A Beginner's Guide to Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

1. Background.

Life of Nietzsche.

Nineteenth-century Europe.

Romanticism and German Idealism.

Pessimism.

German Politics.

The Text.

2. Explanation and Summary of Main Arguments.

Introduction.

Preface.

Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers.

Part Two: The Free Spirit.

Part Three: The Religious Nature.

Part Four: Maxims and Interludes.

Part Five: On the Natural History of Morals.

Part Six: We Scholars.

Part Seven: Our Virtues.

Part Eight: Peoples and Fatherlands.

Part Nine: What is Noble?.

From High Mountains: Epode.

3.Critical Themes.

Introduction.

Reality, Truth, and Philosophical Prejudice.

Philosophical Prejudice.

1 The will to truth.

2 Faith in antithetical values.

3 Distinction between appearance and reality.

4 Atomism.

5 Teleological explanation.

6 Immediate certainty.

7 Causa Sui.

8 Reification.

Nietzsche’s Anti-Realism.

God, Religion, and the Saint.

The question of God’s existence.

Religious neurosis and the saint.

Beyond pessimism: the Übermensch and the eternal return.

Morality, Ressentiment, and the Will to Power.

Ethical naturalism.

A natural history of morality.

Ressentiment.

Will to power.

Appendix: Overview of Beyond Good and Evil.

Notes.

Glossary.

Bibliography and Suggested Reading.

Notes.

Index