http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/2009/09/20#nietzsche <P>I read <cite>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</cite> as a freshman; it's striking how much Uncle Fritz improved in only a few short years. <P>See also: <a href="classical-era-mediterranean.html">Classical Antiquity</a> (obsessed about); <a href="joseph-campbell.html">Joseph Campbell</a> (who first led me to read Uncle Fritz); <a href="dennett.html">Dennett</a> (not what he had in mind for "philosophers of the future," but arguably bettter); the <a href="enlightenment.html">Enlightenment</a> (an acknowledged ancestor); <a href="freud.html">Freud</a> (a descendant); <a href="futurism.html">Futurism</a> (vulgar Nietzsche on wheels); <a href="jung.html">Jung</a>; <a href="logical-positivism.html">Logical Positivism</a> (not a descendant, but at times uncannily close; I'll attach the relevant quotations Some Day Real Soon Now); the <a href="renaissance.html">Renaissance</a> (admired); <a href="romanticists.html">Romanticists</a> (repudiated ancestors); <a href="voltaire.html">Voltaire</a> (to whom he dedicated <cite>Human, All-too-human</cite>). <ul>Recommended: <li>By Nietzsche (as long as I'm offending his wraith, I might as well go all out and pick favorites): <ul> <li><cite>The Gay Science</cite> <li><cite>Genealogy of Morals</cite> [which makes a lot more sense if you read the second essay first, and the first last] <li><cite>Twilight of the Idols</cite> <li><cite>The Antichrist</cite> <li><cite>Ecce Homo</cite> </ul> <li>About Nietzsche: <ul> <li>Arthur Danto, <cite>Nietzsche as Philosopher</cite> [but see the slashing attack, particularly on Danto's grasp of German (!) in Kaufmann's book, and <em>passim</em> throughout his translations] <li>Kaufmann, <cite>Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist</cite> <li>John T. Wilcox, <cite>Truth and Value in Nietzsche; a Study of His Metaethics and Epistemology</cite> <li>Bernard Williams, <cite>Truth and Truthfulness,</cite> chapter 1 [Online: <a href="http://pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s7328.html">html</a>, <a href="http://pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s7328.pdf">pdf</a>] </ul> </ul> <ul>Disrecommended: <li>The on-line translation of <cite>Thus Spake Zarathustra</cite> is the first one, and is simply appalling. </ul> <ul>To read: <li>By Nietzsche: <ul> <li><cite>Untimely Meditations</cite> <li><cite>Human, All-too-human</cite> <li><cite>Dawn</cite> </ul> <li>About Nietzsche: <ul> <li>Babette E. Babich, <cite>Nietzsche's philosophy of science: reflecting on the ground of art and life</cite> [I hope I'm not alone in being irritated when people writing about philosophy of science don't know what niobium is.] <li>Maudemarie Clark, <cite>Nietzsche on truth and philosophy</cite> <li>Claudia Crawford, <cite>To Nietzsche: Dionysus, I love you! Ariadne.</cite> [Marvellous title, if nothing else!] <li>Christoph Cox, <cite>Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation</cite> [<a href="http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft5x0nb3sz">Free online</a>] <li>Adrian Del Caro, <cite>Nietzsche contra Nietzsche</cite> [Another great title] <li>Etienne Gilson, <cite>The terrors of the year two thousand</cite> ["End of the World"; "Nietzsche, Friedrich"] <li>R. J. Hollingdale, <cite>Nietzsche</cite> <li>Pierre Klossowski, <cite>Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle</cite> <li>David Farrel Krell and Donald L. Bates, <cite>The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image</cite> <li>Thomas Mann <ul> <li><cite>Death in Venice</cite> <li><cite>Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Light of Contemporary Events</cite> </ul> <li>Freny Mistry, <cite>Nietzsche and Buddhism</cite> <li>Bernard Reginster, <cite>The Affirmation of Life: Nietzche on Overcoming Nihilism</cite> [<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/REGAFF.html">blurb</a>] <li>Tracy B. Strong, <cite>Friedrich Nietzsche and the politics of transfiguration</cite> <li>Seth Taylor, <cite>Left-wing Nietzscheans</cite> <li>George S. Williamson, <cite>The Longing for Myth in Germany: Culture, Religion, and Politics from Romanticism to Nietzsche</cite> <li>Stefan Zweig, <cite>Master builders, a typology of the spirit</cite> </ul> </ul>