Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer

by Nietzsche, Friedrich; Large, Duncan

• ISBN13: 9780192831385
• ISBN10: 0192831380
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-06-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

'Anyone who wants to gain a quick idea of how before me everything was topsy-turvy should make a start with this work. That which is called idol on the title-page is quite simply that which was called truth hitherto. Twilight of the Idols - in plain words: the old truth is coming to an end...' Nietzsche intended Twilight of the Idols to serve as a short introduction to his philosophy, and as a result it is the most synoptic of all his books. Continuing in the spirit of its immediate predecessors On The Genealogy of Morals and The Wagner Case, it is a masterpiece of polemic, targeting notonly 'eternal idols' like Socratic rationality and Christian morality but also their contemporary counterparts, as Nietzsche the 'untimely man' goes roaming in the gloaming of nineteenth-century European culture. He allies philosophy with psychology and physiology, relentlessly diagnozing thesymptoms of decadence, and his stylistic virtuosity is such that the sheer delight he takes in his 'demonic' mischief-making communicates itself on every page. A brilliant new translation, this edition provides detailed commentary on a highly condensed and allusive work.

Author Biography

Duncan Large is Lecturer in German at the University of Wales, Swansea.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	vii	(2)
Introduction	ix	(28)
Note on the Translation	xxxvii	(1)
Select Bibliography	xxxviii	(2)
A Chronology of Friedrich Nietzsche	xl
TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
Foreword	3	(2)
I. Maxims and Barbs	5	(6)
II. The Problem of Socrates	11	(5)
III. `Reason' in Philosophy	16	(4)
IV. How the `Real World' Finally Became a Fable	20	(1)
V. Morality as Anti-Nature	21	(5)
VI. The Four Great Errors	26	(7)
VII. The `Improvers' of Humanity	33	(4)
VIII. What the Germans Lack	37	(6)
IX. Reconnaissance Raids of an Untimely Man	43	(33)
X. What I Owe the Ancients	76	(6)
XI. The Hammer Speaks	82	(1)
Explanatory Notes	83	(29)
Index	112