Beyond Good and Evil

This translation of Nietzsche's 'Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft' was first published in 1886 (the same year as the original German version), and is now in the public domain. This free Kindle edition has 117 pages/2601 locations. This edition is a reprint of the Helen Zimmern translation from German into English of "Beyond Good and Evil," as published in The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909-1913).Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) had studied theology (which he didn't finish) and philology (the study of language in written historical scources); he became a professor of philology at the university of Basel in 1869, but had to resign in 1879 due to ill health. Nietzsche collapsed in 1889, causing him to become mentally ill, and needed to be cared for until his death in 1900. It has been thought that his collapse was caused by syphilis, but this diagnosis is no longer believed to be correct. The cause of his illness is not known.In this work Nietzsche critises old philosophers and some of their views on 'free will', knowledge, truth, etc. He felt that the philosophers in the past had not been critical enough about morality, accepting the Chistian views on this theme without questioning those views. Nietzsche tells in this book what qualities philosophers should have, he believed philosophers should move on, into the area 'beyond good and evil'.I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in modern philosophy, this book will make you think about some of your ideas about good and bad. You don't have to agree with him to gain new insight from this book. Nietzsche was a great writer, his works are written in a lively way. For Nietzsche rhetoric was more important than logic. As a sample of his way of writing I copy a few lines from this volume at the bottom of this review. This book was translated in the 19th century, so the language is a bit dated.The work consists of 296 numbered sections and the poem "From High Mountains". The sections are organized into nine parts, the contents of this book:PREFACEBEYOND GOOD AND EVILCHAPTER I: PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERSCHAPTER II: THE FREE SPIRITCHAPTER III: THE RELIGIOUS MOODCHAPTER IV: APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDESCHAPTER V: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALSCHAPTER VI: WE SCHOLARSCHAPTER VII: OUR VIRTUESCHAPTER VIII: PEOPLES AND COUNTRIESCHAPTER IX: WHAT IS NOBLE?FROM THE HEIGHTS (POEM TRANSLATED BY L.A. MAGNUS)From chapter 7, section 214 (page 70/location 1505):214. OUR Virtues?--It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues,although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues onaccount of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at a littledistance from us. We Europeans of the day after tomorrow, we firstlingsof the twentieth century--with all our dangerous curiosity, ourmultifariousness and art of disguising, our mellow and seeminglysweetened cruelty in sense and spirit--we shall presumably, IF we musthave virtues, have those only which have come to agreement with our mostsecret and heartfelt inclinations, with our most ardent requirements:well, then, let us look for them in our labyrinths!--where, as we know,so many things lose themselves, so many things get quite lost! And isthere anything finer than to SEARCH for one's own virtues? [...]

It is hard to get into but once you get with the flow of it, it is magnificent. The language is full of wit and irony that will amuse and enlighten the reader. It does have sentences that are a paragraph long but they are wonderful. Just flow with it and do not try to analyze and you are in for the ride of your life. It is like a roller coaster ride with the slow lead up to some excitingly fantastic literary thrills and jolts. The use of language...hard to believe it is a translation...resonates with truth, humor and hilarious realism that is more profound today than it could have been when written over a hundred years ago. I find it delightful to just pick up and read a chapter at a time. It is too much for a straight through read but one cannot say on the roller coaster for too long either. A real intellectual pleasure.

I understand completely why readers dislike Nietzsche, but it is important to recognize this book not as an aberration but almost a prophecy of the changes that were to come about in the world very soon thereafter. Nietzsche methodically reduces a great deal of historical thinking to dust, all the while insisting that his new world requires new thinking and new inventions by which to create great things. In that sense, perhaps he was right but perhaps it is also beyond the capacity of mankind to actually live with such a weight on his shoulders. Still I regard this book as prophetic in its own right, having great influence on the great minds of the 20th century, including the later ontological studies of Heidegger. Heidegger delivered more lectures on Nietzsche than any other person, not necessarily because he was espousing Nietzsche's point of view, but because, I believe, that he accepted the challenge to discover ontological truths which had heretofore been deficient or lacking.In some ways, although I regard this as Nietzsche's best book because it is the clearest statement of his important subjects in the most concise manner, this book is frightening to read. I became a devotee of Nietzsche when I was a freshman in college, much like many other innocents who were attracted to his fulminations. It was, in retrospect, the wrong thing to do because one must understand such a great body of work that understanding cannot be accomplished by the novice.For example, I knew nothing of the pre-Socratics, for the most part, outside a generic course on ancient philosophy until I began to read Greek much later. One can luxuriate with Plato and reason with Aristotle over a long period without understanding how the latter's advantages of reason creates a kind of golden calf which is intolerable for modern thinking, at least according to Nietzsche. he is especially hard on several writers, not the least of which was Spinoza, someone who is oddly not much studied any longer, but one with whom I identified for a long while, at least one year in school. Perhaps Nietzsche is only furious that Spinoza created a world that denied entry to someone like Nietzsche or, as Nietzsche would put it, Spinoza would never open the door of his world to the possibility that irrational things might enter and refuse to make any sense.One can never take a writer out of his age, any more than one can take a composer or artist, and expect that he or she will make perfect sense or even imperfect sense. We are always understanding what we read or see against the underpinnings of both what we understand about the artist's world and what we understand about our own. The genius of Nietzsche was that he understood the origins and character of his own age, in my estimation, so well that he saw himself as a little more than a speck of dust in the world which was yet to come.The greatest criticism one must lay at his feet is that if he was a prophet, then he was a prophet without a god or God. Though he may have accurately predicted how our modern world would come to see itself, puffed up, proud deniers of faith in things which failed to stand before the throne of understanding, perhaps Nietzsche had a significant failing which he shares with modern thought. Perhaps in understanding all too well that one has no reason to be called to faith in any given thing because one does not understand the source, he came to believe that faith before understanding is impossible. Then again, God knows we haven't done such a great job of saving ourselves.