尼采：善与恶的彼岸

Before reading Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, I did a short survey of the general idea in this book, that is, as the title alludes, that morality is ultimately relativistic, that right and wrong are not absolutes but are considerably flexible and variable in different societies at all times.

Because of the limited time and complexity of the book, I just finished the introduction, part one and part two. In part one, he accused the wrong belief of metaphysicians---the belief in opposition of values. He also exposed the deficiencies of those usually called "philosophers" , from the Stoics to Kant.Nietzsche also dissects anti-realism, Kantianism, and materialistic atomism. Besides, he identifies the qualities of the "new philosophers".In part two, Nietzsche points put our will to knowledge is built upon, and is even a refinement of, our will to ignorance. Also "free spirits" are so called because they do not allow themselves to be tied down to any of the certainties or "truths" that are based on prejudice. In fact, I think part two is more difficult to understand than part one.

When I was reading these parts of the book, I was deeply impressed by several points. First, there is a sentence in the introduction part---Nietzsche was suspicious of almost everything address in this book, whether it be knowledge, truth, philosophy, or morality and religion. This is in correspondence with his critical of the prejudice of philosophers , that is the belief in "immediate certainties’’. At first, it just occurred to me that to be a good researcher, we should hold a doubtful attitude towards what we have learned, instead of accepting without any further consideration. On second thought, this doubtful attitudes is also in line with main ideas delineated in this book, that is good and evil are not absolutes but are considerably flexible. No wonder even Nietzsche was not sure about the rightness of his ideas. Second, there are two sentences in part two triggered much thoughts on me. That is “choose the good solitude, the free, high-spirited, light-hearted solitude that, in some sense, gives you the right to stay good yourself!” and “independence is an issue that concerns very few people”. It struck me that sometimes there is a long way to go before the public acceptation of our ideas, but we should stick to it in the right direction.

Although at this moment, I can’t understand Nietzsche’s ideas fully, I hope I can make progress through repeated reading of his works.