A study of Nietzsche
"Whether we are to regard Friedrich Nietzsche as a philosopher, a cultural critic, and 'amoralist' or a pre-fascist ideologist, it is certain that his work is one of the main sources of twentieth-century western thought. Formulations such as 'God is dead' or 'the world is the product of the will to power and nothing else besides', and Nietzsche's belief that true value lies in a morality of strenuousness have become part of the experience of our age. His aim is to unmask what he considered the intellectual self-deception of his time and to create a new rejuvenating mythology. His assault on the abstraction and over-systematization of traditional philosophy resulted in a body of writing - much of it published posthumously - which is unsystematic and often contradictory, yet all unmistakably characterized by his philosophical imaginativeness. J. P. Stern's new study offers a careful exegesis of what Nietzsche said and a critical assessment of its importance. In a series of analyses of Nietzsche's 'philosophical experiments' Professor Stern unwinds the many strands of the work - the moral-existential, the religious, the linguistic, the aesthetic - and shows how they all interweave in a single, powerful philosophical enterprise: The enhancement of man in Nietzsche's time and ours. The means to this end Nietzsche saw as the pursuit of truth in all its uncompromising harshness and essential relativity. Stern also considers the political implications of the writings in the light of later developments in German history; he includes a detailed survey of Nietzsche's life; and he contrasts Nietzsche's achievement with that of Marx and Freud as the two thinkers who were to exercise a comparable influence in the twentieth century. This is the only full-scale study of Nietzsche's philosophy which takes issue with the language and literary forms in which his writings are cast. It will provide an exhilarating introduction for those who are unfamiliar with or only beginning to explore the writings of this most vibrant and paradoxical of writers. In addition the book will offer new insights for those who find in the work of Nietzsche an enduring source of fascination and stimulation." -- Book jacket.