Responding to the powerful myths and countermyths
that had sprung up around Nietzsche, Kaufmann offered
a patient, evenhanded account of his life and works,
and of the uses and abuses to which subsequent generations
had put his ideas. Without ignoring or downplaying the
ugliness of many of Nietzsche's proclamations, he set
them in the context of his work as a whole and of the
counterexamples yielded by a responsible reading of his
books. More positively, he presented Nietzsche's ideas
about power as one of the great accomplishments of modern
philosophy, arguing that his conception of the "will to
power" was not a crude apology for ruthless self-assertion
but must be linked to Nietzsche's equally profound ideas
about sublimation. He also presented Nietzsche as a pioneer
of modern psychology and argued that a key to understanding
his overall philosophy is to see it as a reaction against Christianity.

Many scholars in the past half century have taken issue
with some of Kaufmann's interpretations, but the book ranks
as one of the most influential accounts ever written of any
major Western thinker.

Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
By: Walter Kaufmann
ISBN13: 9780691019833
Format: PDF
Language: EN
Pages: 553