Thus Spoke Zarathustra

I'm currently making my way through Nietzsche's most popular work, having already read a few other works of his. The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and Ecce Homo. I've also read a couple books that his main influence, Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote, with The World as Will and Representation and On the Fourfold Route of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Having read all of this, (Not finished with Zarathustra yet) his ideas seem logically sound. I'm having a lot of difficulty tracking down any good, critical sources that oppose him. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on possible subsidiary works that would help me to get a better view on the full spectrum of Nietzsche's ideas.

Thanks!

they don't exist

Originally posted by coquette
they don't exist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_and_reception_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche

The appropriation of Nietzsche's work by the Nazis, combined with the rise of analytic philosophy, ensured that British and American academic philosophers would almost completely ignore him until at least 1950. Even George Santayana, an American philosopher whose life and work betray some similarity to Nietzsche's, dismissed Nietzsche in his 1916 Egotism in German Philosophy as a "prophet of Romanticism".

,,,

Certain recent Nietzschean exegetes have emphasized the more untimely and politically controversial aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy. Works such as Bruce Detwiler's Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (University of Chicago Press, 1990), Fredrick Appel's Nietzsche Contra Democracy (Cornell University Press, 1998), and Domenico Losurdo's Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002) challenge the prevalent liberal interpretive consensus on Nietzsche and assert that Nietzsche's elitism was not merely an aesthetic pose but an ideological attack on the widely held belief in equal rights of the modern West, locating Nietzsche in the conservative-revolutionary tradition.

Originally posted by Fat mans revenge
I'm currently making my way through Nietzsche's most popular work, having already read a few other works of his. The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and Ecce Homo. I've also read a couple books that his main influence, Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote, with The World as Will and Representation and On the Fourfold Rout ...[text shortened]... at would help me to get a better view on the full spectrum of Nietzsche's ideas.

Thanks!

http://thedialectica.blogspot.com/2008/03/nietzsche-and-aesthetic-justification.html

is a start........ link to link..... but you have to follow each one.....

there's also

http://www.brianleiternietzsche.blogspot.com/

but these leave a lot to be desired.........

There are some real *holes.......

-m

Originally posted by Fat mans revenge
I'm currently making my way through Nietzsche's most popular work, having already read a few other works of his. The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and Ecce Homo. I've also read a couple books that his main influence, Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote, with The World as Will and Representation and On the Fourfold Rout at would help me to get a better view on the full spectrum of Nietzsche's ideas.

Thanks!

Originally posted by uzless
No one that I know has done a good critique. Mostly political reasons I suspect.

But the best critique is to read all the other philosophers first. FN is the alternate, yet crystal clear view you get on the world when you take acid, or smoke a bunch of pot for the first time...and I mean that in a good way.

It may not be correct in the sense of what i r in your ear...the angel or the devil? Which one dominates the voice in the back of you head?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
By definition, absolute truth about anything concerning human experience on earth or eternity past or future is "moment of time" independent.

Originally posted by uzless
truth today may not be truth tomorrow

The best on Nietzsche - for context, insight, sobriety (in English) - are Walter Kaufmann and Robert Solomon. The former is still considered the standard for translations. His best student, Frithjof Bergmann, was one of my philosophy professors at University of Michigan, and his best student was Solomon, professor at University of Texas - Austin, until his recent death.

I looked at all the sources by Zeeblebot, but I haven't been able to secure an English version of The Aristocratic Rebel. The others seem to really rely heavily on political morals, which are based off of what Nietzsche is arguing quite vehemently against.

Thanks also to MikeLom, I went through both links, and both do leave a lot to be desired.

To Uzless, I've either read or am quite familiar with most major philosophers. I've read everything from Plato to Kant to Kierkegaard. With all of these other writers, I've been able to argue multiple flaws in their thoughts, but I'm having a lot of trouble doing the same for Nietzsche.

As for the yardstick and ideas of absolute truth, I've found that Nietzsche's suggestions of rejecting such principles to be rather well founded. I'm having a lot of difficulty accepting such ideas, but I'm also having a lot of difficulty rejecting them as well.

And thanks to VorozPlatz, I'm currently reading Kaufmann's translation of Zarathustra, but will look into the others. Kaufmann does a great job of translating and commenting on the writings, but I find his notes on Nietzsche's writings to be very biased.

Thanks for all the help!

I'm not sure how one would go about 'logically refuting', say, the 'will to power' thesis. It exists as bald assertion, as a thought experiment, as a rhetorical device and in a series of aphorisms, allegories and concepts - moreover, it is already caught up in, and delights in, its own paradoxes. It's like asking one logically to refute 'eternal recurrence'. I think Thus Spake Zarathustra deliberately sets out to blur the distinction between philosophy and literature, and in a sense sets itself aside from purely philosophical criticism.

Or, Nietzsche 'logically refutes' the notion of 'logical refutation' by introducing *history* to all logic and refutation - that, in a sense , is the lesson of the Genealogy.

Nietzsche, though, is clearly the inheritor of the Christian tradition he claims to break free of. His messianism, his belief that a new dawn could possibly dawn for the human animal (as if humans are in some way special amongst animals; as if they, uniquely and against all the evidence he himself had acquired, could freely choose how to live their lives, if only they learned how), his belief in meaning in history (which is a particularly Christian and western way of thinking) - is it possible that Schopenhauer has the best refutation of him?

Originally posted by Fat mans revenge
I looked at all the sources by Zeeblebot, but I haven't been able to secure an English version of The Aristocratic Rebel. The others seem to really rely heavily on political morals, which are based off of what Nietzsche is arguing quite vehemently against.

Thanks also to MikeLom, I went through both links, and both do leave a lot to be desired.
ind his notes on Nietzsche's writings to be very biased.

Thanks for all the help!

Forgot: 'Nietzsche - Life as Literature' by Alexander Nehamas may be a fresh look you seek.