Recommend me on Nietzsche

[Fuser]

Going to start with Nietzsche soon,

Think i'll strart with "thus spoke Zarathusta" and then go to "beyond good and Evil".

Would this be a good succesive order to capture the views of Nietzsche or would you advise on other Nietzsche writings to capture the views?

[scop]

Twilight of the Idols = His overview.

[tempus fugit]

I found "The Gay Science" to be most illustrative of his major themes, and very accessible.

[Blaphbee]

If you find his later style to be somewhat hard to sink into at first (my own case), start with The Birth of Tragedy. It introduces you to his way of thought, while being somewhat lowkey in terms of his typical later-period stylistic flourishes.

I would actually recommend a chronological approach to his work. It shows the full path of his development.

Then again, I would recommend this of any author, so maybe I'm not a good chioce to listen to.

I rcemmond the above approach simply because a great deal of his thought could be very accurately described as "choppy"; as a whole, it comes across as works borne of highly passionate intervals of creativity, and his language reinforces this. You get the best picture of his thoughts and systems by starting at the beginning, but that's just the pragmatist in me talking. Simplest approach often works best.

[jcs]

There are a couple anthologies, translated by Kaufmann. One is from the Modern Library; the other from the Viking Portable Library (part of Penguin now, I think). I recommend picking up one of these books, reading it from cover to cover, then picking up the other and doing the same, then grabbing The Will to Power. Because Zarathustra is the most difficult of Nietzsche's finished works, it should be read after having already familiarized oneself with his thought.
Then follow up with Heidegger's Nietzsche and Delueze's Nietzsche and Philosophy (which I'm reading through right now).

[wintermute]

Going to start with Nietzsche soon,

Think i'll strart with "thus spoke Zarathusta" and then go to "beyond good and Evil".

Would this be a good succesive order to capture the views of Nietzsche or would you advise on other Nietzsche writings to capture the views?

Geneology of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, and The Antichrist would be the fastest and most painless way to master the basics (i.e. everything you really need to hold your own in conversation with know-it-alls).

Mencken translation of The Antichrist is here (http://www.fns.org.uk/ac.htm).

It's a short piece, perfectly accessible to the first time reader, and the literary equivalent of a hand grenade, if not a tactical nuke. IMO, the perfect place to start. Regardless of what one makes of Nietzche's ideas, there is no question that he is one the greatest prose stylists who ever lived, if not the greatest. His facility with ideas and prose are obvious, even when put through the dual filters of his own insanity and English translation.

WM

P.S. Save Zarathustra for last. Your understanding of the text, and the pleasure you take in its method of presentation, will be tenfold if you have GM and BGE under your belt to begin with. GM and BGE are the novel, while Zarathustra is the movie.

[Fuser]

I chose to order "twilight of the idols" first. After that I will indeed pick other works up.

thanks.

[wintermute]

Because Zarathustra is the most difficult of Nietzsche's finished works, it should be read after having already familiarized oneself with his thought.

Absolutely. Although I would substitute the words allegorical and poetic for difficult. The difficulty is in decipherment, not comprehension.

IOW, they're the same ideas as occur in the other main works, but presented as parables and poetic vignettes. It reads like Lewis Carroll, if he worked under Goebbels at the Propaganda Ministry, and had made Alice the proponent of the doctrines of self-overcoming, God's death, and the transvaluation of all values in Wonderland, whose denizens mock and jeer at her. If only Zarathustra had a version with Tenniel illustrations!

There are also some similarities to Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales, but that's a discussion for another day.


Then follow up with Heidegger's Nietzsche and Delueze's Nietzsche and Philosophy (which I'm reading through right now).

Respectfully, life is too short to have anything at all to do with Heidigger (who recommended the study of Zen Buddhism as an adequate substitute for his own work) or Delueze, especially their writings about Nietzsche. Nietzsche's genius was of the sort to preclude almost any adequate secondary literature at all. One learns Nietzsche by reading Nietzsche, and nothing by Kauffmann, Solomon, Deleuze, Heidigger or dozens of lesser lights has altered this strange fact of life by one iota, IMHO.

The one exception I would allow is the novel When Nietzsche Wept by Irving Yalom. An exquisite and eminently fair novelistic interrogation of psychology and Nietzsche by someone who respects and sympathizes with both. I would unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone on this forum who is interested in Nietzsche.

Wintermute

P.S. jcs, there's a new English translation of Nietzsche's lecture notes on the Pre-Socratics available in English. Have you seen it yet? It's fascinating.

[sugartits]

I found Deleuze's thoughts on Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment quite concise and developed. Also he demonstrated the synthesis of Nietzsche's theory of the will-to-power with his major philosophical ideas, a really thorough (understatement) analysis of active and reactive forces. It's a good accompaniment to The Geneology of Morals and the Will-to-Power. But at times it's a little too "intellectual" for me (IMO "being" and "becoming" need not be used five times each in a sentence, philosophers can use a thesaurus or make up their own terms when established vocabulary lacks, dammit)

Interpretation can be a difficult art and reading evaluations and critiques by others can teach one not just specific ideas, but new ways to interpret. Though supplementary readings should never take the place of the original works (like Nietszchean Coles Notes)

TSZ is the holistic "supplement" to Nietszche's philosophy

[jcs]

Respectfully, life is too short to have anything at all to do with Heidigger
I disagree. Then, I'm sort of a Heidegger-ophile. Of course, when a philosopher approaches a fellow thinker's thought, he goes beyond mere exegesis and into eisegesis. Most of Heidegger's and Delueze's writings are about other philosophers (Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson, Spinoza, Hereclitus...), and most of their writings are worth reading because one will get something out of it more than what one might get out of the original thinker himself.

P.S. jcs, there's a new English translation of Nietzsche's lecture notes on the Pre-Socratics available in English. Have you seen it yet? It's fascinating.
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks? Or the thing about the 'Pre-Platonics,' as I believe the book is called? The latter is comparably expensive, and I don't know how much more could be gotten out of it than from the former.

(IMO "being" and "becoming" need not be used five times each in a sentence, philosophers can use a thesaurus or make up their own terms when established vocabulary lacks, dammit)
Here, here. But it does turn out that Heidegger was actually using different words: he'd add a prefix to 'sein' so as to refer to a specific aspect of being (famously 'dasein,' but in German, one can mash words together all one wants, and this is lost in translation--for example: seiende--"being for death," literally, "be-end"), and furthermore, in German it is more obvious when one uses 'being' as a noun or as a verb, thus lessening the confusion.
But if we think of words in terms of meaning alone, Heidegger and his translators could have made extensive use of a big ass thesaurus, and we'd still have to read slowly and carefully.
(I don't speak French, so I can't say much about Delueze.)

[sugartits]

Curiousity -is the copy of "Nietzsche and Philosophy" you are reading strangely full of typos?

[jcs]

Curiousity -is the copy of "Nietzsche and Philosophy" you are reading strangely full of typos?
I've noticed a couple, but haven't been paying much attention to them. Typos don't bother me much (unless I'm the one making them), so I tend to not notice them.

[Excorcism]

Here's the order I would read them:

Philosophy and the Tragic Age of the Greeks

On the Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music

The Gay Science

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Beyond Good and Evil

Ecce Homo

Twilight of the Idols

[New Dawner]

Nietzsche, the Towering Genius. Those who have only ever had a cursory reading of who Nietzsche was, what his main philosophy was (ie. haven't actually read any of his books, many of which are veritable Tomes) just don't get it.

Those who have read Nietzsche's books in the wrong order (starting out with the wrong book/s first...this is a problem endemic to understanding his Greatness), they just don't get it either.

Nietzsche was a Master Psychologist. Before the field of Psychology existed. In a Fight with Freud, he would destroy Freud in a matter of seconds. In a Fight with Carl Jung he would be narrowly defeated by Jung, in my opinion, but that's only because Jung had spirituality on his side... (no fair!)

and Here is where me and dear Fritz part ways - sorry man, but you were wrong. There is a Paranormal Aspect to existence.

But hey, no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, by no means! Hell, no!

Now, others will give you a different list of the Order to read Nietzsche's most important works in, but who cares. Here's My List (writes you a prescription like Doctor) *scribbles*

1878 Human, All to Human (The COMPLETE Version, not just the Penguin Paperback. That only has part one. there's two extra parts, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, and The Wanderer and his Shadow

1881 Daybreak (also translated The Dawn)

1883 The Gay Science (it means 'The Joyful Wisdom, silly. it was the 19th century)

NOW

read these three - not necessarily in their entireties or even in order (either individually from front-to-back, or the three books as a whole...this is whats great about Nietzsche you can dip in and out, but be careful not to forget what you have and haven't read)

and also read these three in tandem with

1886 Beyond Good and Evil

1888 Twilight of the Idols

There you go, that's my prescription, and one last piece of advice. His most fun writings are the ones where it's a short aphorism of one single sentence, or maybe two, three or four. They are like Diamonds

All Hail Nietzsche