This book presents a provocative new interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil, arguably Nietzsche’s most important work. The problem is that it appears to express merely a loosely connected set of often questionable opinions. Can Nietzsche really be an important philosopher if this is his most important book? Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick address this question with a close reading that emphasizes how Nietzsche writes. They argue that the first part of Beyond Good and Evil presents coherent and interconnected arguments for subtle and well-thought-out positions on traditional issues. Nietzsche’s infamous doctrine of the will to power turns out to be a compelling account of the structure and origin of the human soul. And although he rejects some aspects of traditional philosophy, Nietzsche’s aim is to show how philosophy’s traditional aspirations to seek both the true and the good can be fulfilled. Beyond Good and Evil turns out to be a major work of philosophy and Nietzsche’s masterpiece.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This long-awaited book will be essential reading for Nietzsche scholars. It is of particular interest as the first philosophically substantial challenge to the reading of Nietzsche as a philosophical naturalist, a reading that now dominates Anglophone Nietzsche studies and is increasingly influential internationally.” Brian Leiter, University of Chicago
“This is a groundbreaking work that promises to revolutionize the field of Nietzsche studies by getting scholars to focus on Nietzsche’s account of the normative domain and to consider how that account sits with his naturalism.” Ken Gemes, Birkbeck, University of London, and the New College of the Humanities
“Clark and Dudrick give us a Nietzsche who is a philosopher through and through: engaged with science, worried as much by the a priori as by reductive empiricism, and whose version of the human self challenges the best contemporary accounts.” Barbara Herman, University of California, Los Angeles
“This book should be included in any serious Nietzsche scholar’s library and would be an effective secondary reading source for a class focusing on his work … Recommended.” R. E. Kraft, Choice
“Anyone engaged in Nietzsche studies at any level should surely read [this book] carefully and seriously. It is a significant addition to the current state of the field and perhaps the single strongest response to the naturalist reading of Nietzsche available today.” Michael Rogers, Theologische Literatureitung
“… rich and densely argued … if you see Nietzsche as an advocate of naturalism and empiricism and wish to maintain a picture of Nietzsche’s thought, at least in Beyond Good and Evil, as a coherent whole, then this is as sophisticated and rigorous a work as one will find.” Robert Guay, Foucault Studies
Book Description
This book presents a provocative new interpretation of what is arguably Nietzsche’s most important and most difficult work, Beyond Good and Evil.
About the Author
Maudemarie Clark is Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Riverside and George Carleton, Jr Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University. She is the author of Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1990), translator and editor (with Alan Swensen) of On the Genealogy of Morality (1998) and editor (with Brian Leiter) of Daybreak (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
David Dudrick is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University. His work has appeared in the European Journal of Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly and International Studies in Philosophy.
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