On the Genealogy of Morality

Clásico Nietzsche, misógino, racista, cruel. Su repertorio habitual.
Por ejemplo, hablando de los cristianos:

Among them, again, is that most loathsome species of the vain, the lying abortions, who make a point of representing "beautiful souls," and perchance of bringing to the market as "purity of heart" their distorted sensualism swathed in verses and other bandages;
the species of "self-comforters" and masturbators of their own souls. The sick man's will to represent some form or other of superiority, his instinct for crooked paths, which lead to a tyranny over the healthy.

No creo en lo que dice, demasiada filosofia he leido para que un autor en concreto me venga con dogmas. Pero hay que reconocer que estes de acuerdo o no con lo show more que dice, lo dice muy bien. Y por eso le doy buena puntuación. Argumentos bien hilados, lenguaje increíble, conceptos e insultos que nunca antes había escuchado. show less

Of all the books by or about Nietzsche, I think this particular edition of the Genealogy would be the best place for the novice to start. The introduction by Clark (a very well regraded Nietzsche scholar) is excellent and provides a workable framework for interpreting a text (and an author) that can often be difficult to decipher.

The scholarly apparatus is exhaustive; the editors provide end notes that cover nearly every page in the original text and help the reader to make sense of Nietzsche's sometimes unclear allusions and provide voluminous biographic and bibliographic detail covering both Nietzsche and the interlocutors he mentions in the text (as well as a few he merely alludes to).

As for the text itself, I think it is notable show more primarily for the genealogical analysis of the concepts of good/right-bad/wrong and for a glimpse of Nietzsche's "perspectivalist" epistemology in the third section.

These views have been highly influential (although not among philosophers as such) over the past century and anyone that wishes to understand the course and trajectory of 20th century thought should be aware of them. Nietzsche is a master stylist, so the reading is fun as well as thought provoking.

Of course, the central question, considering Nietzsche qua philosopher, is this: Does Nietzsche get thing right?

I think it's pretty clear that the answer is "no". Although his castigation of scientific atheism as an extension (perhaps the highest extension) of religious asceticism shows depth and brilliance, he doesn't ever give us any solid arguments for thinking that truth itself hinges on particular standards of evaluation. Nietzsche seems to me to be skeptical of the idea of truth as correspondence (the standard view) because it situates truth outside of life. It makes truth something that transcends individual human beings. Perhaps this is true, and given Nietzsche's rejection of any and all transcendent things it makes sense that he'd want to reject truth conceived of in this way. What isn't clear is that he CAN do this, that is, that his view is warranted. The fact that the correspondence of theory of truth has implications that Nietzsche finds repulsive is no reason for thinking that it's false.

Furthermore, without some notion of truth as correspondence, it's not clear that his earlier critique of moral concepts has any real bite. show less

Hi han llibres que et poden "canviar" la vida, aquest és un d'ells perque, llegit amb certa actitut, sotmet a qüestió conviccions i els seus fonaments. Obra imprescindible al pensament del Nietzsche i la Filosofia occidental.

The word ought has its origins in the word owe. Whether or not this relationship survives translation I don't know, but why let semantics get in the way of a good idea. Reading Beyond Good and Evil before attempting this follow-up work would be the more logical option. But I doubt one can simply dip one's toe in to Nietzsche anyway - it is a case of diving in head first and trying to make sense of the turmoil. Nietzsche's racism reflects the tone of the times, and there is plenty of conflicting views to support the argument that his sister re-construed his work to fit comfortably with the Nazis. But in the end I felt Nietzsche's racism was as relevant to Nazism as Jack London's. It is interesting that he seems to support women's rights show more (remembering that J.S. Mill's On the Subjection of Women was published 18 years before), planes the edges off his Orientalism with Buddhism and Brahmanism, and doesn't appear so overjoyed at the "death of God" as Atheist's gleefully point out. Indeed, Nietzsche makes a point of saying that science is a more advanced form of the "ascetic ideal". The back cover of the work sums up Nietzsche's thesis as "culture and morality, rather than being eternal verities, are human-made". This is an oversimplification that reduces the depth of his work. Far be it for me to be an apologist for Nietzsche - the "intellectual" gatekeepers would never let such work be published today - but the brilliance is in its originality. To comprehend the thesis adequately, prior reading of Buddhism, Luther, Brahmanism, Kant, Spinoza, Goethe, Feuerbach, and Schopenhauer would be helpful but is not essential. However, a knowledge of the classics (at least Plato) is important. Nietzsche final words are that "man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all". I immediately thought of the maxim "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail". Probably the most useful idea from this work is that one needs to go back to first principles in establishing a philosophy - does or can truth exist? - (and even if we don't care to consciously develop a philosophy, the shepherds of the "herd mentality" will provide one for us without our knowledge or consent), and Nietzsche does so by regularly referring back to "Heracleitus" and Hesiod. I have already picked up the scent of the pre-Socratics and their importance in understanding the human-created chasm between philosophy and religion (and more recently, but less convincingly, between science and religion), and Nietzsche confirms this clue. Rather than the über-power of pre-Enlightenment Christian church and its priesthood driving the herd, Nietzsche foresaw ("forsooth"?) the pluralism of modern asceticism (which annoys me on Facebook, Twitter, and the news media any time I look). Admittedly, he was optimistic about this future, but then he didn't know what "the Internet" would say about him (how I loathe that saying!). So why don't I see the ascetic for what it is and just get off Facebook once again? Well. it's the guilt, you see. But you can't blame me - I didn't create it (Facebook or the guilt). show less

Clásico Nietzsche, misógino, racista, cruel. Su repertorio habitual.
Por ejemplo, hablando de los cristianos:

Among them, again, is that most loathsome species of the vain, the lying abortions, who make a point of representing "beautiful souls," and perchance of bringing to the market as "purity of heart" their distorted sensualism swathed in verses and other bandages;
the species of "self-comforters" and masturbators of their own souls. The sick man's will to represent some form or other of superiority, his instinct for crooked paths, which lead to a tyranny over the healthy.

No creo en lo que dice, demasiada filosofia he leido para que un autor en concreto me venga con dogmas. Pero hay que reconocer que estes de acuerdo o no con lo show more que dice, lo dice muy bien. Y por eso le doy buena puntuación. Argumentos bien hilados, lenguaje increíble, conceptos e insultos que nunca antes había escuchado. show less

Divided into 3 essays. The first is reasonably clear but pretty objectionable and not too well argued, the second is a little less clear but a lot more interesting and more convincing, the third is the longest and meandering, not cohesive, sometimes contradictory and generally confusing. If it was just the first two or with a much edited third I'd probably consider it a 3 star thing. The first essay seems to be focused around a claim that the weak and downtrodden almost forced Christian ideas along the lines of "the meek will inherit the earth" onto the strong, ruining their more noble morality - this is bizarre in the sense that there's no reason to assume this, especially compared to the opposite. He refers to this negative morality show more as "Jewish" which is gross - he regularly talks about each "race" or "people" as a whole, as if the poor can poison a huge race of people, and his ideas about health in this sense are complete racist nonsense. The third essay is devoted to the "ascetic ideal", which he defines and then seemingly blames for all the world's evil, attributing things to it which make no sense and don't fit with his definition. In general I found that his ideas didn't fit together or make a coherent set - he often contradicts himself in short asides and seems to be addressing himself to things I don't really get.

On the plus side it's written pretty well - even when it doesn't form a coherent whole, his use of language means you can be pretty clear on what each sentence is saying without needing to read it many times over. He has quite a lot of interesting ideas, but scattered as they are, they're not really pleasant to try and extract from the rest of the text. I am absolutely sure my reading of the text was poor and I realise my review is gonna sound ignorant. I realise his importance and that a lot of people hold this in high regard and I'm sure if I read better and had more grounding in his other texts I'd get more out of it. Take this as one beginner at philosophy's attempt to understand and problems doing so.

Also dude really needs to learn about a lil thing called MATERIAL CONDITIONS show less

"What clues does the study of language, in particular etymological research, provide for the history of the development of moral concepts?"

Such a great project - to historicise what other philosophers (even now) try to make ahistorical. Too bad Nietzsche himself cannot escape historicisation. Like all the race stuff. Yikes.