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The Will to Power: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Kathleen M. Higgins, Robert C. Solomon
- Series: The Great Courses: Modern Philosophy
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Lecture
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Philosophy
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Publisher's Summary
Who was Friedrich Nietzsche? This lonely and chronically ill, yet passionate, daring, and complex man is perhaps the most mysterious and least understood of all contemporary philosophers. Why are his brilliant insights so relevant for today? How did he become the most misinterpreted and unfairly maligned intellectual figure of the last two centuries?
To provide shape to Nietzsche's thought, each of these 24 lectures focuses on specific ideas that preoccupied Nietzsche while tracing the profound themes that give meaning to his work. You'll get a chance to put Nietzsche's life and work in a larger historical and philosophical context. You'll explore the controversial philosopher's subtle, complex critique of both religious belief and Greek rationalism.
You'll also spend a wealth of time focusing on Nietzsche's famous writing style, which deftly combines the majesty of the prophet, the force of the Homeric warrior, and the lyricism of the poet - but which nonetheless is rife with inconsistencies, exaggerations, and personal attacks. And you'll get a better understanding of Nietzsche's complaints and criticisms of the intellectual currents of his time: Christian moralism, evolution, socialism, democracy, and nationalism.
As you make your way through these lectures, you'll discover that Nietzsche, even at his most polemical and offensive, exudes an unmistakable enthusiasm and love of life. In fact, you'll see that his exhortation to learn to love and accept one's own life, to make it better by becoming who one really is, forms the project that is the true core of his work.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
What listeners say about The Will to Power: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 2019-10-21
It’s a lecture
Great for while doing dishes or laundry. There is no better time to have an existential crisis.
4 people found this helpful
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- brady
- 2018-09-25
A Will to Listen
This book seems like a good intro in everything Nietzsche. First book I read on him and I found the instructors did a good job giving the essence of him in a way I could understand.
I also liked the format of 30 min lectures. It allows for each lecture to convey one topic about Nietzsche/his philosophy without overwhelming you.
3 people found this helpful
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- Reg Piper
- 2018-08-05
Perfect For Newer Philosophy Fans
I bought a couple Nietzsche books in the past; but this was way more digestable.
3 people found this helpful
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- Mark F Sperring
- 2021-11-18
an armchair intellectual's view
Great overview and it has given me a good foundation to Nietzsche's life and writings. It is their interpretation, but for me it seems thorough enough I can rely on it for my understanding. By having two presenters it helps round that out a bit as well.
The only complaint I had about the performance seems petty but I did find it distracting at times. The female presenter had a click sound at the end of a sentence. I suspect it is hardly noticeable in person but I think being audio only, it was more apparent. Maybe it could have been fixed in post or still could be for future. Not a deal breaker by any means just a shame as she gives a good balance to the topic.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2021-08-31
bias saturated
the author(s) used the book as a platform to shoehorn in their Christian messages and they should be ashamed to call this a work of philosophy
1 person found this helpful
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- Hamed Soltani
- 2021-04-09
worst "Great Courses" performance, good material!
I have listened to many great courses series on variety of topics and so far this has been the worst performance. I have not finished the whole series yet but the performance bothered me so much that I had to come and leave a review. The couple who have written and narrated the series have so many hiccups, mistakes and that it makes it so hard to follow the lecture, specially such topics which require uoir absolute attention. Even the tone, speed and the volume of their voices varies through out the lectures and even how they switch from one speaker to another is not very smooth and planned properly.
I was really looking forward to this series and expected a high quality material and performance and I am pretty disappointed.
With regards to the material, since Neitzsche is absolutely interesting and has many material to talk about the content is great, but I find that the lecturers whom have called themselves Neitzache scholars and confessed to be in love with him, are completely biased about his personality and work. Through out the lectures they try to defend him on all of the attacks and accusations that has been made against him in any possible way.
They do try to explain him by speaking about his background, work and life, but I find it very biased and contradictory to Neitzsche's works and essence which is spoken of in this series.
1 person found this helpful
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- Evan Goodwin
- 2018-08-18
Great listening in the car.
Excellent explanations, an engaging exploration of Nietzsche. Robert and Kathleen are articulate thinkers that are pleasant to listen to.
1 person found this helpful
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- Daniel Hutchings
- 2021-02-10
High points with an extremely disappointing ending
There were certainly high points in this series of lectures in the areas of Nietzsche’s immoralism, master and slave morality and resentment and justice.
HOWEVER
In the very last lecture on the eternal recurrence, was was absolutely mortified that the lecturers had missed the most important aspect of this theory/thought experiment, and consequently the pinnacle of Nietzsche’s thought. The value of the concept of eternal recurrence is NOT some thin vague “what you leave behind after death” notion as was presented here. The true value of the concept of the eternal recurrence is it’s psychological value for this life as it is lived. The person that can will that everything that has happened and ever will happen will happen again and again eternally is the strongest and most flourishing person in all of humanity. This is the person that has truly wrestled the dragon of existence to the ground and taken claim of life for him or herself.
The fact that this psychological aspect of the eternal recurrence was not even touched on in this final lecture leaves me feeling as if these lecturers took Nietzsche all the way to the finish line then fell over dead 10 feet before they got there. They never got the point in the end.
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-02-02
A fantastic overview, loved every minute
Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins are wonderful intellectuals - you can feel the passion they have for this topic, and they both seem to talk to you as an individual who they're trying to convince, rather than a lecturer telling you what to think. Great for anyone just dipping their toes in philosophy or anyone already familiar with Nietzsche.
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- Yousuf J.
- 2019-10-02
not very captivating.
the speakers clearly had knowledge of the subject matter. but the overall tone is not very captivating. also the chapters only skim very macro ideas. never gets deeper into detail. I never got a sense of rationalization of view points.
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- Charley Yeager
- 2015-03-09
Perfect entry point for understanding Nietzsche
Where does The Will to Power: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Very satisfying, will be listened to sever times to fully understand.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
good balance of biography and analysis with extensive contextual education
What does Professor Kathleen M. Higgins and Professor Robert C. Solomon bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
world class expertise and passion for Nietzsche
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I knew I was interested in Nietzsche, but I never knew I would adore his views this much
Any additional comments?
combine this book with some additional content to get a more rounded experience, a Nietzsche documentary or a read of his work (which is difficult to appreciate for me taken alone)
19 people found this helpful
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- W. Donovan
- 2018-10-12
Magnificent
This series of lectures by Profs Solomon and Higgins sheds a lot of light into Nietzsche’s philosophy. I would recommend a brief detour into a critic of Nietzsche, Ronald Beiner and his audiobook Dangerous Minds, first. That way you can contrast this lecture series, with its extended deep dive into Nietzschian thought, with a critic’s point-of-view in the background. I liked this despite how some historical bad actors have used Nietzsche to bolster their arguments, like the Nazis with the ubermensch and “will to power” concepts. Nietzsche actually disliked anti-semites and wrote extended critiques of 19th century Germany; so, it’s beyond me why the Nazis thought he was an inspiration - Nietzsche would’ve called them on their b.s. posthaste. I love the concept of eternal recurrence, and it’s corollary of amor fati (love of fate). I love the idea of embracing life and trying to be creative, and treating your life as a creative act. The lecturers are both engaging and fun, and funny. If you like philosophy, then I’d say you can’t go wrong with this great course. The critics will have a deeper understanding, and the enthusiasts will be even more enthused. Great job.
12 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2019-05-07
Some strong points, but...
... it seemed to me that a lot of the comments made by the professors were very questionable in terms of Neitzche’s philosophy. For example, regarding moral relativism, the professor made some absurd analogy like, “having a definite moral standard all the way across the world would be like giving every student an ‘A’ on a research paper regardless of how each student performed, so even though most people would be happy (the majority) there would be a few exceptional individuals who did very well who would be cheated because they worked harder than everyone else.” This was baffling to me, because the very example he uses presupposes a universal principle applies equally to everyone in the class, namely that if you work hard and do well then you should be rewarded, and also that there is a universal standard by which each paper is graded. How this slipped past the professor is a mystery to me. Beyond that, many times, the professor vehemently denies any negative actions taken in history which claimed to be taken because of his philosophy, simply stating that “they don’t understand Neitzche,” or that they even did the exact opposite of what Neitzche was trying to put forward. The biggest irony for me of the lectures was hearing about Neitzche’s tragic life, and how his sister had to care for him for the last several years of his life when he was virtually completely disabled. To me it begged the question, what if his sister had carried out his philosophy on compassion and love?
There are some redeeming qualities however, as this is a helpful resource to just have a brief overview of his basic philosophy and the things he is most well known for. It is essential to understand the thoughts of men like Neitzche, even if we disagree with them, simply for the fact that they have shaped the world that we now live in. Ideas have consequences.
33 people found this helpful
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- Catherine Spiller
- 2015-05-19
An apology (classical sense) for Nietszche
Thoughtful, but with much more of a focus on defending Nietszche from attacks than actually exploring his thought. We learn speculative theories, but relatively little about specific works.
31 people found this helpful
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- John Carnes
- 2015-05-30
Get more out of life and open yourself to the possibility of more!
Great series and it helps immensely that it's in 30 min bite size chucks because it is nice to reflect on the subject matter immediately after a lecture.
5 people found this helpful
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- Madeleine
- 2014-04-13
Engaging Course
This is a very comprehensive course on Nietzsche. Not just his works and his thoughts, but there is a rather helpful and contexualizing of his life as well.
It's a real pleasure to listen to lecturers who love their subject. A few, though by no means all, of these Courses series are taught by people who have a really selective preference for certain parts of what their teaching, but not all of it, and it shows.
Professors Higgins and Solomon are tremendous fans of Nietzsche's work; it comes through in their passion and enthusiasm for the topic and it makes some of the harder-to-grasp concepts presented much easier to take on board.
I also really appreciated some of the back and forth, dialogic style of the presentation. It made the apologetics more vibrant and fertile.
30 people found this helpful
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- matthew
- 2015-03-12
Great introduction to Nietzsche
Any additional comments?
This is a great course for anyone seeking to understand the basic philosophical frameworks of Nietzsche. I am a Master's student and used the lectures from this audio book to prepare for a course in sociology theory. I really enjoyed the content and found it to be extremely helpful in providing an overview for such an in depth subject. I liked the fact that the lecturers were husband and wife, and I especially enjoyed hearing a women's perspective on Nietzsche, who is often portrayed as misogynistic. They clarified the fundamental themes in Nietzsche's writings, and provided context that my college course did not.
12 people found this helpful
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- Zach
- 2020-07-05
worst great courses book I've listened to
struggled to finish. less about Nietzsche and more about a compare and contrast to others
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- Daniel J. Isadore
- 2020-03-13
Clear, succinct, and informative. Phenomenal!
If you have any interest in Nietzsche, you want this lecture series. By the end, you will not only have an idea of who the man was and what he thought, but also a sufficient knowledge of whether or not you want to invest more time and energy into this remarkable thinker. The lecturers themselves are also second to none!
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- josh
- 2016-06-27
Great speakers
Awesome lectures and easy to follow. Loved it. Hope to hear more from them. Thank you
3 people found this helpful