Beyond Good and Evil

I like the content, but the publisher for this book is simple. like, no page breaks or paragraph breaks throughout; mostly just printed text straight p

makes reading philosophy a pain in the ass

This classic will upset non-alphas, and they should avoid it--and additionally, any serious philosophy or abstract and theoretical science. Alphas will already have had some of its insights, but they may not have been brave enough to express them.

I have know of Nietzsche since highschool and expected this to be hard to read and understand, but it is worse than I expected. The fault lies, in my opinion, with the philosipher's style more than anything. Don't try it if you have never read the man before.

Friedrich Nietzche is best known for saying "that which does not kill us makes us stronger." Personally I say "never get your philosophy from a guy who ended up in a looney bin."

The golden age of Nietzche is probably 17 or 18 when some his insights sound great and you can simply wade through the rest of it. I cam late to Nietzche and, as you may have guessed, he leaves me cold.

Still, if you're looking for an introduction to Nietzche you could do a lot worse than this book.

As with many philosophers, the words are more important than their meanings and in their futile attempts to out-vocabulary other intellectual "elites" they view as their competition, they totally lose credibility with their verbose flailings.

Pretty much a waste of time.

Say what you will about Nietzsche, he provokes your thoughts. He is also guaranteed to provoke feminists, pacifists, Christians and a long list of others. His POV is unique and extremely critical. He doesn't like skeptics, nor German philosophers in general, nor Schopenhauer in particular. In fact if you made a list of the people and policies he dislikes it might rival Nixon's "enemies list" during the 1972 election.

Also, his writing style is - BOMBASTIC- , to say the least! Most of his zingers in the chapter full of aphorisms fall flat. And, I feel real pity for his translator around the turn of the century who had to beat his prose into shape for an English-speaking audience.

But never mind all that. The man has some important things to say, which is why I graded this with three stars. I have no quarrel with the minimalism of Millennial publications, whoever they are. Yes, this book is cheaply made, but then again, you paid 6 bucks for it, didn't you? A person looking for something as important as truth should be broadminded about how it is delivered, in my opinion, as long as it's legible.

I guess the major problem I have with him is that his sweeping generalizations about culture, race, and gender were so broad that they were easily misunderstood. As a consequence some of them were put to nefarious uses. Should he not have anticipated that, and been more careful with his phrasing? A related difficulty is that his thesis about the slave morality which he claims developed in the third century AD, in which Christian sentimentality replaced Roman dignity, seems promising, but it is difficult to follow here. He slows down to explain it only in bits and pieces. Perhaps this concept gets a fuller exposition elsewhere, I don't know. But many of the good points in this book are like that: they sound right, they sound promising, yet he never develops them step by step like Kant or Hume did. As a result you sort of end up taking his word for it, or dismissing it by saying: "That Nietzsche! Holy cow! What a character, right?!"

For those who are intrigued by Nietzsche, I recommend that you look into Stephen West's podcasts. He's done an outstanding job with a four-part series on Nietzsche's thought that cuts through the difficulties I mentioned above. Not only that, but his podcasts are transcribed, so you can read them as well as listen to them. You can find Stephen at "Philosophize This" dot com: the first podcast is entitled: Episode 90 – Nietzsche pt. 1 – God is Dead And So Is Captain Morgan.

Nietzsche’s ideas have impacted modern thinking so much that you might have already adopted some of his concepts without even reading any of his books. That was the case with me. I’ve read almost all of Robert Greene’s books and Greene constantly quotes Nietzsche. Reading this book felt like going back to the source text.

This book is depressing but it’s definitely a book that can change your outlook on life. Beyond Good and Evil is supposed to be the most comprehensive Nietzsche book, but the aphorisms still felt a little bit scattered to me. I think Sparknotes summaries are a must for this one. And now YouTube is full of lectures about Nietzsche too. You really have almost endless analysis for this one for the price of zero dollars.

If you are looking for more practical advice about how to apply his concepts to your day to day life I rec Greene’s The 50th Law or Mastery.

Nietzsche is a much quoted individual by self inflated professors of philosophical hockey. They love to take snippets of Nietzsche out of context to bolster their positions read this for yourself and be your own guide.

I couldn't get through much of this book. Not only was this the work of a man obsessed with spreading his ideal that there is no creator, but a man who clearly through his words, was a man who was completely full of himself. So pompous, and seeming to act as if he is the all-knowing.