misReading Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche's writing has provoked more argument, confusion, and resistance than almost any philosophy of the last few centuries. He is best known for concepts such as the death of God, the revaluation of values, the will to untruth, and the Übermensch. Critics have often read these ideas as signs that his thought is atheistic, relativist, nihilistic, and immoral. This book asks whether those readings are fair. It takes seriously Nietzsche's own claims, drawn from Beyond Good and Evil, that he wrote in order to hide his real views and that profound thinkers favor masks. If so, his boldest statements may be disguises that conceal a deeper philosophy and a hidden truth.

The author proposes that the common interpretations of Nietzsche may themselves be misreadings, because his texts seem designed to be unclear, misleading, and veiled. Rather than settling the question, the volume rereads Nietzsche with attention to both what his work reveals and what it conceals. It digs into the texts to dispute older misreadings and to open the way for new ones, following the invitation the work itself appears to extend.