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Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (Oxford World's Classics) Reissue Edition

by Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), Duncan Large (Author)

4.5 57 ratings

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Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche's own unabashed appraisal of the last work intended to serve as a short introduction to the whole of his philosophy, and the most synoptic of all his books, bristles with a register of vocabulary derived from physiology, pathology, symptomatalogy and medicine. This new translation is supplemented by an introduction and extensive notes, which provide close analysis of a highly condensed work.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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oxford world's classics, literature, novels, myths, celebrated writing

oxford world's classics, OWC, features, leading scholars, literature

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Duncan Large is Lecturer in German at the University of Wales, Swansea.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Reissue edition (February 15, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 124 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 019955496X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199554966
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #119,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3 in European Literature (Books)
- #20 in German Literary Criticism (Books)
- #49 in Philosophy of Good & Evil

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4.5 57 ratings

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D.P.
Wow
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2018
Verified Purchase
I think the strength of this book—compared to Nietzsche’s other works—is that he synthesizes many of his ideas in a way that helps the reader of Nietzsche to examine his thought in a more holistic way. Here Nietzsche also provides many references to how he himself thought of his own writings, and what he was trying to accomplish.

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pmX
Brilliant and readable
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2013
Here is the other half of the book I picked up. I reviewed "The Antichrist" earlier. The works should really be reversed and I think "Idols" should be read first, as it is more broadly founded and one gets the idea that these ideas led to "Antichrist" and not vise versa. About those ideas...

If "The Antichrist" was, at its root, to show the ideas of Christianity as decadence, "Idols" attacks the rest of the pillars. Nietzsche opens with an attack Socrates and continues his idea that dialectics are a Chandala magic trick throughout the work. How he, in one combined work, slays Christ and Socrates, and was not burned as a heretic in his own time is part of his charm. No one was more fearless than Nietzsche.

He has contempt for Jews and Germans alike. He abhors Kant, and Marx and hates Christianity. He systematically (in his way) undermines all that thought and morality rest upon. He knows that what he writes is hard to look at and will (must?) be ignored, but he writes it anyway.

I think one can detect a certain liking or respect or fondness for Schopenhauer, in Nietzsche, at times, but in the end, even he is a decadent fool (and so are you, reader).

Reading Nietzsche is a little like having The Devil over for tea... the conversation is very interesting but one has to be careful with what one does with what one learns. The Nazi's misunderstood Nietzsche and so did Rand. There is danger in these ideas. Nietzsche cannot help but cause one to war with one's own conscience.

Time and time again through these books, I felt like Eve beneath the apple tree. Nietzsche says "don't worry, you remain decadent" but still... The gods of all religions (atheism included) and the philosophers of those religions, speak in riddles and myth; They use the language of symbols.

Nietzsche speaks plainly about truth by saying, essentially, that it does not matter. Rather than challenge us to answer him, or believe him, he just doesn't seem to care.

For me, personally, he pushes the question of materialism far too close for comfort. By this push we come, of course, to atheism, my last frontier and the gate I guard the closest. I don't mean the kind of atheism that non-thinkers or lazy-thinkers arrive at by default or by culture, I mean the kind of systemic atheism that stems from a life of questions and a hard searching for answers.

The trouble I have, and Nietzsche spells it out here, is that one does not come to this kind of systemic atheism and remain an embracer of moral philosophy, unless one is a Chandala destroyer or a decadent fool who embraces decline by closing one's eyes.

Here is a philosopher who needs an answer in the way that Christ or Buddha needed an answer. Anyone want to point me at one, or do I need to write it myself?

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Luc REYNAERT
We immoralists
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2010
This book is one of the greatest, most controversial and in some aspects unacceptable polemic texts of all times. It is a declaration of war against those who `have attempted to make mankind moral by through and trough immoral means' (the theologians and the philosophers of reason).
It had a mighty influence on certain political movements, philosophers (Carl Schmitt) and writers (`l'art pour l'art') all over the world.

Against Christianity (`the greatest misfortune of humanity so far')
The Christian morality is anti-natural, because it is against the body, the senses, the instincts. It is a revolt against life, a negation of the will to live, the very poison of life.
Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman, the theologian, who infects innocence with guilt, who created the `free will', an artifice to give the priests the right to punish. It exploits the weakness of the dying for a rape of the conscience.
It stands or falls with faith in God. But, `is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?'

Against reason
The morality of reason (rationality at any price) suppresses the dark appetite, the instincts, the unconscious.
The world doesn't form a unity, a `spirit' (Hegel), so that nobody is held responsible any longer.

His credo, his heroes
What we need is freedom at all costs, the will to assume responsibility for oneself, the will to live with the manly instincts which delight in war and victory. To be one who spits `on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by Christians, cows, females, Englishmen and other democrats. To be one who is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one's own cause(!)
The free man is a warrior.' His heroes are Julius Caesar and Napoleon.

Influence
The Nazis adopted his racist and eugenic views: if one wants slaves, then one is a fool to educate them to be masters. One should push down degenerating life for the right to be born (forced abortion), to live (forced euthanasia) and to procreate (forced castration).
Carl Schmitt founded his theory of nation building on Nietzsche precept that `the new Reich needs enemies, in opposition alone does it become necessary.'
`L'art pour l'art' `means "The devil take morality! Rather no purpose at all than a moral purpose!'

Unacceptable
Nietzsche was a fundamental anti-democrat. For him, the world is naturally made an ensemble of a few masters and a herd of slaves. For him, `Equal rights' policies are an essential feature of decline. His eugenic propositions are a slap in the face of mankind.
His admiration of war is, today more than ever, an insult of humanity. His heroes, Napoleon and Julius Caesar, were two war criminals.
His misogyny is abject: `the agony of women giving birth must be there eternally'.

With his exceptional polemic talent (`Seneca, the toreador of virtue'; `Lobeck, a worm dried up between books'), Nietzsche wrote a formidable blasphemous text which influenced world's history. It has to be read `critically'.

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Cwn_Annwn
Twilight of the Idols
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2010
This starts off with some almost funny (something even vaguely resembling humor is not something you expect to see in a Nietzsche book) observations from Nietzsche and goes from there into his critiques of Socrates. He later goes into critiques and observations about other philosophers, as well as critiquing Germans and Germany. This book has plenty of what I normally like and dislike about Nietzsche. Dislike, sometimes reading his work is about as exciting as watching paint dry and he comes off personality wise as way too anal retentive, dogmatic to his own worldview and humorless. He reminds me of the current wave of militant atheists. Dogmatic atheism is the trendy new system created religion in case you haven't noticed.

What I like about Nietzsche, the creed of self improvement and the anti-Christianity stuff, is here in abundance. Like in most of his work between pages of boredom you get instances of brilliance such as the following from Twilight of the Idols when talking about what Christianity did to the great "Teutonic Blonde Beast"
he say Christianity made him "sick, miserable, filled with ill-will towards himself, full of hatred for the impulses towards life, full of suspicion of all that was still strong and happy". In other words he lost his healthy Pagan Odinic worldview and became a psychological and spiritual Jew.

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I Be Me
Dodgy translation choices
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2023
Verified Purchase
It says "a new translation" on the cover. It is 25 years old and some terms are completely different from others I've read, which make more sense, and the translator seems unfamiliar with core etymological aspects of Nietzsche's work, to the point that some aphorisms are functionally incoherent.

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