Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Introduction to a Great thinker, December 24, 2003
This review is from: Living with Nietzsche: What the Great "Immoralist" Has to Teach Us (Hardcover)
Nietzsche once stated that there are no facts, but only interpretations. Judging from the volume of tomes written about him over the years, especially in the last 20 years, scholars seem to have taken him literally. There now exist a ton of interpretations, each claiming to reveal the "true" Nietzsche, based on some angle gleaned from his writings. For some0one familiar with Nietzsche, this presents no problem; but for the student coming to read Nietzsche for- the first time, the plethora of various interpretations can be so daunting as to possibly prove discouraging, which would be a great loss, for there is no greater intellectual pleasure than reading Nietzsche. For those who are new to Nietzsche, this is the book for you. Rather than try to determine what Nietzsche is the "true" Nietzsche, Solomon instead looks at the Nietzsche who first appears to in his writings: the Nietzsche of the personal insight, the moralist who wants to give us another way to think about life, especially the inner life. The book most students begin with when encountering Nietzsche is "Thus Spake Zarathustra," a book profoundly about the inner life. The book is also rewarding in that Solomon does not write like an academic, but rather with a free flowing style that captures the reader's attention and draws him to the points about the subject Solomon wishes to make. Solomon loves his subject and that enthusiasm is evident when reading the book, which makes it even harder to put down. While I would strongly recommend this book to those who are new to Nietzsche, I can safely say that even the most well-read Nietzsche follower will find intellectual chestnuts worth the time throughout this volume. I can only say in passing that Solomon is the professor I wish I had when I took my first course on this great thinker.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A major contribution to scholars, students, and general readers, September 4, 2005
This review is from: Living with Nietzsche: What the Great "Immoralist" Has to Teach Us (Hardcover)
What follows are a few excerpts from my review of Solomon's book in the respected philosophical journal Mind (forthcoming):
"Robert Solomon's Living with Nietzsche is a superb book on Nietzsche's ethics. Several reasons support this assessment: First, Solomon brings to center stage Nietzsche's many constructive contributions to ethical theory and practice. Beyond his famous genealogical critique of morality, Nietzsche's primary ethical goal is to transform readers, inspiring them to improve themselves, and Solomon shows how Nietzsche accomplishes this. Second, he evaluates many of Nietzsche's major claims. Too often Nietzsche scholars neglect this task, and they can learn from Solomon's example. Third, although Nietzsche's ethics differs from Kantian and consequentialist moralities, Solomon argues that it contributes to the recently revived Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics. This comparison illuminates both Nietzsche and virtue ethics. Fourth, he provides a balanced and nuanced account of Nietzsche's views that incorporates texts written in all of Nietzsche's periods and styles. Solomon succeeds in finding the right tone to explicate Nietzsche.
The book possesses additional strengths as well. For example, Solomon correctly understands that the key to Nietzsche's preferred virtues is overflowing energy, enthusiasm, and inspiration. Also, Solomon's expertise in the theory of emotions helps him clarify Nietzsche's complex views on this topic. ... Overall, Solomon's book impressively synthesizes a lifetime of writing on Nietzsche's ethics.
Here are a few examples of Solomon's important critical questions. (1) Nietzsche asserts that the fundamental constituent of the psyche is drives, and Solomon argues that this explains both too much and too little. Distinguishing drives from goals can be difficult, and Nietzsche never seriously clarifies how various drives are related to one another or even what the basic ones are. Is the will to power a single drive or a principle by which different drives are related? Nietzsche depicts drives as conflicting, but says little about how such conflicts are resolved. (2) Nietzsche sought to overcome Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the will, but then seems to reintroduce something similar when he postulates the will to power. Even if Nietzsche were to claim that it is an empirical hypothesis rather than a metaphysical postulate, Solomon still has questions: Is it a motive or a goal? Is it the feeling of power or reality of power that is sought? Is its primary referent power over oneself, or is power over others also essential? This vagueness makes Nietzsche's theory difficult to evaluate empirically. (3) Solomon questions whether all aspects of morality derive from resentment and even challenges Nietzsche's claim that resentment is always a corrupt motive. He thinks it can be and has been creative in overcoming oppression."
I am currently writing a book on Nietzsche's ethics myself, and I learned a lot from Solomon's book. I think it is accessible to the general reader and also makes a genuine contribution to Nietzsche scholarship. The writing is lively; the issues are important; and the discussion is valuable.
William R. Schroeder
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
To Live with Passion, December 18, 2008
At the outset of his study "Living with Nietzsche" (2006), the late Robert Solomon (1942 - 2007) offers a telling autobiographical detail that sets the tone for the book. After graduating from college in the 1960s, Solomon entered medical school at the University of Michigan and was unhappy with his studies. He heard the philosopher Frithjof Bergmann lecture on Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence, and this experience changed Solomon's life. "It provoked me into steeling myself with the philosophical resolve to take a close look at my life and my unhappiness and confusion and my larger role in the world." (p. 15) Following the lecture, Solomon withdrew from medical school and began graduate work in philosophy, a decision, he says, he never regretted. Solomon taught continental philosophy at the University of Texas for many years and wrote extensively about Nietzsche, existentialism, and the emotions.
Solomon's anecdote captures many themes of his study. For Solomon, Nietzsche is a thinker concerned with human life rather than abstract ideas. Nietzsche's goal was transformative, both for himself and his readers. He wanted to learn and to teach how to love life and to jar his readers into realizing and pursuing what they found valuable. Nietzsche stressed, against an abstract rationalistic and conformist spirit, the importance of passion - what a person cares about - in pursuing a life of value. He stressed the importance of taking risks and of changing situations that made one unhappy. Thus, as a young man Solomon realized that he did not wish to pursue his medical studies and dedicated himself to the life of philosophy. Solomon also came to reject the initial teaching of Nietzsche that led him to this realization. Solomon came to believe that the doctrine of eternal recurrence, while provocative, was obscure, unnecessary, and likely incorrect. It was a metaphysical teaching that Solomon concluded, after years of reflection, ran counter to what he primarily valued in Nietzsche. So in his book, Solomon takes judicious measure of this great philosopher. He tries to explain what Nietzsche has to teach, while separating out the components of Nietzsche's thought that Solomon finds metaphysical, hyperbolic, or incorrect.
Readers who disapprove of Nietzsche generally stress what they see as the nihilistic component of his thought. They see him as the "immoral, blasphemous, the sacrilegious" (p. 3) denying any form of rationality and any recognition of moral behavior beyond, perhaps, force. Solomon understands Nietzsche as transforming morality by celebrating a life of "rich passions, `deep' emotions, exquisite taste, and a sense of personal elegance and excellence." (P. 4) Thus, Solomon understands Nietzsche as opposed to universalizing tendencies in both metaphysics and ethics. Nietzsche denies any abstract and necessarily binding concept of truth and teaches both naturalism and perspectivism. He rejects both Kantian and utilitarian ethics while arriving at a teaching of the good life that is close, in some respects, to that of the ancient Greek skeptics and to the "virtue" ethics of Aristotle.
Solomon's book is a mixture of a passionate, transformative call to his readers of the type Nietzsche might have approved with detailed, sometimes difficult philosophical analysis. Thus the book will appeal to both the scholar and to those with a new interest in Nietzsche, but it will also frustrate both kinds of readers at times. The chapters remind me of concentric circles, as Solomon continually restates his understanding of Nietzsche with different emphases and at with varying degrees of abstraction. Thus, Solomon begins with an analysis of what he, unhappily, calls Nietzsche's "ad hominem" style of writing. Solomon aptly points out that Nietzsche was interested in what he called the "psychology" of belief. When this psychology was understood, for Nietzsche, abstract philosophical questions of the "rightness" or "wrongness" of certain doctrines would tend to fall away. Nietzsche's psychological approach led him to what is today called perspectivism - the claim that individuals see truth and ethics from their particular place and that if is impossible and undesirable to have an absolute theory of truth or ethics - or any theory at all. Nietzsche then tries to explain how this perspectivist approach does not lead to nihilism but to a revalued ethics and to the development of qualities in individuals that celebrate the place of passion, love, meaning, commitment, and honesty. In the central chapters of his book, Solomon develops a Nietzschean ethic that he compares in detail to Aristotle. In the concluding chapter of his study, Solomon compares Nietzsche to the existentialist thinkers he also admires, including Kierkegaard and Sartre. (Solomon appears to be much less fond of Heidegger). Nietzsche is sometimes distinguished from these thinkers due to his rejection of untrammeled free will, his teaching of amor fati (loving one's destiny), and his stress on character as determinative on one's actions. Besides offering a difficult discussion of the philosophical nature of agency, Solomon tries to show the important place personal responsibility has for Nietzsche, making him closer to Sartre and Kierkegaard than is sometimes realized.
Solomon does not hesitate to criticize Nietzsche or to discuss the many inconsistencies in his thought. Nietzsche was a profound and, provocative, if not always careful and consistent, thinker. Among other things, Solomon questions Nietzsche's teachings of the "will to power" as a metaphysical holdover from Schopenhauer, narrows the focus of Nietzsche's teaching of "resentment" as the basis for common understanding of ethics, takes issue with the spatial and metaphorical description of human passions as "drives", and rejects the confusing and metaphorical distinction between alleged "deep" and "shallow" values or ways of understanding. He explores the tensions between Nietzsche's "blaming" perspective, all-too-common in many people, and his perspectivism, which seems to counsel an approach minimizing the tendency to blame and to criticize others. Solomon sees the important teaching of Nietzsche to lie in the undermining of cant, in recognizing the centrality of a personal approach to philosophy, in the recognition of passion and sexuality, and in Nietzsche's central teaching of learning to love one's life and character.
Robin Friedman
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
