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Nietzsche: A Selected Annotated Bibliography Nietzsche’s PhilosophyAllison, David B. Reading the New Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and On the Genealogy of Morals. (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2001). JFE 01-4401 Focusing on a few themes, Allison provides a lucid reading of these four major works of Nietzsche. He is especially good at using the events of Nietzsche’s life to illuminate his thought. Allison’s reading of Nietzsche is influenced by the French Nietzscheans, e.g., Bataille, Derrida, Deleuze and Foucault. Conway, Daniel W., ed. Nietzsche: Critical Assessments. (London: Routledge, 1998), 4 vols. JFE 01-2807 A four-volume compilation of the best in Nietzsche scholarship. Danto, Arthur C. Nietzsche as Philosopher. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). JFD 05-4460 An influential book for Nietzsche studies in America. Danto shows how Nietzsche’s ideas foreshadowed many of the problems of analytic philosophy. For Danto, the problem of nihilism is at the core of Nietzsche’s thought. Fink, Eugen. Nietzsche’s Philosophy, trans. Goetz Richter. (London; New York: Continuum, 2003). JFE 03-13081 Fink agrees with Heidegger, his teacher, that Nietzsche’s will to power is the culmination of western metaphysics. But for Fink, it is Nietzsche’s idea of the world as a play of forces, derived from Heraclitus, that is the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy, and takes him beyond traditional philosophy. Heidegger, Martin. Nietzsche, trans. David Krell. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979-1987) 4 vols. *R-YBX (Nietzsche) 80-1742 This is a compilation of Heidegger’s lectures and articles on Nietzsche from the 1930s and the 1940s. For Heidegger, Nietzsche’s main idea is the will to power, although it must be thought together with the eternal return. Since the idea of the will to power is rarely mentioned in Nietzsche’s published writings, Heidegger relies heavily on Nietzsche’s unpublished writings, especially those collected under the title of The Will to Power. _____. “Nietzsche’s Word: God is Dead,” in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. trans. William Lovitt. (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 53-114. JFD 91-11380 This essay summarizes much of what Heidegger said in his five semesters of lectures on Nietzsche (see above). For Heidegger, Nietzsche’s statement, “God is dead”, represents the death of the transcendent realm and hence of metaphysics. Jaspers, Karl. Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity, trans. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J. Schmitz. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). *RR-YBX (Nietzsche) (Jaspers, K. Nietzsche) An important work by a major German philosopher. Jaspers tends to discount the value of Nietzsche’s ideas, all of which he finds hopelessly contradictory. He believes that Nietzsche offers no teaching or worldview; rather, it is his philosophizing, his thinking, that questions everything, which is of most importance. Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche:Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th ed. rev. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980). *R-YBX (Nietzsche) (Kaufmann, W.A. Nietzsche) This is probably the best introduction to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Kaufmann’s interpretation has long dominated the picture of Nietzsche in North America. For Kaufmann, “will to power”, understood as a psychological principle, and “self-overcoming” form the center of Nietzsche’s thought. Montinari, Mazzino. Reading Nietzsche, trans. Greg Whitlock. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003). JFE 03-5727 This collection of essays and lectures by Montinari grew out of his work as coeditor of the critical edition of Nietzsche’s collected works in German. The “essays collected here-have no other purpose than as instruction on reading Nietzsche.” p. 5. An important work. Muller-Lauter, Wolfgang. Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy, trans. David J. Parent. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). JFE 99-6424 Muller-Lauter, writing in 1971, attempted to challenge Heidegger’s influential reading of Nietzsche, especially the idea that the will to power is a metaphysical principle. For Muller-Lauter, the contradictions in Nietzsche’s philosophy become understandable when Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction is understood. Nehamas, Alexander. Nietzsche, Life as Literature. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). JFE 85-4601 In this influential book, Nehamas argues that Nietzsche understands the world “as if it were a literary text.” For Nehamas, Nietzsche’s aestheticism and his perspectivism (that all views, including his own, are just one of many possible interpretations) are intimately related, and provide the key to resolving the contradictions and paradoxes of his thought. For “literary texts can be interpreted equally well in vastly different and deeply incompatible ways. Nietzsche…also holds that exactly the same is true of the world itself.” p. 3. Richardson, John. Nietzsche’s System. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). JFE 96-5712 In spite of Nietzsche's rejection of all systems of philosophy, Richardson argues that Nietzsche's thought forms a system organized around the principle of the will to power. Like Heidegger, Richardson relies heavily on Nietzsche's Nachlass to support this interpretation. Schacht, Richard. Nietzsche. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983). *R-YBX (Nietzsche) 99-11013 Schact provides detailed and lengthy analyses of many different aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, treating him as a traditional philosopher with opinions on all the traditional philosophical questions. Schacht, Richard. Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995). JFE 95-6934 This collection of essays is divided into two parts. In the first, Schacht refutes some contemporary interpretations of Nietzsche. In the second, he offers his own views on specific texts of Nietzsche. A good guide to current Nietzsche scholarship. |