Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy for the Future

by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Kaufmann (Translator)

Overview

Represents Nietzsche's attempt to sum up his philosophy. In nine parts the book is designed to give the reader a comprehensive idea of Nietzche's thought and style. With an inclusive index of subjects and persons.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679724650
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/28/1989
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	14,157
Product dimensions:	5.18(w) x 8.01(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE was born on October 15, 1844, to the family of a Protestant minister in the town of Röcken, 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.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION		7	(20)
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE		27	(2)
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL		29	(196)
Preface		31	(2)
Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers		33	(22)
Part Two: The Free Spirit		55	(19)
Part Three: The Religious Nature		74	(16)
Part Four: Maxims and Interludes		90	(18)
Part Five: On the Natural History of Morals		108	(21)
Part Six: We Scholars		129	(18)
Part Seven: Our Virtues		147	(23)
Part Eight: Peoples and Fatherlands		170	(22)
Part Nine: What is Noble?		192	(30)
From High Mountains: Epode		222	(3)
COMMENTARY		225