six: We Scholars 63
Part Seven: Our Virtues 68
Part Eight: Peoples and Fatherlands 81
Part Nine: What is Noble? 88
From High Mountains: Epode 103
Chapter 3: Critical Themes 105
Introduction 105
Reality, Truth and Philosophical Prejudice 106
Philosophical prejudices 106
1. The will to truth 108
2. Faith in antithetical values 110
3. Distinction between appearance and reality 112
4. Atomism 115
5. Teleological explanation 120
6. Immediate certainty 124
7. Causa sui 129
8. Reification 133
Nietzsche’s anti-realism 135
God, Religion and the Saint 137
The question of God’s existence 137
Religious neurosis and the saint 142
Beyond pessimism: the Übermensch and the eternal return 144
Morality, Ressentiment and the Will to Power 149
Ethical naturalism 149
A natural history of morality 151
Ressentiment 152
Will to power 155
Appendix: Overview of Beyond Good and Evil 161
Notes 169
Glossary 181
Bibliography and Suggested Reading 206
Index 210