“Supposing that truth is a women-what then?” This is the very first sentence in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil . Not very often are philosophers so disarmingly explicit in their intention to discomfort the reader. In fact, one might say that the natural state of Nietzsche’s reader is one of perplexity. Yet it is in the process of overcoming the perplexity that one realizes how rewarding to have one’s ideas challenged. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche critiques the mediocre in (...) modernity and challenges the reader to accept their state of becoming and accept improvisation and creativity of the process. Nietzsche’s book is carefully designed to disorient the reader, to systematically provoke and tease her to the point of stealing away her certainties. It is challenging yet rewarding to overcome the perplexities of Nietzsche’s teachings. (shrink)

In Dangerous Minds, Ronald Beiner traces the deeper philosophical roots of such far-right ideologues as Richard Spencer, Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon, to the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger—and specifically to the aspects of their thought that express revulsion for the liberal-democratic view of life.

"Prefaces to Unwritten Works is a collection of five essays, prefaces to books that Nietzsche never went on to write. Nietzsche himself put these prefaces together in the form of a small leather-bound, handwritten book, and gave that book to Cosima Wagner as a Christmas present in 1872. The dedicatory letter indicates that Nietzsche sent this little book to Cosima "in heartfelt reverence and as an answer to verbal and epistolary questions." As such, this work is a window into Nietzsche's (...) relations with the Wagners at the height of their association, but it is also a continuation of Nietzsche's radical confrontation with Greek antiquity that had begun with the then-recently published Birth of Tragedy. The Wagners read Nietzsche's book of prefaces on the evening of New Year's Day 1873, and Cosima records in her diary five days later that at night, "again" she reflected about the essence of art as a consequence of Nietzsche's work. A month later, Cosima sent Nietzsche a letter encouraging him to write at least two of the books promised by his prefaces." "Nietzsche did not go to write the books heralded by these prefaces, but the prefaces themselves provide substantial challenges of their own and intriguing clues as to the form and content of the books Nietzsche may have intended. Some of these prefaces are better known to students of Nietzsche than others and have attracted significant attention from scholars. The first essay is entitled On the Pathos of Truth, and it consider the relative value of truth and art for human life. The second essay, Thoughts on the Future of Our Educational Institutions, is the only preface in this collection regarding which Nietzsche did actually go on to write a book, albeit a book he did not publish (entitled On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, available from St. Augustine's Press). This essay is a revised version of the preface Nietzsche wrote for that book, and the changes Nietzsche made are indicative of the plans he had for an improved version. The topic of the essay is almost entirely the art of careful reading. The third essay is entitled The Greek State, and it treats of the relation of slavery to culture and of the genius to the state. This essay is also an interpretation of Plato's Republic, in which Nietzsche claims to reveal everything he has "divined of this secret writing." The fourth essay, The Relation of Schopenhauerian Philosophy to a German Culture, neither assumes that there is in fact, at present, a German Culture, nor hardly mentions Schopen-hauer at all, except to suggest that he is one about whom a culture could be built. The final essay is entitled Homer's Contest and is an exploration of the place of jealousy, strife, and agonistic competition in Greek culture."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

This book sheds light on Grant's early intellectual interests, the centrality of his pacifism, his struggle to educate himself as a philosopher (he studied history at Queen's University and law at Oxford), his ambivalent relationship to organized religion, his quarrels with York and McMaster Universities, and his attitude to John Diefenbaker.

In this insightful and controversial book, the eminent philosopher Stanley Rosen takes a new look at the famous 'quarrel' that the moderns have with the ancients, analyzing and comparing ancient philosophers and modern Continental and analytical thinkers from Plato, Descartes, and Kant to Fichte, Nietzsche, and Rorty. He urges that we do not dismiss the classical heritage but appropriate it, for this appropriation is an indispensable step in the process of legitimizing our historical experience.

In his new introduction, "Note on a Missing Text," Richard Wolin uses the absence from this edition of an interview with Jacques Derrida as a springboard for ...

This collection of more than two hundred of Nietzsche's letters offers a representative body of correspondence on subjects of main concern to him--philosophy, history, morals, music and literature. Also included are letters of biographical interest which, in Middleton's words, mark the stresses and turnings of his life. Among the addressees are Richard Wagner, Erwin Rohde, Jacob Burkhardt, Lou Salome, his mother, and his sister Elisabeth. The annihilating split in Nietzsche's personality that has been associated with his collapse on a street (...) in Turin in 1889 is described in a moving letter from Franz Overbeck which forms the Epilogue. Index. (shrink)