Wanted to get a conversation going on secondary Nietzsche literature since so many people on this board read Zarathustra once and then make edgy Nietzsche posts. Just finishing pic related and its quite a good introduction to Nietzsche's thought. Others I've enjoyed:
>Nietzsche and Metaphor, Sarah Kofman One that I think gets overlooked but is another good intro to his thought >On Nietzsche, George Bataille Crazy as fuck, Bataille is a madman.
There's so many others like Kaufman, Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida, Klossowksi, etc. so hop in here and get comfy. Also Nietzsche general.
nig...what do you mean you "finished" it. that volume you posted has kept me busy for a year. I had to start over and write shit down because it had too many things I needed to remember.
and its not even something you can condense so ive pretty much been copying paragraphs at a time. Its too much...its like you get half way through an idea thinking its the most earth shattering thing only to have him push it even further before the conclusion.
Nietzsche to me is the most valuable philosopher because he satisfies the people who know better than to fall for some completed idea. Its just not possible, he manages to capture a thing (truth) by it constantly eluding him.
Every time i read his work i count myself as the luckiest person in the world, just for being born after he was.
Mason Williams
>George Bataille inb4ed by OP. A good serving of Nietzsche in The Inner Experience also (on The Gay Science, IIRC)
Landon Jones
I'm not quite done, but you're right, there's a ton to keep up with. A lot of the time I also take notes when I read, but with this my goal was just to give it a read and get the exposure, and I've also been looking for some particular conversations. But it's definitely something I'll come back to more than once in the future.
But I know those Nietzsche feels user. I think Jaspers speaks to what you're saying in the section "The Circle" >Nietzsche's thoughts about truth, since they deny what is required for their formulation, must run into incessant contradictions. Such thoughts would be nothing more than a nonsensical confusion, did they not enable us to experience limits that can be revealed only indircetly. When the concepts which his theory of truth generates attain these limits, we experience the fulfillment of the kind of thinking that unavoidably uses even contradictions as indirect indicators. His theory is not a theory about a given state of affairs; it is a philosophical means of expressing first the existential appeal to the essential truth born by essential life and, second, the possibility of a life-transcending intimate awareness of being.
I don't know how far you've gotten, but it might be worth plowing through if you can.
Andrew Miller
Thanks for the tip, I was thinking of giving that one a go but will definitely pick it up now.
Camden Lopez
The Bataille cover looks edgy as hell.
Liam Williams
literally the part I was writing down not an hour ago, this whole chapter about truth has been the most grueling but really the meat of what im looking for in Nietzsche.
I havent even been past this part, do the chapters about history and what it means get juicy?
Ill consider the plow through bit, id come back and write it all down anyways. Glad you listed the other titles, no other thinker ever has hooked me as hard as nietzsche has.
I went through the standard lit procedure reading sprach but man...i knew then that he was the real deal, in that i had no idea what i was reading. Not in the wittgenstein kind of way but that he made so much sense i couldnt keep up.
just so pellucid and uncompromising, its fucking magic man. only other work of his ive read apart from jasper is birth of tragedy (gonna do it chronologically) and even that shit was impossible to put down.
Angel Brooks
Lacan + Nietzsche
Caleb Perez
I'm with you in that the truth questions are some of my favorite. Jaspers does such a good job too. He doesn't shy away from the tough contradictions, and he's been speaking to questions I had, or didn't know I had until he formulated them for me. The stuff about transcendence/immanence is discussed at length in the Bataille work by the way if you are enjoying those questions.
The section on history is actually quite short relative to the other sections, but it's still great. He has a few sections on the death of god and european nihilism which are fantastic. It probably depends on what you're interested in though.
I'm right there with you on the feels. I picked up Nietzsche for the first time about a year ago and can't put him down.
Dylan Thompson
Pic of some I've read & one I'm about to read. Very interested in more recommends.
Cameron Thomas
Any good?
Easton Robinson
>On Nietzsche, George Bataille; Crazy as fuck, Bataille is a madman. >George Bataille; inb4ed by OP. A good serving of Nietzsche in The Inner Experience also (on The Gay Science, IIRC)
Even though it relates to Nietzsche a lot (as well as most of other Bataille's book) it's more important to philosophy of Georges than about Nietzsche - not saying it's bad though. The Inner experience, On Nietzsche, Guilty and Impossible are all great meditations by Bataille.
I'd go with Klossowski: he translated The gay science (with the apendix with some more N.'s writing related to The gay science and eternal reccurence), then Deleuze, even though this one is again more about Deleuze and his thoughts. From the french guys: Blanchot wrote some great things about the meaning of fragmentary form/aphorisms. Other nice book is the one by Heidegger.
Jack Nelson
I find it annoying that Nietzsche was hijacked by so many 20th century hacks who were pushing Leftist/Liberal agendas, with Nietzsche was clearly (and by his own admission) anti-political.
Anthony Wilson
The best book about Nietzsche was written by Lou Salome
Noah Hill
I'm planning on reading this. Is it good though or just all her self aggrandising account?
Nicholas Wright
>or just all her self aggrandising account? no, she delivers very deep insight on nietzsches way of thinking. which she covers with the analysis of his writings and her personal experience with him, i.e. the book features a lot of personal letters she wrote to him and vice versa
Jeremiah Brooks
Have you read the Stefan Zweig one? I really like his other stuff
Charles Robinson
>Stefan Zweig wrote a Nietzsche never knew
Oliver Kelly
I've only read Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, but it transformed my understanding of Nietzsche. Was completely riveted by how well Kaufmann just utterly demolished all the misconceptions and shitty interpretations of Nietzsche hitherto.
Josiah Wood
I actually just had Robert Wicks as my lecturer last semester for a Schopenhauer & Nietzsche course. Great course, and Bob's a super chill guy.
How'd you find his book?
Alexander Thompson
(Me) Oh my bad, I suppose you're just about to get to it? Do report back!
Luke Brooks
What Jaspers are you guys referring to?
Bentley Kelly
Pic related
Hudson Sanchez
Nietzsche's New Darwinism is very interesting.
Aiden Perez
Zupancic is excellent.
Colton Jackson
took this yesterday
Charles Evans
pro tip: 1. don't read french interpretations of nietzsche. they seem to be talking about nietzsche on the surface of it, but they're really interested in exposing their own thoughts. you might get a better grip of derrida reading his Spurs, but your grasp of nietzsche won't be any better. Same with deleuze and foucault. 2. only secondary lit worth reading before the 80s is strauss, heidegger, and kaufmann. magnus has a few good articles, but his book on ER is crap. heidegger did it better. 3. read loeb's book to get zarathustra. Lampert is fine, too, but he seems to have his own straussian agenda,. 4. forget secondary lit for the moment. read his philosophy in the tragic age of the greeks and his schopenhauer as educator, and know that in these books he's sketching out his own future. these books are his promise to himself, that he would become one such philosopher/teacher. it's only in their light that you should read his later stuff.
Blake Jones
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong about using non-political philosophy and using it's concepts for political philosophy. Hegel wasn't very political either and yet he build much of the foundation for Marxism.
That said, the amount of people, left and right, using shitty interpretations of Nietzsche in their philosophy is clearly too damn high.
Nolan Russell
You look like a man who's up to his ears in premium-quality pussy
Nathan Perry
you have no idea bud
Xavier Reyes
>heidegger did it better. but heidegger used a compilation called "Will of Power", which was edited by the Köner Press. The book itself was not edited by Nietzsche himself and is highly controversial, besides it may be the reason of heideggers misinterpretations.
protip: don´t read heidegger as he himself as the french philosophers you mentioned uses nietzsche to introduce merely his own thoughts on the subject
Lucas Garcia
1) I think you're absolutely right that any of the philosophers who are really philosophers in the own right as opposed to Nietzsche commentators or regular academics are going to have their own Nietzsche which reflects their own beliefs. But to say that means they aren't worth reading or you won't learn anything about Nietzsche is a big jump.
2) Again, this is a big claim. Have you read pic related, which is pre-WW2? Also I don't know how you figure Heidegger and Strauss are going to be much different from the French in terms of having their own Nietzsche.
3) Why did you like it?
4) Is this a specific response to someone, or just a blanket statement to everyone in the thread? To say that no one should read secondary Nietzsche lit is pretty silly considering the varying levels of Nietzsche experience here. I definitely agree that people should engage with the primary literature for a while first though before moving the secondary if that's all you mean.
Jeremiah Thompson
I'm sorry if someone already said something about this, I really am, but I don't read threads.
>An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity
Why are philosophers so damn long-winded? "His philosophy activity"? You mean "his work"? "His philosophy"? "His thought"? Any of those will do. You can also throw out "the understanding of," you don't need that, it's a book, the goal is understanding, we all get it. That leaves you with "An Introduction to His Philosophy." But you can go even further. How about just "Nietzsche: An Introduction"? We all get that it's an introduction to "the understanding of his philosophical activity," he's a god-damned philosopher, no one would expect it to be an introduction to any other kind of fucking activity.
Tyler Brown
Nietzsche: An Introduction is already taken bro
Tyler Perez
Jaspers didn't call it that himself. From looking at the German edition it looks like it was just titled "Nietzsche." I'm not sure why the translators lengthened the title.
Secondary Nietzsche material is bizarre to me. Might as well listen to someone on Youtube review his books.
James Jackson
1. They're not philosophers in their own right. Their ideas are too small for them to be using N as their mask and mouthpiece, but my point was that they're not worth reading if you want to understand Nietzsche. There's hardly even an attempt to interpret individual sections...they only glance at him from a long distance and say he's about this or that without citing any passage in particular. 2. Heidegger and strauss are suprisingly lucid in their lectures on Nietzsche, and while you could argue that they have their own interests at heart, this is not easy to see or pick up from their texts. They cite N's texts and interpret the passages, and they at least make an effort to weave a story out of what he actually says, whereas you can go 5-10 pages without a single citation in Deleuze's book. What they weave is also extremely useful for understanding Nietzsche, because while you may disagree, you will also get a sense of how to take such varied pieces of text and put them together. If i'm being honest, though, I like them because they treat him like the world historical figure he himself thought he was, and others don't even attempt to.
3. Because he has done his homework when it comes to what N read, what he was fixated on, and what N wrote. He also argues, conclusively imo, that zarathustra dies at the end of bk 3, and because he explains a lot of the allusions and metaphors in that book. That is, and trust me when i say this (since i've been studying it for a few years now, not an easy thing to do.
4. I said not to bother with secondary lit for a moment, i.e., not to start with secondary literature. In fact, one shouldn't really work no nietzsche for any protracted amount of time. One should probably read an aphorism a day, or every few days in the order in which he wrote them. They're too dense to otherwise pick up in one sitting. There's also too much left unsaid in them, and what's left unsaid must be lived through first.
