Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series) - Softcover

Strathern, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1566631211 ISBN 13: 9781566631211

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, 1996

Synopsis

In Nietzsche in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Nietzsche's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Nietzsche's work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Nietzsche within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Strathern was born in London in 1940. He studied physics, chemistry, and math at Trinity College, Dublin, before switching to philosophy. He is the author of several novels, including A Season in Abyssinia, which won a Somerset Maugham prize, and two highly successful series of short introductory books, Philosophers in 90 Minutes and The Big Idea: Scientists Who Changed the World. Paul Strathern lectures in philosophy and science at Kingston University.

From the Back Cover

In earlier centuries philosophy had been dangerous for philosophers; with Friedrich Nietzsche it becomes dangerous for everyone. Nietzsche ended up by going mad, but his ideas presaged a collective madness which was to have horrific consequences in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. His philosophy is one of aphorisms and penetrating psychological insights, not a system. But it is as brilliant, persuasive, and incisive as any before or since. His major concept is the Will to Power, which he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Christianity he saw as a subtle perversion of this concept - thus Nietzsche's famous pronouncement, "God is dead". In Nietzsche in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Nietzsche's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Nietzsche's work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Nietzsche within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

Reviews

Strathern, a graduate of Dublin's Trinity College, has lectured in philosophy and mathematics and written history, travel literature, and fiction. His attempt to provide the reader with accessible guidance to the ideas of a half dozen great names in the canon of Western philosophy fails on all counts except readability. The time given in the title for each presentation is about three times that even the least-informed reader might require, for these books are nothing but outlines. Half of each volume highlights the more peculiar details of the individual philosopher's personal life, with passing remarks about one or two substantive ideas from his work. The remaining pages include surprisingly brief quotations from the works (an epigraphic style suitable to presenting a sample of Nietzsche's writing but hardly appropriate to Kant's), chronologies (including one five-page "Philosophical Dates" that is repeated in each tiny volume), and a suggestion of four or five books for further reading. The intended audience for this series is unclear as there is too little substance to provide either the sort of introduction offered by such competing works as the Writers and Readers's illustrated series "For Beginners" (e.g., Robert Cavalier's Plato for Beginners, 1990) or critical understanding of difficult concepts as Frederick Copleston and William Jones have achieved in their histories of Western thought (e.g., Copleston's A History of Philosophy, 1985). Strathern's publisher promises more than a dozen future volumes in this series but, given the severe limitations of the first six under review here, it is not possible to recommend that we look forward to them.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566631211
• ISBN 13: 9781566631211
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 85