Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

by Walter Kaufmann

Book Overview

This classic is the benchmark against which all modern books about Nietzsche are measured. When Walter Kaufmann wrote it in the immediate aftermath of World War II, most scholars outside Germany viewed Nietzsche as part madman, part proto-Nazi, and almost wholly unphilosophical. Kaufmann rehabilitated Nietzsche nearly single-handedly, presenting his works as one of the great achievements of Western philosophy.

Responding to the powerful...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691160260
• ISBN13: 9780691160269
• Release Date: October 2013
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great milk!

I read this book in an attempt to start my education of Nietzsche and his philosophy. I thought, at first glance, that it was a biography and a great place to start. I may have been wrong. This text is not a biography. It is not light reading. In fact, it was written by one of the foremost scholars on the life and philosophy of the difficult Nietzsche and Kaufmann is highly intelligent himself. Though I was able to slowly read through this text, and it did offer absolutely invaluable insights, I would not suggest it for the passive or novice reader. The reader does get a sense of what kind of a person Nietzsche was but this book is mainly concerned with his writings and ideas. Many of the works Nietzsche wrote are highlighted and presented in depth. However, far beyond this discussion of the writings of Nietzsche is a discussion of his ideas and their relevance. In this case, Kaufmann attempts something rarely indulged--a discussion of the ideas and thoughts of one of the most brilliant and revolutionary philosophers of recent times. This is meat not milk.

Kaufmann did a great job

Walter Kaufmann wrote some of the best available translations of Nietzsche's work, most of which can only be appreciated by understanding how bad past scholarship was on Nietzsche. However, the issue for a book should be how well it speaks to us now, rather than how well it would have spoken to us then. How well suited is Kaufmann for this task? First, Kaufmann has translated many poems, philosophers, and Nietzsche's work into English. This means he has intimiate familiarity with Nietzsche's use of various Germanic words. Second, he was interested in existential philosophy in general. Kaufmann was also fascinated by many of the same people that Nietzsche found inspirational, particularly Goethe. While it is possible to accurately "translate" a text and give a meaning based upon pure linguistics and reading the text, an author that is able to place things within their proper historical standpoint shows a great deal more to the audience whenever ideas can be placed within other contexts. Third, Kaufmann was a fan of Nietzsche. This is something important, as many philosophers butcher other philosopher's work that they do not like. Take, for example, Karl Popper's very famous misinterpretations of Hegel in "Open Society and Its Enemies". Fourth, though he is often harsh towards other interpretators and commentators, (most often justifiably so), he has no doctrinal axe to grind. The most serious accusation is that he white-washed Nietzsche too much. I think most readers acquainted with Nietzsche will see where Kaufmann did this. Given that he was trying to remove the taint of the Nazis from Nietzsche, I can understand his white-washing, even if it's now antiquated. Fifth, he has no real religious axe to grind. He was one of the first scholars to take Nietzsche's critique of religion and Christianity seriously. I say this in case some poor reviewer like one who did this book says that his "Christian" background interferes with his scholarship. (To give you an idea of how little this person knows Kaufmann, he conveted to Judaism at 11 and was agnostic for his adult life. Does one count his pre-natal years as a Christian influence?) Anyone even remotely familiar with "Faith of A Heretic", "Critique of Religion and Philosophy", or "Religion in Four Dimensions: Existential, Aesthetic, Historical, and Comparative" will note that Kaufmann wrote many detailed and extensive critiques on religion and particularly Christianity. (He did seem to retain some fondness for Judaism, but that has no bearing on his interpretation of Nietzsche.) Overall, he probably was more familiar with Nietzsche than any other scholar, and his command of English is impeccable. Nietzsche was a fascinating philosopher, and if it hadn't been for Kaufmann's work on him, most of us would never have heard anything about him except that he was a proto-Nazi.

Still a useful classic on Nietzsche

I got this book after having finished reading the complete works of Nietzsche. Kaufmann has the best translations of most of N's works, save "Beyond Good and Evil" (Hollingdale is the way to go). However, Kaufmann didn't get around to translating many of N's early works, and we are poorer because of this. But, in this text, Kaufmann goes through these early works in his discussion of the development of N's thought. I found his comments on the Untimely Meditations very useful. I had read these texts in the older Oscar Levy translations, and found them hard to digest. For this reason alone, this book was useful to me.The book in general is a good introduction to N. It spends a lot of time dispelling rumors which do not have the same currency as when the book was written. These misguided misinterprations still exist however, and it is good to be able to counter them. I general don't like secondary texts, but this is a good one. Get it if you are interested in N's life story, or in the basis of his ideas, and you will be very happy.

Next Best Thing to Reading Nietzsche - 5* with reservations

As other reviewers have pointed out, with this book Walter Kaufmann almost single-handedly resuscitated Nietzche's reputation in the English-speaking world. And, Kaufmann's translations of Nietzsche's work are almost certainly the best available. This book is reasonably well written and lucid, and sets out a comprehensible interpretation of Nietzsche's work. If it weren't for H.L. Mencken's remarkably perceptive little book on Nietzsche published around the turn of the century (which I recommend), I'd say Kaufmann's book was the first really good thing on Nietzsche in English.The polemics against other Nietzsche scholars are a little much. However, having read a number of the books of the Nietzsche-bashers Kaufman trashes, I tend to agree with him more than his critics, and in the context of the time they were written, I suppose they were not inappropriate.Some reviewers have suggested Kaufmann lacks depth or sophistication, and there is some truth in this. I am told by a former Kaufmann student that he bragged of being the highest paid philosopher in America and took rather unseemly delight in the material trappings of his success. Nietzsche would have considered him kleinburgerlich.It is mildly annoying that Kaufmann trashes every German edition of Nietzsche's work except the Musarion - a 1922 edition of which around 1,000 sets were printed. I was told only a hundred or so sets survived WWII and de-Nazification. I was fortunate enough to have access to it as graduate student at the University of California, but except for Kaufmann, I don't know of any sets in private hands. It is good, but almost inaccessible. I was the only one who had checked out several of the volumes, and in others I had to cut the pages.While Kaufmann is a good introduction, as others have said, it's better to actually read Nietzsche yourself, preferably in German, because Nietzsche is one of the most exciting prose writers in German in the 19th century. Kaufmann's translations are accurate, and reasonable English, but cannot come close to the elegance of Nietzsche's German. I read Nietzsche mostly in German, but keep Kaufman's translations to hand when I have a question about the German.

A Work of Genius

I found this book to be a great aid in understanding Nietzsche. Professor Walter Kaufmann does an admirable job describing the evolution of Nietzsche's philosophy, his anti-system yet systematic approach, the will to power, eternal recurrence and much more. I recommend reading at least Beyond Good and Evil before taking this on in order to get a feel for Nietzsche and his ideas. Walter Kaufmann was arguably the best translator of Friedrich Nietzsche into any language and is responsible to a large extent for his rehabilitation after World War II. In contrast to those who attempt to trash Kaufmann (see especially the reviews to Will To Power) he was better equipped to interpret Nietzsche than the vast majority of amateur Nietzscheans today. First Kaufmann was German-born, meaning that he had a native ability with that language. Normally when choosing a translator it is the normal requirement that the target language - in the case of Nietzsche's German, English is the target language - is handled by a native speaker. Kaufmann was an exception to this rule in that his English was exceptional; his writing is better than most native English speakers. In addition to that he had the intuitive feel for Nietzsche's German that only a native speaker of that language could have. Consider too the cultural context. His generation was closer to Nietzsche's than ours, he grew up in and knew intimately the culture that had produced Nietzsche. With all this in mind, for someone to then come along, say a 30ish American with perhaps a smattering of High School German, and attempt to trash Kaufmann (all the while using his translations which one would expect were tainted) shows a distinct lack of intellectual consistency. In other words if Kaufmann is wrong, don't rely on his translation, go back to the original German yourself to make your argument, or give up the effort. However I expect that the main reason to attack Kaufmann is political. Today there are those who wish to reclaim Nietzsche for the Nazis even after Kaufmann decisively demolished the arguments for that connection. Those who wish to portray Nietzsche as a racist who focused on breeding and bloodlines ignore what the man actually wrote and betray more about their own opinions than Friedrich Nietzsche's. Far from being a proto-Nazi, Nietzsche in his own words comes across more as the Anti-Hitler or rather more to the point Hitler was the Anti-Nietzsche. Is it so surprizing that German culture was capable of producing both? Although in Hitler's case, I find him more a product of the times, than of any particular culture. Much has been made of the fact of Hitler's fascination with Nietzsche. As a young soldier he most likely read Zarathustra, which was issued in mass to German troops in World War I along with the Bible. Like most readers who start with that book and read nothing else of Nietzsche, he understood little of the man's ideas. As Kau