Nietzsche, the heavily mustachioed romanticized supreme philosopher, as famous for his insanity as for his ideas, has been cast in many molds. Some, like the ones cast by the Nazis and his Sister, were discarded as gross misunderstandings. Others, such as Walter Kaufmann's seminal commentary, show slight patination but nonetheless retain glints of original luster. Today, a virtual forest of Nietzsche exegesis has sprung. Books galore. Keeping track of these multitudinous and ever expanding interpretations would occupy a warehouse of intellectuals indefinitely. Curious readers, especially those with no philosophical background, will need more than machetes to hack through this dense verbiage. In fact, newcomers may actually have an easier time reading Nietzsche's own words than reading much of the vast secondary literature dedicated to his oeuvre.
"Nietzsche: A Guide for the Perplexed," despite its title, will challenge, and maybe frustrate, beginners and those with little or no knowledge of philosophy. As such, it would probably not serve as a good first introduction to Nietzsche. The book does make explicit mention of its intended demographic: "the advanced undergraduate, early graduate and educated lay reader." "Educated" should read "educated in Anglo-American philosophy." Those who don't fit in one of those categories should look elsewhere. Those with the requisite background will find a challenging and rewarding examination of one of history's most important thinkers.
The majority of this book casts Nietzsche in an analytic mold. Following an amazing delineation of Nietzsche's works and a mesmerizing reflection on nihilism and "the death of God," the major themes get put through the analytic filter. Anyone well versed in American or English academic philosophy will recognize the method. For example, the famous "will to power" gets decomposed into its constiuent linguistic elements, with references to the original German: "macht" (power) carries a sense of "make"; "wollen" can imply "want." A thick analysis follows, passing through Hume, psychology, biology, ability, Schopenhauer, and more, that results in the final interpretation of "will to power" as "creative transformation."
Concerning the "eternal recurrence," the book argues that Nietzsche sought to metaphysically justify the doctrine. In other words, it represented more than a mere "thought experiment." The term "enlightened empiricism" gets applied to Nietzsche's perceived epistemology. Opposite to a disinterested, detached, distant view of an object of knowledge, pespectivism adds a multiplicity of experiential knowledge that represents a thing from a variety of viewpoints. Via this interpretation, Nietzsche stands in an empirical tradition that culminates with Quine.
On morality the book delves into his notion of "nobility" (which relates to "The Overman") and anti-egalitarianist thought. Today, very few would classify Nietzsche as a political liberal. He believed in individual "greatness," as opposed to "herd mediocrity," that likely remains accessible only to a few. Moral genealogy, one of his most famous conceptions, flies in the face of "moral facts." One can "dig" into the foundations of a moral claim and find human all too human concerns, not eternal Platonic moral Forms. He uses this method to examine the origin of master/slave morality. The master comes to see the subjugated slave as "subhuman" while the slave brands the master as wicked, base, and evil. Nietzsche sees Christianity as such a "slave morality" and thus subverts human greatness. At some point in history, the slaves sold their morality to the masters. Weakness, according to Nietzsche, prevailed. The book, following pages of rigorous analysis, argues that these claims remain hopelessly speculative.
A final section dramatically changes focus to Continental Philosophy. Here Nietzsche gets cast in the molds of Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze. Heidegger of course represents a challenge for even seasoned philosophers and this section spends a lot of time delineating his views for the purpose of delineating Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche. The book doesn't seem to find any of these Continental perspectives very convincing, particularly Derrida's psychoanalytic approach or Deleuze's characterization of Nietzsche as a response to Hegel. Given the incessant warring and name calling between analytics and Continentals, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Only Foucault escapes with some affirmations, though limited to his late "genealogical" work. Nonetheless, these sections introduce each thinker in a brief and accessible manner.
"Nietzsche: A Guide for the Perplexed" ultimately represents an intermediate/advanced introduction to a particular way of concieving of Nietzsche's thought. At times the square peg round hole syndrome seems to creep in, but these moments pass. In the end, the analytic method demonstrates one way to interpret Nietzsche. And not the only way. Readers must decide whether this method is the best or most felicitous interpretive method in this case. This book provides a great starting point for such a venture.
