Living with Nietzsche What the Great "Immoralist" Has to Teach Us [Paperback]

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most popular and controversial philosophers of the last 150 years. Narcissistic, idiosyncratic, hyperbolic, irreverent--never has a philosopher been appropriated, deconstructed, and scrutinized by such a disparate array of groups, movements, and schools of thought. Adored by many for his passionate ideas and iconoclastic style, he is also vilified for his lack of rigor, apparent cruelty, and disdain for moral decency.
InLiving with Nietzsche, Solomon suggests that we read Nietzsche from a very different point of view, as a provocative writer who means to transform the way we view our lives. This means taking Nietzschepersonally. Rather than focus on the true Nietzsche or trying to determine what Nietzsche really meant by his seemingly random and often contradictory pronouncements about the Big Questions of philosophy, Solomon reminds us that Nietzsche is not a philosopher of abstract ideas but rather of the dazzling personal insight, the provocative challenge, the incisive personal probe. He does not try to reveal the eternal verities but he does powerfully affect his readers, goading them to see themselves in new and different ways. It is Nietzsche's compelling invitation to self-scrutiny that fascinates us, engages us, and guides us to a rich inner life. Ultimately, Solomon argues, Nietzsche is an example as well as a promulgator of passionate inwardness, a life distinguished by its rich passions, exquisite taste, and a sense of personal elegance and excellence.

Introduction: Living with Nietzsche
1. Nietzsche ad Hominem
2. Nietzsche's Moral Perspectivism
3. Nietzsche's Passions
4. Nietzsche on Resentment, Love, and Pity
5. Nietzsche's Affirmative Ethics
6. Nietzsche's Virtues: What Would He Make of Us?
7. Nietzsche's Existentialism
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

This book reflects Solomon's long engagelƒË