A Beginner's Guide to Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

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