Volume 6, Number 2 · February 17, 1966
Immoralist
By Philippa Foot
Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy
by R.J. Hollingdale
Louisiana State University, 326 pp., $7.00
Nietzsche as Philosopher
by Arthur A. Danto
Macmillan, 250 pp., $5.95
Few philosophers can ever have suffered more than Nietzsche those special misfortunes that may come to a man after his death. That his unpublished manuscripts should have been in the hands of an unscrupulous sister ready to twist his doctrines to serve the cause of an anti-Semitism that he loathed; that he should have been taken as a prophet by an intellectually and morally despicable regime; that he should have been execrated not only for those parts of his writings that are, precisely, execrable, but also on account of numberless misunderstandings; that even his non-Nazi disciples should often have defended him in a childish, hysterical, way. Of course much of this was Nietzsche's own fault, but one is glad that at last the tide of his ill fortune has turned. Not only is the tone of his commentators becoming less shrill; they are also succeeding in establishing a more reasonable notion of what he actually believed. No longer is Nietzsche thought of as one who preached licence for the cruel and aggressive passions of the 'splendid' beast of prey. Against the passages which have this tendency are set those in which Nietzsche speaks of the need to discipline the passions, and against those in which the 'superior' man is told that 'inferiors' exist to serve him, one at least speaking of the duty of the strong to the weak.
Review, 2473 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |