Beyond Good and Evil: Nietzsche and the Great War (2019)
Comments
asgasG
mykowebhn
Right. From a philosophical pov, you could say Nietzsche is quite mid. I agree he seems popular among the angry non-philosophers who want to attach themselves to pseudo-philosophies in order to help them further their agendas. Ah, Nietzsche, you've become such a tool (pun intended).
mykowebhn
Before I really started studying philosophy, I was still interested in philosophy, but as a novice. During this time, Nietzsche was my favorite philosopher and I read several of his books. I also read a lot of literature, and Nietzsche figured in a lot of the literary texts I enjoyed.
Now that I've read a lot more philosophical texts, I realize that both of the big philosophical camps--Anglo-American Analytic Philosophy and Continental Philosophy--rarely mention Nietzsche. Nietzsche seems to be the philosopher that non-philosophers turn to and often cite.
keiferski
Nietzsche is referenced constantly:
https://philpapers.org/asearch.pl?strict=1&searchStr=Nietzsc...
Also, some pretty substantial continental philosophers wrote about Nietzsche. Heidegger wrote a ton about him. Foucault used his genealogical method. Deleuze, Derrida, etc. all wrote a lot.
Heck, half of the big Continental names wrote books on Nietzsche:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche_and_Philosophy
https://sunypress.edu/Books/O/On-Nietzsche
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo276199...
Analytic philosophy indeed didn't write much about Nietzsche, but I don't know why they would have. Very different subject matter and style.
mikert89
I had a similar experience, but I think a lot of other modern philosophy is really pedantic and builds upon a thousand years of writings. So its very hard to follow without proper academic study or understanding what its in response to.
Nietzsche has paragraphs that could be studied and independently thought about without even reading the rest of the book/chapter. You can crack open beyond good and evil and just start reading a random page.
I still would argue his thought is far more groundbreaking than any contemporaries
pglevy
> paragraphs that could be studied and independently
Yes, but after reading BGE, I felt like I had to read all his other books to really understand what he was saying (and others too, Kant, Spinoza, etc). And then re-read BGE.
Also Walter Kauffman's on him is very good. Working through that now.
chermi
1) not true 2) guilt by association? A lot of non-physicists talk about Einstein. I still take his work very seriously.
junior44660
But Nietzsche has more impact on minds of people. In 100 years I am sure Bronze Age Pervert will be seen as more influential than some random philosophist from random university.
mykowebhn
I agree with you. My point is that Nietzsche is not really taken seriously as a philosopher by philosophers (someone included a link to philpapers.org and all I saw were various editions of books written BY Nietzsche, I'm not sure what their point was with that link). Is he widely read by non-philosophers and has he had an impact with this same group? I think he has.
If people really are interested in philosophy, I strongly suggest studying the more "classical" philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Frege, Husserl, Heidegger, etc. Nietzsche's writings I would label more as literature and not philosophy. When I reread BGE, standing on its own I find it entertaining, but his readings and understanding of past philosophers were quite wrong.
Anecdotally, in my eight years of studying texts with people who are professional philosophers and meeting regularly with them in discussions, I would say Nietzsche's name was mentioned maybe twice, and both times by individuals who were quite new to philosophy.
phainopepla2
I think he's probably seen as more influential now, given that it's widely believed that he's been read by nearly all of the young staffers in the Trump admin.
(Hate to have to add this caveat and acquiesce to the Reddit-ification of HN, but: caveat lector, the above statement is not an endorsement)
chermi
I'm not sure I understand your point? Are you trying to equate the two without saying it directly?
junior44660
He will be seen more like Evola than Nietzsche. So not an exact parallel.
cmrdporcupine
I mean, when I studied continental philosophy in the 90s, there was plenty of Nietzsche discussed. But I'd say, perhaps, more in his influence elsewhere than as primary text. E.g. I did a term studying Heidegger and Nietzsche played into that. Same prof had a 4th year class purely about Nietzsche. (What a great prof, too, my daughter is going to the same school starting next week and I really wish he hadn't retired...)
I do think that maybe more recent work in continental schools (perhaps rightly) de-emphasize him as part of a larger turn away from the "postmodern" more broadly vs what was trendy in the 90s.
senderista
I think Nietszche's anti-egalitarianism makes many otherwise sympathetic modern readers deeply uncomfortable.
Nietzsche is one of the least popular or influential philosophers in post war Germany. You can say it is for the same reasons that Dix finally abandoned him.
I don't think he is very deep. He is popular now among the alt-right because he thought Christianity was perverted because it glorified the weak instead of the strong.
Hegseth though is hiding on a military base instead of being at the front, so I guess he is weak ...
No one reads "Also sprach Zarathustra" in Germany. It is only famous because of Richard Staruss' symphonic poem, which ties into the point that others made: Nietzsche had various influences, but should not be used for policy decisions. Which is probably the reason this Dix article was published during the first Trump years.