No other modern philosopher has proved as influential as Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and none is as poorly understood. In the first new biography in decades, Rüdiger Safranski, one of the foremost living Nietzsche scholars, re-creates the anguished life of Nietzsche while simultaneously assessing the philosophical implications of his morality, religion, and art. Struggling to break away from the oppressive burdens of the past, Nietzsche invented a unique philosophy based on compulsive self-consciousness and constant self-revision. As groundbreaking as it will be long-lasting, this biography offers a brilliant, multifaceted portrait of a towering figure.
Contradictions
January 30, 2010
How should we take Nietzsche? As a talented megalomaniac? As an exclamation point for lesser philophers? As an excuse for fascism and militarism, like Darwin? As a poster child for the perils of engaging in unsafe sex? As author Rudiger Safranski makes clear, Nietsche's desire to both systematize his thinking and scorn systemization caused some parts of his oeuvre to be contradictory and irreconcilable to other parts. There is therefore no "way" to take him other than ad hoc. I love this study of Nietzsche much more than I love the man's philosophy. Safranski provides a detailed portrait of Nietzsche along with an explanation of the philosophical waters that Nietzsche swam in and which he later channeled for others, mainly for ill.
Another reader complained that the book is dense and difficult to read. That's true. Anytime the word "ontological" appears in a book, let alone is discussed, it can't be otherwise. That said, for an amateur reader of western philosophy with a basic level of knowledge, it's quiet readable, if not always 100% intelligible.
Good biography, but what is really important about Nietzsche is in my review.
(1 of 9 Found this Helpful)
July 5, 2009
This Nietzsche's biography is a good book, but what is really important about Nietzsche both as a man and philosopher is in my review below.
Zarathustra is a great book when you think about literature and not about philosophy. This book is the apex of what I call "psychopathy apology".
I used to be a fan of Nietzsche's philosophy, during many years I even tried to apply it to my personal life, but sooner that I could imagine, I noticed that I experienced some discomfort dealing with people around me, and why I felt like this, because I am not a psychopath.
Psychopaths have a malfunction of brain's frontal cortex. One day reading a book about this kind of people I discovered that all the symptoms associated to psychopaths could be related to Nietzsche's philosophy. I adress only some questions to Nietzsches's apologists:
1-how could a man that was weak, short, had a extremely bad health, was rejected by the Germany Army because of his bad physical conditions, have written a book talking about being a "superman"?
2-he himself was a looser in the end, died in total misery, mad and unhappy mainly in love.
Would you really apply this man's philosophy to your personal life? Think about that, if it wasn't good to him why it would be good to you or to all humanity?
3-When his philosophy was applied by the greatest psychopath ever, we saw the most outrageous ideology ever called nazism.
This man was the greatest contradiction in world's history and people insist in transform his thinking in serious philosophy what is a huge mistake.
Is really funny, when I observed during all of my life some bad people acting according to Nietzsche's philosophy, and mainly applying the Ideas
of Zarathustra agaisnt other people, that these same people, even when they are ferocious Nietzsche's defenders felt absolutely revolted and considered those bad people 'bad characters". It is really funny, it is like to say, "apply Nietzsche's philosophy against other people, and not agaisnt me".
All normal men should finally recognize that Nietzsche was only a psychopath writing psychopathy apologies, he was a good writer and an extremely bad philosopher, it is simply impossible to defend his philosophy.
If you think his philosophy is good, just expect till someone aplly it against you!
"Superman was nothing less than Nietzsche's alterego" the worst alterego ever thought! just because what have made humanity survive untill today is more our limitations than thinking that we are gods. What Nietzsche made of worst was replace one god by other, a null concept.
Something to plug the gaps left by Kaufmann and Hollingdale:
(1 of 2 Found this Helpful)
September 21, 2008
High points: he manages to discuss Max Stirner, Nietzsche's phenomenology vis-a-vis the Will to Power, the Eternal Recurrence and Great Noontide. The first third is more biographical than the last two-thirds, but from the Panacea of Knowledge onwards its great reading. The Heideggerian influence some may regard pernicious given their unpleasant encounters with his forbearers may feel a tad uncomfortable at points, but Safranski clearly knows his stuff and does not shy away from FN's political thought, which walks the razor's edge so much of the time.
Neophytes: This, Kaufmann's and Hollingdale's biographies would make a great introductory trio, along with Montinari's "Reading Nietzsche" as translated by George Whitlock. All highly recommended.
Looking forward to reading his Heidegger and Schopenhauer volumes now, more than worth the price (18.96 list USAfauxbacks vs. Amazon Marketplace)
Caveat: Sometimes too inviting of conjectures as to N's sexual history, the discussions of which have the same effect that the author disclaims: sensational suggestions with fantastic lack of substance. Sited in the back, a facile hacket-job by Kohler "Wagner and Nietzsche", you'll want to check his sources for yourself. Only the Lou Salome chapter avoids this. There's a reason why the proposed threesome was the only definite reference in Hollingdale's biography, the practical effect of any other conjectures displayed here as one of the books few major faults.
Life after music is possible, but can we bear it? A laboratory of thinking
(4 of 5 Found this Helpful)
May 23, 2008
Safranski has made a name for himself in Germany as biographer of Schiller, Hoffmann, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and with a recent bestseller about the German Romantic School, which comprised poetry, painting, and music. But his main triumph and commercial success was this book about Nietzsche.
Oddly, it is not a biography, nor an introduction into FN's thinking, but a 'biography of his thinking', a concept which is inadequately translated in the English subtitle: I do not think that this book can be called a 'philosophical biography'. What is that anyway?
It is a very readable book, unless you know zero about the man. In that case, better go elsewhere first. It is well worth reading if you are fairly familiar with the idea map of ancestors and successors and the main writings. It helps establish mental links and puts you on firmer ground.
FN was one of the most influential writers in the decades around 1900, the year of his death. By that time he had been in 'mental care' for 11 years. Some said of him, he had delved into the mysteries of life so deeply that he went mad. His philosophy has been called a philosophy of life in opposition to materialism and historicism and other -isms. His Zarathustra was one of the 3 most carried books by German soldiers in WW1, says Safranski. The other two were Goethe's Faust and the New Testament. But I wish I knew how this statistic was obtained. Part of the Nietzsche myth?
His ancestors, the triad of 'educators' if you wish, were the poet Hoelderlin, who shared the fate of ending his life in a lengthy asylum phase, having 'gone mad' as well, who provided the background of craving for mythology; then Schopenhauer, whose 'Will and Representation' became FN's philosophical backbone and became transformed into the concepts of Dionysos and Apollo; and finally Wagner, the composer in search of the German myth.
When he became unable to handle his life, his evil sister took care of him and established his reputation as a German national chauvinist, a militarist, and a racist. The Nazis actually knew better, one of theirs wrote somewhere, says Safranski: apart from the fact that he was anti nationalist, anti socialist, and anti racist, he might be useful for Nazi propaganda.
Personally I like to see FN as a poet and an aphorist; his philosophy does not seem to add up to a system, so better take your bits and pieces as you like them.
I give only four stars, because I think the concept of the book has limited value. I would prefer a more stringent focus on either life or philosophy. As it is, the text somewhat vacilates. It can't make up its mind. Like its subject.
A Philosophical Baffle
(1 of 13 Found this Helpful)
May 19, 2008
The book appears to be targeted exclusively to the most serious student of Nietzsche such that subject matter is condense to the level of an essay. Definitely not for the layperson in search of an overview but more a book of snippets and fragmention which fails to offer any outstanding impressions.
And the translation seems to be an exercise in," how to include as many obscure word from the English language as is possible".
Definitely a smell of elitism.
