"Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German
philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of
Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the
enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity,
power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in
a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of
“life-affirmation,” which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that
drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might
be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers
along with Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Nietzsche's revitalizing philosophy
has inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural life, including dancers,
poets, novelists, painters, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and social
revolutionaries."
- Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) influence on the present age is all pervasive. In 1955, Martin Heidegger wrote, it is “Nietzsche, in whose light and shadow all of us today, with our ‘for him’ or ‘against him’ are thinking and writing…” This is even more evident today. Stanley Rosen has called him the most influential philosopher in the western world; and for Charles Taylor, all contemporary philosophy is neo-Nietzschean.
This influence is reflected in the enormous secondary literature about Nietzsche. The International Nietzsche Bibliography, published in 1968, listed over 4,500 entries in 27 languages; since then more than 3,000 books on Nietzsche have been published. The Weimarer Nietzsche-Bibliographie, published 2000-2002, includes over 20,000 entries in 42 languages.
Initially, Nietzsche’s influence was primarily literary and
artistic. Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse, André Gide, William Butler Yeats, Rainer
Maria Rilke, George Bernard Shaw, Eugene O’Neill, August Strindberg, to name but
a few, were all influenced by him. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud admired him.
Freud stated “that he had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any man
who ever lived or was likely to live.” And Freud stopped reading him because he
feared Nietzsche had anticipated many of his own ideas. Interest in Nietzsche as
a philosopher, however, only became widespread after World War II. Although
important works about him were published in the thirties by the German
philosophers Karl Jaspers, Max Scheler, and Karl Löwith, their influence was
limited by the rise of Nazism. It was Martin Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche
from the 1930’s and 1940’s, but published only in 1961, that was decisive in
developing interest in Nietzsche as a philosopher. Heidegger's interpretation
shaped the image of Nietzsche in Europe until the 1970’s, when it was challenged
in France in what has become known as “the new Nietzsche” or “the French
Nietzsche.” Like Heidegger in Europe, Walter Kaufman’s interpretation of
Nietzsche, in "Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist" (1950), as well
as his many translations of Nietzsche, and their accompanying introductions and
commentary, determined how Nietzsche was understood in North America up to the
1970’s."
- Nietzsche: A Selected Annotated
Bibliography. From the New York Public Library.
"Christianity as antiquity.-- When we hear
the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really
possible! This, for a Jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was
God's son? The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian
religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory; and
the fact that the claim is believed - whereas one is otherwise so strict in
examining pretensions - is perhaps the most ancient piece of this heritage. A
god who begets children with a mortal woman; a sage who bids men work no more,
have no more courts, but look for the signs of the impending end of the world; a
justice that accepts the innocent as a vicarious sacrifice; someone who orders
his disciples to drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins
perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of a beyond to which death
is the portal; the form of the cross as a symbol in a time that no longer knows
the function and ignominy of the cross -- how ghoulishly all this touches us, as
if from the tomb of a primeval past! Can one believe that such things are
still believed?"
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, S. 405, Translated by
R. J. Hollingdale. I
share many of Nietzsche's views on Judeo-Christian-Moslem beliefs.
Free Thought, Atheism, Secularism, Humanism: A Brief Bibliography, Links, Resources
Perspectivism
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Michael P. Garofalo, A Brief Biography
Green Way Research, Red Bluff, California
This webpage was last modified and updated on May 25, 2016.
This webpage was first distributed online on February 10, 2016.
Index to A Philosopher's Notebooks
By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated and Edited, with Commentaries by Walter Kaufmann. New York,
Modern Library, 1966, 1968. Indexes pp 804-845, 845 pages.
ISBN: B00E28VDX0 for the 1996 Edition, with and introduction by Peter Gay.
I use the 1968 version.
This text includes: The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the
Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, Ecce Homo, and Aphorisms.
Each book has an introduction. Includes biographical notes.
Separate indexes for each book. I use a Modern Library hardbound 1968
version of this work, and the very inexpensive Kindle E-book version, VSCL.
By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated with a commentary by Walter
Kaufmann. New York, A Vintage Original 1966. Index, 256 pages.
ISBN: 394703375. VSCL.
By 
By Walter Kaufmann. Princeton University Press, 1950, 4th Edition, 1975.
552 pages. ISBN: 9780691019833. VSCL.
By R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge University Press, 2nd Edition, 2001.
Index, bibliography, 270 pages. ISBN: 9780521002950. VSCL. 
A Polemic by Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated, with introduction and
notes by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J.
Swensen. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1998. Index, 177 pages. ISBN:
978-0872202832. VSCL. 
By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York,
Penguin Books, 1977. 704 pages. ISBN: 9780140150629.
Includes the complete and unabridged translations of: Twilight of the Idols,
The Antichrist, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Thus Spoke Zarathurstra.
Extensive quotations from other works and his letters. VSCL (Kindle
E-Book Version). 
By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated by Walter Kauffman. Penguin
Books, 1954, 1978. 327 pages. ISBN: 0140047484. VSCL.
By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J.
Hollingdale. Edited with commentary by Walter Kaufmann. New
York, Vintage Books, Random House, 1967. Index, 575 pages. ISBN:
394704371. VSCL. 
