Product Description

A landmark discussion between two great thinkers, vital to an understanding of twentieth-century philosophy and intellectual history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #390496 in Books
• Published on: 1991-03-01
• Released on: 1991-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review
"A major contribution to our understanding of each of these thinkers." -- --Booklist

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

From the Publisher
A landmark discussion between two great thinkers, vital to an understanding of twentieth-century philosophy and intellectual history.

Customer Reviews

Mesmerizing and Meditative; The Mind of Heidegger
.
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 This, along with Kaufmann's personal encounters with Heidegger, in which Heidegger claimed to have unpublished writings incapable of adequate translation and explanation in his possession, esoteric information, an obvious manifestation of a prideful and arrogant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

Brilliant
Martin Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche represent the most penetrating and thoughtful inquiries in all of Nietzsche scholarship. This volume contains Volume I: The Will to Power as Art, and Volume II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Heidegger was the first thinker to repudiate the common view that Nietzsche's doctrine of 'Eternal Return' was a mere curiosity-a mythological playing that detracted from his 'serious' political ideas regarding will to power. Heidegger reorients our understanding of Nietzsche back to the eternal recurrence of the same, and argues that it is both the central idea of Nietzsche's philosophy as well as the grounding principle of will to power. Heidegger's work on the doctrine of eternal return are practically incomparable in terms of their rigor and creativity. He has successfully placed Nietzsche's work as the total overcoming of Platonism and as the consummation of Western Metaphysics. A true tour de force of philosophical inquiry.

Excellent Book
Having taken a class on Nietzsche at DePaul University with D.F. Krell, I highly suggest this book as it helped me keep up with his class. This book was not the topic of discussion in the class, but the book added more color to the class for me.

D.F. Krell provides wonderful insights in his essary in this collection and he provides a wonderful translation.

If you would like to dig deeper in Nietzsche's past, I suggest reading D.F. Krell's book "The Good European" as this is a

very beautiful book and well written!