The Anti-Christ

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

dek 2005 · Cosimo, Inc.

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The Christian concept of a god-the god as the patron of the sick, the god as a spinner of cobwebs, the god as a spirit-is one of the most corrupt concepts that has ever been set up in the world... In him nothingness is deified, and the will to nothingness is made holySee Sharp Press; Tuscon, AZ -from The Anti-Christ He's one of the most debated thinkers of the 19th century: Nietzsche and his works have been by turns vilified, lauded, and subjected to numerous contradictory interpretations, and yet he remains a figure of profound import, and his works a necessary component of a well-rounded education. The Anti-Christ, first published in German in 1895, is absolutely vital to any meaningful understanding of Nietzsche the man and Nietzsche the philosopher. An insightful and entertaining indictment of Christianity, it has enraged and inspired generations of readers, and this 1920 translation, by H. L. Mencken, considered the best available, is almost as controversial as the work itself, highlighting the darkest side of Mencken's cynicism. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Nietzsche's The Use and Abuse of History. German psychologist and philosopher FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) was appointed special professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at the precocious age of 24, but soon found himself dissatisfied with academic life and created an alternative intellectual society for himself among friends including composer Richard Wagner, historian Jakob Burckhardt, and theologian Franz Overbeck. Among his philosophical works are Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Ecce Homo.

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The son of a Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Roecken, Prussia, and studied classical philology at the Universities of Bonn and Leipzig. While at Leipzig he read the works of Schopenhauer, which greatly impressed him. He also became a disciple of the composer Richard Wagner. At the very early age of 25, Nietzsche was appointed professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Nietzsche served in the medical corps of the Prussian army. While treating soldiers he contracted diphtheria and dysentery; he was never physically healthy afterward. Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (1872), was a radical reinterpretation of Greek art and culture from a Schopenhaurian and Wagnerian standpoint. By 1874 Nietzsche had to retire from his university post for reasons of health. He was diagnosed at this time with a serious nervous disorder. He lived the next 15 years on his small university pension, dividing his time between Italy and Switzerland and writing constantly. He is best known for the works he produced after 1880, especially The Gay Science (1882), Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), The Antichrist (1888), and Twilight of the Idols (1888). In January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a sudden mental collapse; he lived the last 10 years of his life in a condition of insanity. After his death, his sister published many of his papers under the title The Will to Power. Nietzsche was a radical questioner who often wrote polemically with deliberate obscurity, intending to perplex, shock, and offend his readers. He attacked the entire metaphysical tradition in Western philosophy, especially Christianity and Christian morality, which he thought had reached its final and most decadent form in modern scientific humanism, with its ideals of liberalism and democracy. It has become increasingly clear that his writings are among the deepest and most prescient sources we have for acquiring a philosophical understanding of the roots of 20th-century culture.