Friedrich Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Böse ed. by Marcus Andreas Born (review)

It is definitely a welcome contribution to Nietzsche scholarship that a volume on Beyond Good and Evil has been published in the German series Klassiker Auslegen, established by Ottfried Höffe. The series aims at providing cooperative commentaries by leading scholars in the field on the most important works in the history of philosophy. As with the other “classics” that have been covered, the order of contributions follows the order of the original publication; in the case of Beyond Good and Evil, there is one contribution for each of the nine chapters (or “Hauptstücke”), plus one contribution each analyzing the “preface” and “aftersong” and a general introduction by the editor. All the contributions aim at careful exegesis of the original texts as well as at new interpretations of its content. These provide not only a valuable introduction for students, but also cutting-edge research for professional scholars.

Beyond Good and Evil is arguably Nietzsche’s most important philosophical work. In addition to being a tour de force of his critique of metaphysics, religion, morality, modern scholarship, and even politics, it is also his most programmatic text, as it points toward an “oppositional type, which is as little modern as possible” (EH “Books”; BGE 2; all translations are my own). Yet, as much as the book critiques traditional ways of thinking and valuing, the promise for this type made in its subtitle, “a prelude to a philosophy of the future,” does not seem to be kept. Often, only the last aphorisms in a chapter contain an emphatic outburst to those who allegedly prepare, are, or will be future kinds of philosophers. Their true identity, however, remains largely concealed. In the introduction, Marcus Andreas Born also acknowledges that the subtitle raises the question whether Beyond Good and Evil is indeed a prelude to such a philosophy. He states that the “beyond” in the main title denotes a position that is outside our moral understanding to which we are nevertheless bound. Therefore “BGE is carried by a struggle for a standpoint beyond the prevailing moralities, but at the same time, however, it does not conceal the limits of its own enterprise” (7). In other words, the book is limited in its aim at describing something extraordinary by the mere, ordinary language available to us. It is important to note that many of the ideas developed in Beyond Good and Evil are generated in front of the backdrop of Nietzsche’s critique. The argumentative limitations are therefore not merely acknowledged by Nietzsche in the text, but are implemented into the composition by means of exposing and problematizing the different philosophical perspectives. Born finds that the perspectives that Nietzsche expounds offer resolution to the struggle and allow us to pursue the question as to how far Beyond Good and Evil “indeed presents a philosophy of the future or only offers prospect to such an option” (8). Perspectivism, not only as a theory, but as rhetorical practice, is embedded into the writing of Beyond Good and Evil. The truths presented in each aphorism are not universal but determined by a specific view. And Born sees that the appeal to critique is ushered in precisely by the contradictory character of these truths. The reader thus finds himself in a position not merely to understand the arguments stated but to conceive ideas that develop from his critique and begin where the author leaves off. Beyond Good and Evil can thus be seen as a book that encourages a certain creativity of mind, one that treats thought as something that is drawn or painted rather than disclosed or discovered (BGE 296).

While all of the contributions to the volume have their merits and in some way or another provide a valuable means of inquiry into Nietzsche’s philosophy, I treat only those that, in my view, contribute most to the question of what a philosophy of the future may...