Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human : A Book for Free Spirits (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

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Summary: Here's to Friedrich Nietzsche
Review: "Human All too Human" is the zenith in Nietzsche's philosophy. It doesn't get any better than this, folks. Read this book from cover to cover and you will be amazed, and if you're like me, captivated, by the depth of Nietzsche's thinking. In "Human, All too Human", Nietzsche spills his musings on the State, "Man alone with himself", and the eternal splinter in his brain, religion.

When reading "Human, All too Human", you will recognize Nietzsche's shortcomings. His distrust of women is evident. His insecurity with the rapid advancement of technology and communications in his time clouded his thinking. But we should be forgiving of these errors. Judge not, lest you be judged. Nietzsche, like all of us, was human. He too, like so many of us do, embraced false symbols of power (religion, militarism) in his younger days. He was, after all, the son of a Lutheran clergyman and joined the army as an ambulance orderly during the Franco-Prussian War. Fortunately for posterity, Nietzsche possessed the intellectual fortitude to recognize these errors and bring them to light in his writings.

In "Human, All too Human", Nietzsche proves his remarkable ability to examine mankind like a crude specimen under a microscope. He stumbled along the way, but at least he mustered this courage. Isn't that all we can hope to be in this life? A little more human?

Rating:
Summary: Here's to Friedrich Nietzsche
Review: "Human All too Human" is the zenith in Nietzsche's philosophy. It doesn't get any better than this, folks. Read this book from cover to cover and you will be amazed, and if you're like me, captivated, by the depth of Nietzsche's thinking. In "Human, All too Human", Nietzsche spills his musings on the State, "Man alone with himself", and the eternal splinter in his brain, religion.

When reading "Human, All too Human", you will recognize Nietzsche's shortcomings. His distrust of women is evident. His insecurity with the rapid advancement of technology and communications in his time clouded his thinking. But we should be forgiving of these errors. Judge not, lest you be judged. Nietzsche, like all of us, was human. He too, like so many of us do, embraced false symbols of power (religion, militarism) in his younger days. He was, after all, the son of a Lutheran clergyman and joined the army as an ambulance orderly during the Franco-Prussian War. Fortunately for posterity, Nietzsche possessed the intellectual fortitude to recognize these errors and bring them to light in his writings.

In "Human, All too Human", Nietzsche proves his remarkable ability to examine mankind like a crude specimen under a microscope. He stumbled along the way, but at least he mustered this courage. Isn't that all we can hope to be in this life? A little more human?

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Summary: ". . . must overcome our humanity"
Review: I am a yogi from an educated family, and my parents gave me this book when I was 12. Nietzsche's presentation is typically unsystematic and he was a pioneer ensuring that we could view philosophical beliefs in a non-linear manner. The dichotomy of his unstructured book organization and his clarity and precision of thought create a tension that can break through many Western Black/White, Right/Wrong thought patterns to see deeper truths. When he says "our humanity is to be overcome" - some have used this to justify eugenics, nationalism, and seeing others as "less than." If you read his entire thoughts (get the book!), it is more about overcoming the fragmented aspects of the self that weaken us, so we can be stronger and more pure. This is a spiritual thought from the man heralded as atheistic. Dig deep, and you will find that Nietzsche is beautiful. Yoga community friends - Neitzsche did not justify atrocities. He challenged us to grow and become better than our base qualities. He paved the way for Deserida's gloriously independent thoughts, and was an inspiration for the pop philosopher Ayn Rand's radical worship of the individual over "the masses" (which can be viewed as "cultural conditioning" in our times. This text is applicable to our lives today as the Tao Te Ching. For a completely different perspective (for balance of thought) read about Jainism as well. Then find your truth. Deep wisdom is timeless.

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Summary: Inchoate Nietzsche
Review: If you want to view the beginning of Nietzsche's philosophy, then this is the book to read. The rejection of accepted views of humankind, discovering the motive behind certain ways of being and thinking, are all coming into shape. However, his voice is not fully formed. His tiresome section on morals seems totally derivative/in response to Ree and other aphoristic writers about morals, in finding the motivations behind "moral" behavior.
His ideas were fundamental in modern philosophy. Nietzsche's nihilism is consistently mis-interpreted. Now, people seem to settle for mis-interpretation of Nietzsche and existentialists as totally positivistic. In some sense, rejection of those previously absolute ideas affirm the material world, and human knowledge, continuously refuted by anti-materalist and theological tradition. There was and is a basis for future knowledge, a philosophy not divorced from existential reality.

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Summary: Nietzsche's Coming Of Age
Review: In order to give form to his Overman, Nietzsche had to call to account many human failings and weaknesses, and then reveal their baseness to the world. Nietzsche identified so much that had to be rejected in human life and affairs, (and so much that constituted greatness), which is the reason for the sheer scope of "Human, All Too Human". In 638 short aphorisms it covers politics, warfare, ascetics, morals, art, poetry, marriage, crime & punishment, the soul, and the gamut of human feeling, emotion, motive, instinct, will to power, habit and need.

In Human, All Too Human", Nietzsche outlines the basis of his later, more focused works. It is distinguished from these by its lack of arrogance, lack of aggression and its lack of real direction. Chapters are harnessed together by titles such as "A Look At The State", "Man Alone With Himself", "Signs Of Higher And Lower Culture", Man In Society", and "Woman And Child".

The book was written just after Nietzsche gave up his professors chair at Basel in Switzerland, and around the time of his break from his erstwhile father-figure, Richard Wagner. Nietzsche had now lost the shackles of youth and employment and was at his most free-spirited and this book is testimony to that fact: "Human, All Too Human" is dedicated to deliciously-malicious free-spirits everywhere.

Less intense than some of his later work, this book evokes a walk in the mountains enjoying pleasant conversation with one of the most penetrating and enlightened minds in history. Less intense perhaps, but no less compelling or unsettling.

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Summary: So timely, most of it seems to be about 1999.
Review: In this book, actually an anthology of three books, Nietzsche anticipates and comments upon social, cultural, political and psychological issues most of which are still current and troubling. A central theme is the human tendency to look for comfort, stability, and easy answers. He seemed to foresee that this tendency would become even more maladaptive as the pace of change increased, than it was in his own time. He offers an analysis of its causes, and a treatment, in the form of a relentless series of verbal shock-treatments, delivered in one-half to one page essays. The reader is constantly stimulated to take another look at issues that he thought he had settled.

Another issue for Nietzsche is the examination of the appropriate roles for science and art in human development. Anticipating contemporary thinking,he proposes that the brain has two competing/complementary functions. One, whose main product is science, brings an immediate sense of power to be able to understand what was not understood before, and what is not understood by many others. As an after-effect, however, it brings a sense of despair and depression, that previously-held illusions have been destroyed. The other half of the brain, the artistic sense, which he also calls the will to falsehood (not in a negative sense)presents possibilities, creative syntheses, or holistic images.

For Nietszche,human evolution proceeds by each individual maximizing the potential of each part of his brain, constantly generating new creative ideas, and then subjecting them to relentless analysis and criticism. This is the method Nietszche himself uses. He warns, however, that it requires incredible energy and strength to constantly be aware of and examine one's basic assumptions. Many who try will fall, (as Nietszche himself did) but, anticipating Darwin, he describes a process whereby the strongest, those most capable of enduring physical and psychological adversity, are the ones who survive and pass on the benefits of their growth.

Read this book if you are feeling depressed, read it if you are feeling strong, read it if you are feeling bored, read it if you are feeling overstressed, read it if you want a really good time, read it one page per day, read it all at once, read it in your own way, but my recommendation is READ IT.

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Summary: One of the funnest books ever written
Review: Nietzsche is always fun in all of his writings, and this book is one of his best in this regard. It is better than morning coffee in stimulating the mind, and one cannot read it without frequent chuckles. One can only wonder if Nietzsche would have been as personable in real life as he is in this book. One can say with certainty though that Freud was right in stating that Nietzsche new more about himself than most any other human being...but also, he knew more about other humans than perhaps any other human being. Nietzsche incites the reader to recklessness, and this gives the book its value. Everyone needs free play: a run up the steps of Ephesus. The Nietzschean project of drunken Dionysian ecstacy can be accomplished by the perusal of the written word: this book is ample proof of that.

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Summary: Nietzsche's Free Spirits
Review: Nietzsche is often said to have entered a new period with the publication of Human All Too Human and the book is considerably more positivistic than his earlier writings. It aims at debunking unwarranted assumptions more than at defending a grand interpretation of its own, and it marks the high point of Nietzsche's interest in, and applause for, natural science.

Nietzsche describes what he means by "free spirits" in the preface to the second edition of Human All Too Human. Free spirits contrast with the typical human being of his era, who was, as the title suggests, all too human. Free spirits in contrast, are ideal companions that do not yet exist but may appear in the future. They are those who have freed themselves from the chains of the dominant culture, even from the bonds of reverence for those things they once found most praiseworthy. The dangerous period of the free spirit is introduced by the desire to flee whatever has been one's previous spiritual world, a desire that leads to a reconsideration of matters that previously had been taken for granted. The ultimate aim of this liberation is independent self-mastery and supreme health in a life of continual experimentation and adventure.

Human All Too Human is the first published work in which Nietzsche defends his famed perspectivism, the view that truths are one and all interpretations are thus formulated from particular perspectives. This perspectivism figures importantly in his debunking critique of morality which is first presented in Human All Too Human. Nietzsche denies that morality is anything but perspectival. Contrary to the claims of moralists, morality is not inherent in or determined by reality. It is, in fact, the invention of human beings. Moreover, morality has not been the same in every culture and at every time. Nietzsche explicitly contrasts Christian and Greek moral thought, typically claiming that Greek thought had been vastly superior.

Nietzsche, himself, considered the book a breakthrough because it openly articulated his unconventional conclusions for the first time. It also sealed the break with Richard Wagner, who received the book in silence. Nietzsche also considered himself to have moved far beyond Schopenhauerian metaphysics at this point in his life.

Human All Too Human was also the first of Nietzsche's published aphoristic works, where prior publications had been in the form of essays or similarly structured works.

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Summary: Niezsche as strong as always
Review: This book is good for all of those who have read other of Nietzsche's works, as well as those who wish to start reading him. Nietzsche's ideas behind the concept of free spirits talk about an intellectual elitism which is only to be understood by those who have lived it. A book trully for free spirits, but recommendable for everyone who wishes to reach such a status, or become knowledgeable on Nietzsches ideology.

Most of the ideas on this book prevail up to his latest works, unlike previous essays which are later diminished by Nietzsche himslef. If you like this book read "The day Nietzsche Wept", if you liked that one, read this one. Let us face the truth: Nietzsche is a great thinker, specially for his time.

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Summary: Nietzsche: A Precursor to Existentialism
Review: This is Nietzsche's first, and in some ways the best, philosophy book. Prior to Human All-Too Human, he penned The Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations. But it is only in this book that Nietzsche comes into his own as a philosopher. The book was written soon after his retirement from teaching, due to ill health, and Nietzsche suffered a lot from physical pain, while writing the book, having to take hashish to relieve it. The book contains opinions on almost everything under the Sun. Although it is clearly broken down into distinct chapters, the thoughts within chapters are not arranged systematically. This is intentional and represents Nietzsche mistrust of grand theorizing and excessively systematic thinking. He retained this aphoristic writing style till the last days of his productive life. Thus in his approach, Nietzsche anticipates both existentialism and post-modernism. He views life personally, passionately, and with distrust to grand system(narrative) building. Thoughts slither through the labyrinth of human life, revealing strartling insights and forcing us to reconsider received opinions and conventional wisdoms.

By Nietzsche's standards, the perspectives presented in the book are fairly measured, and the author's voice is not nearly as shrill as it would become ten years later, in his last books. Because Nietzsche settles at a high level of generalization, some opinions do sound narrow-minded and prejudiced. In this, Nietzsche was also a victim of his time and culture: his comments on women and "the youthful Jew of the stock exchange" are not intellectuals gems, to put it very mildly. Some of his other opinions, on marriage, for example, also strike me as strange. Overall, this is a book by an all-too-human philosopher, yet it is a path-breaking work, a precursor to existentialism and post-modernism, written in a style that can appeal to the reader sheerly as good literature.