Product Description

`Reason, seriousness, mastery over the emotions, the whole murky affair which goes by the name of thought, all the privileges and showpieces of man: what a high price has been paid for them! How much blood and horror is at the bottom of all "good things!"' On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. The Genealogy is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. This edition places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #377062 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

About the Author
Douglas Smith is Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Warwick. He is currently preparing a book on the reception of Nietzsche in France.

Customer Reviews

the prime translation of a works not in need of many words.
having read most of Nietzsche's works in bother german (my native tounge) and english, i must say that if one is unable to read one of the four greatest masters of the german language (with Goethe, Heine, Kafka), walter kaufman translations are the only works that come close to the style and intentions that Nietzsche (presumably) had. in other, especially early translations one can wittness a 'over-nietzschification' that puts supposed nietzschean intent or thought into the works and hence distorting language and content. kaufman, who is first a philosopher and secondly a translator does not fall into this trap. it can only enthusiastically be reccommended.

The Truth of Western Morality
More people have been influence by this text then would care to admit it. Communists to Christians, psychologists to artists. And it is with good reason. Nietzsche comes to the shocking conclusion that man is sick, his sickness self hatred and its symptom the ascetic life style. But this is no negative text, in fact he is looking for an immensely human response to the problem, a response that celebrates our nature. The distinction between slave and master moralities is fascinating as is his insistence that only the master's is sovereign. Here the motion toward healthy living is shown in contrast to the many forms of decadence that have manifested themselves in the Western World since Plato and Christ's early followers. It is the kind of book capable of making you question the most fundamental assumptions of why we believe in the morality we hold so dear to us and presume to be true.

Two important works
This anthology of Nietzsche's writing is a marvelous work - Kaufmann's translations make the philosopher's unique style accessible and interesting to the English reader; it doesn't resort to false formality or dry academic prose as is often the case in translation of such material, but rather sets things in lively and dynamic tones, much as Nietzsche's own writing and tendency toward the dramatic was noted by his contemporaries.

Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister, but he died five years after Nietzsche's birth in 1844. Nietzsche was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunts; later in his life, his sister would become executor of his estate (after Nietzsche had become incapable of managing his own affairs) and reshape his philosophy and writings in her own idea - this becomes a running motif in later anthologies of Nietzsche; editors can quote and clip to fit their own agendas. In some ways, that is true of Kaufmann's text here, but in much less inappropriate ways than others, particularly Nietzsche's first editor, his sister.

Nietzsche was a star pupil from his earliest days at university in Bonn and Leipzig. His formal study was in classical philology, but his attentions turned in various directions quickly during his writing and professional life - he had an intense interest in drama and the arts, with Wagner's music and Greek drama in principal interest. His first book was devoted to these topics - 'The Birth of Tragedy'. It was not highly regarded at the time, but has since become much more appreciated as an anticipation of later developments in philosophy and aesthetics.

Nietzsche's life after this period was a very choppy one - he left the university, claiming illness, and while this developed later to be a true situation, at the time is was probably academic politics and difficulties fitting in with the establishment he was trying to break. He had a formal falling-out with Wagner, even writing later a piece entitled ' Nietzsche contra Wagner', finished just a few week prior to his going insane.

Kaufmann states in the introduction that Nietzsche's real career took off after his active life was over; under his sister's direction, many of the writings Nietzsche had managed to do and not get published, or which were published but forgotten, really took off in major directions. While his major works of Zarathustra, Ecce Homo, Will to Power and Genealogy of Morals were in various editions of disrepair (indeed, the Will to Power was never more complete than a series of notes), Nietzsche had a knack for language that made him very quotable, and his influence continued to grow well into the first half of the twentieth century, influencing art, philosophy, history, and politics in dramatic ways, if not always the ways in which Nietzsche envisioned.

For example, Nietzsche was not particularly impressed with the 'typical' German anti-semitism, which later erupted into the Nazi movement. He considered it rather bourgeois, and while he undoubted had his own issues with Jews (Nietzsche had issues with almost everyone, particularly any group, Christians included, who had a religious connection), the Nazi use of Nietzsche's work owes more to Nietzsche's sister's influence than anyone else.

Kaufmann states that 'Genealogy of Morals' is perhaps the closest in form to English-speaking philosophical discourse. This is a discussion that involves philosophy, psychology and linguistic theory, looking at morality in three different essays. The first essay explores the idea of good and evil as good and bad; Nietzsche develops the idea of master and slave morality - the slave resists the ideas of the master, and thus values things that are less likely to gain power - Nietzsche sees Christianity as an example of slave morality.

The second essay looks at the issues of conscience and guilt, and how these spawned the invention of gods. The third essay concludes the work with a look at ascetic ideas, how these relate to aesthetic ideas, and where in Nietzsche's opinion the great philosophers of the past have gone wrong.

Perhaps this later explains the second work in this collection, Ecce Homo. In this book (first published posthumously), Nietzsche analyses his own work piece by piece, as well as gives an overall assessment of his life. Nietzsche's insights into his own writings in hindsight is fascinating to behold. For example, his idea of his work in the first piece of this collection, the Genealogy, is as follows:

'Regarding expression, intention, and the art of suprise, the three inquiries which constitute this Genealogy are perhaps uncannier than anything else written so far. Dionysus is, as is known, also the god of darkness.'

Nietzsce is not easy reading, and this work is not the best for casual reading or the first-time reader of Nietzsche. However, for those who have already made some headway into understanding him, this is a good collection, for Kaufmann is one of the better translators and commentators. Kaufmann's notes here are especially valuable.