Most Popular Books by Friedrich Nietzsche

Represents a selection from Nietzche''s notebooks to find out what he wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, and the theory of knowledge, among others. Nietzsche''s notebooks, kept by him during his most productive years, offer a fascinating glimpse into the workshop and mind of a great thinker, and compare favorably with the notebooks of Gide and Kafka, Camus and Wittgenstein. The Will to Power, compiled from the notebooks, is one of the most famous boooks of the philosophy. Here is the first critical edition in any language. Down through the Nazi period The Will to Power was often mistakenly considered to be Nietzche''s crowning systematic labor; since World War II it has frequently been denigrated. In fact, it represents a stunning selection from Nietzsche''s notebooks, in a a topical arrangement that enables the reader to find what Nietzsche''s wrote on a variety of subjects. Walter Kaufmann, in collaboration with R. J. Holilngdale, brings to this volume his unsurpassed skills as a Nietzsche translator and scholar. Professor Kaufmann has included an approximate date of each note. His running footnote commentary offers information needed to follow Nietzsche''s train of thought, and indicates, among other things, which notes were eventually superseded by later formulations. The comprehensive index serves to guide the reader to the extraordinary riches of this book.

The Joyful Wisdom is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1882 and followed by a second edition, which was published after the completion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, in 1887. This substantial expansion includes a fifth book and an appendix of songs. It was noted by Nietzsche to be "the most personal of all [his] books", and contains the greatest number of poems in any of his published works.

''One of the greatest books of a very great thinker'' Michael Tanner Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche''s position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects traditional Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Nietzsche seeks to demonstrate that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a ''slave morality''. With wit and energy, he turns from this critique to a philosophy that celebrates the present and demands that the individual impose their own ''will to power'' upon the world. Translated by R. J. HOLLINGDALE With an Introduction by MICHAEL TANNER

The Birth of Tragedy Friedrich Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a book about the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy is the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche undertakes a critique of the complacentrationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. In its wide-ranging discussion of the nature of art, science and religion, Nietzsche''s argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which

This captivating collection brings together five of Friedrich Nietzche’s most important philosophical works, exploring themes such as nihilism, metaphysics, and the nature of morality—featuring an introduction by Peter Gay and commentary from Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, and Gilles Deleuze More than one hundred years after his death, Friedrich Nietzsche remains the most influential philosopher of the modern era. Basic Writings of Nietzsche gathers the complete texts of five of Nietzsche’s most important works, from his first book to his last: The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, and Ecce Homo. Edited and translated by the great Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann, this volume also features seventy-five aphorisms, selections from Nietzsche’s correspondence, and variants from drafts for Ecce Homo. It is a definitive guide to the full range of Nietzsche’s thought. This edition includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

One of the greatest books ever written. A splendid masterpiece...

The philosopher''s dramatically egotistical autobiography employs masterful language to convey ever-relevant ideas: the importance of questioning traditional morality, establishing autonomy, and making a commitment to creativity. Essential reading.

In late 1888, a few weeks before his descent into madness, Friedrich Nietzsche set out to compose his life story. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is remains one of the most remarkable autobiographies ever written, a powerful work of genius in which the German philosopher critiques his own works (and those of others) and weighs in on a plethora of subjects, from mastering self-control to female sexuality. Seemingly trivial topics are interwoven into passages of complex reasoning on philosophical problems. This most bizarre but fascinating of autobiographies is essential reading for students of Nietzsche and anyone looking for profound insights into life from one of the greatest thinkers of the Western world.

After kicking open the doors to twentieth-century philosophy in Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche refined his ideal of the superman with the 1886 publication of Beyond Good and Evil. Conventional morality is a sign of slavery, Nietzsche maintains, and the superman goes beyond good and evil in action, thought, and creation. Nietzsche especially targets what he calls a "slave morality" that fosters herdlike quiescence and stigmatizes the "highest human types." In this pathbreaking work, Nietzsche''s philosophical and literary powers are at their height: with devastating irony and flashing wit he gleefully dynamites centuries of accumulated conventional wisdom in metaphysics, morals, and psychology, clearing a path for such twentieth-century innovators as Thomas Mann, André Gide, Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, André Malraux, and Jean-Paul Sartre, all of whom openly acknowledged their debt to him. Students of philosophy and literature as well as general readers will prize this rich sampling of Nietzsche''s thought in an unabridged and inexpensive edition of one of the philosopher''s most important works.

"Twilight of the Idols means that the old truth is on its last legs," declared Friedrich Nietzsche in this 1889 polemic. Forceful in his language and profound in his message, the philosopher delivered the nineteenth century''s most devastating attack on Christianity. Intended by Nietzsche as a general introduction to his philosophy, it assails the "idols" of Western philosophy and culture, including the concepts of Socratic rationality and Christian morality. Written while Nietzsche was at the peak of his powers, less than a year before the onset of the insanity that gripped him until his death in 1900, this work''s proximity to the end of the author''s career renders it a distinctive portrait from his later period. The source of the famous dictum, "Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger," it blazes with provocative, inflammatory rhetoric that challenges readers to reexamine what they worship and why.

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (German: Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft) is a book by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that expands the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, with a more critical and polemical approach. It was first published in 1886. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche accuses past philosophers of lacking critical sense and blindly accepting dogmatic premises in their consideration of morality. Specifically, he accuses them of founding grand metaphysical systems upon the faith that the good man is the opposite of the evil man, rather than just a different expression of the same basic impulses that find more direct expression in the evil man. The work moves into the realm "beyond good and evil" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a destructive critique in favour of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectivalnature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, also translated as Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885 and published between 1883 and 1891. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Übermensch, which were first introduced in The Gay Science

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, published in four parts between 1883 and 1891. As one of the most influential works in modern nihilism, the book follows the life, speeches, and travels of Zarathustra, the originator of Zoroastrianism. Thus Spoke Zarathustra argues man should seek to perfect himself during his life on earth, surpassing societal standards of morality and goodness. The ideal is - man transforming himself into the "Übermensch," a more evolved, superhuman-like state of being. Thus Spoke Zarathustra argues every man should follow his own path not dictated by societal conventions. This work is fundamental in guiding existentialist thought and the study of modern philosophy.