The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism

by Bernard Reginster

Among all the great thinkers of the past two hundred years, Nietzsche continues to occupy a special place--not only for a broad range of academics but also for members of a wider public, who find some of their most pressing existential concerns addressed in his works. Central among these concerns is the question of the meaning of a life characterized by inescapable suffering, at a time when the traditional responses inspired by Christianity are increasingly losing their credibility. While most recent studies of Nietzsche's works have lost sight of this fundamental issue, Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life brings it sharply into focus.

Reginster identifies overcoming nihilism as a central objective of Nietzsche's philosophical project, and shows how this concern systematically animates all of his main ideas. In particular, Reginster's work develops an original and elegant interpretation of the will to power, which convincingly explains how Nietzsche uses this doctrine to mount a critique of the dominant Christian values, to overcome the nihilistic despair they produce, and to determine the conditions of a new affirmation of life. Thus, Reginster attributes to Nietzsche a compelling substantive ethical outlook based on the notions of challenge and creativity--an outlook that involves a radical reevaluation of the role and significance of suffering in human existence.

Replete with deeply original insights on many familiar--and frequently misunderstood--Nietzschean concepts, Reginster's book will be essential to anyone approaching this towering figure of Western intellectual history.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2006

Reviews

[Joshua Nomen-Mutatio · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? O my friends, then you have said Yes too to all woe. All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored; if ever you wanted one thing twice, if ever you said, "You please me, happiness! Abide moment!" then you wanted all back. All anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored--oh then you loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore; and to woe too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants--eternity."

— Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None)

This is the best overall take on Nietzsche I've seen yet. It focuses on the aspect of his work that I was most drawn to when first really getting into it and would continue to exalt above all else to this day: a deep affirmation of existence.

This book is very carefully laid out, well-argued, insightful, evenhanded and corrects many extremely common mischaracterizations of Nietzsche's central themes.

I wouldn't recommend this to newcomers, unless they have a penchant for reading serious scholarly analysis generally and have at least some primer on Nietzsche under their belt already. This isn't to say this book is dry or overly technical, rather it's just extremely thorough in its argumentative rigor and references nearly all of the work which comprises Nietzsche's corpus, including rarely published notes and correspondence.

So the execution is skillful and thorough beyond a doubt, but the really satisfying element of this book for me is the overarching programme of its focus on Nietzsche's emotionally resonant struggle with and promotion of a clear-eyed, intrepid affirmation ("Yes-saying") of the mere fact that one is permitted to exist--finding a way to embrace the humdrum miracle (a phrase of my own that I like) of life as much as possible, in the face of pain and under the ubiquitous threat of its loss.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite movies “They Might Be Giants” from 1971 has this quote in it: “Dear friends, would those of you who know what this is all about please raise your hands? I think if God is dead, he laughed himself to death. Because, you see, we live in Eden. Genesis has got it all wrong. We never left the Garden. Look about you. This is paradise. It's hard to find, I, I'll grant you, but it is here. Under our feet, beneath the surface, all around us is everything we want. The earth is shining under the soot. We are all fools. Ha ha. Moriarty has made fools of all of us. But together, you and I, tonight... we'll bring him down”.

That quote captures better than anything I could say that this author is trying to say about Nietzsche. Nietzsche hasn’t killed God, he just recognizes that we need to determine how to live as if there was no God and Nietzsche will say we need to affirm life and its every moment as if we are to have an eternal recurrence for every moment and that without an affirmation of the now and embracing our intuitions, instinct and passion we would be no better than those who outsource their truth to a book, a religion, or a self-appointed authority. To reevaluate all values, we must have values in the first place, and the Priest have inverted the prioritization of the meaningful values by misdirection and Nietzsche pleads that we return them back to where they belong, through will-to-power.

Schopenhauer wants us to say no to everything, Nietzsche wants us to say yes, while affirming life and existence. Experience that actively engages interpretation forcing us to see beyond Truth (Plato), Struggle (Spinoza), Life (Schopenhauer), leading to a will-to-power (Nietzsche), that’s the opposite of Nihilism, that forces us to get off that couch and think and be and to become.

Without a competitor there is no growth, without a goal worth struggling for we will always just be and never become. Nietzsche does flirt with proto-fascism, and seeks an Uber mensch for us to sublimate ourselves into such that we get off our couches and stop eating potato chips while we’re watching TV and checking our twitter feed.

A single aphorism from Nietzsche is more powerful than most books and always has hidden layers. “Only an Englishman strives for happiness.” Happiness is not the goal, nor is well-being. Our real value and goal is to determine our own goals and values and that is at the heart of the meaning for will-to-power. It is not about control or domination; it is about our own self-actualization. The projection of our always becoming into what we ‘care’ (Heidegger’s word) about, or to live authentically (regretfully for Heidegger, to live authentically was to live as a Nazi).

This book was a fun read and sees Nietzsche through Schopenhauer and shows how Nietzsche inverts him and puts his own unique spin on the meaning of life. Nietzsche writes better than any philosopher (except for Kierkegaard) but one must put all of his books together before understanding that he is coherent and books like this one takes the pieces spread over all his books and add the structure that makes sense out of the whole.

As the movie quote says above: we never left the Garden and God is laughing at us because we are in the garden of Eden and it is for us to realize that when God is Dead it is our turn to find meaning and values and that is the greatest gift.

[Arjun Ravichandran · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know why, for such a radical thinker who surged with creative energy and was resolutely opposed to any sort of philosophical methodology, Nietzsche attracts the most boring of interpreters. The book is dense and filled with jargon ; I don't mind this if the jargon is due to legitimate complexity of the concepts. But this book just bears the hallmark of bad and obscure writing. There is too much waffling and unnecessary repetition. A few of the points were interesting ; but I would not recommend it.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nietzsche's esoteric works lend themselves to enough misinterpretation and confusion that one should never turn down a chance to get clarification. This is a good book for that purpose

Bernard Reginster's 290 pages include a useful 20-page introduction and a surprisingly interesting footnote section at the end, also about 20 pages. The four chapters, or sections, of the book concentrate on Nietzsche's ethics.

Reginster emphasizes Nietzsche's two unprecedented contributions to ethics: the Will to Power and the Revaluation of Values. While referring to the interpretations other philosophers have given to Nietzsche's writings, his own focus is the context in which Nietzsche developed his ethics; for example, the importance of understanding Schopenhauer as the wall against which Nietzsche butts his head.

This context explains a lot: the source of modern moral despair, the emergence of nihilism from the ethics of compassion, and other modern ideas that Nietzsche took on. It gives meaning to the idea of becoming as a more important moral concept than being. It emphasizes Nietzsche's thought as a mindset rather than a morality, an appeal to the presumed facts of human nature, albeit from a masculine point of view. And it explains in detail the vital role of overcoming for Nietzsche's world view.

Nietzsche could easily be the philosopher of professional sports in the capitalist world if the people in sports cared one whit about philosophy in the first place. But the author takes time to explain many of the more cruel epigrams Nietzsche wrote -- the ones about the weak -- not to explain them away, but to give them an interesting and plausible context that doesn't come across in Nietzsche's own writing. The picture of Nietzsche that evolves in this book is that of a thinker more concerned with man's salvation right here on earth, not in some beyond; a philosopher trying single-handedly to reverse the damage inflicted on the human mind by what he saw as his century's bad philosophy added to two millenia of awful moral capitulation.

Reginster corrects much of what he considers the common misconstrual of Nietzsche's concepts and propositions. The author is clear and he makes the subject interesting. But however much Nietzsche may have been misunderstood, there can be no doubt as to the soil in which his philosophy found fertile ground. It's nice of Reginster to try to fix that.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

As suggested by the title of the book, Reginster considers Nitzsche’s biggest crisis as nihilism. And the way to overcome it is by affirming life, regardless of any absolute and objective meaning of life, which, according to Reginster, is Nietzsche’s biggest philosophical achievement.

Reginster takes a systematic approach to Nietzsche’s works and the book brings out two major theses: (1) a systematic view of Nietzsche’s account on affirming life, and (2) a project of a revaluation of values, which is a positive account of ethics.

Chapter One: Nihilism

First, one must ask the question on whether life does have meaning, if life is worth living at all. Second, to have a life worth living is to have goals. Goals are meant to realize state of affairs; values are meant to give a reason on why a state of affairs is worthy to bring about. Achieving certain goals is a necessary condition of the realization of values. Thus, if something is an unattainable goals, then it is also an unrealizable value. Third, goals should inspire an agent to go on (continue?) living. This all depends on how the agent sees the value of the goal and whether the goal is realizable.

So how does nihilism fit in? It is when the values of those goals become devalued, or when those goals are unrealizable. Reginster brings up two types of nihilism. The first is nihilistic disorientation: we can never have access to objective facts about value, and this is a major loss. In this, it may be better that the world did not exist, since we cannot realize these values. This can lead to the second type of nihilism: nihilistic despair, which is that our highest values cannot be realized, and therefore our values are unattainable. Since this is a limitation for everyone, life in general is meaningless. Thus, the world we live in cannot give us a route toward the highest values, no matter how we change the world or ourselves. Through this, life can have meaning only if the agent can see that the goal has value, and that the goal is realizable.

So what are some possibilities for nihilism? One is the death of God. This is saying that the belief in God has been discredited; the belief in God is no longer taken seriously. The metaphysical belief in God is discredited.

Discussion Question: could this still be considered some type of agnosticism? After all, the entity God could still exist, but one no longer needs to believe in it.
If having God out of the picture leads to nihilism, then the presence of God at least represents a necessary condition for the possible realization of our highest values. However, Nietzsche imagines that the death of God could give one “a kind of light, happiness, relief, exhilaration, encouragement, dawn.” Thus, the death of God is not a logical necessity to bring about the highest values, but only a psychological necessity.

There is another worry about life-negating value in that they intend to condemn life. Nietzsche considers all of morality life negating. Reginster puts it: “[morality was] invented in order to condemn life in this world” (46). If life needs growth and power, then any sort of values that gets us away from that (such as meekness and compassion into virtues) is life-negating because they not only undermine life, but they bring life down. Two of these ideas is Platonism and Christianity because they condemn life by denying life on earth, but also bringing our current life to a declination.

Thus, nihilism comes about because of two premises: the death of God (our highest values cannot be realized), and the negation of life (by endorsing life-negating values). Since Nietzsche adheres to the first premise, he questions the second.

Chapter Two: Overcoming Disorientation

The point of this chapter is to consider the metaethical form of devaluation. Reginster examines four claims to do so: first, the authority of the highest values depends on a special kind of standing; second, these values are found to lack special standing; third, because of this, our existence seems meaningless because we no longer have values by the light of which we can evaluate it; and fourth, this type of nihilism is only a transitional stage.
Values have an external origin when they are metaphysically independent of the contingent aspects of the agent’s will. If the value is objective, then any rational agent is bound by it. The nihilist has a huge assumption then, that there are values from the outside, by some superhuman authority. This is what Reginster calls normative objectivism: “the normative authority of a value depends upon its objective standing” (58). Descriptive objectivism, on the other hand, is the view that there actually are objective values. Normative objectivism and rejecting descriptive objectivism entails nihilism. Reginster regards Nietzsche as rejecting of descriptive objectivism. The way to do this is to show how one can evaluate, in which there are two versions.
The first is normative subjectivism. This position holds that there are no objective normative facts in the world. In order to appeal to the nihilist, one cannot use any argumentation or demonstrations because these are objective normative facts. Thus, one must use a type of seduction to win over the nihilist. Reginster suggests that Nietzsche uses such a method to win over the nihilist.

To evaluate life is to always take on a perspective and these perspectives are shaped by affects reflecting a certain physiological condition. Thus, all evaluation necessarily takes place from the perspective of life. By doing so, one cannot look “from the outside” and try to evaluate life itself. The normative objectivist would find this quite disorienting because it cannot give him an objective point of view to establish the meaning of one’s life. Yet, Nietzsche rejects this picture of disorientation because this presupposes our self as a rational, deliberate agent that transcends our contingent perspectives. On the contrary, we cannot escape our contingent moral evaluations because they in fact shape our identities.

Another account is what Reginster calls normative fictionalism: pretend that objective values do exist. It is close to an error-theory of value. We do not need value judgments to be true; we only need to take them as being true. But why? In a narrow sense, weak individuals need their values to be objective. They need this to convince others, mainly the strong, to take on these values (such as benevolence). This will not convince the strong unless the weak can present some authoritative meaning behind the value that should override the feelings of the strong. In a broad sense, everyone needs to take on some sort of objective values if they are to be useful.

Discussion Question: wouldn’t normative fictionalism be a form of bad faith, or some type of self-deception?
We can avert disorientation by asking what the meaning is behind evaluation itself. Reginster states that Nietzsche mainly got this from Schopenhauer where Schopenhauer argued that something is good “if it favors the satisfaction of our desires and bad if it impedes it” (99). This may solve the problem of disorientation, but we still have the problem of despair. For that, we need a different kind of revaluation that is not metaethical, but substantive where it critically engages with the actual content of the life-negating values. Thus, the remainder of the book to devoted to the substantive ethical thought of Nietzsche. And the basis of this is going to be the will to power. To persuade the audience either through normative or seductive force.

Chapter Three: The Will to Power

How do we interpret the will to power? One interpretation is that Nietzsche remarks that the world is nothing but the will to power. Reginster disregards this by saying that it is “just another instance of the wild-eye speculation not untypical in nineteenth-century German metaphysics, which simply does not merit serious attention” (104). Another interpretation is that it is a form of domination or control. Yet this leads to disturbing conclusions. Another interpretation is to say that it is meant for self-control, or to control particular drives, or a way to develop a certain capacity. Reginster argues that all of these previous interpretations are in error because “[t]hey take a common, indeed perhaps inevitable, by-product or consequence of the pursuit of the will to power to be what the will to power consists of” (105). HERE, REGINSTER OFFERS AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF SCHOPENHAUER WHICH I’M GOING TO SKIP.
Reginster looks at five various theories arguing that they all fail and offers his own view on what is the will to power. The first view of the will to power is that power is reduced to drives. This fails because this makes the will to power indistinguishable to other drives, but Nietzsche does distinguish it from other drives.

The second view is that the will to power is a drive among many drives. This fails because Nietzsche emphasizes this drive to a privileged position. Why focus on this particular drive if it is just one drive among many?

The third view, developed by Clark, is that the will to power as a second-order desire capability to satisfy either another second-order desire or a first-order desire. This fails because Nietzsche insists that the will to power is an indefinite striving, or some perpetual growth. Clarks account, on the other hand could, in principle, entail one to reach that point where our will to power is completely fulfilled. Also, this does not specifically give us a new ethics.

The fourth view is that power is an end of each drive. So power is not a means to achieve a specific end; rather, it is the end of each drive whereby achievement is merely a means. This fails because it becomes difficult to see how power could be characterized if it is not referenced by another drive and their specific ends. If all ends aim toward power, then power is a condition whose determinate content must be describable, but without any reference to it. It is difficult to see what power consists of, or what the recipient of power is.

Finally, the fifth view from John Richardson is that “the will to power designates something about the manner in which it pursues its specific end” (129). A drive can will power as the development of that end, in which the drive consists mastery over other drives. In other words, each drive wills power and each drive has its own specific end. The mastering drives integrates other mastered drives to pursue an end. This fails because Nietzsche explicitly states that the will to power actually seeks resistance. If each drive is striving to become the master drive, then any pursuit of desire means that one should be prepared to overcome any resistance, but not deliberately seeking resistance. Any resistance, on Richardson’s view, is an instrumental requirement.

Thus, Reginster’s view is that “the will to power is the will to the overcoming of resistance” (131-132). With this definition, power is in and of itself devoid of any determinate content. It can only gain a determinate content from its relation to some determinate desire or drive. Reginster considers the will to power as unsatisfiable unless the agent has a desire for something else besides power. It has a structure of a second-order desire in which the object is a first-order desire. Specifically, it is a desire for the overcoming of resistance in the pursuit of some determinate first-order desire. Ultimately, his answer is that the will to power is the will to overcoming resistance.

Discussion Question: this sounds very similar to Frankfurt’s position. How is this any different? Is the Last Man what Frankfurt considers “a wonton?”
This is not will to happiness, meaning that one wills to come to a state where resistance has been overcome (where the desires have been satisfied). This would be more like a Schopenhauerian view. This also does not mean a will to resistance because there is no growth unless this striving was successful. The will to power is fully an activity of overcoming resistance.

There is an interesting paradox about the will to power. Nietzsche remarks that humans do not really seek pleasure. What they really want is power meaning that they seek resistance. Thus, the will to power, which is what Reginster has cashed out as the will to the overcoming of resistance, must necessarily also will the resistance to overcome. Since the will to power is the will to overcoming resistance, the agent must also desire some determinate end. However, through willing power, the agent must also desire resistance. The paradox is that the agent who wills power must want both the determinate end and resistance to their realization. Reginster gives an example of an athlete who wants to win the game, but also wants resistance to win the game by having strong opponents challenging the athlete. Thus, the will is not satisfied unless it is dissatisfied–by having opponents and resistance. And yet, there is an overcoming aspect. The will to power is not satisfied unless: one, there is a first-order desire for a determinate end; two, there is resistance to the realization of this determinate end; and three, there is actual success in overcoming this resistance. Thus, “if we value the overcoming of resistance, then we must also value the resistance that is an ingredient of it. Since suffering is defined by resistance, we must also value suffering” (177).

This also means to not be completely satisfied with achieving that determinate end. The pursuit of power is a cycle of “creation” and “destruction” meaning that one does not destroy what one has created or loved, but to “overcome” what one has loved or created. Since this is an activity, pursuing power is not about achievements, but more on achieving. The challenges need to be greater, fresh, and newer. This produces a growth, a self-overcoming, where the individual can outdo oneself without any permanent satisfaction.

Chapter Four: Overcoming Despair

If overcoming resistance is valuable, then the difficulty of achievement contributes to its value. Anything considered easy has lesser value simply because of it being easily accessible. The ethics of power suggests that challenges, resistance, and overcoming the resistance is what gives something more value.

In revaluating all values then, Reginster claims that Nietzsche argues against compassion, suggesting that it is not good for the agent and for the object (which is another agent). But why? To be clear, Nietzsche is not against all compassion, but just the type that are based on altruistic grounds. Thus, it can be good for the agent and is valuable, but this is dependent upon the character of the agent. So what kind of compassion is Nietzsche against? It is the type that sees suffering as an evil, a defect, where one cannot achieve greatness.

Discussion Question: can one be compassionate without resorting to some sort of alleviation of suffering? Would this still be called “compassion”?
For Reginster, correct compassion is where there “is not the elimination of suffering, but it is the ‘enhancement of man’ brought on by ‘creative power and an artistic conscience,’ which require ‘the discipline of suffering’” (187). This suggests that happiness is some type of enhancement. Thus, the proper response of compassion is not toward those who are suffering, but to those who are not suffering, mainly because they are not achieving greatness; they are leading comfortable lives. “The lack of suffering…implies the lack of true happiness” (187). Now if suffering is the key to greatness, and this deals with the revaluation of values, then any creative moment must involve suffering. “If creativity is a paradigmatic instance of the will to power, then suffering, in the form of resistance, proves to be an essential ingredient of creativity” (194). Interestingly, this form of ethics requires suffering and not an evil, but part of the good. Happiness requires a constant overcoming of resistance, and not a stable satisfaction. Happiness is essentially an activity, a feeling of power, and not a state.

Chapter Five: The Eternal Recurrence

The purpose of the eternal recurrence is a thought experiment to see if one is life-affirming or life-negating. Reginster makes a distinction between the theoretical role (being aware that one’s life will occur again) and the practical role (which is the attitude of affirmation). Reginster’s position is that the eternal recurrence is a practical role. But first, he wants to look at other interpretations and show they they are flawed.

The first view is that this is taken literally as a cosmological account. Reginster discounts this saying that it is flawed, and that Nietzsche only presented this cosmological account in his unpublished notes. But more than that, Nietzsche considers this idea to be radically new. But this idea is not new. It has been advocated by other philosophers that had influenced Nietzsche. Thus, the newness that Nietzsche proclaimed must not be a cosmological account.

The second view is that the eternal recurrence suggests the futility of choice, which is championed by Löwith. Löwith views this as a way to renounce one’s will because we are fated to live our life in the same way. To affirm our life is to not have any regrets about it, which essentially means to not realize new goals (because one is fated not to), but it is to renounce these goals. This position assumes metaphysical fatalism. However, Nietzsche’s revaluation of values is to take on new values. It may be pointless to pursue certain goals and projects if this account is correct, but it is not groundless nor does this entail to be indifferent about the goals and projects themselves. Thus, Reginster argues that the eternal recurrence does not imply any metaphysical fatalism. Indeed, it may still be up to me which life I live. But the affirmation of life is to love it, to say yes to life–not renouncing life, which includes the suffering that comes with it.

The third view is that the eternal recurrence suggests the importance of choice, which is championed by Soll. Soll argues that this is meant to see how our choices have huge significance. If the world is to return again and again for eternity, the decisions I make now will have “the greatest weight” because I will have to (re-)live with the consequences for eternity. Making a good choice is beneficial since one will have good consequences. Regrettable choices leads to despair since one will have bad consequences. Reginster, however, argues that the new iteration of coming back would not be the same person. This new individual in the next cycles is a twin, a Dopplegänger, but not the same individual.

To read the rest, go to: http://shaunmiller.wordpress.com/2012...

[Anmol · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult, technical analysis of some central concepts from Nietzsche’s mature work (will to power, eternal recurrence, amor fati), borrowing heavily from his unpublished notes (posthumously published under the title The Will to Power). I think Reginster is right that Nietzsche considered “the affirmation of life” his primary goal as a philosopher and what sets him apart from previous philosophy. This book is interesting because it is philosophical, rather than solely exegetical – Reginster is often thinking out loud on what Nietzsche says, and isn’t always concerned with what Nietzsche exactly said. This should be a model for how to do history of philosophy texts: think with the author, don’t just tell us what the author thought. That being said, this often makes Reginster very difficult to read.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult read for me, partly because Nietzsche’s philosophy is rather difficult and partly because the tone of the book is very dry and academic. Nevertheless, I found it rewarding, as the author explains Nietzsche’s concepts in a more readily digestible form than what the mustachioed madman himself served up for the delectation of everyone and no one. The basic gist of it is that Nietzsche was trying to come up with a new value system for a post-Christian world based on his conception of the “will to power” that drives us to seek new challenges to overcome and prevents us from ever being truly content. In his view, the key to happiness is to embrace the joy you feel when you overcome your challenges and also to embrace whatever pain and suffering may be involved in the process (where he parts company with Schopenhauer). To live your life fully, you should embrace each moment, both the pleasant ones and the painful ones, so much that you would be willing to have every one of them recur an infinite number of times in exactly the same way. Though I’ll never be a full-fledged Nietzschean (it’s a boys only club), some of his ideas are compelling.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent work of scholarship on Nietzsche. It argues, correctly in my view, against over-hyped claims that Nietzsche is purposely anti-systematic thinker to show that the problem of nihilism is the central issue in his philosophy and that he presents a systematic response to it. Register displays a command of Nietzsche's writings to develop and defend his view. Along the way the discusses a variety of key themes in Nietzsche's philosophy including nihilism, self-overcoming/self-creation, the will to power, willing, and the re-evaluation of values. The book will be of interest not only to academics and non-specialists alike.

[Haris Tzerefos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very illuminating book to make sense of some of the more important ideas of Nietzsche like the will to power. Moreover, it clarifies greatly Nietzsche's main goals by putting them into the presented perspective- the problem of the affirmation of life.

[Matthew Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reginster is a rich and subtle reader of Nietzsche. I particularly appreciate his passages on Nietzsche's concept of happiness as being active (creativity's overcoming of resistance) rather than a state of contentment. There's much to ponder there for a society massing luxuries while gobbling anti-depressants.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good amount to engage and disagree with here, especially on the issue of Nietzsche's meta-ethics. Nevertheless, anyone interested in Nietzsche should read Reginster's chapter on the will to power.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible analysis of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Renders most difficult concepts clearly and argues his own positions methodically. Good introduction to anyone who is unsure about key ideas in Nietzsche and a great tool for anyone already exposed to his works but who desires further elucidation.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm almost finished this. All of my concerns about Nihilism and Nietzsche are laid out bare in this work.

[Artem Matviienko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of those who feel attracted by Nietzsche's philosophy often find it somewhat difficult to defend against well-rooted and structured traditional values (e.g. Christian, moral, liberal, collective) and major philosophical systems supporting them. In fact, it seems to be a challenging task seeing his writings as compilations of separate poetic unsystematic notes while Nietzsche himself is percieved as an opponent of any possible schemes and structures.
In that sense, this book is very helpful as it attempts to organize non-structured Nietzschean philosophy into something coherent and interconnected around the central pillar which is the "Revaluation of old values, mainly revaluation of suffering under the principle of the will to power". In my view, the author has reached his goal.
This book can be a very useful foundation for those who start and continue to explore the works of the great philosopher.

[Dylan (Khanh) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insanely readable and lucid. Highly recommended for anyone who want to get into the finer details of N’s philosophy and view on Nihilism. Can be technical and prosaic at some points if you are not versed in analytic philosophy, but the level of details and clarity here is worth it.
Content-wise, the only downside here is that Reginster’s account of N’s Nihilism is somewhat dated (this book was published in 2006). Nonetheless, this book is still quintessential in Nietzsche studies.

[Roy Kenagy]

CITED IN THIS LIFE

[London Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

In which the author recasts Nietzsche as an existentialist philosopher. Somewhat reaching, but amazingly good.

[Peter Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read on a suggestion.

Great book.

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is very helpful for those who want a deeper understanding of nietzsche and his work/ideas. reginster takes the stance that nietzsche's main philosophical project was the affirmation of life and avoidance of nihilism. taking the whole of nietzsche's body of works, those published during and after his life, and couching the analysis through much of schopenhauer's philosophy (who was very influencial on nietzsche), reginster accounts for nietzsche's claims about the sources of nihilism - the death of god, the belief in god, certain highest values that are held, and how these entail nihilism. (e.g. to claim that life is meaningless unless god exists is to hold a certain premise, normative objectivism, as being true. normative objectivism is the claim that a value's normative authority, or worth as a value, depends upon its objective standing. there is no normative reason we should hold normative objectivism as true, so we can revaluate values in terms of other propositions. this is getting a little bit ahead.) nihilism, according to reginster, comes in two forms, disorientation and despair. disorientation comes when we sense that there is no objective standing for our values, and despair is when we sense the unrealizability of the values we hold. this takes certain twists and turns, and in the end, nietzsche offers a way out of all this by the revaluation of suffering in human existence and the revaluation of values in terms of the will to power, which reginster defines as the striving to overcome resistance directed toward some determinate end. overall, this book is loyal to the ideas of nietzsche and what he wanted to accomplish (at least, loyal to what i sense when i read nietzsche). it offers a valid and cogent (perhaps sound) and understandable account of a philosophy that is very difficult to understand. it obviously gets deeper and more involved than what's been written above, and reginster does account, at least in part, for the main philosophical ideas that nietzsche had, e.g. perspectivism, the eternal recurrence, uebermensch, decadence and ressentiment, the origin of morality through ressentiment, the differing physiological conditions of people and what role this plays in their acceptance of certain truths, what truths they will want to accept, etc... nietzsche, on this account, comes out as an ethical elitist, which doesn't sound unfair, and overall reginster does a wonderful job of explaining and explicating the ideas of one of the most seminal figures in western philosophical thought.

[Alastor Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very insightful and convincing examination of Nietzsche's perspectives on life, morality, and creativity. A bit problematic in its reliance on Will to Power (which is a mock-up book, nothing N ever planned to publish), and it (like most critical accounts) overstates the importance of many of N's nostrums. But still very interesting.

[Alexander]

I don't know Nietzsche well enough to have views about a lot of Reginster's central claims, but I found the book extremely helpful and illuminating.