Nietzsche: Volumes One and Two : Volumes One and Two

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Summary: Mesmerizing and Meditative; The Mind of Heidegger
Review: .
If you like Nietzsche, don't ignore Heidegger's monumental achievement.

Walter Kaufmann's Nietzche, psychologist and philosopher and on Heidegger in Kaufmann's, Discovering The Mind, Vol II, criticizes Heidegger to a great degree. In much of Kaufmann's objections to Heidegger's analogy of Nietzsche include his attempt to explain man's "essential ontology" into what really amounts to anthropomorphism. Also the fact that Heidegger uses texts of Nietzsche from obscure manuscripts over his published works. This, along with Kaufmann's personal encounters with Heidegger, in which Heidegger claimed to have unpublished writings incapable of adequate translation and explanation in his possession, esoteric information, an obvious manifestation of a prideful and arrogant personality.

Now I will agree with the majority of Kaufmann's arguments against Heidegger, including the fact that the man was an active Nazi, a party member and an active advocate of a totalitarian atmosphere imposed at the University he taught at. And it must be noted; there is no anti-semtic writing here, there is only deep and profound analytic treatment of Nietzsche.

Despite all of Kaufmann's valid criticisms and objectifications, I find Heidegger's Nietzsche, both mesmerizing, thought provoking and soul stirring. One needs to recognize this book is Heidegger, not Nietzche and Heidegger is a deep analytical thinker, whereas, Nietzche was both philosophical and poetic and top it all off, psychological. It takes a man like Heidegger to give it the philosophical, analytical style. Perhaps it is bias and to a degree "scandalous," as Kaufmann so brazenly claims, but to ignore these volumes would be foolish. For me, Heidegger's work is monumental and inspirational. If one reads Heidegger with discernment and awareness, then the four volumes of Nietzche are most beneficial and most certainly worth the read, not to pass in one's study of Nietzsche.

In particular the study of the "Will to Power as Art," where the truth is an error since art is the becoming and truth is always the become that is becoming in self positing, in artistic creativity of thought, the affixation on an apparition. And Heidegger's analytical explanation of Nietzsche's "Eternal Return" are far worth this read.

Also in line with this, is the explanation of Kaufmann in Nietzsche's Will To Power; not being self-preservation of Spinoza, nor pleasure principle of Freud, but of power, the power of the self-positing and creative center, not the power that dictates over others, which has been administered by totalitarian and authoritarian governments.

In addition to Kaufmann and Heidegger, Also excellent books:
Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rudiger Safranski
Nietzsche : The Man and his Philosophy - R. J. Hollingdale
Nietzsche: by Karl Jaspers

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Summary: Excellent Book
Review: Heidegger bends Neitzche to his purpose in this book. Great philosophers are often quilty of mis-interpreting, mis-reading, and maligning those who came before them, in order to introduce a distance between them, to highlight their difference.

Heidegger does just this, and gives perhaps the worst reading of Nietzsche possible.

A good book for understanding Heidegger - a poor book for understanding Nietzsche.

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Summary: Long-winded
Review: Heidegger is a man who knows how to fill up a full class period with lots of talk. It would be possible to condense this book, the transcripts of two lecture courses given in 1936 and 1938, into a book 1/4 the length of the current tome. First of all, the time spent on Nietzsche's Nachlass is not particularly fruitful. What Nietzsche has to say regarding the eternal recurrence and the will-to-power can be found, and in the mature form, in BGE and Zarathustra. The lectures are interesting in some respects, for instance the chapter on Nietzsche and positivism is interesting and worth consulting in connection with "Plato's Doctrine of Truth." The reading of Kant's Third Critique is unique as a demonstration of Heidegger's approval of Kant, specifically the treatment of the beautiful.

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Summary: Forget about any other books on Nietzsche
Review: I read the volumes on The Will To Power as Art and as Knowledge whilst at university studying philosophy and it illuminated Nietzsche's thought for me. Heidegger's is the only worthy exposition of his philosophy because not only does he seem to be the only one capable of comprehending it but he doesn't seek to distort it in any way or use it for his own ends. There are no ulterior motives here : Heidegger lets Nietzsche's philosophy speak for itself - and what a magnificent and awe-inspiring philosophy it is ! If you have ever wondered, as I certainly had prior to finding these works, about the precise meaning of Nietzsche's thought of the 'Eternal Recurrence of The Same', or how it relates to the 'Will to Power', then these are the book you want to read. I had become thoroughly frustrated at the cursory treatment which this part of N.'s philosophy receives elsewhere, but Heidegger shows that the thought of 'Eternal Recurrence' is in truth one of the two indispensable fundamental elements of N.'s philosophy - along with 'Will To Power', without which the thought of Eternal Recurrence cannot truly be thought. The lecture course 'Nietzsche' (reproduced in these books) is a comprehensive and faithful account of Nietzsche's thought (and life) - perhaps the only genuine one. It will also help those who know about Nietzsche's ideas but haven't encountered Heidegger's or can't see the relation between these two giants of Western thinking.

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Summary: Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
Review: Prior to reading this book, Kaufmann was my favorite interpreter of Nietzsche's writings; but now, Heidegger has the prize. No other book that I have read on Nietzsche has come close to the depth and detail of this work. Heidegger masterfully exposits the concepts of will to power and eternal return to illumine Nietzsche's whole philosophical project in a way that I just haven't encountered previously.

A fair criticism of this book might note that Heidegger draws parallels between Nietzsche and himself (Being and Time: being = will to power; time = eternal return), and that this suggests he may be reading more than is really there. But considering how cryptic some of the original writings are, he'd almost have to. In his own defense, Heidegger does all his thinking right before our eyes, so to speak, and I'm satisfied that any possible invention on his part is true to the original concepts.

Where this book really shines is in its handling of the eternal return. This is Nietzsche's most troubling idea, and many commentators treat it as mere novelty and move on. I must confess that I used to think it was Nietzsche's Achilles' heel; a sort of personal fancy that he worked into the background for giggles. But Heidegger proves the opposite to be true. It is really the mature fruit of Nietzsche's whole project; and along with the will to power, a truly exciting and profound view of the phenomena of life.