Living with Nietzsche: What the Great "Immoralist" Has to Teach Us

About this book

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most popular and controversial philosophers of the last 150 years. Narcissistic idiosyncratic hyperbolic irreverent--never has a philosopher been appropriated deconstructed and scrutinized by such a disparate array of groups movements and schools of thought. Adored by many for his passionate ideas and iconoclastic style he is also vilified for his lack of rigor apparent cruelty and disdain for moral decency. In Living with Nietzsche Solomon suggests that we read Nietzsche from a very different point of view as a provocative writer who means to transform the way we view our lives. This means taking Nietzsche personally. Rather than focus on the "true" Nietzsche or trying to determine "what Nietzsche really meant" by his seemingly random and often contradictory pronouncements about "the Big Questions" of philosophy Solomon reminds us that Nietzsche is not a philosopher of abstract ideas but rather of the dazzling personal insight the provocative challenge the incisive personal probe. He does not try to reveal the eternal verities but he does powerfully affect his readers goading them to see themselves in new and different ways. It is Nietzsches compelling invitation to self-scrutiny that fascinates us engages us and guides us to a "rich inner life." Ultimately Solomon argues Nietzsche is an example as well as a promulgator of "passionate inwardness " a life distinguished by its rich passions exquisite taste and a sense of personal elegance and excellence.