As with Thus Spake Zarathustra, I find this book surprisingly difficult to review and sum up my thoughts on the writing. Beyond Good and Evil contains an expansion of Neitzsche's ideal of an Übermensch, explained this time through hard writing and straight explanations, rather than analogies and illustrations as it first appeared in his prior writing.

Nietzsche sets his aim at the common morality of the world around him, the "slave morality" that seeks not to empower or improve humanity, but to hold it captive and stagnant. As man, Nietzsche believes it is our quest to become greater than our society conditions us, to what end this will make us, even he does not say, only that we must try to move forward even if that leads to a fiery downfall. "In man creature and creator are united" ((94)) and as such, we are uniquely in a position to create our world, our morality and our selves.

This book seeks not so much to illustrate a path toward this Übermensch ideal, but to tear down and expose all the structures and weaknesses that have been holding people down from this pinnacle. As this is far more detailed and serious in its writing, I recommend people interested first read Thus Spake Zarathurstra, but from there move onto Beyond Good and Evil. ( )

For me, one of the great essential books. ( )

E-books IV

Classic- Must read ( )

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). ( )

The master of all the books!Freud described Nietzsche as the only man who knew his mind. Although both were quite mad there is no doubt about the veracity of the statement and this book just proves it. Written by an old, less passionate Nietzsche it dissects the human understanding and life with incredible precision. Mostly assorted in metaphysical aphorisms, it’s a summary of his pitiless quasi-objective observations. The question simply is.. Are you up to it..?Daring in attack and assertive in defense this book’s only misgiving lies in the demand to be acquainted with the ideology of his earlier works. Although that makes it a lot skewed it’s nevertheless a charming read.The following excerpts must define what laconism is.From apophthegms and interludes:*The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a god.* Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who also experiences them is not something dreadful also.*A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great men.-yes, and then to get round them.(Hegel in one line)*We are most dishonourable towards our god he is not permitted to sin. From what is noble:Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood .The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: Ah why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?As I type this, I’m filled with memories where friends at college debated these passages all through night. For the treasure of insight it beholds it’s definitely worth it, that, if you look- beyond the Nazi interpretation and a few later passages on feminism with comical indignation. If you have lived your prides, prejudices, convictions, defeats, victories, sit and read Beyond good and evil in one piece. ( )

Nietzsche advocates a particular lack of morals at all. In other words, great men make their own rules, and no further justification is needed. They need not concern themselves with others, except insofar as their equals’ good view of them helps them. But for concern with lesser men? Not only is it not necessary, Nietzsche looked askance at anything but using them. It’s might makes right with a philosophical bent.

Still, I don’t think anyone will be convinced by Nietzsche except those who were already predisposed to thinking this way in the first place.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

aclassical work of filosophical significance. not for everyone, but if you're interested it's worth your while. ( )

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). ( )

Simply put: this work changed my life. I am glad that it rather than Zarathustra was my initiation to this great thinker's work. But it has been too long since I have last reread it to give it the review it deserves. I will say, though, that pomonomo2003's review seems to have framed it well.

Vivid language with passion begs the reader to ride the waves. As Freud saw, Nietzsche understood psychology better than the vast majority of men before or since. Not everyone, however, will venture beneath the waves (and beneath the occasional garbage on the surface, for even Nietzsche cannot escape ressentiment) to find the richness of the depths. This a book to be savored, because between and even within the aphorisms individually is a depth of metaphor and contradiction that leads to discoveries that cannot be communicated in the linear point-subpoint syllogism style which is so prevalent in philosophy.

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. ( )

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. ( )

A brief comparison of 'Beyond Good and Evil' and 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', July 18, 2006

A question that I have seen brought up by several reviewers here at Amazon is the question of the relation between 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' and 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Now, this is, in my humble opinion, one of the most difficult interpretational problems that Nietzschean scholarship could ever wrestle with. But scholarship (naturally) barely recognizes that the problem even exists! In this brief review of BGE it is this relationship that I would like to focus on. And, as is so often the case in Nietzsche interpretation, it is to Nietzsche himself that we must turn for our guidance:

"When you consider that this book followed after Zarathustra, you may perhaps also guess the dietetic regimen to which it owes its origin. The eye that had been spoiled by the tremendous need for seeing far--Zarathustra is even more far-sighted than the Czar-- is here forced to focus on what lies nearest, the age, the around-us. In every respect, above all also in the form, you will find the same deliberate turning away from the instincts that had made possible a Zarathustra. The refinement in form, in intention, in the art of silence is in the foreground; psychology is practiced with admitted hardness and cruelty--the book is devoid of any good-natured word.
All this is a recuperation: who would guess after all what sort of recuperation such a squandering of good-naturedness as Zarathustra represents makes necessary?
Theologically speaking--listen closely, for I rarely speak as a theologian--it was God himself who at the end of his day's work lay down as a serpent under the tree of knowledge: thus he recuperated from being God - He had made everything too beautiful. The devil is merely the leisure of God on that seventh day ..." (from 'Ecce Homo', the conclusion of the chapter entitled 'Beyond Good and Evil'.)

Thus it is Nietzsche himself who draws our attention to the difference between BGE and Z and not merely some scholarly fancy. Now, exactly what does Nietzsche here indicate about this difference? (Always keep in mind that BGE is the book that immediately followed Zarathustra in the Nietzschean canon.) Zarathustra is a vision that endures, that is intended by its author to endure, while BGE concentrates on the times, on 'current affairs'. Thus one imagines that BGE will eventually be forgotten or ignored and that this is indeed the authors exact intention. Regarding BGE Nietzsche draws our attention to its refinement in form, intention and the 'art of silence'. Was Zarathustra not so refined? He immediately adds that (in BGE) "psychology is practiced with admitted hardness and cruelty--the book is devoid of any good-natured word." Perhaps he means to indicate that psychology was not at all practiced in Zarathustra? Or perhaps he merely means to indicate that the psychology practiced in Zarathustra was not hard or cruel. Nietzsche, in the penultimate sentence of the first chapter of BGE, famously proclaims that Psychology is once again the Queen of the Sciences. ...Perhaps this proclamation is itself an example of this hardness and cruelty?

Be that as it may, Nietzsche then tells us that BGE was a recuperation (for him) from the squandering of good-naturedness that Zarathustra requires. Then, as capstone to this brief chapter explicating BGE, Nietzsche does something quite remarkable - he speaks theologically! (The age of parables is perhaps not as dead as the Zeitgeist assumes.) He tells us that the serpent in Eden was actually God. God does this because "He had made everything too beautiful." ...A frighteningly pretty fable. But what has this to do with Nietzsche's understanding of BGE?

First a few words on the theological parable Nietzsche here tells. The serpent, of course, is the one that convinces Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. (Note that the tree of knowledge had always been in Paradise, it is not foreign to Paradise, thus it is not merely a part of the 'recuperation of God'.) But this feast of knowledge, like all feasts (alas), had consequences: the consequences being the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. This last cannot be overestimated: knowledge destroys all these "too beautiful" paradises. In Nietzsche's parable, of course, there is no devil -he is "merely the leisure of God"- thus God both made and, according to this parable of Nietzsche, then willfully destroyed Paradise.

Okay, but what exactly does this have to do with the relation between BGE and Zarathustra? At the beginning of the above quoted section of 'Ecce Homo' Nietzsche had referred to the time prior to his writing BGE as the 'Yes-saying' part of his task, then came the 'No-saying' part. (As stated earlier, BGE is the book that Nietzsche wrote after Zarathustra.) We now understand that BGE is the No-saying part while Zarathustra was the Yes-saying part of Nietzsche's task. Now the theological parable Nietzsche tells in Ecce Homo becomes clear. Paradise, the 'too beautiful' paradise, is Zarathustra while the 'tree of knowledge' is BGE. Nietzsche, of course, is the serpent/God that creates both paradise and the knowledge that eventually destroys it. ...And we readers of Nietzsche? Perhaps we are intended to enjoy the fruits of the Zarathustrian Paradise that the 'God' Nietzsche surely intends to build - but only for a while. One day Knowledge, knowledge that (the 'serpent') Nietzsche so 'devilishly' indicates in BGE, will destroy this 'Paradise' too.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this interpretation of Nietzsche's gnomic remarks in Ecce Homo is essentially correct - why would Nietzsche (eventually) want to destroy the world he intends to make? Hmmm... Let's review our (Nietzschean) History. After the legendary fiasco in (the Christian) Paradise humanity was expelled and had to build for itself a new world. And now, after the prophesied (by Nietzsche) destruction of Christianity and modernity (these 'Platonisms for the People') comes to pass --well, what? We get to build and live in the new (Nietzschean) Zarathustrian world, another 'too beautiful' paradise. And later, after BGE, the tree of knowledge that lives unnoticed in the heart of the Nietzschean/Zarathustrian paradise, is finally 'discovered' and fully devoured (i.e., read correctly) and thus destroys that paradise-- what then? Well, one imagines that some new God (or, far more likely, some new philosopher) builds a new world. WHAT?!? Can you say Eternal Return of the Same? Oh, I just knew you could...

Now, it would take another review to even begin to indicate why Nietzsche makes his world - briefly, he does so as an affirmation of life. And one suspects that, for Nietzsche, destruction itself is but a moment within affirmation. It is in this manner that we can now suggest that the 'tree of knowledge' (i.e., BGE), the No-saying part of Nietzsche's work, is only but a moment in an even greater affirmation. This is without a doubt one of the most profound books in the history of philosophy. The fact that it reads so easily is but another example of its merciless psychology: its readers mistakenly stop at the far too beautiful surface.

But it is in the fearsome depths that the philosopher Nietzsche hides. ( )

193 N677p Ex.A

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedric... ( )

Wikipdedia: Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Jenseits von Gut und Böse) is a major 19th century philosophical work by Friedrich Nietzsche.
First published in 1886 at Nietzsche's own expense, the book was not initially considered important. In it, Nietzsche denounced what he considered to be the moral vacuity of 19th century thinkers. He attacked philosophers for what he considered to be their lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of Christian premises in their considerations of morality and values. Beyond Good and Evil is a comprehensive overview of Nietzsche's mature philosophy, written partly with the motive of giving further explanation to ideas presented in his previous work, Also Sprach Zarathustra (or Thus Spoke Zarathustra). Nietzsche's next book, On the Genealogy of Morals, is meant to serve by way of "supplementation and clarification" to Beyond Good and Evil, and so should be read in this context.

Nietzsche is not for the feint-hearted. There is a reuirement of every reader that he or she should be able to look at everyhting that we take for granted and re-evaluate it. A book that changes who you are, oftentimes against your will. In my opinion, a requirement for every thinking person trying to separate from the herd.

transl. Marion Faber

Back in the day I could never read Nietzsche without a "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?" reaction, but for me at least Susan Neiman's "Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy" provided the necessary context and the penny finally dropped. Nietzches razes transcendence right to the smoking, heaving ground... and then lives and raves without it. It's the return of the repressed!

Nietzsche was a fruitcake. ( )

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.) ( )