Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks of the Early 1870's - Hardcover

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039100686X ISBN 13: 9780391006867

Publisher: Humanities Pr, 1979

Synopsis

Philosophy and Truth offers the first English translation of six unpublished theoretical studies (sometimes referred to as Nietzsche's "Philosopher's Book") written just after the publication of The Birth of Tragedy and simultaneously with Untimely Meditations. In addition to the texts themselves, which probe epistemological problems on philosophy's relation to art and culture, this book contains a lengthy introduction that provides the biographical and philological information necessary for understanding these often fragmentary texts. The introduction also includes a helpful discussion of Nietzsche's early views concerning culture, knowledge, philosophy, and the Greeks.

About this title

Review

"The most significant contribution to English-language studies of Nietzsche since the publication of Kaufmann's The Gay Science."

"This is an outstanding contribution to Nietzsche studies. Those who read this book should get a much better understanding of Nietzsche . . . "
--Walter Kaufmann
." . . the most significant contribution to English-language studies of Nietzsche since the publication of Walter Kaufmann's translation of The Gay Science."
--Philosophical Books

About the Author

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE was born on October 15, 1844, to the family of a Protestant minister in the town of Rocken, which is located in the Saxony-Anhalt region of what is now eastern Germany. After studing philosophy in Bonn and Leipzig, Nietzsche became a professor at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1869. Later he opted to become a Swiss citizen.
While working in Switzerland, he published his first book, a literary work titled The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. This volume was produced during Nietzsche's friendship with the composer Richard Wagner, though only a few years would pass before the two would part ways as a result of personal and intellectual differences.
In failing health and unable to devote himself full time to both teaching and independent writing, Nietzsche chose to resign his university position. During the next decade he wrote such works as Thus Spake Zarathustra (most of which appeared in 1883), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Genealogy of Morals (1887), Twilight of the Gods (1888), Antichrist (1888), and Ecce Homo (1888).
His collapse while in Turin, Italy, in early 1899, would prove the beginning of a long and arduous struggle with ill health and insanity. Nietzsche died in the care of his family in Weimar on August 25, 1900, just a few weeks prior to his fifty-sixth birthday.
Nietzsche advocated the view that all humankind should reject otherworldliness and instead rely on its own creative potential to discover values that best serve the social good. His infamous "superman" or "overman" is one who has recognized how to channel individual passions in the direction of creative outlets. In rejecting the morality of the masses, Nietzsche celebrates the pursuit of classical virtues.

Daniel Breazeale teaches at the University of Kentucky. He is also the editor of Fichte: Historical Contexts/Contemporary Controversies, among other books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Humanities Pr
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 039100686X
• ISBN 13: 9780391006867
• Binding: Hardcover