What Nietzsche Really Said

by Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Kathleen M. Higgins

Book Overview

What Nietzsche Really Said gives us a lucid overview -- both informative and entertaining -- of perhaps the most widely read and least understood philosopher in history. Friedrich Nietzsche's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805241574
• ISBN13: 9780805241570
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Finally we can stop the madness...

For years pop philosophical and, in some cases, academic understandings of Nietzsche have been grossly malformed. Nietzsches often hyperbolic vernacular has been abused by the worst of morons. One could site Hitler here if need be. We see this most frequently with postmodernists, nihilists and other chain-smoking, black-wearing parent haters who love statements like "god is dead" or frat boys Facebook quotes peppered with "that which does not kill us makes us stronger". Previous scholars such as R.J. Hollingdale, Heidegger and Walter Kaufmann held very solid grasps on Neitzsches thought but none of them have sought to clear his name the way the authors of "What Nietzsche REALLY said" do. This book articulately delivers an abstract of Nietzsches philosophy while building a strong defense against the aforementioned morons. I recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand Nietzsche. It is the most concise, intelligent defense of an extremely misunderstood philosopher that I have ever seen. Hopefully the authors will be successful in clearing his name so that he can once again be taken seriously by people, especially Christians, who need him more than ever.

Nietzsche Distilled and Made Accessible

Nietzsche is undoubtedly the most enigmatic, confusing, and ambiguous philosopher of all time. For most of us, we want answers, not more confusion. Fortunately, we have two very able individuals who have studied, analyzed, and understood Nietzsche, at least in a way that makes his insights accessible. They are Robert Solomon and Walter Kaufman. Solomon, an analytic philosopher by training and disposition, has unraveled much of Nietzsche in an articulate, coherent, and powerful way. The consequence is pregnant with riches of existential insight. His clarity and precision, the hallmarks of analytic philosophy, are everywhere evident. Nietzsche's style and manner, so foreign to most of us, is his purpose. While Nietzsche has a handful of strong beliefs, his overriding belief is that of liberation from the imprisonment of our Western inheritance. Hostile to received Traditions, Nietzsche is determined to find alternative perspectives, but he's not about to become the very thing that he deplores, another dogmatist. Hence, rather than compelling arguments, a coherent world view, a grand metaphysic, an endorsement of slave morality, or other dogmatic claims, Nietzsche's scheme of liberation is to tear down the inherited frameworks, and give direction, but few prescriptions, to the alternatives. Solomon provides a fresh, clear, and coherent distillation of that project. The project is inherently dangerous, and has been misused and abused by many, most notably Hitler. Nietzsche is partly responsible, because his deconstruction is more obvious than his reconstruction. But the new paradigm that Nietzsche intended had little to do with Hitler's agenda and misappropriation. Solomon is able to give us a "truer" Nietzsche, with a number of caveats, provisional claims, and a lot of tentativeness. But these "reservations" and "provisional perspectives" are themselves at the core of Nietzsche's existentialist thought. Rather than create a new metaphysic out of whole cloth, Nietzsche is content with providing the tools for us to work them out for ourselves. And yes, that's risky. The hyper-rationalism inherited from Socrates's logocentrism, the "slave" morality inherited from Judeo-Christian nihilism, and the denial of our "animal" natures by the whole of Western philosophy are just a few of Nietzsche's targets. Such a logocentric, slavish, and dispassionate perspective is utterly false. To demonstrate the error, Nietzsche frequently finds resources in the pre-Socratics, where free inquiry still occurred, and where dogmatism is less evident. And one of Nietzsche's schemes is the use of the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus as tools for reconciliation. Apollo represents the strong, forceful, rational, and brave; Dionysus represents the carefree, receptive, emotive, and joyful. Unlike nearly all of Western Tradition, which sets Apollo over Dionysus, Nietzsche desires their reunification in an integral self. Despite Solomon's masterful and persuasive overview, in a s

Praise for Solomon & Higgins

Nietzsche's philosophy is a will of building character virtues - for living, loving what life brings and being grateful. "Nietzsche is very much a moralist... He is purposely provocative, provoking not only thought but self-scrutiny ... His whole philosophy ... is aimed at provoking self-examination and self-'undergoing'... to cultivate the virtues, and, ultimately, to 'become who you are'" (176-77).To build an affirmative philosophy one must first push, destroy, clear away the ground to "legislate values" and create a virtue life. "Nietzsche aims, accordingly, to get us to appreciate a very different conception of morality, one that is born within us and not imposed upon us, one that celebrates life [in this world] and doesn't promise another one" (198-99).Solomon/Higgins' chapter headings and topics fit Nietzsche's ideas, rather than what some scholars try to do: have his ideas fit their interpretation of him and thus develop their assessment to 'validate their Nietzsche.'Chapter 1wittingly begins with 30 rumors associated with his name and ideas. Chapter 2 talks about his writing style and his books. Chapter 3 devotes an understanding of 'What Nietzsche Really Said' about 'God is dead.' Chapter 4 talks about what Nietzsche means by morality by distinguishing two types: moralities (with emphasis on the "ies") and Morality. Chapter 5 lists and talks about the people who Nietzsche loved and hated and wrote about them and their ideas, which gave pizzazz and 'style' to his writings and his philosophy of life. Chapter 6 defends Nietzsche's 'Character' Virtues. Chapter 7 wisely addresses 'Nietzsche's Affirmative Philosophy' devoting more time to Nietzsche's 'eternal recurrence' and 'The Will To Power' since they are most abused and least understood. "What Nietzsche Really Said" concludes with remarks on Nietzsche's 'perspectivism' and his influence on the modern mind.Solomon/Higgins say everything in "What Nietzsche Really Said" what I would like to say, but better and in such an articulate way that even a beginner can get the gist of what Nietzsche really says in his own books! I recommend this book for anyone wanting to understand Nietzsche or understand him better. "What Nietzsche Really Said" gives the reader a clear picture of who he really is (not who or what he is not), what he says and what he stands up for.

Great Great book for someone UNTRAINED in philosophy

This book is great for getting started. The book actually explains in simple terms why Nietzsche is impossible for someone with no philosophical training to read. i.e. the book explains that Nietzsche contradicts himself because he wants the reader to see the many sides of the argument and to force the reader to think for herself.The book also tries to debunk 30 myths about Nietzsche, but this is not the key part of the book and the authors may not provide great proof when they explain away these 30 myths. But, this book is the only book I found that actually gave me (the untrained philosophy reader) the knowledge to finally begin to understand Nietzsche's books.But the hardcore Nietzschians who criticized the book did make did make some useful criticisms that one should keep in mind (combined with the insights of this book) when reading Nietzsche's works.

"Must" reading for all students of Nietzsche's philosophy.

What Nietzsche Really Said Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins Schocken Books 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY 10022 ISBN: 0-8052-4157-4 $23.00 Hardcover, 263 pages, "To be great," wrote the great Ralph Waldo Emerson, "is to be misunderstood." Excepting Sigmund Freud, no thinker in recent history has been more talked about and less understood than Friedrich Nietzsche. How can we -- soft-living members of the herd, untrained in the linguistic labyrinth of contemporary philosophy -- understand this complex author who wants to revolutionize our lives? We might begin with three seminal books. The third would be a reliable anthology of Nietzsche's writings, such as The Portable Nietzsche, edited by Walter Kaufmann. Second on my list is Neils Lyhne, by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885), which dramatizes the continual conflicts of any 19th-Century man who dares to embrace atheism and shout that God is no longer with us. And firstly, we might begin with this new work by Solomon and Higgins, which may be -- for the student and general reader -- the most readable and interesting introduction to Nietzsche currently in print.The book begins by blasting away thirty common rumors and misunderstandings about Nietzsche's life and work. With the air cleared, the authors provide guidelines for approaching a book by Nietzsche, then summarize the major books, then explore the quintessential Nietzschean themes. Nietzsche is better-known as a destroyer of values, but thankfully, Solomon and Higgins correct the picture by highlighting the affirmative values and ideas imbued in Nietzsche's work. Nietzsche newbies as well as more advanced users will appreciate the book's clarity and liveliness, which brings us all the benefits of good scholarship without the stuffiness and cobwebs which clog the pages of too-many modern academic tomes.Most valuable of all is the way the book illuminates the many connections from Nietzsche to writers and ideas, present and past. Guided by the authors, we explore Nietzsche's love-hate relationships with Socrates, Wagner, Schopenhauer, Kant. We begin to grasp Nietzsche's vast influence upon modern writers in many diverse intellectual and artistic fields. We see the German philosopher in light of his philosophic stance called 'perspectivism,' and learn the difference between this view and the jello-like school of 'relativism' which prevents us from declaring that any one value is better or worse than any other one.During Nietzsche's lifetime, the two great forces that squeezed, shaped and molded his world were Christianity and scientific materialism, the philosophy that powered the industrial revolution into high gear. Today, it is generally acknowledged that religion is losing its grip; and recently --thanks to a confessional essay by Bill Joy -- we are admitting our collective fears about a world where Technology sits on the throne of God. For those of us wondering if there