Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) challenged the long-held view that philosophy rests on reason and truth, and his ideas helped shape the radical currents of twentieth-century Western thought that followed his death. Later thinkers have built on, reworked and restated his arguments, yet none has managed to move beyond them, which is why anyone studying philosophy still needs to engage with his life and writing. Rüdiger Safranski, a biographer known for his studies of Heidegger and Schopenhauer, weaves philosophical analysis together with the events of Nietzsche's life. He presents a man who was difficult and often full of contradictions, and he does so with a measured, fair-minded tone.

Safranski takes as his starting point Nietzsche's claim that thinking is tested in lived experience. The book examines how Nietzsche's personal circumstances and his philosophical work bear on one another, and it treats his project as an exploration of the inner world of human beings, which Nietzsche regarded as the most important task a thinker could take on.

The book suits readers who want to understand Nietzsche's ideas in relation to the life that produced them, whether they are students of philosophy or general readers interested in intellectual biography. It was originally written in German.