Nietzsche
gives a page-long retrospective on this work in part III of Ecce Homo.
1.
Note from section 8 of his preface that Nietzsche does not intend for reading
this work to be an easy matter.
First Essay: " ‘Good and Evil’ and ‘Good and Bad’ "
2.
As the title of the first essay indicates, its main point is to distinguish
between seeing the world as consisting of good and evil (which is symptomatic
of weak morality) and seeing it as consisting of good and bad (which is a sign
of strength). The difference is more complicated, however, than merely that the
weak and strong utilize different moral concepts for the non-good. What is the
further complication? (Only upon seeing this will you understand the difference
Nietzsche is trying to describe between the weak and the strong.)
3.
How do you think Nietzsche would answer the following objection to his
genealogical account: "If the so-called slaves were able to overthrow the
so-called nobles, then wouldn’t that mean that the so-called slaves were
actually strong? And that the so-called nobles were actually weak?" In
other words, is Nietzsche advocating a moral relativism or nihilism of
"Might makes right"?
4.
An important notion in the first essay is ressentiment. Nietzsche’s use
of the French here is discussed by Kaufmann, referred to in his footnote to
I.10.
5.
See anything in here that the Nazis could have used? Do you think that Nazi
propagandists who employed citations to Nietzsche to support their cause were using
or misusing Nietzsche?
Third Essay: "What
Is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?"
6.
Use the following to help you organize the topics of the third essay.
section 1 -- introduction
sections 2-6 -- the ascetic ideal in art
sections 7-10 -- the ascetic ideal in philosophy
sections 11-22 -- the purest example of the ascetic ideal: the ascetic priest
sections 23-28 -- the pernicious ubiquity of the ascetic ideal (in science,
history, and even atheism)
7.
Given what else Nietzsche has said earlier (especially in I.7 and I.16), how
can he consistently say "all honor to the Old Testament!"?
8.
Is the solution to this surprise the same solution as for how, given what
Nietzsche has said about priests as haters (for example, I.10), he can now
write, "this ascetic priest, this apparent enemy of life, this denierprecisely he is among the greatest conserving
and yescreating forces of life"? Is he now
relegating his first essay to the realm of mere appearance?
9.
In sections 17 and 18, Nietzsche describes three strategies used by the ascetic
priests to combat people’s world-weariness. Be able to articulate and
differentiate the three. (Nietzsche summarizes them in section 19.)
10.
Be able to say what Nietzsche means by his statement "man would rather will nothingness than not
will." (For those keeping score, "lieber
will noch der Mensch das Nichts
wollen als nicht wollen.")
11.
Then, of course, be able to say whether or not you
think Nietzsche is correct. And even if he is correct, is there room to agree
with him about this and yet disagree with the moral implications which
Nietzsche himself draws from this claim?
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