Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844--1900

Last update: 27 Aug 2025 17:50
First version: 30 November 1996

---

I read Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a freshman; it's striking how much Uncle Fritz improved in only a few short years.

See also:
• Classical Antiquity (obsessed about)
• Joseph Campbell (who first led me to read Uncle Fritz)
• the Enlightenment (an acknowledged ancestor);
• Freud (a descendant)
• Futurism (vulgar Nietzsche on wheels)
• Jung
• Logical Positivism (not a descendant, but at times uncannily close; I'll attach the relevant quotations Some Day Real Soon Now)
• Moral Psychology and Naturalized Ethics
• the Renaissance (admired)
• Romanticists (repudiated ancestors)
• Spinoza
• Totaliatiarianism, Especially Its Intellectual and Social Roots
• Voltaire (to whom he dedicated Human, All-too-human)

Recommended:
• By Nietzsche (as long as I'm offending his wraith, I might as well go all out and pick favorites):
  • The Gay Science
  • Genealogy of Morals [which makes a lot more sense if you read the second essay first, and the first last]
  • Twilight of the Idols
  • The Antichrist
  • Ecce Homo
• About Nietzsche:
  • Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher [but see the slashing attack, particularly on Danto's grasp of German (!) in Kaufmann's book, and passim throughout his translations]
  • Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
  • John T. Wilcox, Truth and Value in Nietzsche; a Study of His Metaethics and Epistemology
  • Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness [Mini-review]

Disrecommended:
• The on-line translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra is the first one, and is simply appalling.

To read:
• By Nietzsche:
  • Untimely Meditations
  • Human, All-too-human
  • Dawn
• About Nietzsche:
  • Babette E. Babich, Nietzsche's philosophy of science: reflecting on the ground of art and life [I hope I'm not alone in being irritated when people writing about philosophy of science don't know what niobium is.]
  • Malcolm Bull, Anti-Nietzsche [NDPR review]
  • Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on truth and philosophy
  • Claudia Crawford, To Nietzsche: Dionysus, I love you! Ariadne. [Marvellous title, if nothing else!]
  • Christoph Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation
  • Adrian Del Caro, Nietzsche contra Nietzsche [Another great title]
  • Paul Franco, Nietzsche's Enlightenment: The Free-Spirit Trilogy of the Middle Period
  • Michael Allen Gillespie, Nietzsche's Final Teaching
  • Etienne Gilson, The terrors of the year two thousand ["End of the World"; "Nietzsche, Friedrich"]
  • Jacob Golomb and Robert S. Wistrich (eds.), Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy
  • R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche
  • Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle
  • David Farrel Krell and Donald L. Bates, The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image
  • Thomas Mann
    • Death in Venice
    • Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Light of Contemporary Events
  • Allison Merrick, Nietzsche on the Methods and Aims of Philosophy: The Seal of Liberation
  • Freny Mistry, Nietzsche and Buddhism
  • Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas [A good, and positive, Review in The Nation]
  • Bernard Reginster, The Affirmation of Life: Nietzche on Overcoming Nihilism
  • John Richardson, Nietzsche's Values
  • Simon Robertson, Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics
  • Richard Schacht, Nietzsche Pursued: Toward a Philosophy for the Future
  • Tracy B. Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the politics of transfiguration
  • Seth Taylor, Left-wing Nietzscheans
  • Daniel Tutt, How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche
  • George S. Williamson, The Longing for Myth in Germany: Culture, Religion, and Politics from Romanticism to Nietzsche
  • Stefan Zweig, Master builders, a typology of the spirit